Fate of the MSPA Forums

I'm just going to go ahead and be that guy. I'm deeply uncomfortable with a lot of what's being said in this thread. I didn't know why until just now, though, especially since a lot of it is right. It just all reminds me of all the internet washing up next to everyone even tangentially related to Andrew Hussie and WhatPumpkin and overwhelming them. There's reasons why Soft Owl, Drillgorg, Andrew himself, and so many others have made themselves scarce: the constant stream of attention either wore on too long or took on a tenor that was unsettling.

People here are talking about customer service, but it bears reminding that customer service is one of those jobs willingly taken if you happen to like subjecting yourself to hellish behavior.

Well, if you want to move from "a guy drawing webcomics" to "a media publishing company", you actually need customer service.

Nobody ever said it's an easy job. But if you want customers, you need to be able to handle them.

So many well-established companies just don't get this either, unfortunately. Wizards of the Coast put Mike Mearls (and, for a while, Monte Cook) in charge of this stuff--and it was damn near constant foot-in-mouth syndrome, because Mearls doesn't know the first thing about PR (and Cook, while much more PR knowledgeable, was completely out of touch with the community).

Was that tumblr post a bit heated? Sure. Was it a stronger reaction than you might find elsewhere in the fandom? Sure. But was it *unwarranted*? No, not one bit. And the core reason for that is that we weren't being critical of people who are very busy; we weren't being demanding, whiny twats who need constant attention in order to be satisfied something is happening.

We literally didn't know anything. We didn't know if WP was aware of the problem. We didn't know anything was being done, if they were aware. For what little we knew, the forum was dead forever, and WP didn't even care enough to let us know. It's not, in the LEAST, entitlement to want to hear something, ANYTHING, about what's going on. Literally a single tweet from an official source, or a quick Tumblr post or something, to say, "MSPAF was hacked--a lot of damage was done. We're working on it, but fixes will take time, as we're very busy with the end of Homestuck." That would fit in a single tweet (I believe it's 135 characters), conveys all the critical information we care about, and lets us know that we should settle in for some waiting because they have so much to do. But we didn't get *anything at all.*

So that's why I, personally, am not super enthused with the answer we got--even if it is good and useful, and even if it comes from a place of frustration and wanting to spend little time on non-critical actions. Whoever said that was the one being entitled: when Bad Shit happens, the purveyors of a service really aren't entitled to complete and total silence. They're kinda required to *say* something, so we know what's going on. Because we, as the consumers, actually do kinda have a right to know what's up with the service, beyond the incredibly fake-looking 'down for maintenance' page.

As someone who currently works in customer-service, i can say without a doubt that is was NOT my (nonexistant) masochistic streak which has led me to choosing this profession, but rather a peculiar combination of my tangential interest and training in computers and electronics as-well as my love of not starving to death/not becoming homeless.

At the end of the day it's a job, one that i try my best to do well.
But i will share with you some first-hand wisdom i have acquired. Namely that just keeping quiet does NOT make the sh*t-flinging screaming monkey valued customer on the other end of the line go away.

Things could have been handled better is what i'm trying to say here.

Also, regarding updates, mspfanventures.com/ is thankfully still online. Most of the fanventures were being mirrored there as-well by the creators themselves or other moderators.
Unfortunately, the site doesn't have a Disqus or comment system in place, so the fandom is still scattered to the winds with no real way of reconnecting. :/

I was running a fan adventure on mspaforums [Plug in signature]. I just got the tumblr for it updated and was about to tell all my readers when i found out the site went down. I've lost a majority of my readers and almost lost contact with my co-artist [thankfully i could find their tumblr] because of this. If the mspaforum is down for good that might be the end of my fan adventure, which is not something i want. I really really really hope that the forums return soon.

Okay, i think i may have (figuratively) cracked it thanks to this Reddit post.

Seems like the software which the forums ran on was, aside from notoriously buggy (thou shalth not mention Zalgo), also riddled with zero-day exploits, some of which could have endangered the security of user's passwords.

The fact that, apparently, the forums were at-first still accessible even as the Maintenance page was up, seems to indicate this may have been a (poorly) calculated move on the side of the forum admins, rather than a malicious attack.

