What happened to Unmod?

[WesPip]

For what it's worth (not much, obviously) I have been a vocal advocate for UnMod as a community and a forum for a long time. In the end this didn't amount to anything because literally NONE of the mods are sympathetic to the very concept. An unfortunate elitism, a prevailing attitude that people who post primarily in unmod are less important than the rest of the OCR fanbase, coupled with the understandable prejudice caused by interacting with "unmod" almost solely when retards would venture out to cause trouble has formed an OCR mod staff that has really no sympathy or understanding for unmod at any level.

It's unfortunate. This has been a large part of the reason why things have been so out of control lately (the other part being that lots of people in unmod have reacted in an immature and unproductive manner). Dave's post doesnt suprise me at all. He has always been a bigger fan of unmod than anyone on the mod staff. As someone who has appreciated the unmod community over the years, I do have high hopes for offtop.

And for the record, I think Coop would be a fantastic mod for that forum, and I have reccommended that he be considered for the position.

Yes, I agree fully with this. If only you were "more" than a judge and were also a moderator.

'Course, being just a judge is still preferable to a judge with delusions of mod-itude *cough*.

[skywalker6705]

Thank you for an honest response to this DJP. I know you probably were as irked about it as many of us, and we all knew it had to happen sometime.

If he would ever want it, I would be 150% behind The Coop as a mod for the new Off-Topic. He knew what UnMod was about, and could help guide the board. Maybe give him the vbbulliten equivalent of +voice.

It's the staff reaction to the removal that made most of us upset. You knew what you were deleting. The staff didn't, and that's why they wanted it gone. It WAS a huge source of trouble for the site, and I know it was probably something that all the mods could have functioned more smoothly without. But I think it's this same aversion to it that kept any one of them from knowing what they wanted to take away, other than spam and trolls.

I'm don't want an apology from anyone. I'm not that arrogant. But I don't want to invest my time in a part of the community again if it will be destroyed when it becomes an inconvenience to those that don't even use it. The site needs to somehow give faith to the new members of Off-Topic, and those that left for UnMod.org and those who have left here already, that even IF Off-Topic goes insane, it won't just disappear as well. Otherwise why write in the Epic Story? Why show each other Nice Work, if it's only garbage to the mods?

I hope the next time I may unknowingly irk a staff member, or accidentally double post, etc., it doesn't result in one of the aggressive bans that have been occurring after this incident. Even if some of these users were under alts, or were unmodders, why does it matter if the content of their posts was sound? If they were starting shit, fine, but I was doing no such thing. And I was quite rudely shut down. I know I'm not the only one that was caught un-fairly under a ban. The mods need a little more patience with us former UnModders.

And on an incredibly more minor note: I lost almost ALL my posts when the deletion occurred, so I know I look more n00bish than anyone.

[Vig]

Yes, I agree fully with this. If only you were "more" than a judge and were also a moderator.

'Course, being just a judge is still preferable to a judge with delusions of mod-itude *cough*.

The idea was thrown around a looong time ago. Ultimately there arent enough hours in the day. While I do care about how the community forums are administrated, I already spend way more time than I ought to thinking/talking about it, and really the panel, voting on remixes, setting the bar, and discussing musical policy, is WAAAY more important to me than forum administraiton could ever be. I loved the unmod community and was active in it periodically, but ultimately I'm here for the music.

At some point down the line it might be important enough to me that i would want to be a community forum mod, but I don't see that happening anytime soon.

[I-n-j-i-n]

I may also add that at first, I did trash and troll shamelessly on Unmod. At first. But I also contributed to WIP for a bit in the same time as well, giving constructive criticism along the way. And I agree with the posters who say that they see Unmod and Gen Disc as the two sides of a same coin. Maybe that's why I saw it easy going to both forums and having fun either taking OCR seriously or not.

I can sorta understand the decision to delete Unmod at face value. If they were using up bandwidth or were actually making a real effort to "overthrow" the site's claim to fame as a game music oriented site.

But at the same time, I do think the situation was handled very badly. I mean, it wasn't as drama-filled and crazy even compared to the banfests of Something Awful when I was there. At least they punished the individuals who were on bad terms with that site. Not a whole segment of the community and do it so abruptly.

I must admit, I didn't care at all for Unmod at first. But I do see it now that it served as an outlet of sorts for OCR. Again, I can see why the decision to delete it was out there. But it didn't have to be so politically charged and come from a string of small controversies like this.

