disparity

[Jelly]

alright so i finally got around to making this post (much to everyone's relief). ive wanted to point out the differences between the new and old users for a while and make some comments about the new reborn culture as a whole. 

 

on the culture:

for most of the users present on the forums today, there was no time before shofu started playing this game. as a community, we owe a great amount of our growth over the last few years to him. im forever grateful that ive become a part of this community even if i stay rather distant. the main reason behind my reservedness to become an active part of the community is because of how my type of attitude and predisposure has been treated in the past. ive always been in love with the "old" reborn but the more and more i look back on it i realize how unnecessarily strict it may have been. of course, there's always the fact that i may look back on my actions without accounting for the fact that im stubborn and always believe i am in the right, but nevertheless i believe the community as a whole has become a bit more lax in some ways but has somehow stayed very very anti-"public dispute". what im talking about is that i feel like despite the community becoming more mature as a whole, we somehow have regressed into this sort of schoolyard-esque zero-tolerance policy when it comes to users disagreeing. now, i believe that any user should be able to publicly call-out what they believe is unfair or intolerable without the powers that be immediately shutting down any discussion because "this has gone on long enough" or "this has gotten off track". i get that it's up to the auth team as a whole to police the forums and keep everyone in check but in my mind, "in check" has come to mean "on the singular path we want discussions flowing in". there's no room for healthy arguments and any deviation from what is distinguished as a "model user" promptly gets redirected (read: shut down) back on track. i understand that you cant just let users run free and make actual hurtful call-out posts but when people are uncomfortable with certain behavior and they cannot speak out against it without fear of being reprimanded, they feel unsafe here and may leave. as someone who cares about this community, i feel like the current reborn ecosystem is driving away newcomers to an extent. 

 

on the differences between old and new users:

now, i dont have as much to write about here but i feel like the newest users have a certain disregard for how far this community has come and how it's lasted over the years. this community is very resilient and even after host gator, many server moves, server outages, and general "shit the bed" type situations it has remained strong and continued growing throughout the years. i feel like the newest users dont respect or care about the troubles that have faced this place and it honestly saddens me.

 

conclusion:

im not exactly sure what i was upset about when i wanted to make this thread about a month ago. it seems to be lost on me lmao. but i do and always will be interested in group dynamics and i will always have a certain disrespect for authority which causes me to push for change in almost every situation i am in. now, im not exactly pushing for change with this thread, i just wanted to outline my thoughts on reborn's complex and intricate userbase and why i feel the community has shifted away from harboring actual discussions. im also not very good at wording things and only had about 30 minutes to write all of this so i will definitely be keeping up with this thread and commenting if something i said has been misinterpreted. 

 

-a grumpy old man

[Shamitako]

I'm not even that old, but I've still felt a shift in the attitude of the community. Particularly that bit about disagreements you mentioned

 

I'm not really going to go on about it, at this point I consider it pointless to venture much beyond the RP section. But know that to some extent I share this sentiment

[Bazaro]

From one grumpy old man to another, it's good to see some of the oldies still hanging on. The community's change over the years can get a bit disheartening, especially with all of the new people who don't know what this server once was. I don't blame them for not knowing what we used to be like, it's just ignorance, not stupidity. More than anything, I think the biggest change to this community was the Reborn Game, which took away a lot of the work force in the community. Before that, the server was super-involved, between the League, the backchannel groups, and various server events (PZA, Nations, etc) that ended with less-than-desired results. Now, the people who made this community what it is feel so distant. The whole "avoiding drama instead of facing it" thing is really annoying though. The problem is that some people take it too far and just go out into personal attacks rather than addressing issues in a healthy manner, or that some people shy away at the slightest instance of conflict, so rather than facing the issue they just "can we not rn pls?"

 

But, this is the auth's community, and they do with it as they see fit. We've voiced our concerns before, and (at least I've) seen little to no results from this. The only things we can do is suck it up and do nothing, keep struggling until something gets done... or follow the examples of several others members and just pack up and go. Now I know no one wants to leave here, at least half of the members who've "quit" have come back at some point, and if you've stayed here as long as some of us, you don't want to leave the place you've put so much time into. This is our home. 

[Tartar]

I haven't been on these forums for all that long (my 1 year anniversary is coming up :D), so I have some trouble understanding exactly in which ways these forums have changed. Naturally it's gotten less playful over the past 6 months and there are fewer meme posts, though that can perhaps be attributed to ISCW kinda stopped making her posts in the Wasteland *sadface*.  And the forum has become more about the game, with trading and battle threads becoming a daily thing. 

