Anonymous Confessions 3.0 🤐

[ChaoticDeluge]

That’s worse then.

Anonymity is a defense in itself.

[Duckling]

So what would you have expected them to do to get a new subforum? They probably saw it as easier to make an own forum than to make a subforum. This is what should be the worrying part. If it were easy enough to get a sub forum that would make them happy, they wouldn’t feel the need to create an own forum.
That still doesn’t mean that they are allowed to ignore and break the rules, but that should be something we should probably think about

[Duckling]

Nope. I wouldn’t get involved in that way if I knew them because I’d just talk to them privately.

[ChaoticDeluge]

If we cared about every random anonymous confessor, duckling, you wouldn’t be on the team.

[Duckling]

Do you really think I wouldn’t report someone who broke the rules?

[Duckling]

You don’t have to care about random confessors. But about those who are serious and not just trolls

[ChaoticDeluge]

I wouldn’t make a judgment like that.

I find it frankly concerning that this has all gone on as long as it has, trying to rationalise it in some way. You want emotionless pragmatism, here it is.

We should shut down anonymous confessions, all they lead to is hassle

[ChaoticDeluge]

But people enjoy them, so that would be a bad idea. I’ll just happily give the rational take here

[ChaoticDeluge]

Some faceless goon doesn’t get to decide what is and isn’t acceptable. We have said many times that you forfeit your right to be treated like a member of the forums when giving anonymous confessions, here epsecially, because you don’t even need an account.

I don’t really care how any of you feel on the matter, and I don’t care that someone’s poor little fee-fees were hurt. If they can’t take it, either post publically like the rest of us or leave

[ShanniiWrites]

Excuse me? You’re arguing against an argument I never made. I never once said that not reading the rules means that someone doesn’t care. In fact, I said this:

@ShanniiWrites

Now, I understand that the confessor didn’t mean those things now and I accept their apology and I want to move on. I don’t have any hard feelings about them. My hard feelings are purely towards that damn confession. I don’t attach it to a single person on the Forums, whether they came out and admitted it was them or not. But I can’t promise that anyone else would not have hard feelings towards them as a person, so I understand why they would want to keep their anonymity now.

@ShanniiWrites

Fair enough. But I’m not psychic. I don’t read minds. I can’t see the future that they’re going to apologise when a LOT of confessors on here are openly spiteful and vindictive. So, no. You don’t get to use hindsight to tell me I should have been more fair. You don’t get to expect me to see an outcome that didn’t exist yet.

@idiot.exe

And also, nobody is obligated to read your confessions, but you’re free to post them. Not everyone will care, and it’s always going to be like that in life. There will always be people who care about you though, you’re not alone.

This is completely irrelevant. I haven’t just explained why I’m against rival forums in wishy-washy confessions. The rules are very fair and clear on that AND I have constantly told people, without getting mad, why I have to shut down their threads because they break the rules. It doesn’t take rocket science to understand why rival forums would hurt the forums and I’ve made that clear in the rules and throughout the forums.

@idiot.exe

Sometimes people don’t bother with the rules.

That’s their problem. If they don’t bother with the rules and they break them, it doesn’t protect them from consequences. They should have read the rules. They’re there for a reason.

@idiot.exe

Honestly, I think this is too much of drama for someone who just wanted to make another forum. It didn’t seem like they had bad intentions. Multiple people have advertised other forums/discord servers, but they just got reminded of the rules. Just because the person is anonymous, it wasn’t really right to treat them differently. Anonymous confessors have feelings too, and so do you. I’m not trying to invalidate your feelings, I perfectly understand why you reacted that way, but this is my opinion.

I absolutely disagree with this. Absolutely. If the person had originally made a thread instead of an anonymous confession, things would have been different. But even more than that, let’s look at my original response:

@ShanniiWrites

This is the reason we have a rule against advertising other forums. Like, I understand the urge, but If not all of the RPers from here join, you’ll have a smaller and less active community than we do here, which is really sad. If you take all of our RPers (which is highly doubtful, as some of our @RPers are very loyal), you’re hurting the Forums. Why would you want to do either of those things when I am trying so hard to make the RP section what you all want it to be?

