Community Driven or Community Run?
Dfg
Admin
First of all thanks to Amie for exposing this problem. As totse.info grows our policies might need to change to reflect the current environment. When this project first started I made up my mind that I will do anything to make this work. I was and still am like others in this. I don't own any part of totse.info, I didn't buy the license, I don't pay for hosting nor do I earn anything from totse.info, no one paid me any money to work here. I did my best only because I believed in something and I hoped that someday as I grow old or might be dying I would remember this place and say fuck you because in my heart I truly did something special.
Enough of this, in the start, I told everyone that Totse.info would be run by the community and I as an Admin I would try to execute whatever they demanded. This theory worked in the start and I did see some great results. It worked because the core community was amazing, we had users like bk, trx, mayberry and countless others contributing and making things work and whatever choices they made benefited the community. But as new users came in they didn't really suggest any change that would benefit Totse.info.
I did make some ground rules like No Reps or e-whoring or any implementation that would harm totse.info or any change that is proven to fail. In short, I avoided implemented some changes that didn't work in the past. In doing so, I didn't fully commit to what I said. Sure, I asked the community but I did decide not to go that way. In doing that I drifted away from community decides everything rule implemented in the past.
But 95% of time I did what the community asked and only acted in some cases to prevent harm. You see when you're an Admin you have this responsibility on you. I don't know if others feel it but I am very sensitive to these things. I am living in a Country where no one listens to anyone and deep inside I wanted to change that system, so I kept myself vocal and in some cases asked or begged users to please be vocal about things. I am new to this and I am sure most of here are new as well.
I had to endure bitch fights, I had to endure accusation and this exposure slowly changed things on totse.info. I noticed that certain things weren't working and the community wasn't united in some cases. I found out that if some drama troll works his magic the community might just agree to something that harms totse.info in a bad way. These things and coupled with my research on different communities exposed some major flaws in our policy. It seemed that if we kept acting like we do, in the end Totse.info would just vanish into nothingness and everyone will just leave for good.
Furthermore my being active was something that most communities don't like especially totse.com. So, I tried to fix that problem by being a regular all the time and never acting like an Admin in front of the community this solved the problem and thankfully Hellish acted like Jeff Hunter and kept things in check. This team up worked but as old users joined in, things became a bit hectic here.
It was like there were two different communities. One consisted of old totse.info users who joined and worked up to make this place better and others were the old totseans who were tainted with Zoklet and thought they deserved more respect here and didn’t really help totse.info in the first place.
We as a community went back and forth about totse.info. Some thought it's Totse and others had a different opinion on this. But I kept telling everyone that totse.info is not totse.com. It might be in future but we didn't start this project to make this the next totse.com. We started this project to become something else, a new place that follows totse traditions but still has something else to offer. I talked with Meta and Oddballz194 and they don't like this place because of the totse reference but they don't hate the users. This is because they think that we're using someone else work and making it our own. I told them that whenever I edit some wiki I make sure to add founder name as Jeff Hunter because he founded totse.com and we're basically following his tested principals.
So, as you can see as an Admin and a Totsean it's been hell trying to figure things out and make this place unique and better than totse.com in some places.
The thing is it's apparent that some decisions have to be taken by the Admins, like banning DG and Spectral and limiting FATTY. You can ask current mods or old mods who were present, I wasn't happy in making those decisions but at that time it just didn't work for us. Now, if I left this to the community I would have gotten mixed results. Because not everyone had access to real statistics or access to everything, in short from my view point I could see the impact on totse.info in real time. Productivity dropped and users got mad and things were falling apart. I do admit that I run tests and experiments from time to time but after some fuck ups, I decided to conduct them in an open manner and ask the mods before doing this.
So, I took some measures after asking Hellish and yes I did discuss this in IRC and in M&A. [IRC doesn't have a secret channel, it was all public] In the end, I had to take up the Admin position and do what was required. From that point onwards, I followed the Community Driven approach.
I listened to everything, from pacino mod me rants to Nick stories and I implemented things as they were requested but I did filter them. Like back in 2010 I would have modded Pacino for contributing in HB but I can't now because I have to take everything into account and select only the best possible mods. This sudden control over things affected the community is a good and bad way.