[WesPip]

But I don't want to invest my time in a part of the community again if it will be destroyed when it becomes an inconvenience to those that don't even use it.

That's essentially what I was getting at with my post, though this sums it up quite succinctly.

How can one weigh the pros and cons of something when they only bother noticing the cons, right? As melodramatic as it is, UnMod was something of a family, albeit a disfunctional one, then some random G-Man comes and exterminates them. Imbalance at best.

[Dagda Mor]

II found the site about four years ago, joined the forums two years after that. I was active once or twice but was mostly a lurker for the year and a half after that, then really joined up last september. Unmod easily drew tha majority of my posts simply because it had the vast body of the threads that I found interesting and engaging. My perspective on the friction involving unmod and gendisc was that much of unmod was a jerk about it in a joking sort of way, and that the judges & co. might have done something to bring on this semi-serious ire but if so there wasn't clear evidence. I didn't care enough to do any real investigation, as I had no intention of participating.

I never would have been one to sing unmod's praises before its deletion- my comment on the issue would have been "It's not really this scary, horrible place if that's been your impression. There's some crap, sure, and they can be caustic; but it's hardly a high price to pay, and there's some really quality stuff there as well. I don't know any other forum like it." I've always seen myself as an outsider, one of the people who use the forum and the site and contribute where they can but aren't yet involved in the larger community.

In the end, however, I think I took unmod for granted. It's when I consider my experiences and read through the well-written posts by Coop and Wacky that I find myself agreeing- Unmod was a unique community that had a surprisingly mature nature when you looked beyond the intentionally mature behavior- that's evident just by comparing the posts by the two sides in the post-deletion debate. Only after it's deletion did I turn into this activist, writing these page-and-a-half posts and doing all I can to try and get those who seem so opposed to unmod to reconsider and maybe even recreate the forum.

When you say that 5% of unmod's usage and users were valuable. . .my initial response is to be offended. That number is a matter of opinion, so it's not like I can call it wrong. But I know I'm far from the best 5% of unmod's users, even with humility and self deprecation put aside*, and can still say I did nothing to deserve being labeled as worthless.

Making the best effort I can to be fair and balanced about this, to remember all the bad of unmod along with the good, my honest opinion on the matters discussed in djp's post is this: Your community of trusted friends, whom I do not doubt are decent people I'd like to meet myself, failed to provide you with unbiased advice. The danger you were warned against was exaggerated (I believe greatly so, but with my knowledge I'm not qualified to say that much), and your decision to delete unmod was a very poor one. I'm really, honestly sad to see it go; I will stay and try to contribute to off-topic in order to salvage what I can, but it will no longer be unique and on top of that will be missing members who were driven off by the unfair manner in which the community's authority handled this whole debacle.

*In which case I put myself in the top 20% in terms of quality but not quantity

[Arias Serathe]

What a nice thing to come back to after vacation.

Farewell, Unmod-chan, and goodnight.

[Bummer]

UnMod has always been some kind of secluded community. You could talk about casual things, make threads that was simply based on a joke, picture or youtube link, and overall have a fun conversation with those you knew. No matter what others say, unmod was a forum that was characterized by joy, laughter and humorous jokes. The overall comments could be cruel, but we wasn't offended since we knew that nothing that was ever said shouldn't be taked seriously.

Problems occurred whenever a noob or a poster that was unaware of UnMod´s existence strolled in, made some posts but then took offence when we came and said such things like "Lurk moar", "GTFO n00b" or offered a delicate image of a goatsee or tubgirl. But, that was our way to handle things. If they couldn't take it, then Gendisc and PPR was there for them to post in instead. Rumors of what a horrible place UnMod began to spread through the site, and we played along with it. However, trying to discuss whether UnMod was a bad or a good place would inevitably end in failure, since we all saw it through different perspectives and angles. It was a place where we could hang out and talk and do whatever we want. When a n00b came along and disrupted the balance, we would approach them and see what kind of fellow this was. If he happened to be cool, we would accept him. If he wasn't and instead started to complain about how awful we were, he would get flames up his nose.

Eventually, the Sidebar showed up as a giant pillar on the left side of the screen, and many got annoyed by it. That in turn led to anger, and in the end, massive bannings. And now when we switched to VBulletin, the new forum restrictions such as no namechanges, no quote nexuses, no full caps, 10 charcater limit and other details resulted into many complaints, since we now couldn't post in the same way as we used to. And that ended up in the same way as the Sidebar, massive bannings but with more feelings behind this time since the mods didn't show enough symphathy to our situation.

