No.3483
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 sad as it makes me to say this, I'm not the guy for this job anymore.
So, effective very soon, I will be stepping down. Our long-time staff member Writer, who has been here on and off practically since the beginning, will take up the title of "Owner", and all of the responsibilities and decision making powers that come with it. After a period of transition in which Writer will choose new staff members, revise the rules for the site, and create clear and public rules for the moderators to follow, I will become a regular Admin working under his guidance. I will, of course, continue being the System Administrator, and continue hosting the site.
Thanks for all the good times, folks. It's probably going to be a bumpy transition, but I really think that this is for the best. I hope that most of you can forgive me.
Sincerely,
Seisatsu
No.3485
Vomitive shithol'd
No.3486
This is the most predictable thing to happen all year. I guess it's sad.
No.3487
Bye Sey
No.3488
We're proud of your service Sei, thank you for doing your best.
No.3494
>>3491I intend to do the best I can and get some reliable members of staff to ensure things go better for our usual members.
I've been here since at least 2010, and an admin for years after that, so I have a fairly good idea of what sort of environment people used to like here.
No.3496
you did this site good, sei. not your fault things fell apart, shit happens. thanks for keeping this thing running over the years, and i hope you feel better.
No.3498
I hope things work out for you there.
No.3501
I admit I've rarely posted on this site ever since the migration, but I still lurk occasionally, and I wish you both the best of luck.
You did the best you could in the moment, Sei. Don't beat yourself over it too much. Things could've been a lot worse, or even non-existent, without the things you did do. The world in general lately seems to be getting overrun with that kind of hate, it be a hard thing to deal with no matter who you are. Focus on yourself first and foremost.
I expect a lot of resistance to combating that kind of aggression, but hopefully things end up working better for this site in the long run, and for you guys running it. Thanks.
No.3502
As a long time member, I also noticed the decline in atmosphere over the last couple years, so it's good to see it being acknowledged.
Don't beat yourself up over it too much though, since I know from experience that managing an entire community can often be a hard and thankless job. There will always be things that you may regret or think you could have done better, but I think you still did a good job as site admin, overall.
Writer seems like a good guy from what I saw from him in the past, so here's hoping he and the rest can improve things and help bring the community a bit closer to how it once was.
No.3504
Thank you for all the things you have done through the years for Ubuu.
Please do not blame yourself for the current enviroment, it isn't your fault.
And good luck with your IRL life.
No.3505
Semper fi to sei running this madhouse for so long and keeping all the old Yume Nikki content archived and in one place. Godspeed, writer, wish you the best of luck and have faith in ya
No.3506
I've felt the same way for a long time. I just can't even read the half of the posts here anymore, and I visit the frontpage just out of habit of coming here - I can't actually lurk any of the boards anymore.
I'm not sure if it's the actual D&C that people talk about, but if it is, it certainly worked.
Thank you so much for all of your time over the years - none of it has been a waste, because you have helped create so many millions of memories associated with this site, and even if they are eventually forgotten or we move past them, they are still there.
>>3494Of course the trouble is really how to go about getting that atmosphere back. It's very difficult. Even with usernames it's difficult. The well has been poisoned.
No.3507
Thanks everyone.
Don't worry about the snow. I'm still the sysadmin, so there are still plenty of divs in our future.
No.3508
>>3506Yeah, it certainly will be difficult. Not impossible, but hard. This isn't the first time the site's fallen on hard times where in general things became unenjoyable for the average user and I've helped with those transitions as an admin.
Primarily, I want to make sure I think carefully and take my time with rules for both users and mods and make sure the people I appoint will be reliably available and accountable for their actions while not hamstringing them into not moderating for the sake of the users. This way, we can get back to some level of how things were, and if not, how people would prefer they be in the future.
One of the really big things in my opinion is that people are speaking out against the sort of behavior that started getting a lot of attention . That does gives me hope and a lot of why (as worrying as it can be to be basically responsible for everything) I've agreed to take up Sei's position.
I'll be writing a follow-up to this thread once I've got more of what I've mentioned thought out and discussed amongst staff to make sure it'll be good for all parties. I'll be trying my best.
No.3509
Hopefully it will all turn out well. It is true the board lost some of it's mystique in the meantime, although it had its highs and lows over the years.
I would say Yume Nikki: Dream Diary's production has helped revitalize the boards considerably, although the quality of posting has diminished ever so slightly.
Hopefully after some cleanups and changes, the board will stabilize. Best of luck to Sei's life and the new owner who does it for >free.
>>3506The problem at the moment is that almost all of the established userbase has been off the radar for a while. Most devfags/names have left. The userbase's age and taste is transitioning. We are very much in a limbo of sorts right now. We can hope to recapture the mood and atmosphere though, even if the active userbase has changed so much, for better or for worse.
No.3510
>>3509Honestly, this is the only site I'd put myself in this much of a responsible role for literally no compensation. I really like the community I spent time in, I wrote a story for people and then, I got a lot of useful feedback and it helped keep me interested in what's my most important hobby.
To me, it's not "for free", it's more of a "to pay it forward" since I've made a lot of good friends here in the past and have enjoyed posting here a lot. I want to make sure other people get that chance, too. And if I wasn't around and remained dead instead of rising out of the earth to make sure the site was doing okay, I feel like I'd be wasting what effort people put towards me. I'd like if other users get to experience that same kind of thing in the future.