@ShanniiWrites

We’re trying to find ways to help the forums, after all, not split them up.

@ShanniiWrites

Not everyone is gonna have that goal, but I’d appreciate it if you at least respect the fact that I’m trying to make this place awesome for RPers

@ShanniiWrites

That confession made me really sad

@ShanniiWrites

Like, here I am busting my butt off for this place. I’ve spent easily over 1k on this place in the past 2 years. I’ve spent the last week writing doc after doc to try to give us the help we need.

And the poor @ForumStaff who spend hours every week trying to make the Forums the best place ever!

After all of that effort, knowing there’s someone working against us who has the audacity to try to use our Forums to hurt our forums ? Wow. I dunno if they’re ungrateful, ignorant to what they’re doing or if they’re just someone who has no account and is actively trying to undermine the Forums

@ShanniiWrites

Especially during a time when I am actively asking people for help to keep the Forums alive

@ShanniiWrites

Definitely. Like, advertising it here is an active attempt to steal our RP users, many of whom aren’t going to take being stolen like that. If the person has other places where they can get users and their priority is to really REALLY have a proper, active RP community, the solution isn’t splitting up a pre-existing one. It’s boosting it.

I mean, you could literally apply to be an RP staff, work with @CrazyCaliope who would LOVE to hear your new ideas to make the RP section better and bring in lots and lots of RPers and have an amazing RP community AND the credit you so clearly want because you’re a member of the staff. Plus, you won’t have to spend the money I spend on a forum – if it’s Discourse. If it’s not Discourse, that’s going to be an immediate turn-off for a lot of people on here, who like the setup of forums like this and Episode and Wacky Writers.

Completely fair. I explained the problem. Explained the issue I have with it. What do we have a problem with? My tone? The jokes I made a little later? That would be tone policing. As I said, people trying to invalidate my response by breaking the rules themselves. And invalidating my feelings on the matter.

@idiot.exe

I agree. When dealing with forum matters, I believe people should stay professional and leave their emotions aside.

@Duckling

But you want the forums to become your business, right? So you should start treating them like a business so people will see how serious you are about it

Both of these responses are hilarious. If I treated this like a business, I would pretty much shut down anyone who so much as breathed a complaint about the forums. I’d probably automate the anonymous confessions to get rid of any confessions like these immediately and crush anyone who threatened the money. People would complain a lot more about that. Me not treating this like a business means that I can give you the human reasons for my reactions, instead of putting money before my users.

@Duckling

So what would you have expected them to do to get a new subforum? They probably saw it as easier to make an own forum than to make a subforum. This is what should be the worrying part. If it were easy enough to get a sub forum that would make them happy, they wouldn’t feel the need to create an own forum.
That still doesn’t mean that they are allowed to ignore and break the rules, but that should be something we should probably think about

If you make your own forum, you are jeopardising the Forums. It’s as simple as that. It’s not a suggestion. We have a whole category for suggestions. It’s rivalry. It’s trying to take traffic away from the Forums, whether they liked it or not. Ascribing things that the confessor “probably” thought is dumb. They could have easily just “probably” not thought at all. In fact, based on their apology, it seems a lot more likely that they just didn’t think about the effect that their actions would have on others. which I said – no hard feelings. just don’t do it again.

[ShanniiWrites]

I am a person. These forums matter a great deal to me and my feelings matter. Yet both of these responses are actively telling me that I need to push my personal feelings aside:

@Duckling

But you want the forums to become your business, right? So you should start treating them like a business so people will see how serious you are about it

@idiot.exe

I agree. When dealing with forum matters, I believe people should stay professional and leave their emotions aside.

This is exactly what I mean when I say that I have to fight just for my feelings to be valid on this place. Just because I made this place – a place I made partially so I’d have somewhere to talk to friends too, I have to put anonymous people above myself?