I guess we could have avoided some of this, but not all of it. In the end, I kind of knew that UnMod wouldn't stay around much longer, since our behaviour was for our own best, not for the site's. True, if we just went to .org, then we could keep on posting as we always had, but personally I felt that I wanted to stay on this site, on the UnMod we had here. Call it pride, call it whatever you want, but moving to .org wouldn't exactly be the same. The only problem now is that moving to .org might be the only solution right know, since Off-Top won't have the same features as the original UnMod did. I will still stay though, but it will require some surfing on two forums at the same time since pretty much all the others are at .org.

To describe UnMod as "nothing" would be inaccurate, a lie, and an insult. It was in that specific forum that the OCR culture was taking place. The birth of Nice Work Guy, Koga Shuko and other funny image macros happened there, events that would be remembered forever took place on that spot. Lines such as "Who's _____? Sum n00b" was created there, and I can probably go on forever about my memories that I've stored during my time I've spent there. To me, UnMod was a fun community where I could always go to get a good laugh, but also to inspire me when it came to sigs or just to have somehting to do for 1 hour. It was the first forum I've ever been to, and I'm glad that I ended up there. I am an UnModder. And I'm proud of it.

These was just merely thoughts that I've had during this period, it doesn't necessarily need to be accurate. Feel free to ignore it, but i needed to get it off my chest.

And on an incredibly more minor note: I lost almost ALL my posts when the deletion occurred, so I know I look more n00bish than anyone.

You joined one month ago, don't think you can stop being a n00b that easily.

[Kawaiininjakat Haruspex]

I'm glad you were able to post a genuine reply DJP but I'm still very sad. I've known you since 1999, while under a different username and I suppose at the time a different face, and I can't believe you bent to peer pressure. Sure you respect those people, but it seems like a lot of those people now are either new and just can't understand, or already hated unmod to begin with, what do they really know about the history of this place. You can tell it to them by word of mouth, but if they never lived it, they sure as hell aren't going to respect it. I can remember the time before there was an unmod, or a mass exodus of pissy remixers who all upped and went to vgmix, or a judges panel or any of this and how it went down, and it just doesn't seem right. Unmod may have turned into a dumping ground and I don't agree with many of the things that went down there, but it became the attraction to the site and it made people want to stay. There was a sense of community there unmatched anywhere else on the internet. It made people feel like they belonged to something big, and I don't think many people get that.

I'll always respect you, as you certainly have run one of the most successful sites, the kind of internet fame that some people would sell their left nut to have, but I think that the burning of both sides will leave a massive scar on OCR. One can only hope that Offtop some how covers up most of the more obvious damage.

[Smoke]

I'd like to add a bit from my point of view, having been a moderator since mid 2003:

I was never really for Unmod's deletion, I'd have preferred it if there had been some way to get rid of all the stupid shit and keep the good parts. Hell, I used to post in Unmod for quite some time, and was in charge of the NWG archive for a while too. I left it partially because some people decided it was a good idea to shit on the site staff, and because I found better places to post and enjoy myself.

There's also been some pretty bad generalizations in this topic, and a few things I'd like to address.

The staff not present at Magfest was unaware of Unmod's deletion until after it happened. We didn't have anything to go by. We were caught by surprise just as much as the members(Or at least I was) Same goes for the banning of Ayres.

Yet people decided that their best option was to charge on those who had little knowledge of the actual situation, because they just happened to be around. Not the first time this happened, and somehow I doubt it'll be the last.

Thanks to my job, social life, and not having been feeling too well for the past week or so, I've been out of the loop a bit on a few occasions(Such as the retroactive banning situation) This has also affected my responses in a few cases. Doesn't help if you're the only mod around who has to deal with everything at some points, as it can get rather stressful. I'm sure at least one of you plans to go "Lol internet serious business" at this. Go ahead, it doesn't change the fact that some things are indeed serious business to some. There is a level of responsibility involved in this job which is rather easy to miss.

To be honest, I considered quitting the site staff around the same time Darke decided to actually leave, and for what I'm pretty sure are similar reasons, and other reasons(Such as being held responsible by some for everything that happens on the site, and being expected to explain everyone's decisions)

In the end, I've decided that it's better to stay on and help, even if the job of moderator is a rather thankless one. We get much more comments on what we do "wrong" as opposed to when we do something "right". There's a lot the general audience of the site doesn't see because it's taken care of in time, and there's no credit in that.

