I am going to try and write this in a polite, serious, calm manner. As you all know, this is new for me, but I am doing it out of respect for those who do not deserve to be yelled at, but mostly out of respect for San00b, and his (mostly silent) wish that I try to get valid points across without flipping my lid and raging, like I used to.
Yes, there are people in this community that are particularly fond of my little pony.
Yes, there are people in this commuinty that are particularly annoyed by my little pony.
Yes, there are people in this community that are INCREDIBLY pissed at all the issue a cartoonshow for little girls is causing.
I am somewhere between the last two options, mostly the last one. And yes, I did watch a couple of Pony episodes, so I do know what I am talking about. That said, I do feel that people should be free to discuss most things in this community. However, for me, the obsession of some, and the counter-reaction to that obsession by others, is coming to a point where I consider it nearly as inflammable as religious and politics discussions.
Having discussed this with San00b however, the official standpoint is that we will not censor people's rights to talk about things, and express their intrest in them. That said, we do have to find a happy middle.
San00b has a lot on his plate now, he is under a lot of pressure to deal with the website, the forums, and all the problems that gives in the back end, so once again, out of respect for him, and out of gratitude for what he is doing, I am making this post, and keeping it civil and clean.
Now, let me try to outline what annoys people about the whole pony thing in the following spoiler tag, because I am not sure that all of the pony lovers get it. Also, not all of the pony lovers take it to this extent, but a number of you do.I will also attempt (and probably fail) to rationalize the way pony lovers think.
Now, imagine a see saw, with on one end the pony lovers, on the other hand, the pony dislikers.
Ideally, the see saw is perfectly balanced, and it is our jobs, as admins, to keep it balanced. However, every time the balance shifts, outlined by the situational sketches I did in the spoiler tag, more weight is added to one side of the see-saw, causing a more violent and faster reaction on the other end. We, the head staff, have in a way, enabled this to happen, and we ended up to the point where today, very nearly two people, one of them me, resigned because of the pony issue.
So, I ask everybody to help in reducing the strain on the head admins, and reducing the violent tipping of the see saw.
Pony lovers, please accept and respect that not everyone wants to be confronted all the time with ponies, and that we are not a pony community. You can have an avatar, and / or a signature, you have a thread to talk about it, you can go into a seperate channel in TeamSpeak to talk about it. Please, however, be so kind as to not spam it everywhere, don't tag our Team Fortress 2 game days with ponies, don't paste them all over the forums, and ask yourself: "Do I really need a pony skin, a pony avartar, a pony image and pony quote signature on the forums, and a pony skin in minecraft, as well as pony avatars in our facebook and steam group, and a pony avatar and nickname in TeamSpeak?" Like I said, we are not a pony community, there really are better places for you to share your love and fandom of ponies. Keep in mind, that if you openly expose a fan like devotion to the point where it starts fitting the craze of Bieber or twilight, that you will end up being mocked or teased. If you can't handle it, keep it in the closet.
Pony dislikers, please accept and respect that some people really love ponies. instead of acting out, you could always ask the head admins to step in, if you feel annoyed by the flood, or better yet, open up a normal, adult conversation and try to ask them to keep thier snouts or hooves out of your face. Don't become your own vigilante and start trolling them, or taking it out on them just because they are fans of something you think is stupid as hell. They most likely don't mean to cause you any annoyance or trouble, they are just devoted fans, and wish to show the world their support of something they love. Also, keep in mind that they tend to be sensitive about the issue, exactly because they have such an emotional investment in the subject, that they will be very easily and quickly hurt when you do mock them. So please, have some decency, and show that, while you may not agree, understand or even appreciate thier devotion, you do respect them enough to let them be, as long as they do not shove it down your throat. Keep in mind, they have their own thread. If the subject irritates you, you shouldn't be in that thread.
Lastly, to the trolls: I am done with these nonsense things, if I see anyone trying to ignite this powderkeg again, I will start handing out (temp) bans. And yes, I will decide if it is just mocking or actually trolling. This goes for the instigator trolls on both sides.
Now, please be so kind as to read this all from the top again, because it is a long post, and you will probably have skipped over some important parts on your first time through. Thank you.
Yes, there are people in this community that are particularly fond of my little pony.
Yes, there are people in this commuinty that are particularly annoyed by my little pony.
Yes, there are people in this community that are INCREDIBLY pissed at all the issue a cartoonshow for little girls is causing.
I am somewhere between the last two options, mostly the last one. And yes, I did watch a couple of Pony episodes, so I do know what I am talking about. That said, I do feel that people should be free to discuss most things in this community. However, for me, the obsession of some, and the counter-reaction to that obsession by others, is coming to a point where I consider it nearly as inflammable as religious and politics discussions.