At first I made some mistakes in appointing things and making adjustments but after I talked it out, I found it better to consult with everyone or at least the mods before doing something. This allowed me to make major changes, changes that I was worried about in the past. Like removing old mods, changing ranks, giving strict instructions, checking for abuse more closely and preventing any harm from coming to Totse.info.
But as Amie pointed out, I lost my way back there. When you're forced to think from different angles it usually drains you out. As you can see I haven't been that productive and I didn't implement many changes, Sure I kept things working and maintained the forum but I wasn't the Dfg I liked. I wasn't that regular. But yesterday thanks to Amie I made a decision. Because of that I felt great and I started contributing again. It was around 5 AM btw.
The decision was simple. I was already doing it but I didn't announce it. Totse.info is a website that is community driven, the Admins control the direction and every major aspect of this website but the community has a major say in everything. The admin job is to ensure that the community remains stable at all cost and freedom of speech is ensured as much as possible. The major driving force of this forum will be the community. The admin is required to be transparent in his action and if he does take some action for some reason, he should at least notify the community. Totse.info will have both dictatorship and democracy. We can’t do democracy because it will only create problems for Admins and we can’t do Dictatorship because Totse.info isn’t owned by anyone. It’s a community owned by everyone. So, I think having both run at the same time might work.
The current Admins are:
Hellish: he founded totse.info and maintains the totse.info.
Vineman: He hosts totse.info is the site operator.
Dfg: I am the current totse.info Admin I manage everything from cms to forum policy.
If you have something to discuss or get implemented it’s best to go through me. You can ask Hellish directly but it will break the chain. As a rule, I ask Hellish for anything related to forum software’s, add-ons. I want to keep it that way and keep his away from the drama as much as possible. This ensures that stability is maintained at the top level. Basically I don’t bother Vineman or Hellish unless it’s something that I can’t personally handle or is something major that could affect totse.info in a big way. I have kept this policy from the start and it has worked for Totse.info. I want to keep this in place.
So, there you go. I was following this policy for some time and I am sorry for not being open about this. There is a lot I must learn and I hope that we as a community can help each other. So, please if you want to help this place grow, learn to forgive each other and work together as one team. There will be a time when you flex your muscles and have fun with newbies but it’s not that time yet.
Love
Dfg
Totsean
inb4tl;dr
But please read it.
Enough of this, in the start, I told everyone that Totse.info would be run by the community and I as an Admin I would try to execute whatever they demanded. This theory worked in the start and I did see some great results. It worked because the core community was amazing, we had users like bk, trx, mayberry and countless others contributing and making things work and whatever choices they made benefited the community. But as new users came in they didn't really suggest any change that would benefit Totse.info.
I did make some ground rules like No Reps or e-whoring or any implementation that would harm totse.info or any change that is proven to fail. In short, I avoided implemented some changes that didn't work in the past. In doing so, I didn't fully commit to what I said. Sure, I asked the community but I did decide not to go that way. In doing that I drifted away from community decides everything rule implemented in the past.
But 95% of time I did what the community asked and only acted in some cases to prevent harm. You see when you're an Admin you have this responsibility on you. I don't know if others feel it but I am very sensitive to these things. I am living in a Country where no one listens to anyone and deep inside I wanted to change that system, so I kept myself vocal and in some cases asked or begged users to please be vocal about things. I am new to this and I am sure most of here are new as well.
I had to endure bitch fights, I had to endure accusation and this exposure slowly changed things on totse.info. I noticed that certain things weren't working and the community wasn't united in some cases. I found out that if some drama troll works his magic the community might just agree to something that harms totse.info in a bad way. These things and coupled with my research on different communities exposed some major flaws in our policy. It seemed that if we kept acting like we do, in the end Totse.info would just vanish into nothingness and everyone will just leave for good.
Furthermore my being active was something that most communities don't like especially totse.com. So, I tried to fix that problem by being a regular all the time and never acting like an Admin in front of the community this solved the problem and thankfully Hellish acted like Jeff Hunter and kept things in check. This team up worked but as old users joined in, things became a bit hectic here.
