The Cosmos: Dear John

[Dredge]

[member="Silara Vantai"]

I think at one point I was up there popularity wise, getting likes and stuff like that. But old me kind of ruined that with many breakdowns in my depression and anger issues. What happens when you get knocked from that mantle is you end up just going unnoticed. Or you end up like me where people like Sol or Tef go out of their way to dig up old wounds that can really hurt. I don't blame them lol, I was a real nut job. But what I learned in my time away or my time getting help is that you shouldn't care what these people think of you. It's some guy on the internet just poking a bit of fun or being an ass. You will never meet them in your life, fuck em.

Because the moment you start to care about what someone hundreds of miles away thinks of you on a Star Wars role playing website. Is the moment you lose. I enjoy writing stories with my friends, writing blogs and having fun. I just don't like to sit there and let BS slide. And if someone wants to poke fun at me then just look at the song at the top

 

[Hailyn]

[member="Dredge"]
I suppose when it gets down to it, referring to something to cool off helps. I, myself, like to listen to the cover of Queen's Under Pressure.

[media]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6il4OVkcE74[/media]

 

[Dredge]

[member="Silara Vantai"]

UNDER PRESSURE!! Wait wait wait *checks band* HERESY!! THE USED!!

 

[Tefka]

You will never meet them in your life, kark em.

That is why you fail.

 

[Cira]

[member="Dredge"]

Quote
You will never meet them in your life, kark em.

Actually, you WILL.

I have met the following awesome folks, cause I consider them friends. Yeah might have met online, but that doesn't make them insignificant.

Tef
Tegs
Spencer
Ayden
Sarge
Darth apparatus / Junra
Nomad.
Kassey
Eris
Beth kismet
Chaos
Akio
bane
Eden
patches
Rach sullen
Skip lone

And a whole heck of a lot more that I can keep going.

I invite members to my home, to spend the weekend, come bbq, over for friends thanksgiving, friends Christmas, New Years, camping, snowboarding...

Heck I did this Star Wars con for folk to go to disneyland and get our nerd rage on with building our own light sabers and all!

In in the process of having a lunch date soon with Marcus Marcello and hopefully will meet Gil, avalore, and other folk near VA soon.


So yes, you will meet the folk that you end up Rping here with. Cause they become more than just a name and a string of text on the screen.

 

[Dredge]

[member="Tefka"]

Teach me oh senpai Tefka

[member="Cira"]
That's great! I am happy to hear that you went out of your way to meet some of these people. It certainly sounds like you had a lot of fun. Sadly I don't have the money or time to do the things you guys do. Would I like to meet some of the people from here? Yeah could be fun. But I'm not you, I will never meet these people because I have enough on my plate. Hell I can barely afford a roof over my head much less Disney land lol. So I think I'm content with seeing people as just friendly passing faces

 

[Thurion Heavenshield]

[member="Dredge"] [member="Tefka"] - Just get married already so we can have new seasons of Married w/ Children.

[member="Cira"] - I wanna be on that list!

 

[Dredge]

[member="Thurion Heavenshield"]

RIGHT?! Honestly I've been waiting for him to pop the question but I'm afraid he doesn't want to commit. He's pushing me into the arms of our tennis teacher Ricardo

 

[Other Space Kaiden]

You will never meet them in your life, kark em.


That is why you fail.

Oh yes, Tefka. It is in my firm belief that you need to take a step back and look in the mirror, my friend. Out of everyone on the site i feel as if my problem with it stemmed with you. Which is a sad thought to me, because when i first came here I really liked enjoyed talking to you. However, as time went on i began to see a change in you and the site changed with it. I can't speak for anyone else but i personally feel as if i can't trust the staff here. Which, in of itself, is the problem with this site.

My mistrust springs from an event with Tefka on my Vulcanus account that I won't retell out of decency for him. However, some of you know exactly what im talking about and i bet Tefka does as well. Now, when a member of the higher echelon does something out of line it castes a negative light on ALL the staff. In turn, it can cause a feeling of mistrust of the entire site because guess who runs it?

Now, I wont go out and say the staff is the ultimate evil. In fact, its far from. Without the staff or Tefka paying for and running the site we wouldn't have it. However, that fact doesn't justify the ill treatment of others that i see and know exists in staff. It is my firm belief that in order to better this site, we need to better the staff. Now, im not saying we string up the members of staff we currently have. No, what im saying is that we discuss and they listen.

I'll go first, obviously. I feel as if this site is ruled by fear of the almighty hand of God. Every command structure has that to an extent, but the way its talked about around here makes it like thats the only thing keeping it together. I was not an RPer on TGC, but I've heard the stories. I've heard how staff overstepping caused the creation of this site and now i fear that history is repeating itself.

I know from my own experience that when someone take upon them responsibility for others it can be hard to keep from looking down on those you originally set out to help. Im not saying that this is an all the time occurrence as there are cases average joes are put on pedestals by staff, which is a good thing. But like i said, those are "occurrences". Its by no means common and here lies the root of the problem.

When I come on here, the most common staff comments I read are snarky and condescending to those below them. However, then there are those seemingly raised to the heavens for no reason at all. What do you expect to happen when you do stuff like that? A parade?

When you take up a leadership role of any kind, and this IS a leadership role you have here, you are obligated to hold yourself to a higher standard. Why, you may ask? Because leaders of any kind are people that others look up to and say, "I need to be more like him". Because leaders, no matter how small, are looked at as the face of success. You are the higher being that other people want to be like and that is something "its human" can not excuse. Yes, everyone is human, but leaders are extraordinary humans.

