Forums / Maintenance / Suggest Ideas

A few mods and users have discussed this a bit.

Right now there are 3 main general discussion boards.

• Serious Debate for the deep discussion, tl;dr, and serious business.
• General for the casual discussion about anything that was in the news and other casual stuff.
• Riff Raff for the unlimited shitposting.

Between General and Riff Raff you have quite the gap, especially with the specific set of rules Riff Raff uses. It's the /b/ of KYM.

Riff Raff's style of posting and its humor appeals to a specific group of people, the extreme shitposters who don't mind being a dick at times for fun. But it's also a type of fun that really doesn't appeal to other users, users who still like to be on KYM to have fun. Hell, some users even got hurt by Riff Raff (but let's keep that a seperate issue and not discuss it here).

It can be noticed that since the creation of Riff Raff (and removal of JFF), a lot of previous JFF regulars have stopped regularly posting on the site, while they were a very active party that got the community together prior to the change. That's why it was discussed to just bring back the old JFF board while keeping Riff Raff. Riff Raff can keep its special loose rules and have shitposts like there's no tomorrow, no worries there for the fans.

JFF however will follow the same rules as the rest of the forum: more on topic, a better thread focus, no risk of suspensions or people freely being allowed to be an ass. But the board will still be looked at slightly more loosely, because the focus of the board is to have fun. The board is for people who want to have fun, but who simply can't the appeal in the /b/ mentality of Riff Raff. But when this "fun" is rule breaking, the mods have the site rules to back them up.

Good idea? Yes/No?

I think it'd be a good idea to have a board between General and Riff Raff because at the moment there are plenty of potential threads that may not start because a user has no good place to put them. General is your class discussion, then Riff Raff is hanging with druggies behind the alley. There's no board for just hanging out with your friends at your house (to complete the dumb metaphor). I've had a couple of times where I wanted to make a thread, but I didn't feel it belonged in General (because it wasn't 'general' for anything) and didn't want to put it in Riff Raff because I wanted actual fun, not immediate shitposting.

I agree with the move, since jff was a good forum for casual shitposting, and it would bring back a lot of good posters, which is very good for the forums.

I have suggested this to other users. I think the idea is good. You can shitpost and be the biggest prick all you want in Riff-Raff pretty much as usual but then you have the option of not doing that for certain threads and have a silly and fun discussion without shitposting and de-railing.

I can't really see any negatives either. It gives the forums more variety and welcomes people with different senses of fun. Don't like JFF? Go to Riff-Raff. Don't like Riff-Raff? Go to JFF. Or you can do both.

Like sometimes I want to shitpost and all that but I also want a area with more sensibility that still is aimed at having fun.

I totally agree with this. Riff Raff has really turned off a lot of users who used to visit the forums. Some of them even hold grudges against certain mods now because of the shenanigans Riff Raff produces.

I've been waiting for a certain mod only thread to have been made by Rick for a few days to reveal this idea, but since this thread is here, I may as well throw in what was said.

So, in the midst of some discussion on the IRC (if you can call it that) about some users being turned off by the ridicule and mocking nature of Riff Raff, Spider came out and gave this idea. Something that would seemingly solve all the issues being presented. Something most, if not all, of us completely overlooked (with the exception of Spider-byte, of course). He's already outlined it in his post, so, I really don't think I'd do it justice to explain. I will say, though, that I agree with this idea and thank you, Spider.

Also, I didn't make this post only to piggyback on another post. I wanted to share Taryn's input on this idea. I'm not sure if he wants to jump in and share it himself, but I'll just give the gist of it here and let him handle any inquiries anyone might have.

Taryn's idea was to hide Riff Raff. Make it hard to access unless you know what you're doing. This way, anyone who goes into Riff Raff must know what they're getting into and, therefore, comply with the nature of Riff Raff, losing any right to be offended by what they may encounter.

That was what I got from it. If I'm wrong then sorry, Taryn. Feel free to explain better.

Thanks Bob.

I disagree. Mainly because I believe Taryn wants his "Super Secret Oldfag Club" so that he get posts that meets only his and select others requirements. I don't think excluding people is right because they don't have experience (also am I wrong in saying shitposting and being a dick doesn't really require experience).