It was like there were two different communities. One consisted of old totse.info users who joined and worked up to make this place better and others were the old totseans who were tainted with Zoklet and thought they deserved more respect here and didn’t really help totse.info in the first place.
We as a community went back and forth about totse.info. Some thought it's Totse and others had a different opinion on this. But I kept telling everyone that totse.info is not totse.com. It might be in future but we didn't start this project to make this the next totse.com. We started this project to become something else, a new place that follows totse traditions but still has something else to offer. I talked with Meta and Oddballz194 and they don't like this place because of the totse reference but they don't hate the users. This is because they think that we're using someone else work and making it our own. I told them that whenever I edit some wiki I make sure to add founder name as Jeff Hunter because he founded totse.com and we're basically following his tested principals.
So, as you can see as an Admin and a Totsean it's been hell trying to figure things out and make this place unique and better than totse.com in some places.
The thing is it's apparent that some decisions have to be taken by the Admins, like banning DG and Spectral and limiting FATTY. You can ask current mods or old mods who were present, I wasn't happy in making those decisions but at that time it just didn't work for us. Now, if I left this to the community I would have gotten mixed results. Because not everyone had access to real statistics or access to everything, in short from my view point I could see the impact on totse.info in real time. Productivity dropped and users got mad and things were falling apart. I do admit that I run tests and experiments from time to time but after some fuck ups, I decided to conduct them in an open manner and ask the mods before doing this.
So, I took some measures after asking Hellish and yes I did discuss this in IRC and in M&A. [IRC doesn't have a secret channel, it was all public] In the end, I had to take up the Admin position and do what was required. From that point onwards, I followed the Community Driven approach.
I listened to everything, from pacino mod me rants to Nick stories and I implemented things as they were requested but I did filter them. Like back in 2010 I would have modded Pacino for contributing in HB but I can't now because I have to take everything into account and select only the best possible mods. This sudden control over things affected the community is a good and bad way.
At first I made some mistakes in appointing things and making adjustments but after I talked it out, I found it better to consult with everyone or at least the mods before doing something. This allowed me to make major changes, changes that I was worried about in the past. Like removing old mods, changing ranks, giving strict instructions, checking for abuse more closely and preventing any harm from coming to Totse.info.
But as Amie pointed out, I lost my way back there. When you're forced to think from different angles it usually drains you out. As you can see I haven't been that productive and I didn't implement many changes, Sure I kept things working and maintained the forum but I wasn't the Dfg I liked. I wasn't that regular. But yesterday thanks to Amie I made a decision. Because of that I felt great and I started contributing again. It was around 5 AM btw.
The decision was simple. I was already doing it but I didn't announce it. Totse.info is a website that is community driven, the Admins control the direction and every major aspect of this website but the community has a major say in everything. The admin job is to ensure that the community remains stable at all cost and freedom of speech is ensured as much as possible. The major driving force of this forum will be the community. The admin is required to be transparent in his action and if he does take some action for some reason, he should at least notify the community. Totse.info will have both dictatorship and democracy. We can’t do democracy because it will only create problems for Admins and we can’t do Dictatorship because Totse.info isn’t owned by anyone. It’s a community owned by everyone. So, I think having both run at the same time might work.
The current Admins are:
Hellish: he founded totse.info and maintains the totse.info.
Vineman: He hosts totse.info is the site operator.
Dfg: I am the current totse.info Admin I manage everything from cms to forum policy.
If you have something to discuss or get implemented it’s best to go through me. You can ask Hellish directly but it will break the chain. As a rule, I ask Hellish for anything related to forum software’s, add-ons. I want to keep it that way and keep his away from the drama as much as possible. This ensures that stability is maintained at the top level. Basically I don’t bother Vineman or Hellish unless it’s something that I can’t personally handle or is something major that could affect totse.info in a big way. I have kept this policy from the start and it has worked for Totse.info. I want to keep this in place.
So, there you go. I was following this policy for some time and I am sorry for not being open about this. There is a lot I must learn and I hope that we as a community can help each other. So, please if you want to help this place grow, learn to forgive each other and work together as one team. There will be a time when you flex your muscles and have fun with newbies but it’s not that time yet.
Love
Dfg
Totsean
inb4tl;dr
But please read it.