WHY PEOPLE ARE QUITTING CS- A Discussion

[SabrinaB]

Staff perceived as hostile? I have seen a lot of posts passing by from mods all over the forums and not once have i seen a post that i co sider hostile. They have a shiny name that might scare people, but they are also people. They post no-nonsense posts, but that doenst make them hostile. They also interact with forum games and try to help people around. I dont think they need to change anything.

[-Starchild.Keith-]

- Distrust/no communication between community and mods+. After seeing how the staff handle some stuff around queerness I have lost what little of the trust I had in them.

May I ask what this is referring to?

[manhunt]

Staff perceived as hostile? I have seen a lot of posts passing by from mods all over the forums and not once have i seen a post that i co sider hostile. They have a shiny name that might scare people, but they are also people. They post no-nonsense posts, but that doenst make them hostile. They also interact with forum games and try to help people around. I dont think they need to change anything.

i think what most of us mean when we say the stafe are percieved as hostile is their approach towards people mainly thru warnings. prime example i can think of is when oekaki moderators say "the oekaki is for drawing, not writing." i never took this as a clam reprimanding, it has always sounded hostile to me. if you google reviews on chicken smoothie, most are negative and they cite the negativity to the blunt nature some staff seem to have when warning people scaring and intimidating them. also, a lot of members of cs, much like myself, are autistic, and will see a blunt message like that as hostility.

[SabrinaB]

The oekaki example you mention is just a statement. Its nothing like "how dare you do this? It is for drawing, not writing! Get out of here!"
They have to step in often, they cant sugarcoat everything. Its a simple statement, nothing more

[rabidcoyote]

I *just* woke up and definitely didn't read much other than the spreadsheet, but I have to say I REALLY appreciate this thread and the traffic it's been getting. I've been a user since 2009 and I absolutely love coming back to this website every now and then.

Except it gets more and more disheartening each time I do, because you can just see it slowly dying off. :^( even despite the excellent layout of Oekaki boards, which you just don't have anywhere else on the internet and it's worth coming back on CS just for that!!

It's kind of like hanging out at your favorite mall ball park but every neighborhood kid you've known has grown up. It really doesn't have to be that way. The biggest change I've seen over the years catering to the older users was allowing "real" currency transactions to be discussed offsite instead of locking Oekaki posts with PayPal mentions.

Over the years I've been here, a lot of the rules have felt very inconsistent and unwritten, and the staff members very removed from the userbase, as if we were working against each other, and not towards a common goal - and that's been making me ridiculously sad. Most of all I wish for dialogue and transparency, because it truly feels like high horsing and two separate worlds. In all honesty, I feel like this thread will just be locked soon enough without any results.

[JayBae333]

I can't believe that there's 95 pages already, when I went to bed there was only 11 pages so I expected to come back in the morning and catch up on everything that I missed - but I don't think I can handle reading absolutely everything people have been saying.

I usually lurk but I'd also like to share my thoughts and how I agree with lots of the things being said. I don't know if this has been mentioned and this may seem like more of a minor thing but I don't like how some topics & discussions are solely on the Adults 18+ discussion thread - queer teens exist, teens with mental disabilities exist. I'm aware of the stickied topic of 'Younger people wanting advice from adults' but it still doesn't sit right with me. What's the point when everyone can see those topics anyways? Doesn't it also just simply depend on the maturity of a person?

It's also confusing imo to have a forum to be named "Adults Discussion 18+", when it's not exactly being monitored? As in anyone can post since I doubt they do age checks on non COPPA players/I can't find any rules against teens posting on this forum - I know the name should be enough...but some of the topics aren't topics that shouldn't be limited to 18+ users? Which is what I think could come off as confusing & unwelcoming as it implies that LGBTQ+ & mental health issues are only adult problems! Which is simply untrue but the stigma can still be there - it's like someone being told that they're "too young to be depressed" which isolates people and deters people from speaking up further.

So I suggest that forum be renamed or another created where teens have a space to discuss and relate to eachother. (Sorry if this seems too off-topic I just wanted to include this since it illustrates how the site is being handled)

And it does really seem like our concerns are NOT BEING HEARD by the people that CAN APPLY THEM!

Either way I'm very interested to see where all of this goes, because the overwhelming support for this conversation/CS movement if you will cannot be denied when this has blown up IN JUST A DAY!!!

