While the forums were down, Iron Realms corporate has been contemplating the future of forums, even considering removing them entirely (seriously). There have been issues regarding forums (not necessarily Lusternia's forums but in general across all IRE forums) wherein players no longer play the game but rather 'play the forums', forum griefers/trollers creating a toxic environment for the community (some seeming to only post from a hate-fueled agenda), and generally not having the resources to properly moderate the forums. However, in the end, it is left to the producers (that means me) to decide how to handle the forums but some directives have been issued. Two of those are: (1) ban discussions on politics and religion, and (2) come down harder on forum griefers who create a toxic atmosphere. Since we seem to rarely have any political or religious threads, I don't think that will be much of an impact. As for forum 'griefers', we probably only have a handful of people (if any!) who are not able to help themselves and tend to attack or insult with abandon. If you find you are one of these people who tends to mouth off first (or 'tell it like it is'), you should probably aim to be more circumspect.

I will say for the record that I really enjoy and appreciate Lusternia's forum community and will do all I can to keep it open. However, we must follow IRE guidelines and directives.

In that regard, we will be closing the "Idiots" subforum. We will all need (as a community) to train ourselves from considering "rants" as a legitimate forum expression; rather, let us develop threads of constructive critiques and considered opinions. (I know we can do it!) Further, we will be developing forum rules to help guide discussions. This is going to take some getting used to (by me too!), but I think we can look at it as helping us build a stronger community and (possibly preemptively!) cut down on toxicity that may rise out of indiscriminate posting.

Did you really need to take the forums down for 3 days for that? I thought I was going to die!

Won't this just mean people will rant in other threads now instead of actually putting it where it was supposed to belong?

Regardless of what you do, there will always be complaints, and now you're going to have to moderate the other subforums more to check for anger.

I don't you realize that if you just delete Lack of Rants, people will make another one. And keep making them. Plus, if you delete the forums entirely, players will just make their own forums. It's up to you, but I think deleting the Idiots thread is kind of harsh. People will rant, and will continue to do so. Just like I'm ranting right now. Lack of Idiots forum. Boo. Rantrantrant.

Me too!

And I got on and there was idiots so I thought I'd check out lack of rants, said the link was out of date, went back and I was like, "WTF?! Where'd Idiots go?!"

Regarding "rants", like I said, we need to train ourselves not to "rant" but to express our complaints in a more adult fashion. We can do it! (Yes, I include myself there.)

The ability to even semi-vent or express negative attention and have it moderated by staff was something that IRE corporate should have valued. The forums were good enough that making your own private forum would have been an exercise in futility, but now? The forums lacks something and you have four games filled with internet-savvy people. I give it less than two weeks before at least three unofficial forums pop up and all the rules that were enforced here, rules that serve a good purpose, are thrown out the window.

Are we allowed to make a 'Subjects I find disagreeable and wish to express them in post format' thread then?

Just a small comment. Seeing as you want us to make constructive critique 'rant' threads, at least that is how I understand it at a base level. I see constructive as meaning both good and bad things being said. Now you could say that would apply to the 'forum' griefers, attacking the 'rant' yet (given that the post is more that a "You suck, learn2fight") it can be constructive in my eyes.

Sure!

The point is to be able to vent childishly. It's much more effective to go "ARG, DESITRUS SMELTED HIS FIELDPLATE AGAIN" then "Desitrus just smelted my fieldplate on accident for the third time this week. Woe is me."

It's the difference between saying something in a concilatory manner with a view towards helping the discussion at large, and scoring points in grand play-ground style in order to earn an imaginary position within a virtual forum hierarchy. If there's any subjectivity in that definition which needs to be determined by someone, then that someone will continue to be the moderating team.

The difference between the idiots forum and the rest of the forums was, traditionally, that it was moderated less heavily. Moderation is now level across the board. Hopefully this mean less space for personal attacks, insults and nastiness.

The issue of subforums for "rants" (i.e., the Idiots subforum) is that it implicitly encouraged griefing or trolling behavior. Again, train yourself not to "rant" but to constructively express yourself! Semantics is everything. (Feel free to read between the lines.)

I don't mind the change. Sometimes, people take forum problems INTO Lusternia. Which is a big no - no! As for the toxic people, maybe instead of removing them, remove privileges of theirs at the discretion of some of the moderators where they decide as a group? I don't know if you can do that on here... Maybe we can invent a type of shrub for the forums. I know a few people who use this solely for ranting and they add NOTHING positive. Yay to radical reconstruction!

Well, we have never deleted a forum account. Moderators have the power to ban which has been done before. Banning means you can read but not post.

That's an issue for moderators (and, if your staff is not wanting to do it, you've got a whole 1 active non-admin moderator these days. Poor Shiri is overworked).

The alternative is a reincarnation of Verithrax's forums, which was completely full of unmoderated bile. What we had here is far and away better than that, but people will find some place to "rant". I'd rather it be in a place where, if it gets out of hand, someone is going to do something about it. Because it's in their best interests.

It is an idea. Some forum situation do leak over to the game and it has to be stopped. I wouldn't mind if the moderators started exercising that power more.

I have the perfect solution.

Let's go on Achaea's forums and make a Lusternia LoR there.

I kid. I'm actually okay with this modification.

Might want to watch quotes carefully.

I am in support of this.... in theory.

I have one and only one concern: with the lack of an outlet for childish angst in the forums, what is going to happen to the games themselves? I have always kind of liked that the Idiots subforum gave people a way to vent without taking it out on their characters (or mine). I have a (mild) concern that this will have a negative impact on RP.