No.3511
>>3508>I'll be trying my best.I think you share the sentiment of the real browsers of this site - however many are left - I was just a lurker - but the place had a "dark" - not gloomy - atmosphere where threads were slow-paced and dream-flavored, and we can only hope to wait it out.
>>3510>>3509I feel like this is all we can do as internet dwellers - we try to make our mark on the world digitally. Some of us seed, others drawfag, still others simply post well.
No.3514
>I actually think that this can be fixed relativly fast through tighter moderation though.
Yeah, let's start to punish people who don't actually break rules, that'll do wonders for the atmosphere!
No.3516
>>3514tighter moderation =/= banning people who didn't break the rules
No.3518
>>3514By 'tighter moderation' I just meant things like locking threads that have turned into flame wars and warning people who consistently break the guidelines. I also think the rules could do with a bit of a reform. I think that cleaning up the trash a bit will
1: Lessen tensions between users
2: Stop newfags thinking it's okay to post here like they do on twitter or 4chan (thus reducing the level of paranoia about outsiders from "this is the end" back to "regular ol' internet tribalism")
3: Make the site more attractive to older posters and high quality posters, increasing the percieved quality even more, which will in turn increase level of effort even more until quality levels explode to infinity and we all feel really neat.
No.3520
>>3518>locking threads that have turned into flame warsI could easily agree to that, except I don't recall seeing any threads like this, save for maybe that one random spam with a dumpster photo. So what exactly counts as "flame war"?
>Lessen tensions between usersWait, lessen what between what now? The vast majority of the users are anonymous non-entities, what are those users on behalf of whom you're supposedly speaking?
>Stop newfags thinking it's okay to post here like they do on twitter or 4chanYou can always just say it to them yourself, instead of waiting for moderators to step in; if they listen – problem solved, if not – well, they will get a warning or ban sooner or later. Pretty sure the current moderation handled cases like that just fine.
>Make the site more attractive to older posters and high quality posters, increasing the percieved quality even more, which will in turn increase level of effort even more until quality levels explode to infinity and we all feel really neat.Hey, sounds just like every utopia out there! Except, as we know, none of them ever work, it always devolves into tyranny and stagnation somehow. Not to mention I really don't see how quality of the posts has got anything to do with moderation. Sure, a stupid moderator can chase away an interesting contributor just because the things they say don't fall in line with the rest, but the opposite I just can't see happening.
No.3521
>>3520>what counts as a flame warWhen people start writing walls of text that have nothing to do with the op and constantly call each other faggots. How desensitized are you to that? If you can't tell what a flame war is, that goes to show how big the problem is.
>what usersThis is not a 100 mile per minute board. Every thread sticks in the few consistent user's heads and sours the atmosphere of the entire site. It's palpable. There's not a constant stream of fifty threads to distract from one another.
>You can always just say it to them yourselfThat never works. They're too dense to listen if they posted like that in the first place 9/10 times. The state of the site was not fine. If you have used it for a while, you would notice the change too. Arguments and shitposting were exponentially increasing.
>Sure, a stupid moderator can chase away an interesting contributor just because the things they say don't fall in line with the restThat is such a strawman. This isn't reddit. People don't get shadow banned for not liking a movie or whatever. Some 4cuck ideologue is always going to be abrasive and post nothing of actual value. Anybody that can actually have an original thought and not be a dick is fine. A person like that is less likely to talk about politics or other low-brow shit(janitors talk about it all the time). This site isn't a democracy and it's not a society. It's a discussion/entertainment platform. The site has been chugging along fine until recently. What is your definition of stagnation? I'd rather have site activity plummet and die than have it be replaced with the same shit that's everywhere else.
You don't get it. You aren't invested in ubuu. I'm not going to post anything after this to you because if you don't get it yet, you never will.
No.3522
I was going to deconstruct those srguments, but since I probably won't get a response either way, I'll just cut to the chase.
>You aren't invested in ubuu. I'm not going to post anything after this to you because if you don't get it yet, you never will.
I am more than invested in Ubuu as a platform for people to exchange ideas and opinions. So even if some those views are unpopular or even downright retarded, so be it, it's a risk you take along with the core concept. If you're looking for a place to socialize with a good atmosphere and whatever else, well, isn't that what things like Discord are for?
Also, way to be conceited and assume that just because I disagree I don't understand your views. Oh well.
No.3523
>>3522>or even downright retarded, so be it, it's a risk you take along with the core concepthttps://forum.encyclopediadramatica.rs/8ch.net
No.3524
>>3523Except I never said I was in favor of shitposting.
No.3534
I've been browsing here on and off for the past 8-9 years, occasionally stopping by every couple weeks. I think what you said about the 'low-key rage in the back of most imageboards' is right. Across all of the places I've gone to they've been infected with a vicious anger and filled with people who view imageboards as their own personal dumping grounds. It's not even that they didn't have shitposters before, but now the shitposters run the entire place and refute any attempt to actually discuss topics at hand.
Even worse they view bans or attempts at quality control as an affront against their person. So they proceed to blow up and shitpost even harder or attempt to drag everyone else down with them. I don't know what can be done about it either because all of these imageboards have a common origin, and shit tends to drip down the sides and spread.
Hopefully you guys can steer out of this storm. It's a rough one.