Also at the moment due to complications (some of you may know but I will just not mention it) Blubber might not be around for a while. Some people believe that a Blubber-less Riff-Raff would be different. It might be good to observe how much it actually changes without him.

Mainly because I believe Taryn wants his “Super Secret Oldfag Club” so that he get posts that meets only his and select others requirements.

Why do you assume I would have the power to do this?

I suggested that Riff-Raff go off the main "forums" page so that anyone wanting to go would have to follow a certain link, go under a certain drop down, etc, so you would have to know explicitly in advance what you were going into and there would be no reason for someone who got their feelings hurt to complain.

At the least, I believe that if JFF gets implemented again, topics in Riff-Raff shouldn't go on the main "forum" page and stay in their own subdomain. A link to Riff-Raff would still be present, but you would actually have to click it to see the threads. This would prevent any new or inexperienced users to open a Riff-Raff thread without knowledge in advance.

I’ve been waiting for a certain mod only thread to have been made by Rick for a few days to reveal this idea, but since this thread is here, I may as well throw in what was said.

Originally this was posted in the mod forum, but by request I made it public to get some user input (the forums are for every user after all).

Also at the moment due to complications (some of you may know but I will just not mention it) Blubber might not be around for a while. Some people believe that a Blubber-less Riff-Raff would be different. It might be good to observe how much it actually changes without him.

Regardless of who is and isn't present, it might still be better to seperate regular fun threads from Riff Raff-style fun threads, for reasons such as Delta explained in his post. Not to forget the Riff Raff rules.

I don't believe we should decide the future of the boards by the activity of one person.

@Taryn

Why not just have it as it is but it doesn't appear on the All board and Riff-Raff rules is just a stickied thread?

@RM

No. I'm not saying that. It's just that you yourself said in the IRC that "If you cut of the head (Blubber) the body (I.e people who follow or act like him) will also fall".
I just think it would be an interesting observation. I'm not saying anything should come of it, but we might see the influence certain users can have on the board.

@S-b

You think that the "All" board garners more traffic than the main "Forums" page?

I didn't even know "All" existed before you mentioned it.

Funnily enough I never use the the main Forums page either.

would this not confuse the users? they could think "JFF" is the new "riff raff".

Wouldn't be much of an issue, as most people see Riff-Raff as "the new JFF".

Riff Raff was meant to be JFF with all the same threads you enjoyed from JFF (minus the forum games and art threads people complained about),

The problem I see is that everyone decided to use Riff Raff to make the shittiest threads possible instead of resuming JFF as normal.

Because you just HAD to do that didn't you?

Shitposting in Riff Raff was a privilege, not an obligation

Not unless we announced that the two boards were being separated. That kind of defeats the purpose of a "hidden" board though, as the idea seems to be dividing the board to get some users more active again.

Overall, I'm not entirely sure what the point would be. You're diving the board into what is essentially a section that would only be a replacement for cringeworthy and shitpost threads (Riff-Raff), and a section for just random themes (JFF). Cringeworthy was locked because it was being used antagonistically, and shitpost general was the place for shitposts. I don't see why we should make that sub-board just so it can be a special snowflake place for a few users who don't like the general rules.

Along with that, who would go there? Most of the people just seem to want general "fun" threads, and those would fit more in JFF. The traffic for a new Riff-Raff doesn't seem like it would be all that great. Certainly not enough to treat it like its own private club and give it its own special place.

If you want a place that's open to being a bit of a dick and posting randomly, then there's always the IRC. It's not exactly the most welcoming place, but neither is Riff-Raff. The only thing I can see against that is that it's not particularly organized.

BSOD said a while back, when the new boards were being discussed:

I don’t believe that traffic is a factor to be concerned about. As the saying goes: Build it and they will come. In my forum experience, I have always found that when you expand the boards and categories for discussion, forums only get bigger. You show to people that there’s more to do and discuss. The only people who will freak out and leave the forum over it are the people who just hate change.

Well, it seems very few are coming. And the people freaking out and leaving? They're the people we actually wanted to stay.

In my opinion, it'd be better off to either leave it as-is, or to kill Riff-Raff entirely and go back to having JFF with the regular 'don't be mean' rules.

Riff Raff was meant to be JFF with all the same threads you enjoyed from JFF

No, it wasn't.

