General Bitching

I think it might be worth a trial run. I'd like to see it back but I know there are some concerns about it, so if the (actual) staff is thinking about whether or not to bring it back, I'd think a temporary re-opening could be a good answer. If things go well, keep it open; if not, close it again.

If it's okay with a majority of the staff, I don't see any harm in it. If it's possible, the forum should be safeguarded by disabling the ability to give reputation within it or something like that. However, you wouldn't see much of me in GB if it stays.

I voted the third choice simply because I'm impartial. But if I had to vote yes or no, I'd say yes.

Maybe I'm just getting old and docile, but I don't see why we need a place to insult each other. It just encourages negative attitudes and exacerbates tension. If you have a real issue with someone, just put them on "ignore" and stop talking to them; because you aren't going to change their personality by screaming at them in GB like a pedantic child.

Then again, there's always some good humor to be had there. I don't know. I voted against it, but I am not passionately against it.

Humor *would* be kind of nice around here. Hence today.

Wait. That was all a joke? AGH! I did all that for nothing. -_-;

One of the only real problems I've ever had with General Bitching is that you could start a thread about a concept, rather than a thread calling out another community member, .. and find yourself being flamed for your opinions, whereas all you wanted to do was gather similar opinions on the matter, similar to a flame-filled debate thread, but one sided. Essentially a private riot army confined to a single thread. 😛 Those are actually pretty fun.

So thus, you've got all types of threads that could go into GB. I'll try to list a few off m'memory.

• Member against member.
• Member against group.
• Group against member.
• Group against group.
• Member/group against Group.
• A WTF thread. Yes flaming others.
• A WTF thread. No flaming those not involved.
• Generic Coliseum type threads.

Apologies for my poor grammar; I have taken several heavy coconuts to the head today. Apparently.

So yes to a new, ordered GB. No to the old "I'll flame anyone I feel like and I don't care if they started it or not or want to get involved" GB.

I like GB. If you want to have a real conversation go to Think Tank.

I say no, it should not return.

Beldaran wrote:Maybe I'm just getting old and docile, but I don't see why we need a place to insult each other. It just encourages negative attitudes and exacerbates tension. If you have a real issue with someone, just put them on "ignore" and stop talking to them; because you aren't going to change their personality by screaming at them in GB like a pedantic child.

Then again, there's always some good humor to be had there. I don't know. I voted against it, but I am not passionately against it.

I feel the same way.

I wasn't a member here when there was a GB forum, so naturally I'd like to see one. What could go wrong?

Man, are april fools at AGN always like this? 😛

I would like to see it make a return as well. Under some new pretenses would be cool.

Edit: Lol, my avatar is still funny. Stupid April Fools.

I totally agree with Bel... BUT...

Much as it's generally a negative filled area... there are those that need a place they can go (if they want and have the post count) to piss, moan and groan about things in a way they can't in any other area of the community.

GB fulfilled that need.

Prrkitty wrote:...a place they can go (if they want and have the post count) to piss, moan and groan about things in a way they can't in any other area of the community.
GB fulfilled that need.

It also gave AGN a lot of its personality. It needs to come back.

phattonez wrote:It also gave AGN a lot of its personality.

It's not my favorite thing ever but I think it's an integral part of AGN and removing it has always been dumb. But perhaps I'm mistaken.

What would be a lot more interesting and weird, if hard to do, would be a special forum accessible to banned members.

Such a thing shouldn't be visible to new members; maybe a post count limitation or somesuch, with exception for if you're banned.

In this den of epic failure, the banned could speak but not be seen by new members, not be involved in the main community, and be easily ignored if one chose to do so.

I think this would be interesting and useful to the community structure of AGN. Jackasses you don't want hanging around, don't want to see or mess with, could still play in a little crib off on the side, where the interested old regulars can talk to them or screw with them or whatever.

Such a forum should have similar rules to GB, so it would be drama-packed, but you could have the drama hidden away out of sight and not interfering with the real forums.

Not sure if anyone would be likely to go for that, but I think it'd be beneficial for a few main reasons:

(A) Humor
(B) If someone is genuinely interested enough for whatever reasons in contacting an old banned member, it gives them a better chance of finding them
(C) People who screw up the functionality of AGN's community, but are old and beloved parts of AGN's community... in an infamous and probably disliked way... who are stubborn and want to hang around, could, but in a heavily limited way. This would theoretically help hold AGN together better instead of making it seem alienating to old regulars who pop back in and say "what the hell happened to so and so? Oh, he was a jackass and got banned, okay. Hey man, WTF's up, lol whatev".

