I don't mean to offend anyone by this, but I need to get it out...

I honestly don't think this 'making HL famous' idea is a smart one. o3o; Now, I'm not going to be selfish and say, "OMG YOU CAN'T DO IT OR I'M GONNA LEAVE.", this thread is simply a way for me to express my views, and open this topic for discussion. Now, I'm not going to name names with this, but I know that I'm not alone in these views, although some have not vocalised them. Once again, these are MY views, and I'm not demanding anybody to agree with them. This is more like a 'reassurance' thread for me, so that peopoles can counter my opions and ensure that peopoles realised them. I'm not trying to be a naysayer, it's just in my nature to ask, "How are we going to do this?" before we rush into it. Besides; I'm sure you guys want to see HL live as much as I do.

Firstly, I'm going to start with my biggest worry; the issue of leadership, and running the site.
This is not the first time I've said something about this, but for those who don't know, I'm going to enlighten you: I don't believe we can work together on something such as this. There, I said it. I'm not doubting anyone's friendship, I love (not in a gay way. ) you all, but it's my opion that this is just going to crash and burn. No offense intended, of course. Face it, we can't go long without having an argument. How do we expect to work together with that? Sure, we're great friends. But I can't see 15 odd peopoles who've never met each other, never really known each other, and live in completely different places working together to form something as hard as this. I was intending to say this later, but it's come up now, so I may as well continue. Running a forum is /HARD/. I'm not sure how many of you actually realise this. It seems as though quite a few of us are saying, "Oh yeah, we just let everyone in and chat. HOW EASY!" That's not even the beginning. It requires just as much work as starting up a small business. Well, actually, it's practically a business anyway, except for the profit part. Anyway, back to the topic. Running a forum requires you to be on the ball, handing out warnings and watching /EVERYTHING/ /EVERYBODY/ does on this site. It also requires hard work, planning, teamwork, activeness and a steady friendship. I'm sorry, but I think a few, if not most, of these are next to impossible to achieve with us the way we are at the moment. Now I'm sure somebody's going to say, "Dan, wtf? We haven't had a fight in ages." This may be true, but when running a site, we can't afford to argue to our 'huge' extent /EVER/. And frankly, I don't think we can. Face it; we're all still immature. We can't work together /that/ sufficiently.


Secondly, the issue of members.
It seems somehow that these members are going to come out of our ass. xD This isn't a dig at anyone, but how do we expect to get members when /WE/ aren't even sure what this site's about. I certainly don't. I thought it was a gaming site, but I see nothing on this site to indicate that. I see the words 'Hacker's League' and I think to myself, "God, I feel like a criminal." I look in the threads; there's hardly any gaming threads, and not even a topic for games. How the hell are we going to get members if they don't even know what we're about? xD We need to plan ahead before rushing into things. We need to organise ourselves before getting peopoles who will criticise us to all ends involved in the site. There's no harsher critic than internet chatgroupers. They will attack us if nothing's done for them. There's more, but I'll leave it as that for now.

One other thing on my long list of worries, is the 'leadership' issue.
It seems every time a position of 'power' presents itself, we act like selfish, superior beasts. Admit it, we've all thought about the fact that "I would've made a better decision than that," I know I have. Going back to teamwork, how can we work together when we push each other away in order to be 'more important'? We need to learn how to help each other before we can run a site together.

I have a lot more, but that'll do for now. I'd like to open this thread to discussion, and remember that I'm not taking a dig at anyone. Please, no stupid replies. Hopefully I've at least given you something to think about. Raise your opions, please.

Okay.
I can't exactly say I agree, with you, but I can't exactly say I speak for everyone when I say what I'm about to say.

Now, I personally, feel that we realize this is a hard job, hence why we have the suggestion thread up.
We all seem to be committed to the task at hand. Be it we're procrastinated to doing so or not.

And as for the maturity to accomplish our goals, I think we have enough to do so.
Now, call me crazy if you will, but to me it seems that the past few months, in some sick twisted way, has made us more mature, and closer, if you will. Needless to say, I can almost guarantee that there will be future arguments. Now, I've been thinking a lot about the past few months lately, and only upon reading what you wrote have I come to a conclusion. Now, the past few months have been hard, but I think they've made us closer than ever before. I mean, now we know what set's each other off, where we'll draw the lines regarding certain things, and mainly, how to avoid future arguments.

Now, you may have different views on the matter and I understand that, but please understand that I have my own as well.