Soo, uh... good news everyone?

Maybe the migration or update to the new forum software won't also delete all the content ...one can only hope :I

Regardless, i know at-least one artist that has already found another forum and mentioned they will not be returning to MSPA even if/when it does come back

It wasn't just this, i do believe this was the putative last straw. There were also arbitrary shutdown of threads at the slightest provocation and the suffocating environment perpetuated by the stringent rules (gore is fine, but any foul language even within the context of the story earned you death-from-above at the claws of a certain obnoxious purple owl)

And let me just air this out of my system and let everyone know that i had absolutely no love for SoftOwl's tyrannical bipolar mood-swings.

I get that she was under a lot of stress herself, but here's an idea. If you know you don't have a "thick skin" and can't handle the extra stress of managing an online community, then just don't.
And ffs, don't abuse your position and go after people at the slightest provocation just so you can feel better about yourself.

I've interacted with a couple of moderators in the past whenever threads got taken down, some of their avatars i recognize here and there among this forum and others, and these people have always been responsive in PM's and even dare-i-say courteous.

SoftOwl was the only one who ever handed me a strike for daring to object to her decision. (well, multiple ...on several different occasions >_>)

Soo... not saying that MSPAF being down is a good thing... but maybe we all needed a wake-up call.

Sorry about the rant, there were some things i just feel i had to work through.

EDIT: Guess i'm at stage "Anger" of the grieving process ...but i think i'll skip the "Bargaining" part this time and just go to "Acceptance" >.>

While most people here are being pretty reasonable and raising valid concerns tbh the level of criticism leveled at WP and the entitlement that has gone around here is more than a little offputting.

I mean, we're talking about a 'service' that is 100% free and probably not even handled by the company itself. It's just an auxiliary website of another website that is ALSO 100% free and run by a single guy predating the existence of the company being held at large.

If I didn't already think the rather hypocritical and alarmingly selfish opinions going around here was already over the line, the less-than-civil interactions with ANYONE who might supply the answers wanted definitely did. For a crowd so vitriolically demanding not only openness but also politeness, it's kind of shocking to see how little of the latter there has been to see here.

Again, not that I don't get where these people are coming from. I guess what I'm really disappointed by is it feels like almost nobody here seems to think it isn't worth getting upset over and that we're all capable of being patient while the situation is being worked out.

Anyway I've had my fill of this thread so I'mma peace out later y'all

I'd be cool like a cucumber in a bath robe with a cup of tea and their favorite book, if I was actually sure that things ARE being worked on.

Honestly i probly shouldn't even have brought it up, but the fact that it's been years now since my last interaction with her and i still can't let it go frankly bothers me. And if i can't clear the air now, i probably never will.

I doubt i was even a blip on her radar. I interacted with her on only a few occasions, and each time it was a minor infraction. But each time she made me it clear that it was HER HOUSE and that i was some cockroach dragging mud across her carpets.

She seemed to really relish on picking fights and provoking people by flaunting her "authority". At the end she was always always flanked by another mod, not to back her up, but to reel her in and provide a calm voice. That;s the feeling i got.

I'm not surprised she quit. I guess being a ball of hatred and bile must get tiring after a couple of years.

And this is not a personal attack, it's personal experience.

And if we don't seize this opportunity to air our grievances and ask for not only a better forum, but also better treatment as fans, then we're never going to get either. (i don't care if they run ads on the new forum, i'd gladly whitelist it on my adblocker if it meant we get even an ounce more of respect as fans)

Forum moderation is hard, especially if it's a big community that you're invested in. I don't say that to justify what was done--I don't know your situation, and like many (perhaps most) I have my definite reservations about how things were handled in general. But for a lot of reasons it's easy to come across as a huge jerk when you're really just a normal person trying your best.

Well you shouldn't have.
Whether or not Soft Owl was good at moderation is completely irrelevant to this topic or anything that should be brought up right now.
The last communication we had related to her was that she doesn't even work with the site any more, and she has also completely vanished from the internet, so all that having this discussion can do is drop bile on someone who can't defend themselves, for absolutely no useful purpose.