ShaakRider posted: However, there was one thing that continued to concern me. Our head admin, Darth Sapient, was strongly opposed to the sanctuary. He felt it and all Defense Forces, polarized the boards. However, he has a policy of deferring to the forum mods in such matters. Even though he disagreed with it, he left the decision to Strilo and myself. I feel its important to clarify that Sapient retained that stance to this day. He never asked us to close the sanctuary. But even as recent as two weeks before making the announcement about locking it, he would talk openly about how he felt it was a negative influence on the boards. May we expect then, that Sape and Strilo will show up here, and explain, why did they think it was the Sanctuary and DF’s that caused the trouble? Was there any evidence that the existence of this threads caused problems, or anything suggesting that eliminating these threads would make things better? I’d very much like to hope this move was better thought out than just “let’s close it and see what happens”
G-FETT posted:I think Stryph has already explained Strilo and Sape's position. It not that they thought the BS and DF threads were causing the problems, but rather, that they were re-inforcing the problems. That they were a throw-back to a time of the Boards when the only solution was to literally step in and seperate and segragate.
G-FETT posted: Personally speaking, the Basher Sanctuary itself isn't a problem, and I've always said that if Basher's can't post with the fans on other forums they should be provided with a place within the community thats just for them, however, the main issue for me is WHY can't the Basher's post in the main forums. Why should you guys be seperate? Its up to moderators to devise a policy that is fair to BOTH bashers and gushers and to allow all opinions to be posted on the main forums.
Strilo first approached me late in 2005 (I think it was) and expressed concern. The basher/gusher war was raging on, and he wanted to heal the fanbase. He saw the TPM/AOTC Defensive Forces and the Sanctuaries as roadblocks to this. Why? Because they were created out of the wars of old, and people saw them as icons to the conflict.
Time passed. We're now into 2006. I hear some bashers speak openly in the sanctuary about how they would like to go into CT and just chat about the good old movies, but can't. This angers them. What's the problem? Well, according to them, it is the SE Forum. Even the banners (all of them) were designed to celebrate the SE (side note: Everytime I went into CT, this was true about the banners). I think to myself "Hmmm, maybe the bashers really are ready to move on to just talking about the O-OT. That change might be nice." I say this because these complaints were brought to my attention by bashers. Had they not mentioned it to me or around me, I would never have made these obversations.
Then we hit April of 2006. Strilo PMs me again. He is still worried that the sanctuary is keeping the perception of basher/gusher warfare going and that the only way to heal the boards is to once and for all rid it of the old threads -- the Sanctuary being the last of them that was still open. I still worried that locking the sanctuary would be a bad move and gave the same reasons again (not to mention I enjoyed the sanct still).
Now, let me, once again, address the issue of "mod conspiracy" and mod perception. No mods were involved in this decision to close the sanctuary. Strilo consulted several, but in the end, it was his and mine decision.
This isn't about micro-managing forums and mods putting their own personal preferances on to the other users, this is about mods trying to do what they should ALWAYS be doing; namely, providing a friendly and relatively relaxed and fun enviroment for every Star Wars fan to come to and post their opinions.
What the management is worried about, though, is by doing this, you let the fans define the culture and run its course. The problem with this is the users, not the management, will define the culture and once it has run the gambit, it will all die off. The later part is the key, because if SW history teaches us anything, its that the fanbase starts to jump ship about one-to-two years after a trilogy is complete, and we've already hit the one year mark. They go in, have their fun, and then they're done.
Patrick Russell posted: What the management is worried about, though, is by doing this, you let the fans define the culture and run its course. The problem with this is the users, not the management, will define the culture and once it has run the gambit, it will all die off. The later part is the key, because if SW history teaches us anything, its that the fanbase starts to jump ship about one-to-two years after a trilogy is complete, and we've already hit the one year mark. They go in, have their fun, and then they're done. Let the fans define the culture? You say this like it's a bad thing. Look Stryphe, the thing is going to either run its course or not, regardless of how much "shepherding" the mods do to "their flock". I mean, come on... the lowly users are just as much SW fans as you are, and they can carry on a discussion just as well as any mod can. I know you all mean well by trying to squeeze a few extra months out of this thing by "guiding" the discussions, but the idea that the rest of us have no idea of how to keep a discussion up and running without "guidance" from the mods is perhaps even more insulting than the "bashers are a problem to be fixed" attitude. There's no "entitlement mentality" about saying "Just let us be who we are and stop trying to fix us and micromanage our opinions for us." There has long been a problem, it all came to a head last week, and a lot of us found another place (chock full of PT lovers, by the way) that welcomed us with open arms rather than treating us like the proverbial red-headed stepchildren. I think what you're calling an "entitlement mentality" is simply weariness and the knowledge that we have somewhere to post that doesn't require dealing with any of these dramatics. I certainly don't have any misconceptions about TF.N not continuing without us. Of course it will. Why wouldn't it? And the so-called "bashers" will get along just fine without TF.N if it comes to that. The question, again, is: "Is there anything to salvage here?"