Riff-Raff was meant to be JFF with less restrictions and softer rules on criticism of other users in order to encourage funnier/better posts. People that didn't understand this came into it thinking it was a shit posting only version of JFF and got their feelings hurt when they were rightfully discouraged. That's what this whole thing is all about.

It only makes sense for JFF to come back, as it's an entirely different atmosphere.

@Taryn

Minor detail. But you agree with my point.

Take JFF exactly as it was. Move out the forum games and art threads. What's left was Riff Raff. We knew the remainder would be silly posts so the relaxed rules was offered so that people could be silly. That's what it should have been.

Hence Riff Raff could have been just as good as JFF with the same threads you previously enjoyed. Nothing was stopping Riff Raff from having that same potential of JFF. Me, Blubber and everyone else who supported the idea was counting on that potential

Riff Raff could have had the exact same atmosphere of JFF

But what truly went wrong, as we both agree, is that people changed that atmosphere. They treated it as a place to purely shitpost instead of just JFF without all the crap.

It doesn't end there either. You know what else changed the atmosphere? Attitudes.

Everyones attitude suddenly shifted. Instead of having fun, people took the opportunity to be assholes. Insults, mockery, backstabbing, bullying, anguish, spitefulness. So many 'joke threads' were just snide backstabbery in disguise (Take note of the threads that people complained about most. And who made most of them BTW?).

You people filled Riff Raff with sour attitudes and that ain't the forums fault

JFF should come back. Not because we missed out a gap that we should have included from the start, but because the forum users created a gap that didn't need to be there.

Well, it seems very few are coming. And the people freaking out and leaving? They’re the people we actually wanted to stay.

And it's all thanks to those shitty attitudes coming from ONE board. Video game was growing, serious discussion was growing. Music was growing. But one board lets people down and they just leave the whole place entirely

But I don't blame the board. I blame the users. All of you.

Forums are only what the users make it. And you made it this way

You can bring back "JFF" but what difference will it make if this is how you act?

Yes, I would like to see Just For Fun return, whether it be dropping of Riff Raff or Separation.

Riff Raff… I was deceived. I believed it to be a place where the rules where to be adjusted to allow users to create content without fear of repercussions. Understandably, the dream of that is a paradox. If you have no repercussions, you will spend as little or however much time you like on your content. Most people will spend as little.

It's kinda like setting Minecraft to Creative Mode; yes there will be people who shine with the lack of any rules, building fabulous things, and be showoffs, BUT… the majority are the people who just plant TNT everywhere and blow fucking everything up until they get bored.

And with that, I feel the removal of the standard rules (or rather the way it was done) in Riff Raff was a misguided decision as a means to that end. The golden city everyone thought we where going to get by setting everything to creative mode was both a poorly constructed mess and everywhere is filled with TNT craters.

If Riff Raff stays or gets replaced by Just for Fun, we need a rule adjustment to try and hit that middle ground. The current rules are not working.

@Nats

That rule adjustment would be to remove the relaxed rules. Because that's the only thing separating Riff Raff from JFF

But I still don't think this is about rules. This to me, is an attitude problem. Attitudes to the forum. Attitudes to each other. No rule change will make a difference when attitudes are this sour

Anyway I was thinking of having JFF return, regardless we remove, Riff Raff, or have them be two separate things. As far as I am concerned Riff Raff is doing more negative things to the Forums, than positive. Whoever wrote the rules of Riff Raff where clearly not thinking of the damage they could have caused, or any consequence that it would have brought them.

I love the Forums, and I would do anything to keep them safe, and a place for everyone to enjoy, but lately. Riff Raff has been doing a wonderful job of doing the opposite.

I'm a supporter of the bring back JFF idea. We just need to find a good middle ground so we can have fun, but still be bound to some rules.

All I really want is to people to enjoy the Forums again, and Riff Raff only appeals to a select group of people.

Okay going to keep this brief.

1) Bring back JFF. When I proposed my plan for the new boards to the mods and admins, I figured that by not being so tough on general we could have regular on-topic threads which were also a bit silly.

this was not the case and by all means we should have a place for people who want to be goofy without worry of being mocked or belittled.