I'm not gonna try and defend every action we've taken, because that's rather impossible(Partially because there are actions I don't/didn't agree with, but can see a reasoning for)

Finally: It rather surprises me that when others say pretty much the same thing about the upcoming Off Topic forum that I've been saying for a few days now, they suddenly seem to accept it.

[Coffeeholic]

There were lots of people in unmod who cared about the music on the site and enjoyed it, including myself.

The ratio wasn't nearly 95/5, as djp said, but more like 75% that cared vs. 25% that didn't.

[Syl]

I started coming to OCR for the music.

I started posting in unmod due to curiosity and entertainment.

I eventually stayed for the community.

I knew it couldn't last, this was never really a "shock" to me. I tend to find a group of people whom gets comfortable with doing things without rules, and eventually we just get too comfortable and once the rules do appear; they go overboard. This recently happened where I hang out at college, and it's mirrored as the deletion of the unmods. Although the latter was a far bigger community.

While the community has been slowly degrading for the past couple of months... It was indeed what i felt was "our" section of the internet. I know that we had no place on OCR; considering how little we eventually had to do with music or videogames. Although that was mainly a farce; we all knew that we knew about videogames. We all had certain hobbies and things in familiar. Despite how "disconnected" unmods appeared from OCR; almost everyone who posted there *originated* from OCR regardless. We had stuff in common, part of the reason that LOL INTERNET and everything else we did made a sort of sense.

You could post a picture of a hot as hell asian chick, followed by a picture of a "cute girl"; round it out with an obscure videogame reference in the form of an mspaint guy being raped by a bee with a cock and end the day while contemplating the serious questions in life like "...and it made me smile" or asking for relationship help in the sex ed thread. The latter two were taken seriously for the most part.

It's a place that really made no sense to anyone else; which is why we got so comfortable i suppose. But the unmods were the section of the internet i frequented for 3 fucking years; and seeing it cruelly and quickly removed like that just felt like a bitchslap to pride and community.

[Sir_NutS]

yay for more drama.

I'd say, I've been coming here before the orange ocr days, for both the music and the forums, and I've come to dislike more and more this place. I can see why darke resigned and why smoke almost did though. It's sad, they're of the few people that do a good work and are close to the little community sense that is left here.

Anyways good luck with the offtop thing, All that is left for me here are the compos like PRC, and that only happens twice a month so that isn't much. Also, LOL @ the unmod deletion pictures, hadn't seen those before. If that's not fueling up the fire by offending the few good unmodders, I don't know what is.

[Raziellink]

Oh boy, i've been away from OCR for a few days, and this happens!

Though i didn't participate on any discussion going on in Unmod, i'm kinda sad that it's gone. It was always good for great laugh now and then.

[Bahamut]

There were lots of people in unmod who cared about the music on the site and enjoyed it, including myself.

The ratio wasn't nearly 95/5, as djp said, but more like 75% that cared vs. 25% that didn't.

Seeing as how many people went on childish flood abusing and troll responsing, I would say it's at least 50% who didn't care or are at least misguided about what OCR is about. I don't even want to know what it would've been like with advance notice, especially considering the lack of maturity that some exhibited and are known for. It also makes it incredibly hard for anyone to make a full and complete response to the legitimate complaints like djp made when some people do things like that. Even when I have posted that some of us have apologies to make and we will make a public one soon, people still continued with the same generalizations, and the same assumptions that some of us have made and which got us into this big mess in the first place. People need to calm down and try to understand the rationale on both sides without preconceived notions before getting angry childishly (this goes for everyone, not just you, not just me).

Just to add about the deletion of Unmod, this was not only an unanimous agreement by the moderators, but with many of the judges (if not all), and from what I see has long been planned. The timing was what we were not necessarily in agreement with. I do remember voicing concern that we shouldn't do anything like such while a good portion of the staff was at MAGfest, although in retrospect I should have held to that concern. Knowing what some of Unmod is like, I feared quite strongly that there would be an incredible concentrated backlash if there was advance notice - not necessarily by some of you, but definitely by some of the others who have been known to do despicable things. I do agree that there should have been more preparation, but I do not agree with some people's sentiments that the new forum should have been up - there were a lot of people who were angry at the deletion because they never thought Unmod would be deleted, and took it for granted. We want the new forum to be without any preconceived notions after things calmed down, yet with a lot of the freedom that Unmod had (minus the despised activities). For an example, I know Unmod did some of the trolling because of the newbies they didn't want there - what some of what those newbies have done wouldn't fly in the new forum, and will be handled via moderation.