Or so I envision it. *shrugs*

I started posted a bit more in GB by the time it reached it's latest demise. It was fun, but I agree that it could get really out of hand. I am in favor of GB returning if we can set a more clear set of guidelines. As Prrkitty said, I think we do need a place to go and gripe and unwind. It doesn't mean every single thread needs to turn into a flame war even though that may happen anyway, but I believe getting things off your chest is a good thing as long as you do it in a proper way. So I am for giving it another chance.

So the staff is really considering bringing back General Bitching? I wasn't here in the past, so I'm not really sure what kind of drama took place there, but I think that there might be a benefit now of knowing what caused GBs downfall initially and putting in some rules to prevent that. ....gah! I'm basically regurgitating posts already made using different words. Goodnight everyone, and Happy April Fools Day! i love this day

Coming from someone who was not posting when GB was up, but was a spectator. General Bitching is highly entertaining to read! Definately bring it back.

FirstWizZedd45 wrote:Coming from someone who was not posting when GB was up, but was a spectator. General Bitching is highly entertaining to read! Definately bring it back.

You have to have more than 100 posts, or it will not matter anyways. 😛

We could bring back GB and just not allow members to flame eachother. It can be a forum to bitch about everything BUT other members. Flaming can still be against the rules.

why not just get rid of flaming rules in general and draw the line at out-of-board harassment

forums are generally more entertaining when people are allowed to speak their mind without worrying that they're going to get banned because someone might be offended

Breaker wrote:We could bring back GB and just not allow members to flame eachother. It can be a forum to bitch about everything BUT other members. Flaming can still be against the rules.

Or...if they wanted to bitch about something, they could post it elsewhere if they were not wanting to be flamed.

Or...they could tag their thread as being [Flame Proof], meaning they just want to bitch and nobody can flame them.

GB will not be GB without the ability to flame. I live off of, "I hate brekkar!" threads.

why not just get rid of flaming rules in general and draw the line at out-of-board harassment

forums are generally more entertaining when people are allowed to speak their mind without worrying that they're going to get banned because someone might be offended

That would be a really nice way to draw in members, but something tells me it would be way too much trouble. A ton of spam would rise from that.

So it looks like quite a few people want to bring GB back, but then are bitching about how the forum would work. How stupid.

Let it be how it used to be. If people are retarded enough to click in, and bitch about the content there, make it an infraction. People don't really have a reason to bitch about eachother anymore, only because a significant majority of us have "grown up" together, so to speak. Alot of us have known eachother for what, like 5 or 6 years? Maybe more?

Well sure, put GB back up there, but I agree with Breaker. Members don't need to flame members, as well as we don't need any of that [Flame Proof] stuff. Ranting has always been restricted by the courtesy of not littering it with curse words because of a possibly few younger members and whatnot. I really believe that nowadays that people won't make douches out of themselves like they would have a few years ago.

tl;dr
If you can't bitch in General Bitching about anything that is pissing you off, then why have the forum in the first place?

less IHM, moar QQ. thx.

It seems like we're making it too complicated. There was always the warning that goes something along the lines of "Don't like it? Don't click in!" We should let all flaming go; if someone gets offended, well hey they had a fair warning.

Gerudo wrote:So it looks like quite a few people want to bring GB back, but then are bitching about how the forum would work. How stupid.

Let it be how it used to be. If people are retarded enough to click in, and bitch about the content there, make it an infraction. People don't really have a reason to bitch about eachother anymore, only because a significant majority of us have "grown up" together, so to speak. Alot of us have known eachother for what, like 5 or 6 years? Maybe more?

Well sure, put GB back up there, but I agree with Breaker. Members don't need to flame members, as well as we don't need any of that [Flame Proof] stuff. Ranting has always been restricted by the courtesy of not littering it with curse words because of a possibly few younger members and whatnot. I really believe that nowadays that people won't make douches out of themselves like they would have a few years ago.

tl;dr
If you can't bitch in General Bitching about anything that is pissing you off, then why have the forum in the first place?

less IHM, moar QQ. thx.

Lol...love the edits.

I agree with whoever posted the TL;DR.

There is no real reason to bring it back if we cannot bitch about whatever and whoever we want, whenever we want.

Besides...it is way more fun to be all..."Blah. I totally hate that asshole user, Poj..."

Breaker wrote:We could bring back GB and just not allow members to flame eachother. It can be a forum to bitch about everything BUT other members. Flaming can still be against the rules.

ctrl-alt-delete wrote:
GB will not be GB without the ability to flame. I live off of, "I hate brekkar!" threads.

I think War Lord decided to remove GB because the negativity was bleeding into all areas of the community.

If and when GB comes back, at this point I think we're all old enough to make sure that doesn't happen again.

The definition of insanity is trying the exact same thing over and over again and expecting a different result.
😉