Having discussed this with San00b however, the official standpoint is that we will not censor people's rights to talk about things, and express their intrest in them. That said, we do have to find a happy middle.
San00b has a lot on his plate now, he is under a lot of pressure to deal with the website, the forums, and all the problems that gives in the back end, so once again, out of respect for him, and out of gratitude for what he is doing, I am making this post, and keeping it civil and clean.
Now, let me try to outline what annoys people about the whole pony thing in the following spoiler tag, because I am not sure that all of the pony lovers get it. Also, not all of the pony lovers take it to this extent, but a number of you do.I will also attempt (and probably fail) to rationalize the way pony lovers think.
What makes up the full annoyance, is a number of minor and major annoyances.
First, there is just the sheer mass of pony related bombardment going on.
People who do not enjoy the show, or even have an aversion to the show get confronted by it in nearly all aspects of our community. They cannot go on the forums without a plethora of pony avatars, signatures, or, on the old forums, some 160 pages of pony related material. It's hard to go on a server, and not see at least one pony skin. It's nearly impossible to go on TeamSpeak without seeing ponies / pony related nicknames / talk about ponies. It is impossible to have a Team Fotress 2 community playday and not to see pony tags sprayed everywhere. Avatars also fill our steam community and most likely facebook as well.
There is such a thing as "too much of a good thing". And when the thing isn't good for you, you get annoyed at being flooded by it without your consent, REALLY easily.
Then, there's the psychological aspect. It feels like the pony lovers are trying to shove it down thier throat. Especially since they know, or should know, it's not wanted by a lot of people, yet they keep on pushing it, making more avatars, skins, spray tags, etcetera, everywhere. This causes even more resentment. I am not saying it is true or false, I am just using basic psychology here to outline a likely line of reasoning, fuelled by the annoyance established already.
Lastly, when the annoyance and frustration finally boils over, and you do act on it, by a bit of trolling, or just getting angry, or making a sloth counterpart (which I personally thought was funny as hell, let's be honest. you pony lovers would watch that show too.) The pony lovers either respond in a "Lol, why u mad bro? We just bronies!" manner, or they start filing complaints about being abused and trolled. So you're effectively stopped from showing your disagreement in any way, or even being effectively trolled, be it intentional or unintentional, leading to even MORE frustration and anger about the situation.
Then there are the pony lovers.
You find a show, watch it and think: "THIS IS AWESOME! OMG I LOVE THIS SHOW, I WANT TO BE A PONY" so you start changing your avatar to it, change your skin, change your signature. You start talking about it to other people, you show your favourite pony by spray tags, and at least some of you won't have any idea why these random people are getting so mad at you. In essence, however, to these outsiders you have become like one of those nuts little girls, or middle aged women, screaming at Justin Bieber, fainting when they think he smiles at them, or one of those crazed twilight fans, that decide to get a full back tattoo of Edward, or Bella, or whoever that other dude was. In other words, a completely over the top insane pushy fan. Then, when people do lash out, you feel genuinely hurt, and don't understand why people would be so mean to you, so you go and complain about it to a head administrator, like you should.
A few others, however, also take the opportunity to try and troll the people who really dislike ponies, and gloat over a victorious moment, when the pony dislikers retaliate, and head admin have to step in because the dislikers decided to retaliate instead of come to head staff, and the pony folk complain about that. Then, because Head admin stepped in, the normal pony lovers are strengthened in thier belief that thier, let's call it, dedication, to ponies is causing no harm, and that they are safe, whereass the pony trolls realize... "hey, we can push it a bit further now."
First, there is just the sheer mass of pony related bombardment going on.
People who do not enjoy the show, or even have an aversion to the show get confronted by it in nearly all aspects of our community. They cannot go on the forums without a plethora of pony avatars, signatures, or, on the old forums, some 160 pages of pony related material. It's hard to go on a server, and not see at least one pony skin. It's nearly impossible to go on TeamSpeak without seeing ponies / pony related nicknames / talk about ponies. It is impossible to have a Team Fotress 2 community playday and not to see pony tags sprayed everywhere. Avatars also fill our steam community and most likely facebook as well.
There is such a thing as "too much of a good thing". And when the thing isn't good for you, you get annoyed at being flooded by it without your consent, REALLY easily.
Then, there's the psychological aspect. It feels like the pony lovers are trying to shove it down thier throat. Especially since they know, or should know, it's not wanted by a lot of people, yet they keep on pushing it, making more avatars, skins, spray tags, etcetera, everywhere. This causes even more resentment. I am not saying it is true or false, I am just using basic psychology here to outline a likely line of reasoning, fuelled by the annoyance established already.