[Lanayru]

I don't agree with any of the suggestion that would set limits on players themselves. The solution is not to force people to play a certain way or police a certain playstyle. What we need is a change to how the site functions, such as the pound and rereleases. Yes, there are certain issues that stem from the community itself, but imposing limitations just seem unfair to me.

(obligatory disclaimer that while my typing style is blunt, everything written here is intended to be read in a neutral tone)

Precisely this. While there are things the site itself could do to tackle things like pets having low availability/inflated values (more actually effective C$ sinks to curb C$ inflation, more/better rereleases, actually tackling issues like obvious scam/ninja trades) I cannot in good faith support "banning" certain playstyles (not allowing people to hoard pets past a certain rarity, making Horror's List/List trades against the rules etc) as these things would harm the community more than they'd ever have a chance of helping. While yeah, it might sting to see people hoarding a pet you want (that was me with sorb hoarders when I was trying to get mine!) you are not any more entitled to those pets than the hoarders are and 99% of hoarders trade for their pets fair and square. Hoarding is just as morally neutral as aiming for a full collection/trying to collect every pet of a species (both technically "remove pets from the circulation").

I also do feel like the moderation is driving people off the site - it has been brought up many, MANY times but the staff still feel quite unfriendly, hard-to-approach and "divided" from the average player base. An occasional long-winded PR statement does not equate to good communication and transparency. Don't get me wrong, there are individuals in the staff team that have been nothing but pleasant to interact with - but on the other hand, there have been individuals that have come off openly hostile, and when I pointed that out I essentially got a response boiling down to "actually, no, they aren't hostile, you're wrong" :L

Aside from communication issues it does just honestly feel overbearing at times and makes it harder to interact with other users through the forums. It's entirely unsurprising people are pivoting to Discord and other similar chatrooms when there are no spaces on the forums for light, quicker-paced general chatter.

[Zeena]

-snip-

It's also confusing imo to have a forum to be named "Adults Discussion 18+", when it's not exactly being monitored? As in anyone can post since I doubt they do age checks on non COPPA players/I can't find any rules against teens posting on this forum - I know the name should be enough...but some of the topics aren't topics that shouldn't be limited to 18+ users? Which is what I think could come off as confusing & unwelcoming as it implies that LGBTQ+ & mental health issues are only adult problems! Which is simply untrue but the stigma can still be there - it's like someone being told that they're "too young to be depressed" which isolates people and deters people from speaking up further.

-snip-

i'd also like to point out, that there can be a lot of inappropriate content on the adult discussions board. people talking about their adult life, etc. stuff that children should not even have the chance to see. i don't get how moderating adults from having their ages or things like that in off-site links is protecting children, but adults are also able to discuss inappropriate content on the 18+ forums with no repercussions. i feel like that sort of stuff should be much more highly moderated, considering it's directly on site? i understand mods may have missed some of these posts due to not being reported, but still.

[rabidcoyote]

I also do not appreciate responses like "staff isn't hostile" or "the site's security wasn't compromised" in response to discomfort at all. They resolve nothing and feel gaslight-y. I'd say the proper way to go about this would be "a significant number of people think (staff are hostile/CS security was breached) -> their views on this differ from mine, I feel comfortable, they don't -> I acknowledge their worries, so what can we do to help them feel comfortable?" - aside from very young people, please don't forget there is A LOT of neurodivergent users here, myself included.

[manhunt]

The oekaki example you mention is just a statement. Its nothing like "how dare you do this? It is for drawing, not writing! Get out of here!"
They have to step in often, they cant sugarcoat everything. Its a simple statement, nothing more :)

i never said they had to sugarcoat anything, i just said i thought it came off as blunt and rude. im going to quote what rabidcoyote said here because i think their point says what im trying to say pretty well:

I also do not appreciate responses like "staff isn't hostile" or "the site's security wasn't compromised" in response to discomfort at all. They resolve nothing and feel gaslight-y. I'd say the proper way to go about this would be "a significant number of people think (staff are hostile/CS security was breached) -> their views on this differ from mine, I feel comfortable, they don't -> I acknowledge their worries, so what can we do to help them feel comfortable?" - aside from very young people, please don't forget there is A LOT of neurodivergent users here, myself included.

its great that you dont personally find their responses blunt or rude (/gen), but the issue is most the users of the site do, including neurodivergent people and the few children still left here.