I wasn't dismissing his post. I felt it was needed to clarify that part because it is counterproductive to the discussion to present opinions as irrefutable facts in a discussion like this. As you said, opinions are what this thread is all about, but that's why presenting them as facts is counterproductive.
Also, I can't post everything I'd like to say because I don't have access to a computer.
You should be focused on the points made. Quoting his post and stating that he was presenting opinions as facts therefore doesn't add any points to your side or take away any points from his. His presentation doesn't take away validity of the points he's made there. Then your comment is literally just useless, as in the end, it achieves nothing for either side. I don't exactly see where you can stem an argument for this from unless you wanted to argue for the sake of arguing. To me it's quite clear your post was achieving nothing other than a poor attempt to make his post seem more faulty, but you state this is not your intention. I think almost all of the points made there were good ones. If anything, you should be addressing those.
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I'm just going on the other direction and actually thank Hstaff, specifically the PC Development Team, because without them, PC would just be another boring forum. One thing I've learned from the AF prank is that, how scaringly different PC has become with this cool innovations. Like we get these cool new fonts, PM systems, likes, variety, and what we return from that is "GIVE BACK OUR FEATURES OR DIE" vibe. I'm legit saddened that the work the PC Development team was worked on for years, gets overshadowed by a prank that almost everyone hated because they cant live without the features.
Don't worry, I'm atleast here to say thank you for the work that you've guys done to make PC an enjoyable place.
Ugh... Why do you think we are unappreciative assholes?
I don't think you empathized well with those who were against the idea. It definitely wasn't a, "GIVE BACK OUR FEATURES OR DIE" mentality. It was closer to, "I want to browse the forums again. Can I have the old features back?". The shitstorm really happened when certain users took a "it's just a joke, haha u guys r mad and salty" vibe. Some of the features you mentioned are vBulletin defaults you get for buying it, the april fool's skin disabled even some of those in an attempt to remain genuinely retro. Hence the frustration.
gets overshadowed by a prank that almost everyone hated because they cant live without the features.
Nah, they claim it was a minority who complained and hated it (lol). We can live without some of these features, we'd just rather have them. Hopefully that clarified some things for you, because you seem to be under the impression that we're beating up forum staff for poor reasons. I personally don't think it was a poor reason or it was as extreme as you perceived it to be. I mean, if you consider that extreme, then you're a bit too soft in my opinion. This isn't a thread for a nice cup of tea by the flowerbed really.
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Honestly, being in this thread for a while, I don't think that it has any merit. Someone voices their opinions, they get argued against as to why the staff thinks their negative feedback is invalid. On the flip side,
some of the complaints are just complete nitpicks and of the smallest of things.
Ingeneral, it really doesn't seem to be working. These guys occasionally have provided great points in terms of how to handle certain situations but those parts of their posts were seemingly went unacknowledged or a series of tangents and heavy opinions were used to morph them into "not that bad". It's kind of painful to read, honestly. There were a few people who took things well, I think Nah's post was good and well written for example.
To quote Ausaudriel:
I may sound like a dick here, but bring me a greater percentage of users than %0.01 who can back you up on your opinions and maybe I'll start to consider there's a larger problem.
They can't do that, and I doubt anyone voicing their criticisms about any topic can do that either. I challenge you to get 25% of the userbase to like your post saying that you guys are operating within reason. While I think it is within reason, no way will you get more than 20 likes discluding staff likes. It's just not going to happen, even if you guys were saints, no one really uses this thread they have better things to be doing, lol. So since anyone's feedback would therefore be unbelievable, lets just call it a day and rename the thread "The Staff praise thread". Think about it, you'd enjoy it, some members would enjoy it and no one would bother having to waste time posting silly criticism!
But it's frankly a little intimidating to post here because your post immediately gets some form of resistance and everyone perceives your post as wrong or unjustified. Oh and then you have someone like Anti logging into the battle server and saying, "I feel like just banning everyone on that thread". Yeah Anti, cool. That'll make me want to give any feedback mate. Good luck on your thesis though. Yep, this guy literally expressed his urge to ban everyone posting in the public chat of the battle server while I was just chilling there in plain sight. Whatever.
I don't know, and I'm just going to abstain from giving my opinions on the matter too now. I've made enough enemies here and the concept feels utterly failed. I feel better off just contacting the people I want to talk to privately anyways. I do contribute a lot of good things to the forums, and I'm always following the rules (evidenced by my 0 infractions and 0 warnings and 0 post deletions due to moderation reasons - except that one post in MrDS's thread in which I replied to someone else's deleted post).
I think from these stats, and from my knowledgeable contributions
exclusively to this community, you can't consider me a sour user or someone who doesn't care. Fact of the matter is that everything in the end can be presented to be situationally reasonable and therefore any criticism can be then dismissed. You're not going to get any of the criticism through unless it's blatantly obvious or the staff internally are disagreeing with each other. This would hold true for any group of people receiving criticism really, not just you guys. It really is just a failed concept.
That's all I have to say. My issues went from "Feedback thread wasn't moderated and taken seriously", to arguing with staff members about unrelated and trivial things, to realizing this thread isn't going to result in anything positive unless you're posting about something positive. If you wish to contact me I'm available via VM. Fair warning: If you PM me I'll ignore you because I'll assume someone is PMing me to ask me to make them their ROM hack again. Cheers.