Lastly, when the annoyance and frustration finally boils over, and you do act on it, by a bit of trolling, or just getting angry, or making a sloth counterpart (which I personally thought was funny as hell, let's be honest. you pony lovers would watch that show too.) The pony lovers either respond in a "Lol, why u mad bro? We just bronies!" manner, or they start filing complaints about being abused and trolled. So you're effectively stopped from showing your disagreement in any way, or even being effectively trolled, be it intentional or unintentional, leading to even MORE frustration and anger about the situation.
Then there are the pony lovers.
You find a show, watch it and think: "THIS IS AWESOME! OMG I LOVE THIS SHOW, I WANT TO BE A PONY" so you start changing your avatar to it, change your skin, change your signature. You start talking about it to other people, you show your favourite pony by spray tags, and at least some of you won't have any idea why these random people are getting so mad at you. In essence, however, to these outsiders you have become like one of those nuts little girls, or middle aged women, screaming at Justin Bieber, fainting when they think he smiles at them, or one of those crazed twilight fans, that decide to get a full back tattoo of Edward, or Bella, or whoever that other dude was. In other words, a completely over the top insane pushy fan. Then, when people do lash out, you feel genuinely hurt, and don't understand why people would be so mean to you, so you go and complain about it to a head administrator, like you should.
A few others, however, also take the opportunity to try and troll the people who really dislike ponies, and gloat over a victorious moment, when the pony dislikers retaliate, and head admin have to step in because the dislikers decided to retaliate instead of come to head staff, and the pony folk complain about that. Then, because Head admin stepped in, the normal pony lovers are strengthened in thier belief that thier, let's call it, dedication, to ponies is causing no harm, and that they are safe, whereass the pony trolls realize... "hey, we can push it a bit further now."
Now, imagine a see saw, with on one end the pony lovers, on the other hand, the pony dislikers.
Ideally, the see saw is perfectly balanced, and it is our jobs, as admins, to keep it balanced. However, every time the balance shifts, outlined by the situational sketches I did in the spoiler tag, more weight is added to one side of the see-saw, causing a more violent and faster reaction on the other end. We, the head staff, have in a way, enabled this to happen, and we ended up to the point where today, very nearly two people, one of them me, resigned because of the pony issue.
So, I ask everybody to help in reducing the strain on the head admins, and reducing the violent tipping of the see saw.
Pony lovers, please accept and respect that not everyone wants to be confronted all the time with ponies, and that we are not a pony community. You can have an avatar, and / or a signature, you have a thread to talk about it, you can go into a seperate channel in TeamSpeak to talk about it. Please, however, be so kind as to not spam it everywhere, don't tag our Team Fortress 2 game days with ponies, don't paste them all over the forums, and ask yourself: "Do I really need a pony skin, a pony avartar, a pony image and pony quote signature on the forums, and a pony skin in minecraft, as well as pony avatars in our facebook and steam group, and a pony avatar and nickname in TeamSpeak?" Like I said, we are not a pony community, there really are better places for you to share your love and fandom of ponies. Keep in mind, that if you openly expose a fan like devotion to the point where it starts fitting the craze of Bieber or twilight, that you will end up being mocked or teased. If you can't handle it, keep it in the closet.
Pony dislikers, please accept and respect that some people really love ponies. instead of acting out, you could always ask the head admins to step in, if you feel annoyed by the flood, or better yet, open up a normal, adult conversation and try to ask them to keep thier snouts or hooves out of your face. Don't become your own vigilante and start trolling them, or taking it out on them just because they are fans of something you think is stupid as hell. They most likely don't mean to cause you any annoyance or trouble, they are just devoted fans, and wish to show the world their support of something they love. Also, keep in mind that they tend to be sensitive about the issue, exactly because they have such an emotional investment in the subject, that they will be very easily and quickly hurt when you do mock them. So please, have some decency, and show that, while you may not agree, understand or even appreciate thier devotion, you do respect them enough to let them be, as long as they do not shove it down your throat. Keep in mind, they have their own thread. If the subject irritates you, you shouldn't be in that thread.
Lastly, to the trolls: I am done with these nonsense things, if I see anyone trying to ignite this powderkeg again, I will start handing out (temp) bans. And yes, I will decide if it is just mocking or actually trolling. This goes for the instigator trolls on both sides.
Now, please be so kind as to read this all from the top again, because it is a long post, and you will probably have skipped over some important parts on your first time through. Thank you.