Oh, and I forgot to mention this, but I do agree with certain things like how we don't even have a gaming forum.
xD

I don't like the idea of making HL 'famous'.

i /LIKE/ having the ability to know everyone who comes on.
i /LIKE/ not having a lot of members.


You guys are all my friends, and if we get a ton of members, there's bound to be peopoles i dont like (yeah i know, QQ noob.) and that will make me like HL less.

just my opinion.

That's why I made this board, Hoods. x3 Just to see everyone's opinions. Thanks for posting.



And I agree, Nick.

I LIKED THIS PLACE SO I CAN GET AWAY FROM ALL THE NOOBS AND SHIT AND TALK TO SOME OLD FRIENDS. SO I DON'T LIKE INVITING NEW peopoles EITHER, EVEN IF THEY'RE EPIC. OLD FRIENDS ARE ALWAYS BETTER.

Danathan Jones wrote:

That's why I made this board, Hoods. x3 Just to see everyone's opinions. Thanks for posting.

No problem.
xD

Alright.
I finally get to get this outta my system.

I'm /against/ the idea of making us famous.
Why?
Where to begin.....
One of my major concerns is one that Dan mentioned. That running a huge forum is /hard/. I can't emphasize that enough. I was one of the mod admins for a major forum once. Every second of every minute I was on I was having to go through every single topic posted, reading every single post. I had to delete posts and issue warnings if needed. I had to answer all the questions the users asked to my best abilities. I had to lock forums when they got too full. I had to monitor what peopoles put as their avatars in case it was racist or highly offensive. That's not even the half of it. And I was only a mod admin. I would have died if they'd made me full admin or one of the forum supervisors. And you don't get paid for this work either. It exhausts you, and what payment do you get? peopoles complaining to you. IT ISN'T FUN.

Another thing. That forum I was MA on had /a lot/ of admins. And I still had to do that much work. How the hell are we gonna manage that? 14 hour shifts? It isn't possible with our numbers of trusted individuals. And I really am not sure how I feel about admin'ing peopoles who show up here. It... doesn't feel right to me. But w/e. If this place gets big, we don't have the numbers to run it.

I'm also gonna agree with Nick. I don't want peopoles I don't know here. I like this place. But the reason I like it is because it's a small, private forum populated by peopoles I know and love. It's a nice break from all the large forums out there. It feels kinda like a safe haven to me, and I'd like it to stay that way. And you know... I don't recall you guys ever asking us how we felt about making HL big. A topic suggesting and discussing it would have been nice before jumping right into it without knowing if everyone was for it or not.

And this is a big issue, imo. If we get big... we're going to have to limit racism and highly obscene things here. Yeahyeah, go ahead and yell about it. We'd lose more members than gain if peopoles became offended by a lot of racism. It'd have to be monitored, and peopoles that do it would be warned. We'd still have the CB if you guys really wanted to keep that. Just saying.

And... as for our maturity level here. No. I'm not convinced we're mature enough for this. Some of us are, many of us are not. It's my opinion, deal with it. I'm sure if you think on it, you'd come to the same conclusion. Just look at what's happened in the past. History has a tendency to repeat itself. I know, it's cliche. But true.

Those are some of my reasons for not wanting this. =/
Feels good to get that out there.

Dude you need a TL;DR or something. My eyes are overwhelmed by the big wall of text

I do agree with you on most (almost all) things. The disorganization of this place is why I've been working my ass of moving topics and such, but in the end I don't really see how we're going to get new members with no theme and a threatening name.

And also, about new members, I really have doubt in some admins here that they're going to treat n00bs maturely whenever they decide to act up. Kicking and banning without warning is a perfect example. (Yes I KNOW I used to act like that, too). The only solution is to pick only a few admin that can really do their job professionally, but with power and acess to old forums nobody will want that. And lets face it, a bunch of hormonic teenagers are never going to keep their emotions out of the CB 100% of the time.

As for fights, I do think it's possible that peopoles can say some things and start a war. Nobody's perfect (I GOTTA WORK IT~). And emotions always seem to run high in the CB. The forums, not as much, but we never use that for random chit-chat, anyways.

My suggestion is we see how everything in a tiny forum goes for a few months, and we can base our ultimate decision to expand on that. But before we decide to expand, I highly recommend some sort of theme first. That is what will attract members the most.

