So I've been looking at the general response to two particular new CV's that have been put in their positions recently. It's apparent that a lot of people on dAmn don't like these people. Mostly the people who frequent
#devart. I've heard various responses and seen a whole gang of quotes, screenshots and to a certain extent... deactivation.
My only reaction to the whole thing has been:
You people are fucking surprised?You're actually surprised that some people you don't like or considered absolute nuisances became volunteers? Some of you are even outraged?
Yeah... tell me more how you've
always really cared about the outcome of dA's community. I could understand it if it was a major slip-up or just someone being an asshole and picking people out of spite... but I have an idea that
moonbeam13 knows what the hell she's doing. I've witnessed reasons to trust her judgement and I've got reason enough to understand if it doesn't work out with the new CV's. You folks however, have no excuse. Don't get me wrong, the Staff has done some things that were plainly fucked up. (Certain rule changes, relaxed chatroom policies, certain people being unbanned even though they REALLY just needed to be gone forever.) However, you guys, mostly
#devart regulars and some
#dAmn users really haven't done any better. I can totally break that down for you too.
Let's take into account the fact that
#devart, being the main flagship chatroom for
#dAmn and one of the main places a new chatter on dA would likely go to, is UNWELCOMING. On all fronts it's unwelcoming to new people. It generally was in the first place, but ever since some pioneering developers gave the public an ignore feature to work with, it's gotten even worse... and continued to get worse. Before then, if you wanted to actually ignore someone, you either didn't respond to the stupid things they said to you or you left the room for another, more suitable place. Instead we basically fixed a severe spinal injury with heroin and decided "This is much better... now where's my bic lighter, drug spoon and syringe?"
After that, all you had to do in order to be the spiteful little devil you always wanted to be was /ignore someone. You could even show everyone how witty you thought you were with a custom ignore message. For some people, that might not be much of an issue. However for new people, that kind of rejection makes a person not want to come back to a place. Especially if it's a chatroom filled with people that are willing to /ignore you at the drop of a hat. Maybe they said something dumb or something that you didn't like. Unfortunately self-control stopped being a strong suit, assuming it ever was, and then not only did you /ignore, barring any potential of them redeeming themselves, but you also made it a point to be unnecessarily insulting. But, you guys didn't really care... As far as most of you were concerned,
"If they can't handle it, they can GTFO." However, I can't blame it all on the /ignore feature as that would be pointless.
Another contributing factor to
#devart being a genuinely terrible place to be is the fact that many of you regulars have the most inflated sense of entitlement one could ever have the misfortune of witnessing. When you get banned for being problematic and cancerous, you whine, cry and send Help Desk tickets by the multitudes until someone gets tired and brings you back. Even though you never deserved that second chance... or fifth for some of you. On top of that, you'll be the main ones causing trouble for users and CV's alike while still complaining about how nothing is done right. Honestly, if they did start doing things "right", you probably wouldn't be in the chat, the network or even the website, to enjoy the fruits of that labor. Some of you have complained about the chat not being as fun or not having any more cool people. Nevermind the fact that plenty of people had the potential to become cool there, but you never gave them that chance; effectively aborting your chances of having a better chat room/chat network.
Some of you might actually be concerned about that but a good deal of you aren't. Not really, hell, plenty of you contribute to the spam and the trouble making. Even going as far as sending bots to spam and harass chatrooms, including but not limited to,
#devart. Like that's totally a great way to show you've given a damn about the community all along... by causing trouble. Some more of you have even gone as far as tricking people into giving up their accounts by having them put javascript codes in their URL bars. While some of you may justify it with "Well, they're stupid for doing it." They're intelligence or supposed lack of intelligence has NOTHING to do with the fact that doing it was wrong in the first place.
