I have lost control.
I never wanted the boards to turn out this way. I just didn't know what to do. After the moderation team dissolved, I thought that if I just let discussion continue on its own, and let things operate mostly unfettered, and only stepped in to act on the most egregious situations, the site would stay mostly as it was. I never thought that the atmosphere would degrade to this extent. It's happened so slowly over the past two years, that I guess it was easy for me to rationalize that nothing had changed all that much.
But stepping back and looking at things now, I can't really say that Uboachan is still the dark-but-chill hangout that I had idealized. Threads about topics as innocuous as the weather are derailed into flame wars in short order, and attempts at moderation are met with harsh criticism, suggesting that in the absence of consistent vigilance, this sort of perpetually destructive atmosphere has become the expected norm. Conversation has turned sour. This is not an isolated incident, but something that is happening to threads all over the site. The low-key rage that rests in the background of most imageboards has risen to a fever-pitch, making calm and enjoyable discussion all but impossible. I don't think it's something I can fix just by banning a few users, and I don't think that the current rules would clearly justify doing so anyway.
I didn't want Uboachan to become a place where people actually enjoy being hateful. The hate and anger were supposed to be all tongue-in-cheek, just part of the joke, the colors of Uboachan's unique, dark sense of humor. I feel like a lot of our users don't get the joke anymore. We ended up attracting actual racists, evil wizards, inquisitors, the criminally insane, elder gods, and other unsavory characters, exactly the kinds of people I wanted us to avoid. This isn't just another imageboard, above all else it's a Yume Nikki fansite. At least, it was supposed to be.
Honestly, I haven't had the time and energy to put into this place lately. I'm not a NEET anymore. I've been going to college full-time, looking for a job, and trying to build my own future, all while dealing with an all-encompasing social depression that has made me more introverted than ever. I don't talk to people as much anymore, and often when I try to browse Uboachan, my eyes gloss over the posts and I don't really absorb what I'm reading. I really feel like I haven't been paying attention. As
Post too long. Click here to view the full text.