 

But otherwise, could you perhaps elaborate on the change in mentality that has occurred, and which exact changes you want people to oppose and call people out on? Kurotsune said many of the same things you said a while back in his AMA, so I'm genuinely curious about the changes multiple veterans of these forums dislike.

If you feel like you don't want to comment on it here, I wouldn't mind if you gave a further elaboration over PM. 

[Lil' Baby Rupe]

hi rural

[Felicity]

it took 40% of the ace population to motivate this.

 

Was there as many lil cliques in the old days as there are now? Is it as echo chamber-esque?

 

I've seen too many perfectly mature conversations be shut down because the subject matter was touchy and that makes me sad. On the other hand the "just don't fuck with this" approach is a coverall that i kinda understand. It's a shame, reasonable conversation on polarising topics is a good marker to see how one had matured over time near as I can tell.

 

Reborn used to be a small, close knit town. It's still that but now there's enough of us that we're getting low on space and are starting to compartmentalise away.

[Combat]

It's a shame I never got to see Reborn in its "Prime," but like many others, I'm still relatively new here. I mean, sure, I have over one thousand posts, but that really doesn't mean anything when it all comes down to it. I found Reborn after getting tired of other fan games, not because of Shofu. Either way, I feel intimidated sometimes when I'm here, as I don't want to upset the balance or bring ire upon myself. The last community I was in was actually a lot like the "old" Reborn (or at least judging by what people say about it). Unfortunately, that community ended up losing most of its older members until its equivalent of the wasteland was a haven for racism and memes, and it role play section was filled with wolf and Five Nights and Freddies role plays that had three minutes of work put into them. I can appreciate what Reborn was, but unless someone has screen shots of it or a time machine, there's no real way to make new users like me understand what it was, only that it was.

 

Now I do believe that communities need to change to survive. I'm willing to bet if Reborn still looked like how it used to look, most of the new people, myself included wouldn't be here right now. Honestly, I only came here for the game, got stuck on a gym, and made an account to ask for help. The last time I did this for a fan game, I joined the Reddit and was promptly laughed at for having a weak team. Reborn? The people here nursed me back up and encouraged me, and now look at me. I make meme thread occasionally! All I'm trying to say is that I feel like Reborn is the best community I've ever been a part of, and I don't want to leave any time soon.

 

As for actual discussion, I feel like its probably a good idea to be open about your though and feelings, as long as your open to other peoples. I've seen a few threads go down hill while here, and they aren't anywhere as bad as some of the others I've seen before. Honest discussion should be available to all, but as others have said, if the Auth believe this sin't the place to do it, then this isn't the place to do it.

 

Anyways, I hope that one day I might be able to get closer into the inner circles of Reborn one day, since I still feel like an outsider, but I'm content with that. Maybe it's misguided hope, and maybe it's patience. And maybe it's Maybeline.

 

From, a cheerful Greenhorn

[Ikaru]

There's a lot of words here so I'm just going to break stuff up in the quote and change the color of my own words or something idk; not that I don't always try to be anyway but I'm going to try and be mostly transparent, potentially too much so

 

4 hours ago, Jelly said:

on the culture:

for most of the users present on the forums today, there was no time before shofu started playing this game. as a community, we owe a great amount of our growth over the last few years to him. im forever grateful that ive become a part of this community even if i stay rather distant.

 

This is absolutely fair of course; shofu played the game and BOOM we blew up and it's great. On the flip side, though, there was talk about writing about Reborn's history on discord early this morning, and quite frankly there are maybe four people here that could tell you everything from the super long time ago that Reborn started, and a number more who were here for the original League when there were actual things that happened throughout, when people still had things they were learning about the characters through direct interactions. 

 

the main reason behind my reservedness to become an active part of the community is because of how my type of attitude and predisposure has been treated in the past. ive always been in love with the "old" reborn but the more and more i look back on it i realize how unnecessarily strict it may have been.

 

You're probably right. ... In fact it's not really debatable, you're right. And lord knows there were people on our team that were less than objective and probably tried to get you in trouble more than the average user because they thought you're just someone that makes trouble and that's all of your character, so to speak. More on this in a bit.
 

of course, there's always the fact that i may look back on my actions without accounting for the fact that im stubborn and always believe i am in the right, but nevertheless i believe the community as a whole has become a bit more lax in some ways but has somehow stayed very very anti-"public dispute". what im talking about is that i feel like despite the community becoming more mature as a whole, we somehow have regressed into this sort of schoolyard-esque zero-tolerance policy when it comes to users disagreeing. now, i believe that any user should be able to publicly call-out what they believe is unfair or intolerable without the powers that be immediately shutting down any discussion because "this has gone on long enough" or "this has gotten off track". i get that it's up to the auth team as a whole to police the forums and keep everyone in check but in my mind, "in check" has come to mean "on the singular path we want discussions flowing in". there's no room for healthy arguments and any deviation from what is distinguished as a "model user" promptly gets redirected (read: shut down) back on track.

