vent threads?

[Enbizaka]

what happened to those "things that annoy you"/rant threads way back? are they not allowed anymore?

also am I making too many threads here? I just have a lot of questions since I've been gone

[rootspring]

yes they've been banned because they promote bullying!

no, i don't think so, but that's really up to a mod <3

[Burrito Bunny]

Yes, those threads were banned because they got out of control, and despite efforts made to moderate them, they still promoted harassment, witch hunts, and as Rilxed said, bullying. Staff decided the best way to keep users from hurting each other was to ban the threads all together. This ended the "things that annoy you" thread as well as the "trade rant thread" and other ranting threads which would facilitate attacks or arguments.

Of course not! You can make as many topics here as you'd like. In fact, it is even preferred that you make a new thread for each question, that way it is easy to tell which threads have already been answered.

[Enbizaka]

Thank you for clarifying. I don't recall those threads, especially the trade rant threads, being destructive. I can guess people started naming names or were being rude to each other.
It's a shame since I just wanted somewhere to vent casually, but I'll refrain.

[Junhui;]

If you want to vent about something, there's still TheComfortCorner | V.7 thread. Though talking about on-site events or other players is banned there as well.

[Atwood]

With the Trade Rant thread, we found that many people who frequented it were getting increasingly sensitive to even the slightest unfairness in trades and would rant about things that were barely unfair, actually *were* fair, or even trades that were overpays to them but just not exactly what they wanted. The culture of the Trade Rant thread encouraged people to see trades as 'bad' just so they would have something to share on the thread, and also encouraged more exaggerated expressions of anger and the blaming and ridiculing of those who sent them these 'bad' trades, as these exaggerated responses made for more entertaining posts in the thread. In the same vein, those who were often in the thread also tended to become progressively meaner in their cancellation messages for trades, to the point of warranting board warnings, and were more likely to express anger to would-be traders over minor errors.

Basically, rather than reducing people's anger over trades by giving them a place to vent without hurting the ones who sent the bad trades, the Trade Rant thread had the exact opposite effect of increasing anger over trades and encouraging rudeness and mean comments both in-thread and directly to the people who sent the trades, and also required constant attention 24/7 by multiple mods - that one thread accounted for more reports, deletions, board warnings and moderating time than all the rest of the site *combined*, no matter what we did to try to keep it under control. When we experimented with shutting down the thread we found there was a significant improvement in people's manners with the thread gone, as well as a great deal more mod time being available for managing the rest of the site, so it stayed gone and trade rants became disallowed on the site in general.

[Enbizaka]

If you want to vent about something, there's still TheComfortCorner | V.7 thread. Though talking about on-site events or other players is banned there as well.

oh, thank you! I wasn't aware of that thread.

and to Atwood, after looking through to find the old trade rant threads, I can see exactly what you're talking about. I guess I was just misremembering.

I am currently going through my old messages to try and delete/report them