[Tardigrade]

So, where are you going to go now? .org isn't a replacement so much as a temporary measure, from what I've seen. And nobody can stay in the closet forever.

[The Mutericator]

As thankless as the mods job may be, you're picked because of your ability to handle it. It's like the people who try to pass off Clinton's extramarital affairs by pointing out how stressful the job of President is - that's why people picked him (in theory), because of his ability to handle those pressures and make the right decisions.

I can't speak as an Unmodder - I mostly lurked and only ocassionally posted, preferring to watch and learn from veteran members. I really can, however, vouch for the sense of community shown by the Unmod clan - a clan that all but completely excluded DJP's advice-giving moderators. I think instead of simply deleting Unmod or listening just to people outside it, it would have been a good idea to have a discussion with some of the more mature members - The Coop, once again, springs to mind - and to talk to them about what DJP thinks is bad about Unmod and why it's still there, what the merits of Unmod are, et cetera. Yes, Off Topic may have some of the same stuff, but the community may or may not be there. If it doesn't immediately get a strong start, I think many of the Unmodders who are lurking and waiting to see how it goes will leave, and then OffTop will ultimately fail.

In a best-case scenario, everyone from Unmod comes back to OffTopic and keeps the best stuff - the community, the hentai threads, the ... and it made me smile threads, et cetera. In an okay-case scenario, the Unmodders leave, but a new community forms in its place. In a worst-case scenario, OffTopic becomes simply a slightly-less moderated GenDisc, provoking debates about its reason for existance in the first place.

Thus, I have one suggestion, which I'd like all the members to weigh in on - if Unmod was backed up before it was deleted (hopefully it was), can some of the more famous topics - you know the ones - be moved over to Off Topic at its creation? I'm sure that by this point that OffTopic itself is already there, just not visible to normal members (the sudden disappearance of many gaming-related threads from GenDisc implies such). Help OffTopic to be what it should be - the best of Unmod, without the "crap" - by giving it a headstart. Don't make everyone restart all the old topics again, that just leads to confusion and aggravation.

(If Unmod wasn't backed up before it was deleted, the old forums still have many of the same topics, albeit a week or two out of date - they could simply be imported again into OffTop.)

[Merk]

So if UnMod was deleted because "no one" contributed, and Off-Topic is by definition NOT about video games and music, then what's to prevent the same thing from happening again?

[Bahamut]

Unmod was backed up (everything gets backed up before any changes are made to the forums).

I don't think the off topic forum is made yet though - we have yet to decide on the final name and completely on the rules (there has been some protest over the no porn heh, and we have to revisit talks about deleting PPR or not), although some have requested we leave the name as Off Topic.

There's a good amount we're going to make solid here in the next few days, so

if anyone has any input, feel free to post it.

So if UnMod was deleted because "no one" contributed, and Off-Topic is by definition NOT about video games and music, then what's to prevent the same thing from happening again?

It's true that that problem may be there, but it always is, and OCR would be quite bland with just a Gen Disc when people are more than just about those things. We don't want it to be as separate a community as Unmod was though. More staff interaction, more of the good stuff of Unmod, and more of the jdgh8 that we all cherish.

[Merk]

and more of the jdgh8 that we all cherish.

Even if the judge is Pixietricks? What about modhate?

[Bahamut]

Even if the judge is Pixietricks? What about modhate?

Well, jdghate is in good fun, and she can appreciate that. I've gotten modhate as it is so pour it on! I'm a shtymodfgt.

[DrumUltimA]

bahamut YO USUCK

[pak2rat]

Looking at the past 2 pages, I've noticed something else... Fear. This fear is less from being banned now to OT being deleted if it is seen as "worthless" to the staff as well. All that OCR once had is now gone. There is no respect anymore. Retro banning, the pictures, lack of user input, and deleting while several staff members were away all point to a general lack of respect, which is a pillar in many communities. If we lack respect, how can OT be successful?

[The Mutericator]

Unmod was backed up (everything gets backed up before any changes are made to the forums).

I don't think the off topic forum is made yet though - we have yet to decide on the final name and completely on the rules (there has been some protest over the no porn heh, and we have to revisit talks about deleting PPR or not), although some have requested we leave the name as Off Topic.

Wait, then what happened to the Wii and DS and PSP and other topics? Slightly off-topic, but it is sort of relevant.

[Señor Quetzalcoatl]

They're still there, you're probably viewing the threads in alphabetical order rather than chronological.

I'm also having trouble with that. It keeps resetting to alphabetical for me, won't stay chronological. grrr!