 

It's time for "more on the above" already. I think these sorts of things happened intermittently even back then. One of the posts in your IR in 2014, since you asked about it elsewhere and now I'm looking at it, was you getting muted by Edge because he said multiple times not to sass him. Looking back on it now, if we pretend Edge is still staff today, it probably would have been something like "hey if he makes you mad just tag someone else in instead of knee-jerk muting." Shoutout to literally every interaction I had with our good friend RagesSorrow

While I'm there, for your reference, this is the last post in there. http://prnt.sc/ejxawz

 

Aside from the fact that we're not really a small friendly community anymore, and can't occasionally just say fuck everything and do stupid shit for laughs (late night PO lobby anyone?) because there's like seven people in the chat, I don't really know that we've regressed a whole lot. Personally I don't shut down anything unless it's being handled terribly. Healthy arguments and/or discussions are great. If people can talk about entirely serious things without killing each other I think everyone wins. But then there are things like political threads invariably devolving into, like, two people arguing why the other is wrong and refusing to give an inch. Sometimes it ends up off-topic entirely and becomes personal between the 2+ people. And then there's the /kick debacle that was such a headache to me... Edge and "Hilda" existing on the same staff team and the one time i was told by both of them at the same time to "remove the stick from my ass" and "if i don't like it, leave" respectively about some incredibly insignificant thing- I think it was, fucking... league of legends discussion in the lobby shit or something I don't even remember. That said, my experience with these things personally leads me to have very little faith in serious discussions remaining civil, especially on sensitive topics. THAT said, I still do appreciate when it doesn't happen and these things go smoothly. Discuss away if it stays legitimate, by all means.

 

i understand that you cant just let users run free and make actual hurtful call-out posts but when people are uncomfortable with certain behavior and they cannot speak out against it without fear of being reprimanded, they feel unsafe here and may leave. as someone who cares about this community, i feel like the current reborn ecosystem is driving away newcomers to an extent. 

 

Again, I think the key here is the way it's handled. People are absolutely allowed to speak out against things that annoy them or make them uncomfortable or something, I just never see it done in a way that doesn't also give me a headache. See: literally every time Roo speaks on Discord and people feel this compelling need to comment in the vein of "no one cares;" or "why is roo like this," someone will ask on another server, and by now I do feel like there are a couple people that will just find any time he's talking to himself and try to cause an issue, lord knows seemingly just because they don't like him. It's the presentation that I most frequently take issue with, not the idea behind it.

 

on the differences between old and new users:

now, i dont have as much to write about here but i feel like the newest users have a certain disregard for how far this community has come and how it's lasted over the years. this community is very resilient and even after host gator, many server moves, server outages, and general "shit the bed" type situations it has remained strong and continued growing throughout the years. i feel like the newest users dont respect or care about the troubles that have faced this place and it honestly saddens me.

 

I did kind of mention this in my first bit, but I agree for the most part. If it's not about the league or the characters I would call it a safe bet a large number of the newest users aren't really interested. But in fairness how could they be when as I mentioned most of the people around back then who could learn the newer members aren't here anymore. 

 

conclusion:

im not exactly sure what i was upset about when i wanted to make this thread about a month ago. it seems to be lost on me lmao. but i do and always will be interested in group dynamics and i will always have a certain disrespect for authority-

 

):

 

-which causes me to push for change in almost every situation i am in. now, im not exactly pushing for change with this thread, i just wanted to outline my thoughts on reborn's complex and intricate userbase and why i feel the community has shifted away from harboring actual discussions. im also not very good at wording things and only had about 30 minutes to write all of this so i will definitely be keeping up with this thread and commenting if something i said has been misinterpreted. 

 

-a grumpy old man

 

i realise i said a lot despite mostly agreeing with a lot of this, and obviously i only speak for myself and not anyone else.

 

e: christ that's hard to read i'll fix it asap

[Ice Cream Sand Witch]

I wasn't here for the old Reborn, having joined in early 2015 after finding the game in late 2014 when I was looking for fangames to play. But I find it interesting that people here are saying the forums used to be more strict, since from other posts I've seen I've gotten the opposite impression. Looking at threads from 2010 when the forums were first made, it seems like there was a lot of conflict early on. I also remember either Ame or someone else saying rules started being enforced more later due to it "becoming like 4chan". 