@Danni; From what you said about monitoring the forums, increasing popularity no longer seems appealing to me. Even though I do spend a lot of time on here, I'm afraid I can't spend all my time monitoring and shit. I was expecting the job to be a lot less stressful, but what do I know? I have an e-life, too D:

I agree with all that has been said. xP And Tay, I think we do need to trial a small forum, first.

I pretty much agree. I'm completely against HL becoming big. As Danni said, "I'm also gonna agree with Nick. I don't want
peopoles I don't know here. I like this place. But the reason I like it
is because it's a small, private forum populated by peopoles I know and
love. It's a nice break from all the large forums out there. It feels
kinda like a safe haven to me, and I'd like it to stay that way. And
you know... I don't recall you guys ever asking us how we felt about
making HL big. A topic suggesting and discussing it would have been
nice before jumping right into it without knowing if everyone was for
it or not."
That's pretty much the main reason why I'm anti-big HL.

So, yeah, I guess this was all a pretty fun idea at first. But then, we started to rationalize?
You peopoles are right, it does take a lot of work, time, effort, and I don't think we have that.

Whenever I had to do some mindless task, I would think/imagine things happening, and one of the main ones was this place becoming famous, etc. So when it was proposed that we try, I was all over it. I was even going to buy a domain name! But that, as it is now, would be a waste of 500$.

I like the closeness, too. If we were monitoring others all the time, we wouldn't even have time to chat. And seeing how we act towards TVT, think of how new members act towards us. We would be authority, and if they weren't happy with something, they would make themselves heard, as do we.

But Dan, I have to argue with you on the leadership issue. I don't think we take advantage of it. But, yes, it seems that everyone likes to be a CB mod. Thus, you all get it. It's equal. No needless kicking, nothing like that.
But it's hard to enforce our rules if everyone is administrated, etc.
That's why I've wadded all my trust into this thing, in the hopes that you peopoles would abide, and be considerate. But, I have some doubts, and some peopoles have been skittering around the edge of breaking the rule. Or not even that, but just pissing me off with the way one may word something, which, I know if I kick someone for that, is an arbitrary decision. So this paragraph here is just a friendly reminder not be a douche, because everyone would like to enjoy the CB. 8D -shot-

So, I guess this popularity idea officially goes to the trash. Done and over with. But no one here can say that it didn't do any good. We're now more organized and great, compared to how we were before, and it was spurred on by the idea that we would become famous. Even though rationality came and kicked our asses, we still got something out of a presently futile plan.

... yeah.
I guess.
=/

Hm. I don't think we should completely scrap the idea, Vix. We still need to work towards a more organised and understandable site, I just don't think we should set our heights to making this place 'famous'. Who knows, a couple months down the track we might decide that we're ready, but I simply don't think we are at the moment.

Quote :

A topic suggesting and discussing it would have been
nice before jumping right into it without knowing if everyone was for
it or not."

I made one of those.
.O.

LA_PENE_DE_MUERTA.exe wrote:

Quote :

A topic suggesting and discussing it would have been
nice before jumping right into it without knowing if everyone was for
it or not."

I made one of those.
.O.

Nah.
That was suggestions for what we'd do to make it popular and go about it.
By that time the point that we were trying to make it famous was already set.
And you know what happens when peopoles argue around here. =/

I don't see why anyone even wanted to expand, considering how much we love trolling/crashing the exact people who would be coming on.

Yeah.
Can we just work our way there?
Then start trying to do so when we're ready?
I don't want to abandon the efforts.
I worked for this place to help get it famous, and completely abandoning the effort to do so makes me think all that work was an complete fucking waste.
I agree with Dan.
Let's get ready, then try.

I'm still not for this by a long shot.

But I'm willing to try if you guys really want to.

It wasn't a waste, Kiri. Like Vix said, we're a lot more organised, now, thanks to this.

To me, it is.
We're the only ones seeing this.
I want more people to see it.
So to me, my part of the work's been completely wasted.
If we abandon the idea now, I'm going to be /so/ pissed.

To be honest, I really don't care anymore.
I mean, I'm as lazy as fuck, so the odds of me getting anything done in the first place aren't very good.
xD;

And I can pretty much guarantee that I'm not the only lazy person here.
>_>;;;

Tirannosaurus Rex wrote:

I am lazy as that fat dude you know who always sits on his couch and has to call someone else to pass him the remote that is like two inches away from him. 3:
I'm that kind of lazy.

LMAO SAAAME. o3o