With FreezeWarp's an ex-administrator's departure, we are completely reforming the forum, the projects associated with it, and the chat.

For now, all I prefer to say regarding projects is that Mario Minus World is going to be revived as a purely database-driven website, and there will be a new project titled "VRAC."

There will also be a staff reform soon.

Any ideas at all, drop a message on the forum suggestions thread or create a new thread on that board.

For chat ideas, view this thread: http://victoryroad.net/showthread.php?t=9168

VR needs more friendly staff members that are more down to earth instead of people always watching others as it feels like for me, have the staff be like an ordinary Joe, like me.

Calm, rational, fun-loving. you know stuff that makes people like other people.

I'll call your Friendlier Staff proposition, and raise you one further: I think specifically, we need more staff members that are more willing to send a nice welcome message to new members, make them feel more welcome. I see a couple people doing that, and I do it myself, but rarely do I see actual Staff members sending a personal note that they're glad the new member's on board. You know what I'm saying?

I like these reformations as it usually seems to fix a lot of problems in general. We should have one once a year.

Wow, I've noticed that my post has quite a bit of criticism.
Let me just say-- What I did NOT want by what I said was a bunch of staff members saying "Hi! Welcome to VR!", because that kind of generic greeting is exactly what I got from an administrator of a different forum I tried joining awhile back. Needless to say, I haven't even thought about looking at it.
Yeah, I did become to that forum one of those people that VR now has a lot of-- an Unown.
I understand that there are a lot of new people to handle, but there isn't just one staff member! And you say that it would be difficult to say hello to everyone, but I've yet to see that sort of message come from any staff member except one: JC! Yeah, he sent me a VM explaining something to me on my first day here that was actually relevant.
What I'm trying to say is that the staff could make more of an effort to make new members feel welcome, but forgive me if I'm making any inaccurate judgments. I just think the first hour someone jumps onto a forum is the most important, or else they feel like the forum is just to big for them to get noticed.

Wall of text yay...?

Aw, FreezeWarp left? Oh well, I hope he does well where ever he goes. As for us, hopefully we'll get other good programmers running this site in place of him.

Well, before this escalates any further, we don't take "shifts" welcoming new members, JC, and you're aware of that. We welcome as many as we're able to. Delegating the task as a responsibility would make it too obligatory and monotonous, and so it'd become even more emotionless and robotic than it may apparently already seem. Granted, I'm all for being more welcoming, and I'm sure everyone else is as well. It's just not seen as being as much of a must as something which we do simply for the kindness of the gesture.

On a side note, asserting your opinions is fine (hence the ability to discuss things in threads and what not), but I wouldn't say anyone here views you as a pushover. I personally hold your opinion in fairly high regard, having known you for a decent amount of time now. By all means, you can "prove yourself" if you feel like it, though there is a difference between insults and criticism. I'll cut the rant short here to avoid sounding overbearing, I suppose.

Original request: A more friendly approach to new members.
Subsequent arguments: Exhaustive, time-consuming, impractical (and thread taking a slightly negative approach).
My reaction: Seriously?

I don't understand why the hell the people above me are making a big deal out of nothing. The suggestion is simply meant to make new members interested in the forums a bit more, and even though it wasn't expressed in the best possible way, I do see a point behind it. The thing we need over here is a compromise solution; something that will take ideas/arguments from both ends and satisfy everyone. How about this?

Sending personalized PMs to each and every member might be a little difficult, so perhaps we could create a template which can be slightly edited in order to make members feel more welcome. I'm sure a copy-paste with few changes here and there won't take a lot of time. However, with that in mind, I'm still not entirely convinced of the idea, since it can be considered a repeat of the introduction thread. Nevertheless, I don't see the harm in trying out a minor suggestion like this.

Quote:

Originally Posted by JC Funny story. since my unbanning I've been insulted and pushed around, for what? IDK about VR, and you guys have been not giving me a chance to prove myself, so yeah, I meant to insult you, rather then saying "Oh yeah, I like being pushed around, and what not."

Please take the argument portion to private message.

I think we're missing out on what it means to feel welcome. The feeling of being welcome, the sense of belonging, is achieved through communicating with friendly people that treat you with respect... continually. Not just when you enter for the first time. Not just through an unconditional "Welcome to X I hope you enjoy it here." The newcomer has to witness sincerity, consideration, and appreciation every which way they look. And it shouldn't just be directed at them, it should be present between others. The assurance we aim to provide can be nullified by fights happening around the corner. A new member can decide the place isn't for them just by lurking and seeing how people treat each other.

We can welcome members all we want in their intro threads, VMs, or PMs, but the welcome factor we suggest in such messages truly manifests only through our behavior in every part of the forum (and chat) to every member.

When I really think about how much change might come out of this reformation, I get a little scared and a little excited! Best of luck to the people reforming the site!

Something I have in mind: why don't we utilize the arcade games in a proper way? I am not sure how we can fulfill such a suggestion, but focusing on the arcade for a change can be a little bit helpful.

Frankly, I've never really thought about the arcade much or even used it, but I must admit that it does make a nice distraction when you're bored. That was another of those things that was Freeze's idea. Half the time I forget it's even there. However, I'll continue to support it as long as people do want it to still be up.

We're reforming a Pokemon site here, not the Catholic Church.

Really, I see no need to worry. Worrying doesn't make it any better, either. Just be excited and happy about it. c:

Hmm...interesting. We've been through site reformation like this before, and sometimes, that came out especially chaotic. Especially when we were switching servers, it took a good 2 weeks before the errors stopped popping up. I'm guessing this change isn't as totally drastic, so I'm hoping for lack of the server being annoying and causing us all to wait 6 hours for the site to come back on.

As for staff reformation, that should be pretty interesting. And I'm also eagerly anticipating VRAC, I wonder how that will function.

I think the VRAC is also part of the site reformation...

I'm willing to bet that the reformation will go as smooth as possible, as long as everything is handled properly. This isn't a server switch or forum software upgrade, so it should be smoother.

And maybe then we'll also be able to give the site reformation a fitting name for the new year!

Nothing's being done right now, right?

VRAC, VRIM Desktop, and Mario Minus World (name now tentative) are under development.

Yes, most definitely, it will be part of the VR Network, which I will try to emphasize more in the future. (Many people don't even know we have an oekaki, which I mostly programmed myself beyond the applets.) I may even use the VR account table to setup a user-based submission system to add (moderated, of course) content.

That is not a bad idea. We're still working on a hub/portal thing.

The portal still is not even designed. VRAC and MMW already have a layout (not necessarily a color scheme yet) and are somewhat functional. MMW reads from the database and generates game lists based on the currently selected console. I cannot give details on VRAC yet. VRIM Desktop has a pseudo-layout together (with little functional code), but it may be scrapped. The new version is still all terminal-based. Maybe if I get bored, I'll release a terminal version for those feeling nostalgic.

We should make me a mod lol
That complete lie aside, I would love to see Mario Minus World be re-opened again, I've heard some things about it. And I'm dying to hear what VRAC would be like, all sounds pretty good.