So, I was going to wait until tonight, but clearly it's time to get to work.
Man, *** you. This section is almost single-handedly responsible for nuking what income the site actually gets - and it's why there's still no ads in the forum section. It was a mistake to not crack down on the tone even more than I have.
One wonders why they care so much
Let's take a look at the list of side effects from the fact that this place can't keep its *** to a dull roar:
- no ads on forum pages, so less site revenue despite said pages being computationally the most expensive parts of the site
- dev time to put in restrictions around post counts because people like Altima couldn't let things go and made a hundred alts
- dev time to remove edits
- dev time to add section bans
- sifting through the endless reports that I get, either through the formal report system or PM/email
- having to explain the double standard that gets set when we don't let EVERY section act like savage idiots
On top of all of that, there is the lost opportunity cost in other site improvements that I don't get to because I'm sick of dealing with this crap. Seriously, y'all are why I left for almost a year, and why the XIV side got one big update to get it up to speed and then nothing. Every time I logged in and had spare time I had some P+R *** to listen to. People seek me out about this crap, and it's exhausting.
The worst of it is, I think having this section can in a lot of ways be constructive, because as you said, people are going to want to talk about such things somewhere, so better to keep it in its spot. The problem is that some of y'all can't behave. Like, ten seconds after I had closed the RP+R thread and said to cool it down, you show up with a trolly topic subject. Criminy.
All of those things might still be forgiven, if - IF! - any actual debate or discussion was happening here. But there isn't - it's two separate echo chambers, occasionally launching barbs at each other. It's pointless, and there's no justification to keep this section going if that's all that's going to happen. Some of that is a reflection of modern politics, which has polarized the population to extreme levels, but some of it is just people being ***. And hey, it's still a free country, so you can be *** all you like, but I don't have to let you do it here.
So, for now, until I think of - or someone suggests to me - a real solution, the following:
- No new P+R threads until Monday at the earliest. Someone who can write a headline without deliberately trying to piss me off should start it.
- Nausi has been section banned, with an additional suspension on top of it. You are by far the worst remaining offender here, and I'm sick of reading it. P+R accounts for over 90% of your posts here; you aren't really a member of the community except so far as you can yell about the dirty libruls or something. Take that *** to Twitter.
There will be no appeals to either of those. Anyone who whines can join him.