Why do you think most fanbased websites don't last? Like TGC? In general its because you don't usually have true leaders running these sites and so it causes the downfall of them. So, you are probably asking, am I blaming staff for every problem on here?

No. I am, however, blaming them for a big chunk of it. As the ADMIN of this site they share more responsibility than anyone else. In the recent months I feel as if the staff has been failing in one aspect, being good leaders.

To wrap up, I leave you with this. A leader is not just someone who can organize and put in the time to do their job. A leader is someone who can inspire, mold and shape the future no matter how small the future maybe. They are the people that we as humans follow not because their badge says Captain, President or even Site Admin. No, a leader is someone we follow because when we look at them we see a portrait of who we want to be. A quality in them that is better than the rest of us. ADMIN and LEADER are not inherently synonymous ladies and gentleman.

(Excuse grammar and mistakes, im on my phone)

 

[Seris Vant]

Well is there anything we can do to really change things? Mentalities usually move at glacial speeds. Popular kids are most likely going to keep being popular.

We could wrecking ball the LIKE system, that could take away the special snowflake status some have acquired. I know this has been talked about before, a lot. Does it bring a needed benefit to the site, no. Does it possibly harm players, maybe. Does it really matter, no. Would it be missed, who knows?

I like the issue you spoke of on new guys and non faction types wanting to do things on faction owned worlds. Its an issue. We can't just have people blowing up important paces and assassinating people willy nilly. But we honestly shouldn't have a system where you can just deny people doing things. Factions should bear the responsibilities of their worlds, and understand that people can tread on them. (Unless you've locked the place down like Aeten II). I'm not gona suggest we put some sort of system in place here, that's just bureaucratic. But if someone comes to ask you if they can blow up the Palace on Naboo, and they have a good reason to do so, not on a whim. You should be in agreeance that you have to protect it. Something like that. Certainly this topic should be explored more.

 

[Tathra Khaeus]

[member="Rayl Wilded"]
I have to agree with you.
Every snowflake is special! Key and Peele taught me that. c:
But on a serious note, the like system has its pro's and cons. But, as you called it "special snowflake" status makes me want to slap people and reminds them, they aren't really special.
Well, special is really subjective, so I can't really tell you, ya aren't senpie status.
P.S; The like system's removal is something I think should be discussed and polled.

 

[Hailyn]

[member="Tefka"]
Be nice.

[member="Dredge"]
I know it's probably cliche and naive, but a lot of people I've role-played with, chatted with on skype, or played games with online (yes, I play video games from time to time) I also consider friends. Sure, maybe not as good a friend as some of the people I work with, but they're friends nonetheless. If I should be ashamed that some of these people know me more than those who see me in person every day, then oh well. I, for one, have a friend that lives two states away that I speak to over skype and confide a lot in. No, it isn't someone from Chaos, but it's still someone I knew online before I knew them personally. I also know two siblings who live in England that I used to be very good friends with that I met over the internet and eventually became friends over facebook and other things. The only way I can communicate with my best friend is over facebook, and we haven't seen each other in over five years, does that make us any less friends? Some people might not like the idea of having friends over the internet, some may believe you'll never really know those people and that everything you do when you communicate them is just pretend - they might by right. But if it's all pretend, I'd much rather stick with my escape from reality.

Even if it means I beat myself up over what they say, just like I beat myself up over what my co-workers say when I forget to put on make-up before work or something. At the end of the day, if I consider them to be friends or acquaintances, I care what they have to say, even if I really don't need to.

 

[Hailyn]

[member="Jaryn Rhane"]
Why do you want to remove the like system?

 

[Tathra Khaeus]

[member="Silara Vantai"]
I said it is something to discuss, and as [member="Rayl Wilded"] pointed out. It gives people the "special snowflake" status.

 

[Dredge]

[member="Silara Vantai"]

To be fair I think this whole conversation has gotten a bit out of hand from the friendly conversation that it was >_>

 

[Hailyn]

[member="Jaryn Rhane"]
Oh. I see. I just like to collect reputation because it's like collecting coins to me, but I don't think anyone really goes out and thinks they're amazing for having a ton of reputation. At least I hope nobody does.

 

[Tathra Khaeus]

[member="Silara Vantai"]
Well, I understand the collecting coins thing. But, not everyone treats it that way. Unfortunately.

 

[Beowoof]

[member="Silara Vantai"]

Some people on this site have specifically said that they judge whether or not they are willing to RP with a person based on their reputation number. While I would argue that those people are probably not worth writing with if that is how they judge a person, it is a fact and I certainly understand why the 'likes' system is defective. I've played with writers who have 20 'likes' to their 800 posts, and I have thoroughly enjoyed the stories I have created with them and added some 'likes' to their scores because they deserved them for writing good, constructive, and imaginative posts. (See? I just liked your post. )

There is also a thing that I would like to call 'insult liking', which involves people 'liking' someone's post because they were a jerk to someone else they don't like. There are some people on the site with more 'likes' than posts, despite the fact that I think they are very rude.

My opinion is to ignore the system altogether. People don't use it responsibly. Popularity should not equate with reputation.

 

[Dredge]

This thread

http://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&persist_app=1&v=jVjgY427qW8

 

[Allyson Locke]