alright so i finally got around to making this post (much to everyone's relief). ive wanted to point out the differences between the new and old users for a while and make some comments about the new reborn culture as a whole.
on the culture:
for most of the users present on the forums today, there was no time before shofu started playing this game. as a community, we owe a great amount of our growth over the last few years to him. im forever grateful that ive become a part of this community even if i stay rather distant. the main reason behind my reservedness to become an active part of the community is because of how my type of attitude and predisposure has been treated in the past. ive always been in love with the "old" reborn but the more and more i look back on it i realize how unnecessarily strict it may have been. of course, there's always the fact that i may look back on my actions without accounting for the fact that im stubborn and always believe i am in the right, but nevertheless i believe the community as a whole has become a bit more lax in some ways but has somehow stayed very very anti-"public dispute". what im talking about is that i feel like despite the community becoming more mature as a whole, we somehow have regressed into this sort of schoolyard-esque zero-tolerance policy when it comes to users disagreeing. now, i believe that any user should be able to publicly call-out what they believe is unfair or intolerable without the powers that be immediately shutting down any discussion because "this has gone on long enough" or "this has gotten off track". i get that it's up to the auth team as a whole to police the forums and keep everyone in check but in my mind, "in check" has come to mean "on the singular path we want discussions flowing in". there's no room for healthy arguments and any deviation from what is distinguished as a "model user" promptly gets redirected (read: shut down) back on track. i understand that you cant just let users run free and make actual hurtful call-out posts but when people are uncomfortable with certain behavior and they cannot speak out against it without fear of being reprimanded, they feel unsafe here and may leave. as someone who cares about this community, i feel like the current reborn ecosystem is driving away newcomers to an extent.
on the differences between old and new users:
now, i dont have as much to write about here but i feel like the newest users have a certain disregard for how far this community has come and how it's lasted over the years. this community is very resilient and even after host gator, many server moves, server outages, and general "shit the bed" type situations it has remained strong and continued growing throughout the years. i feel like the newest users dont respect or care about the troubles that have faced this place and it honestly saddens me.
conclusion:
im not exactly sure what i was upset about when i wanted to make this thread about a month ago. it seems to be lost on me lmao. but i do and always will be interested in group dynamics and i will always have a certain disrespect for authority which causes me to push for change in almost every situation i am in. now, im not exactly pushing for change with this thread, i just wanted to outline my thoughts on reborn's complex and intricate userbase and why i feel the community has shifted away from harboring actual discussions. im also not very good at wording things and only had about 30 minutes to write all of this so i will definitely be keeping up with this thread and commenting if something i said has been misinterpreted.
-a grumpy old man