 

I can't find it now, but I remember looking at a thread from 2010 about a mod quitting, and this upset one user who urged people to "make Reborn the way it once was" or something like that, and then a former mod told that user "dude, it's just Pokemon" and then that user insulted the mod. I haven't really seen something like that happen in modern Reborn times. I feel like if something like that happened today, the mods would have handled things better and it wouldn't have gotten that out of hand. 

 

Since I always assumed the old Reborn was a lot of anarchy from what I've heard and read, I'm really curious about how it was more strict back then. 

[mde2001]

Okay, as a first disclaimer this post is from my perspective on the issue and doesn't necessarily represent the view of the whole auth team or our official stances on anything.

 

Anyway, I do understand your point about blocking public disputes, but I know at least I am willing to be contacted about anything that is making anyone uncomfortable. To me, I think that this approach is far more likely to get the desired results, as rather than a member, often a newer one, having to confront the other user on the behaviour, us auth can do it via more official methods. This also means the user that was uncomfortable doesn't have to reveal who they are, which means that their will be less resentment towards them. That being said, I have no problem with polite discourse between users. If someone wants to say "hey, I'd prefer it if you didn't do that thing. It is making me uncomfortable," or something along those lines, I would be in full support of their decision. Then the amount of auth involvement would depend on how the person reacts, but if they resolved it between themselves, I feel like that'd be a sign of maturity, and certainly not an issue for the community. 

 

But from my perspective, the reason why we shut down most of this stuff and more serious threads outside the nightclub, is that as a community reasoned debate is a real weakness. On issues that people are emotionally invested in, we seem to resort to personal attacks rather than discussing the content itself. I've given up on making politics threads entirely because pretty much every time I have to end up locking them. I'm partially to blame for this as well, because I have deeply held political views that I'm prepared to fight hard for, but in the end this forum isn't the best place to do so. If people want to create more serious threads, that's fine, but once it has become full of personal attacks on others, I can't really let it stay open. Respecting other members is really important, and these debate threads just seem to consistently end up ignoring that rule.

 

If as a community, Reborn could prove that we had reached a point where this debate was not going to result in people attacking each other, and could stay on topic, I'd be in full support of everything you outlined, but whenever we've let something like that through to give it a test, things have gone wrong, and I with the way the community argues now I feel like the stricter auth direction is necessary. 

 

By the way- if someone replies to me here and I don't respond for a while it isn't because I'm ignoring you... I promise I'll get to you as soon as I can but I'm kinda busy with school and stuff. 

[Shamitako]

2 hours ago, mde2001 said:

Okay, as a first disclaimer this post is from my perspective on the issue and doesn't necessarily represent the view of the whole auth team or our official stances on anything.

This here is actually one of the big things that have changed. The auth team has become a lot more homogeneous and a lot less individual. This has both good and bad to it imo, and overall it's probably for the better. I just felt the need to point it out, because when I first showed up here there would have been almost zero reason for a disclaimer like this

[Bazaro]

In "old Reborn" the auth didn't really have to follow any rules. If they wanted you gone, they would just mute or kick you, there was no Clarice. "Auth abuse" was much more common then, but everyone was closer so it was more often comical than anything else. If someone had a problem with someone else, they'd call them out, settle it, and we'd usually move on... usually, not always, drama was still a thing then, but at least people were vocal enough to deal with it again. People weren't as... fragile as they are now. Now there's so many people in-and-out, no one's really close anymore. Also a big part is that Reborn shifted from being a server-based community to a forum-based one, I feel. There isn't as much face-to-face conversing as it is post and wait for a slow methodical response days later. 

[Neo]

17 minutes ago, Bazaro said:

In "old Reborn" the auth didn't really have to follow any rules. If they wanted you gone, they would just mute or kick you, there was no Clarice. "Auth abuse" was much more common then, but everyone was closer so it was more often comical than anything else. If someone had a problem with someone else, they'd call them out, settle it, and we'd usually move on... usually, not always, drama was still a thing then, but at least people were vocal enough to deal with it again. People weren't as... fragile as they are now. Now there's so many people in-and-out, no one's really close anymore. Also a big part is that Reborn shifted from being a server-based community to a forum-based one, I feel. There isn't as much face-to-face conversing as it is post and wait for a slow methodical response days later. 

Automod existed. Wasn't given the name Clarice until it became BreloomBot. Reborn was still VERY sensitive lmao. I remember getting kicked and muted for calling mods communists in a back channel. I remember the whole Mael/Autumn fiasco. Reborn was and still is very much a hugbox, but as I'be seen over the years is that a lot of the members could use that kind of environment.

 

You're dead-on with the server/forum thing. The forum always seemed like it was secondary to the server, but the opposite is definitely true nowadays. 