No. I make my mental health very clear so you know about it. That’s all I owe anyone. The forums are my baby and they will disappear if I don’t take care of myself. The answer is a bit of compassion from everyone to everyone, not trying to force me to be the “bigger person”.

This is why I brought up mental health. Since people decided to open up old wounds, all they’ve done is tell me that my feelings are less valid because I own the forums.

[ShanniiWrites]

The confessor did something wrong. I responded with annoyance, upset and frustration. They apologised. I left it as that. Then people came along and told me that I had no right to be upset. So yes. It’s wrong.

[ChaoticDeluge]

I think we can leave it here, tbh

[Duckling]

@ShanniiWrites

treated this like a business, I would pretty much shut down anyone who so much as breathed a complaint about the forums

That would be against the rules because it would break the free speech rules. People are allowed to complain as long as they don’t break the rules.
But the person here broke the rules, so you could have just removed the confession and moved on.

Of course you’re still allowed to have emotions, but the way you made it sound is as if everyone who doesn’t 100% agree with you is trying to attack you or at least that’s how it sounded to me. (This is low-key tone policing and I’m sorry for that, I just don’t know how to otherwise explain why I reacted the way I did, feel free to remove this after reading if it breaks the rules the way I formulated it)

[Duckling]

I’m sorry for making this issue even bigger than it is. I just felt like everyone was being treated unfairly here, including Shannii and the confessor.

[ShanniiWrites]

There are no free speech rules, duckling. Because if there were, the hate speech, trigger warning and other rules would go against them. Plus, I make the rules. I could literally work that into the rules, just like Episode. That’s what businesses do. They put profit before people.

[Duckling]

Okay, I’m done with replying to this, because it feels like I don’t get your point and you don’t get mine. If there’s anything I misunderstood and you still feel like explaining to me, just DM me. I don’t want to cause more misunderstanding and drama

[ShanniiWrites]

Each time I talk about what’s going on in my life, I do it because I’m not a business. I do it so you know why I can’t post as much or why I need some help with he finances or why I don’t tolerate rival Forums.

How do businesses work so professionally? Well, they have a whole team of people who are there just to put the forums first and make sure they don’t lose money. So, when someone threatens the forums, they can act quickly. They also have enough people that they can buffer any upset or heartbreak that the owner feels. CEOs aren’t robots. They throw stuff and get sad and upset. The thing is, though, they usually have someone there for them – a secretary – who can listen to what they have to say and then filter their upset through a corporate filter. So you don’t see the upset and frustration. You get someone who’s divorced from the situation writing a statement. I don’t have that.

[idiot.exe]

@ShanniiWrites

I never once said that not reading the rules means that someone doesn’t care. In fact, I said this:

I might’ve misunderstood this then:

@ShanniiWrites

And finally: I’m gonna confess to my own struggles in a confessions thread. Since it seems no one bloody listens to me when I put it elsewhere

@ShanniiWrites

It doesn’t take rocket science to understand why rival forums would hurt the forums and I’ve made that clear in the rules and throughout the forums.

That’s true.

@ShanniiWrites

@idiot.exe

Sometimes people don’t bother with the rules.

That’s their problem. If they don’t bother with the rules and they break them, it doesn’t protect them from consequences. They should have read the rules. They’re there for a reason.

I guess, but in my opinion this escalated way too much. I understand that there are consequences for breaking the rules, but I’m not sure how a confessor would get punished for that.

I wanna reply more, but honestly this seems to be completely based on a person’s views. There really aren’t facts and both sides are valid and have their own opinions. I don’t know what to add, because I already completely understand your side of the argument. I’m just going to go back to keeping my opinions to myself, because I really have no energy to continue this. I don’t think I can say much when arguing against the heads, and a lot of people are afraid to speak up for that reason.

@ChaoticDeluge

I think we can leave it here, tbh

Yeah, I don’t think there’s much more to add.

Just that I completely agree with @Duckling.

[ChaoticDeluge]

Well I’m not a head so I guess they can stop being weenies