2) Riff raff was always intended to be meaner. this is a fact that i cannot imagine anyone missing this fact. go back to the old emails or the old thread and there was a clear intention on repealing the "be nice" rule.

unfortunately the terms we agreed on were somehow still too broad which has brought some confrontation between moderators. that is an issue for another day.

But if i can make one suggestion can we call it "the pussy palace" since it will house our most thin-skinned users.

and Riff Raff only appeals to a select group of people.

You know, I found this comment to be entirely unfounded. So I decided to look into it.

Threads not in Riff-Raff made in the last day in the entire 'Fun!' subforum: 0
Threads made in the last day in the entire 'Maintenance' subforum: 1
Threads made in the last day in the entire 'Media' subforum: 3
Threads made in the last day in the entire 'Discussion' subforum: 5

Threads made in the last day in Riff-Raff: 7

Just because you don't like it doesn't mean other people don't like it, friend.

@Blubber

If you want it to house our meaner users, why have it so prevalent where everyone can see it? It's like having a prison next to a toy store. People wouldn't want to go to that toy store. Really it's just my opinion, and I don't really have much say.

I also have a just as silly suggestion as my friend here.
Make Riff Raff hidden, and have some convoluted way of getting there without it being so public.
Yes, yes, it's a silly bad idea on purpose.

Riff Raff only appeals to a select group of people.

Y'know, this line of text really upset me for some reason. I'm not gonna say why.

Anyway, I strongly oppose the bringing back of JFF. Keep Riff Raff.

now i'm not sure about your analogy but i'm not against hiding riff raff. i can't say what kind of wimp you would have to be to get upset by seeing thread titles (since you never have to read a thread).

but making sure that people who want to go to riff raff have to deliberately go there is fine by me. and since we have the mod forum hidden i can't imagine a semi-hidden forum would be impossible.

Riff raff was always intended to be meaner. this is a fact that i cannot imagine anyone missing this fact. go back to the old emails or the old thread and there was a clear intention on repealing the “be nice” rule.

I knew that, and I figured it wouldn't go beyond just some humorous riffs.

But then the resentment starting building up anyway. Next thing you know people started complaining left and right.

It may have been clear to most of the mods what the boards intention was, but not to most of the users who seemed confused as to whether or not this was a place to shitpost or a place to be mean.

Perhaps that is where we need to make the separation: So we need a board where we can make silly shitposts. And a board where we can be assholes to each other. Two different things

sure, sounds reasonable. i'm all for riff-raff and "the Princess Playhouse" or whatever we call that forum.

I say we should have a separate forum to post in. It can't hurt. If users still want to use Riff-Raff, they can.

may have been clear to most of the mods what the boards intention was, but not to most of the users who seemed confused as to whether or not this was a place to shitpost or a place to be mean.

^That

I'm pretty in touch with most of the mods, but I didn't stop to think to see if other users where aware of this.

So did anyone make sure people got word what the board was meant for before it going public?

Suggestion!

Can we rename Riff Raff to "The Salty Spittoon"

@Blubber

I'm not sympathetic about people who are easily offended by mere threads any more than you

But I am concerned about the number of people who feel that the "meanness" of Riff Raff made it a board that they couldn't associate with and they lost interest in it

I bought along with your idea's because like you: I want this forum to grow. But I can't ignore the fact of the matter either, which is numerous people having a problem with Riff Raff that's driving them away. I see this problem mainly being about hanging auras of anger and resentment between users. And that's stifling all that growth. Calling those people "babies who can't handle" is ignoring the problem.

I'm all for Riff Raff being relegated as the shitpost haven that everybody, including people not part of the original talks understood it to be. At least that part was perfectly clear and unmistakable by everyone.

I see the 'mean' aspects as the problem that's bringing everyone down. Less so much the shitposting since many people enjoy shitposting and those that don't can post in any of the other boards.

We can move 'mean' stuff to another, less prevalent board where you can be as mean as you like. From the sound of things we can agree to call that new board "Riff Raff" and then change the original Riff Raff to JFF

Taryn wrote:

Just because you don’t like it doesn’t mean other people don’t like it, friend.

Because creating a thread fitting for Riff Raff does require an actual topic and focus and is VERY DIFFICULT.

Of course Riff Raff has more new threads, because it's freakin' childs play to make one there.