 

Just from my sitting back and watching the way people talk and interact around here, a lot of it seems very performative. You only gotta wait until people are in a place not directly tied to this place to see that. I feel like that comes from forum size. You've got a larger amount of people seeing the things you do and say. You want to be perceived favorably if you plan on sticking around, ya know?

 

I roast the auth a lot. Like. A lot. But their role as the years have gone by has become less "Member of the community that can mute/kick the occasional troll / Run the lines for the league" and much more "Babysit the server/forum for as long as you can tolerate then swap out", which is a shame because more often than not the Auth had some of the best personalities (there were and are a few exceptions).

 

Personally, I feel like the biggest change along with the size of the forum has been the average age. Back in the day, we were all in our mid-late teens/early 20s. Much closer in age, easier to relate to one another, makes for a decently mature place if the vibe is right and it was. The larger the place has become, the closer the average age has gone towards Pokemon's intended audience's age. Maturity level goes down, meaning you've gotta handle the community differently.

 

It is what it was, ya know? Old Reborn was good, it was also shitty in some ways. New Reborn is probably just as good for these newer members as Old Reborn was for us. This place ain't aimed at those of us that came here for the League, or just liked the community as it was back then. S'bout time we sat on the porch and chilled with our place as the older folks. Maybe make things more interesting for us here and there, but otherwise keep on the porch.

[Commander]

I suppose it is time for little old Commander to actually talk about personal opinions for once. The forums have gotten a lot bigger and pre-Hardcore, I tended to stick around a certain section of it being ignorant to the rest of the world. (I mean the RP section was a dark little corner, but a hella fun dark little corner). I did try to hop on the server once in a while, but back then it was certainly far more active than it is today. I mean you couldn't go five minutes before missing 100 or so messages in the lobby (and I remember saying a lot of "what the hell did I walk into" when I needed to look away from the screen to do something).

 

People are probably wondering why I don't talk as much as I did or rarely talk about anything outside of Hardcore (not saying I hate talking about that, but while it feels like the only thing I talk about). Back when I was a wee newbie, it kind of felt like this site was a place for people who liked Pokemon stuff, but they were people. Trust me, I stuck out like a sore thumb back then too as I was that quiet guy who would say something random once in a while. Now I feel the place is more like a site for gamers to be able to talk about games and more specifically the Reborn game. I'm not against that, but that's what the site looks like now in my eyes.

 

And now for a brief moment to pick on the mods. There's a reason I don't want to be a mod (and one that I've made very apparent over the years): I don't like handling immature whatever you want to call them. They existed back then and they exist now. How the mods handle them is a little bit different. Though I am curious whether or not they have stopped asking people to take stuff to the back-channels if it goes on for too long. I don't always agree with there decisions, but nowadays more of them make sense.

 

Now for debates, political and religious topics kind of keep getting shut down due to one or two people which really sucks but when people get all emotional, it's hard to control them so the majority have to suffer no matter what. Now some of you know that I like writing though I don't do it too often, but one thing a writer is going to teach another is for them to grow a spine. People are going to have opinions and some of which you don't like. Even if they shit on what you created, just acknowledge them and move on. It takes TWO people to get a thread locked, not just one being out of line. Though a good headbutting and heated argument is not necessarily a bad thing (I've had my own fair share), but the community as a whole isn't mature enough to handle it so that's just how it is and I doubt it's ever going to change.

 

2 hours ago, Bazaro said:

In "old Reborn" the auth didn't really have to follow any rules. If they wanted you gone, they would just mute or kick you, there was no Clarice. "Auth abuse" was much more common then, but everyone was closer so it was more often comical than anything else. If someone had a problem with someone else, they'd call them out, settle it, and we'd usually move on... usually, not always, drama was still a thing then, but at least people were vocal enough to deal with it again. People weren't as... fragile as they are now. Now there's so many people in-and-out, no one's really close anymore. Also a big part is that Reborn shifted from being a server-based community to a forum-based one, I feel. There isn't as much face-to-face conversing as it is post and wait for a slow methodical response days later. 

 

The In-and-out thing has to do with size. With bigger communities, you're pretty much destined to have 90% of people make a single thread saying "Hi! My name is Commander and I'm insane!" kind of thread and maybe a little activity before disappearing because it's not as personal. Hell, I wasn't very active in Reborn until I started to get to know people more. Server is good, but I still prefer PM through threads as you'll learn that I tend to make really, really long posts. (Seriously go back to a year or 2 ago and a post about this size was about average for me). I do understand why some people value the real time responses though. Certainly makes it feel more personal.

[ZEL]

This is gonna be long, because I suck at not rambling.

Another newbie here. I've only joined Reborn in early 2015, so as far as experiencing the history of the site goes, I have nothing to show.