So with a lack of good new people actually being in the main chats and the majority of
#devart's regulars generally ruining things and possessing an overwhelming/unwarranted sense of entitlement. I think that
it boils down to slim pickings. Imagine being staff and actually having to comb through the amount of absolutely TERRIBLE applications submitted on a possibly daily basis. Sure, there have been some other people selected to be on the team that are GREAT and some that even bother frequenting
#devart... but those people actually bother to make themselves apparent and their actual community spirit shows. They would be an exception to the general rule. The harsh reality of it is that aside from them, there more than likely aren't that many good candidates to choose from, all thanks to the community being the way it is. So eventually, it gets to a point where the ones that actually have to pick and choose end up scraping the bottom of the barrel.
It's your fault, folks. Your apparent care for the community led to possibly unworthy people getting selected and NOW you want to band together and make petitions. Suddenly you're all caring about the wrongdoings and the fuck-ups of the staff enough to attempt to do something. Like
killjoy said, it's nice that you guys are suddenly buddies, but it's only because you hate someone. I've not seen ONE of you even bring up any actual solutions community wise. I'm not just talking about in terms of the CV's either. Though you guys could have done SOMETHING about encouraging better people to try. Hardly any of you try to do anything outside of sitting back and essentially saying
"Well, I'm just gonna stay here and be an asshole...and that's just how I'm keepin' it real."Unfortunately staying in one place and grumping about it certainly isn't going to help matters, and practically none of you have much ground to stand on. None of your petitions and whining is going to change the reality of what's up right NOW. At least
lolly bothered to make solid points and was actually TRYING to be a community minded person. Given the things he went through and put up with, he'd have reason enough to want to start a full-scale shitstorm. Compared to him, you all were basically like every civilisation that didn't bother voting and wondered why they got an "evil dictator" in office.
We honestly don't know exactly how this is all going to turn out. Like I said, I think that Danie knows what she's doing. She's always had her heart in the right place as far as looking for potential. I feel like an example of that because when I started doing gallery mod activities with
pullingcandy I ended up feeling like I was doing something worthwhile. Who is to say these new CV's, or any CV's you don't like, won't get their asses in gear and try to make something of their time as volunteers? How do we know they won't change and perhaps grow into something better because of the responsibilities they've taken on? There really isn't much to lose here. If they do turn out to be absolutely terrible and a waste of time. This would be one of the rarest valid moments one could possibly say: "You asked for it." and everything bad that may come up after this is your fault. They don't have to resign because you're mad at them either. In fact, they're not obligated to do ANYTHING involving resignation just because you're mad at them. Regardless of how bad they actually may be, you all, the chat community gave birth to it. I don't personally condone their previous actions or behavior, but at the same time I'm not mad because you all basically got a mirror image of your own bullshit.
It's also a proper time to say:
If you don't like it, you can leave. Deactivate your account and go pretend to grow up someplace else. Catch a revelation and leave if you can't actually be bothered to start bringing something positive to the table.
I mean
POSITIVE:
Not by putting on some vigilante trolling act and/or crying and petitioning. Be positive by actually making an effort of getting out of your own way and helping the community become better. Start groups, actually be courteous and reach out to artists. Do some networking and start up some projects if you can.
If that's too hard for you, then the most positive thing you can do is get out of the community's way and wash your hands of it. Which is probably best for some of you that don't even do anything artistically. There ARE other websites that would suit you. You want to look at art without posting much of anything and actually communicate with others? Get a tumblr... There are LOADS of artists on tumblr and they don't have strict guidelines. So you can even go and have yourself a pornographic ball there if you like.
There is NOTHING stopping you from leaving entirely. Nothing... not one thing. If you need to keep in contact with your friends. Find them on facebook or get together on an instant message client. (Skype, AIM, ICQ, MSN, QQ if you're in China and a whole mess of other ones.). If they can't be bothered, then they must not be friends. It doesn't matter if you've been here for 10 months or 10 years. You aren't entitled to anything and you sure as hell don't have to stay here.
As far as you are concerned, the community will be just fine without you... if not better.