@Blubber

I don't really care if people think we're dealing with pussies or no-fun allowed here, fact remains that the attitude of Riff Raff has hurt the activity of a serious amount of good regulars who really just hope to have fun like everyone. You and I both want a growing community, so Riff Raff is kinda counterproductive in a way.

Some also just want to have fun, but not Riff Raff shitpost fun. Different fun appeals to different people.

@Neonwabbit

The idea is to keep both, so Riff Raff will stay. Try to actually read the next time.

Also it should be made clear shitposting and being a dick is solely confined to Riff-Raff. None of these threads.

Also I'm unsure on the suspensions too. I'm sure everyone can get over them but it just seems like it just gives mods to be a dick and inconvenience people because they don't like what they post. I don't think it's a big issue but something we could think about.

Yes, bringing back JFF is a great idea. Sometimes I think of a thread idea too silly for General but too serious for Riff-Raff. However, I think Riff-Raff should stay. What good would removing it really do? From what I've seen, Riff-Raff has brought new life to the forums. However, like people have mentioned, it also sort of poked a whole in the forums, but bringing back JFF would fix this. I see no reason to remove one of them. You'll only be driving some people away if one is removed. From what I've seen, the only people who want Riff-Raff gone or don't care if it is removed are people who never post in it. Your opinion doesn't encompass everyone. As Taryn showed, there is a large audience for it whether you like it or not.

Also, could someone tell me some people who left after Riff-Raff was implemented? I never really noticed it. Well, I did notice Ann became a lot less active, but I'm not sure if it's for this reason. Any examples?

But if i can make one suggestion can we call it “the pussy palace” since it will house our most thin-skinned users.

sure, sounds reasonable. i’m all for riff-raff and “the Princess Playhouse” or whatever we call that forum.

Suggestion!
Can we rename Riff Raff to “The Salty Spittoon”

Can we avoid namecalling, for right now.

Jesus, do any of you even read.

The idea is to keep both! JFF for regular fun, and Riff Raff for /s4s/-style fun.

I already said this like 4 times in this thread.

@taryn

I don't really see the need to censor Riff Raff threads from the forum page. As Blubber said, you'd have to be quite the pussy if thread titles already insult you, and you probably should avoid the internet if you're that thin-skinned. Feels like unnecessary pampering.

I know that's the idea, I'm just saying there are a few people in this thread who have said they wouldn't care if Riff Raff is removed or would prefer it removed, so I'm responding to them, not your original post.

Soooooo, is this going to happen at all? This thread stopped dead in its tracks. I assume you guys are talking about it in your secret mod club to some extent, but could we have any confirmation on this at all?

Bumping to say I made the thread in mod forum.

I think you all need to stop micro managing everything.

I honestly cant believe someone's feelings got hurt on the internet.

I'm suprised that you're suprised that someone got hurt on the internet.

No matter how it is, there's always someone out there who will take the internet too seriously.

Even if there are people like that, it's still kind of like complaining that you got eaten by a pack of wolves while taking a casual walk in the wildest and deepest forest at night.
Even with all the repeated "Internet is a dangerous place" pretty much everywhere, people still fall for that.

People here aren't understanding the point. It's not that "they had their feelings hurt" it's that people don't like the shitposty nature of riff raff. I am myself getting bored with these posts that are just not fun anymore. Users are making threads called "hey guis" where they just post "lol ebin don memes. you got memed on hahahahahaha funny amirite?"

It’s the /b/ of KYM.

In spite of my efforts to turn it into [s4s]

Riff-raff is a nice forum.

Well, there's that and there's also my reason for wanting it which is simply categorization. There are tons of threads that are too silly to be in General but not shitposty enough to go in Riff-Raff. That's the reason it should be added, so it can be a bridge between boards.

As for Riff-Raff, the board still deserves to stay up. Every once in a while it can still provide amazing content if people are given inspiration despite the overflow of shitty threads. That board is a petri dish for garbage, but it can churn out some masterpieces as well. For example, I find this massive deactivation-scare thing to be absolutely hilarious.

meanwhile in mod forum

It's up now.

Yes! Thank you! I thought of all kinds of ideas to post in JFF before, but now I forget them all. :/

Ah well, I'll just enjoy other people's work. Now the forums feel complete. The bridge has been built!

Well it happened so thread lock.