I originally came here because of the game. I played it after a friend recommended it to me, and figured hey, what better place to go to talk about it than here. It took me around a month before I decided to sneak onto showdown, but I did get comfortable over there very quickly. While I still do play and like the game, nowadays I'm mostly here for the friends I've made.

 

I have never been a part of a community before that is even remotely chat-based. Coming here and getting used to being on showdown, and the server being considered an essential part of the site experience, was a huge change from what I've been used to.

I'm way more used to sites that are centered around their forums.

 

When I first came here, I didn't know much at all about the site's history, whether it be the league concept or the community.

I generally am a very nosy person, and especially in the beginning I soaked up every tale you older members told with much interest, because it was so amazing to me to learn that there's an entire online league's worth of history behind this neat game I played.

But unfortunately I'm also very, very easily intimidated. It's perhaps one of my bigger weaknesses that I'm constantly scared to ask people questions. So I only ever waited for others to ask "hey, what happened back then" and "tell us about x". As a matter of fact, I just kind of figured you guys would probably be sick of explaining your history to newbs over and over again.

I'm fortunate enough to have gotten to know Ice, who I'm more comfortable asking, but y'know. Still feels like I'm being a nuisance.

 

That said: While I can understand that it can be upsetting or annoying to watch newer people not care as much about the history of the community, I can see how it's happening.

First, as a note: It's perfectly possible to come here and exist on this site without ever getting involved in the past. You cannot expect every person who joins to be interested in the old community, especially if we're talking about people who really only came here for the game. It's not wrong for someone to just stick to the thing they signed up for.

 

But even for people who do care: Reborn's history can be difficult to access without an old member to pass it on to you.

To someone who's been around for it all, that might seem like laziness. "Look up old forum threads", one might say. But first: you've mentioned it yourself, Reborn wasn't always as forum-based as it is now. The quotebook is probably the best substitute for an oldie to talk to, but let's be real: Reading through hundreds of pages of chatlogs? It's not the most engaging medium for people who weren't there for what happened. But that's the primary source you have when your community mostly lives off a chat. Less easy to read up on for newcomers than a forum discussion would be.

 

And second: Even if the site had always been as forum-based, that doesn't mean it's as easy for new people to navigate it as for oldies.

I get to experience this firsthand with another site I'm on: This year will mark my 9th anniversary there, and the site was created just four and a half months before I found it. I'm ancient there, and when people want to know about stuff that happened waaaaay back then, I can easily dig up threads or even specific posts for them. I know where to find all the interesting or important parts of the site's history because I've been there. For new people, finding those pieces of history is a much bigger challenge. More irrelevant stuff to wade through, finding the exact location in the forums, not knowing what keywords to search for because our terminology changed a lot... Honestly, having to look for stuff when you don't even know precisely what you're looking for can be annoying.

 

Doesn't help that the site seems to become a little less history-friendly as time goes on. The last site update removed the league archives, with the logs of battles, hall of fame, leader cards, etc. I do know for a fact that users who were interested in the site's history did browse those. I know I did.

 

I remember the other day (or some days ago?) Kitty and some others discussed the idea of sharing stories of the old community with people on here. Kitty was considering it as an idea for her Cat Chat Blogs, and people quickly brought up events that they felt would be fun to tell us newer members about. (And things they were urged to not bring back to light.)

If you were to make the site's history accessible like that, by summarizing things that happened, moments of "community lore", into easily readable packages that don't require people to force themselves through only chat logs or forum discussions that constantly reference server things that you can't always make sense of out of context, then I'm sure a lot of us would be interested in reading.

If you want new people to learn about the history of your site, then taking a step forward and offering to share it would be a great start. And doing so on the forums, where you can just hand people a link, would spare you many a repetitive convo on the server.

 

[Guest]

On 14/03/2017 at 11:51 AM, Jelly said:

alright so i finally got around to making this post (much to everyone's relief). ive wanted to point out the differences between the new and old users for a while and make some comments about the new reborn culture as a whole. 

 

on the culture:

for most of the users present on the forums today, there was no time before shofu started playing this game. as a community, we owe a great amount of our growth over the last few years to him. im forever grateful that ive become a part of this community even if i stay rather distant. the main reason behind my reservedness to become an active part of the community is because of how my type of attitude and predisposure has been treated in the past. ive always been in love with the "old" reborn but the more and more i look back on it i realize how unnecessarily strict it may have been. of course, there's always the fact that i may look back on my actions without accounting for the fact that im stubborn and always believe i am in the right, but nevertheless i believe the community as a whole has become a bit more lax in some ways but has somehow stayed very very anti-"public dispute". what im talking about is that i feel like despite the community becoming more mature as a whole, we somehow have regressed into this sort of schoolyard-esque zero-tolerance policy when it comes to users disagreeing. now, i believe that any user should be able to publicly call-out what they believe is unfair or intolerable without the powers that be immediately shutting down any discussion because "this has gone on long enough" or "this has gotten off track". i get that it's up to the auth team as a whole to police the forums and keep everyone in check but in my mind, "in check" has come to mean "on the singular path we want discussions flowing in". there's no room for healthy arguments and any deviation from what is distinguished as a "model user" promptly gets redirected (read: shut down) back on track. i understand that you cant just let users run free and make actual hurtful call-out posts but when people are uncomfortable with certain behavior and they cannot speak out against it without fear of being reprimanded, they feel unsafe here and may leave. as someone who cares about this community, i feel like the current reborn ecosystem is driving away newcomers to an extent. 

 

yes.

 

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on the differences between old and new users:

now, i dont have as much to write about here but i feel like the newest users have a certain disregard for how far this community has come and how it's lasted over the years. this community is very resilient and even after host gator, many server moves, server outages, and general "shit the bed" type situations it has remained strong and continued growing throughout the years. i feel like the newest users dont respect or care about the troubles that have faced this place and it honestly saddens me.

 

yes. i feel like this too. ive been here since late 2010, signed up early 2011 and have been here on and off for the most part, but i've been here for a long time and seen it go through a variety of stages, and everytime a new generation comes through, no offense, the respect, or even acknowledgement has been minuscule as they've flown in. ill use the game for context because its the only thing that can come to my tired head right now. when the first wave of people came in because of the game, thanks to shofu, i actually did think that this was a good thing, and it has been. more people coming in for the game and it obviously has garnered a lot of support for the thing and so on and so forth. as more people came in, i had a feeling that the history of this place was slowly being wiped. all of these new kids were just coming in and whatever else. by wiped i mean that the veterans were leaving and that people were coming in, the league was shut so most people don't actually know where the characters in game came from, hell, i dont even remember to be completely honest, nor was i around for creation for that matter but still. 

 

its also a matter of interest in the history too, which im sure most people couldn't give two cents about the history of this place - they just want to buckle down and play the game and ask the questions they ask on the forums, which is also understandable.

 

i used to get upset because i felt like the history of this place was fading away but now it's whatever... i know a lot, but not everything, and i figure as long as i know thats all that really matters to me personally, but im also more than happy to pass some stuff on to people

 

but yes i agree for the most part

 

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conclusion:

im not exactly sure what i was upset about when i wanted to make this thread about a month ago. it seems to be lost on me lmao. but i do and always will be interested in group dynamics and i will always have a certain disrespect for authority which causes me to push for change in almost every situation i am in. now, im not exactly pushing for change with this thread, i just wanted to outline my thoughts on reborn's complex and intricate userbase and why i feel the community has shifted away from harboring actual discussions. im also not very good at wording things and only had about 30 minutes to write all of this so i will definitely be keeping up with this thread and commenting if something i said has been misinterpreted. 

 

-a grumpy old man

 

lol 

 

yes agreed altogether. i have some thoughts about stuff but i kinda dont wanna say it in public and im too lazy to type rly tired

 

edit: I am not saying that I know everything that happened here, because I don't - but idk maybe my gripe is that I don't necessarily fit in anymore and I'm just that old geezer on the outskirts of town that is only visited by a few occasionally. I do agree with this post though 

 

 

[Arkhi]

So I read the above posts about a week ago (week ago) and I think I'll just present my abridgment on Reborn's history as I lived through it. This will likely feel more like a history anecdote with focus on auth than a dive into comparing and contrasting experiences against other users.

 

I joined Reborn on December 31st, 2013 and met some very cool users during the first three months here, including Flux, Aessance, Jericho, Murdoc, Cowtao, Tacos, Dobby, Zephyr, and Telos. Some of them frequented the server, some were active in the Pokemon Reborn scene, and some were active in the RP environment. Everyone was different enough that it was vast enough a pool of candidates from which to get to know anyone, but seemingly chill enough together that Reborn felt like a community no other had ever been. Reborn then felt like an extended family, except like cool cousins instead of racist in-laws. As 2014 went by, I suppose all I can recall were the many instances during which HostGator gave us all major issues. Like some particular forefathers, the community did have a sense of unity, maybe frustration directed at HostGator, or maybe all was well at the time.

 

I remember a particularly nasty run-in with Mashew and Nyrias (both GMods at the time), during which I called out Mashew (I think) for creating a public apology thread. Let's skim the details there, but I had left feeling pretty bitter towards the two for seeming, in my opinion, close-minded to my opinion. This was a time when when relationships between users and auth were much more rigid. You could get /kick'd for pretty simple reasons, but the general vibe was toleration. That felt comfortable, since it's the environment I spent Reborn in during my early year.

 

2015 was a busy year, I can safely say that. As I recall, there were internal problems between auth resulting in some expulsions from the auth team early in the year. A lot of friends I had at the time were becoming auth then (Jericho, Tacos, Sheep, Hilda) and some old acquaintances were stepping down (Kiozo, Maelstrom, Cowtao). This is a time I spent in backchannels getting to learn the history of Reborn from more experienced members as it happened and then unfolded. Drama was pretty common each week. If you were to look at the volume of memes going around Reborn now, replace all but a quarter of that with drama and you'll have a rough idea of how I remember it being. It was at this time that I recall relations with the auth starting to sway with the months. As more familiar faces started to become auth, users would be more comfortable speaking with the auth about whatever they'd like, and things would loosen up. I attribute this with the then-surprising sinking of those previously kind relations as some nastier warnings and drama went down. I imagine the comfort between non-auth and auth was a signal for more risky behavior, since the kind, chill auth wouldn't be too harsh for their friends. That sometimes happened, unfortunately, and favoritism then became the next issue on the table. I'm really not sure if that problem has disappeared. I want to say the auth have steered away from that since. Also, 2015 was the year of the bagel. Excellent work, amigos.

 

2016 is where I have the clearest memory of incidents. Whether this is because I joined the auth in November 2015 and became more invested than ever before or because the events stuck out the most or simply because it wasn't as long ago, I can only wager an educated guess. This seemed to be a point at which users began to enunciate their wishes for the community. I turn to the two examples of particular, but unmentioned users who clearly communicated their ideas for improvements in Reborn and Equality & Fairness. While E&F was a headache for any auth who remembers, I do want to mention its effectiveness. I had never previously heard of a coalition of users pushing for improvements in Reborn in the way that E&F did with that success. Certainly there was associated drama, this was a butting of heads between auth and users wanting fast, effective changes in Reborn. The outcome they pushed for was not implemented as they had wanted, it was warped in ways. However, they had success in pushing that change. Anyway, those are just two mentions of ways that change was starting to progress for the end user in the community. Definitely a busy year.

 

2017 is now and it's been a little busy so far. Let's see where it leads.

[Commander]

53 minutes ago, Arkhi said:

2016 is where I have the clearest memory of incidents. Whether this is because I joined the auth in November 2015 and became more invested than ever before or because the events stuck out the most or simply because it wasn't as long ago, I can only wager an educated guess. This seemed to be a point at which users began to enunciate their wishes for the community. I turn to the two examples of particular, but unmentioned users who clearly communicated their ideas for improvements in Reborn and Equality & Fairness. While E&F was a headache for any auth who remembers, I do want to mention its effectiveness. I had never previously heard of a coalition of users pushing for improvements in Reborn in the way that E&F did with that success. Certainly there was associated drama, this was a butting of heads between auth and users wanting fast, effective changes in Reborn. The outcome they pushed for was not implemented as they had wanted, it was warped in ways. However, they had success in pushing that change. Anyway, those are just two mentions of ways that change was starting to progress for the end user in the community. Definitely a busy year.

 

2017 is now and it's been a little busy so far. Let's see where it leads.

 

I can't really go into too much detail about the drama as ultimately (and unintentionally) I was the final straw that broke the camels back causing a demise in the idea. People in the minority spoke out about something that many of us were against (and given I was like one of the only people who pieced the whole story after a boat load of confusion, you could see why the outside group misunderstood it). It was an interesting concept of a place where mods were at the same level as users and could discuss issues about Reborn. Only a couple users (not mods) could even step in to act so unless you REALLY pushed to break a certain rule, it wouldn't be held against you.

 

Now why oh why would old Commander mention this thing especially given this probably knocked a year of his life off. Well it's because I honestly think we need to revive it. While we do have the site suggestion box, a lot of people (cough not me cough) prefer the real time discussions as well as only use discord/showdown. I just see it as a way Mods can communicate to the community since it was a good place for everyone to voice themselves. I don't want to be the one to take charge though due to my inconsistent activity (though I am around daily), but I'd definitely be willing to give a helping hand since I supported the original idea and I'd support someone trying to revive it. There are a certain few kinks that'd need to be worked out.

[Felicity]

the reason the EF thing was so infamous really is cuz it served as a catharsis of all the pent up frustration in the community, which was good but not really sustainable. Once you get through ranting its down to the auth to act, there's still that power imbalance. Then you're just on repeat like a bad song bad song bad song bad song bad song bad song.