Best Ever Albums

Re: Lounge

benpaco — Mon, 28 Apr 2014 01:17:31 GMT

Author: benpaco

Posted: 04/28/2014 05:17

albummaster wrote:

No. People need professional help for these types of issues, not the type of help offered here.

Jokes are fine, so long as they are not about other members.

Can't say I necessarily agree with either of these, but I'll respect them and at the very least turn to PM if I really feel the need to reach out to someone for that help (and I'd hope others feel the same). I'm more comfortable turning to y'all than I would be to a professional, but again, I respect your decision, AM, and will follow that.

Re: Lounge

albummaster — Sun, 27 Apr 2014 03:46:22 GMT

Author: albummaster

Posted: 04/27/2014 07:46

benpaco wrote:

No. People need professional help for these types of issues, not the type of help offered here.

benpaco wrote:

2 Again I understand not discussing other members, but may I ask for clarification that jokes, as long as both sides think they're funny, be tolerated?

Jokes are fine, so long as they are not about other members.

Re: Rethinking the forums structure

Anonymous — Sat, 26 Apr 2014 18:46:29 GMT

Author: Anonymous

Posted: 04/26/2014 22:46

Eh, my rant wasn't directed specifically at you, puncture. Hell, it was partly directed at me. We can all be friends and still realize that it's just an internet forum.

That's all, really. I appreciate the kind words, though. And no worries, things are going fine IRL, I'm just trying to keep it that way.

Re: Rethinking the forums structure

Anonymous — Sat, 26 Apr 2014 18:11:11 GMT

Author: Anonymous

Posted: 04/26/2014 22:11

sp4cetiger wrote:

Oh, stop it. This is exactly the sort of melodrama I need a break from. The forums thrived for years before I started UPotD and the disappearance of a single daily album thread is not going to mean the death of BEA as we know it. People here act as if we're all one big family, but family members don't disappear from your lives at the drop of a hat or think about you as a daily canned thread. BEA doesn't need you and it doesn't need me.

But you know who does need me? My son. My wife. My mother-in-law. They need me to not be sitting here thinking about the wording of a forum post when it's a beautiful sunny day and they're outside playing. They need me to not be preoccupied by the disappearance of a forum friend when they're coming to me with their own troubles. They need me to make sure that my hobby always takes a back seat to my family. I do care about each and every single one of you and I will be available by PM if you need help with UPotD or just want to talk. But my real life has to come first.

Anybody who has a problem with that should probably just keep it to themselves, cause I don't think the forums need any further drama.

I'm sorry for saying what I did, it was short-sighted of me.

I hope you'll believe me when I say that when I mentioned you putting UPotD on hold, it was really an attempt to say how great a thing it was for you to take your time to organise, but also I jumped to a conclusion that the suspension was a further attempt to boycott the site, which I realize now is entirely wrong.

Thinking about it now, it was an incredibly stupid thing for me to say. We don't deserve users like you, I realize that now, and I hope all is well in life beyond BEA.

Re: Rethinking the forums structure

Anonymous — Sat, 26 Apr 2014 17:33:28 GMT

Author: Anonymous

Posted: 04/26/2014 21:33

You're the best, Ben. Really. 😄

Re: Lounge

benpaco — Sat, 26 Apr 2014 17:24:52 GMT

Author: benpaco

Posted: 04/26/2014 21:24

albummaster wrote:

The Lounge has now been re-opened. However, it will no longer be a place to talk about personal issues or to discuss other members. Those types of thread rarely end up a with positive outcome and detract from the focus of the site. Instead, please take those types of issues off-line, or away from the site.

May I ask, AM for the simple clarifications:

1 Do you see a difference between "personal issues" and more of an emergency situation? For example, I agree that a situation of "I'm pining over this girl" or something menial like that is probably best suited for other realms of the internet, but one of the unique things here is the support for people in more serious times - things like "I'm thinking about killing myself" or "My mom's cancer came back". Would you be OK with us still asking for support or at least discussing such issues?

2 Again I understand not discussing other members, but may I ask for clarification that jokes, as long as both sides think they're funny, be tolerated? I'm going to use a weird metaphor to explain what I mean, but in Dragon Age, you have 3 people follow you around at all times and banter amongst themselves. There's 3 types of dialogue that can occur: First is the plain hate. Fenris' racist remarks towards mages in the game have no place but to be mean, and I agree something like that shouldn't be allowed here. Second is a joke that only one person thinks is funny. Isabella sometimes mocks Merill, out of love, but Merill is deeply hurt. Other times it's a joke at some else's expense. These I understand not tolerating here any longer. However, the third type of banter, where buddies just give each other crap - when Anders and Isabella mock each other for being a "whore" or "demon", and they both recognize it's joking, and both get a laugh out of it, as they've been doing it for some time and are comfortable. Would this still be allowed? Things like Defago's joking about Jhereko, I blame benpaco, drako and tiger's relationship, etc?

Once again, thank you for listening to our opinions and making the decision you think is best for the site, as well as for communicating so well with all of us.

Re: Rethinking the forums structure

Anonymous — Sat, 26 Apr 2014 16:32:37 GMT

Author: Anonymous

Posted: 04/26/2014 20:32

Puncture Repair wrote:

sp4cetiger has put User Pick Of The Day on hold when perhaps we needed it the most.

Re: Lounge

SquishypuffDave — Sat, 26 Apr 2014 09:03:14 GMT

Author: SquishypuffDave

Posted: 04/26/2014 13:03

albummaster wrote:

Thumbnail. Click to enlarge.

Lounge

albummaster — Sat, 26 Apr 2014 06:43:39 GMT

Author: albummaster

Posted: 04/26/2014 10:43

The Lounge has now been re-opened. However, it will no longer be a place to talk about personal issues or to discuss other members. Those types of thread rarely end up a with positive outcome and detract from the focus of the site. Instead, please take those types of issues off-line, or away from the site.

Re: Rethinking the forums structure

Anonymous — Sat, 26 Apr 2014 03:11:16 GMT

Author: Anonymous

Posted: 04/26/2014 07:11

BrandonMiaow wrote:

This all started when Jman left. Coincidence? I think not.

In all seriousness, the JMan-centric, um, "Epoch" of BEA had some much worse moments than what led to the lounge closing, so looking at it from that perspective the decision still seems really harsh. Then again I think there seemed to be talk back then about closing the whole forums for awhile (honestly from multiple users), so I guess this just seems worse because of a worse outcome? Anyways, I guess to finally put up and shut up the lounge-free time has allowed for reflection on what was lacking in the musical discussion and there seems to be a will to improve or at least expand the quality of discussion, so perhaps it led to a good thing in that regard. However, there's no good reason for it to be closed now, as I don't think musical discussion will take any sort of lesser importance around here and I don't think users are going to use the lounge subforum to attack one each other. Just kind of a "you don't know what you got till it's gone" with the BEA forums, the lounge is kind of integral to BEA's identity even if it was kind of viewed as disposable or un-related. I guess I would be curious into knowing what those new rules for the lounge that are being talked about would actually be?

Re: Rethinking the forums structure

SquishypuffDave — Sat, 26 Apr 2014 02:20:49 GMT

Author: SquishypuffDave

Posted: 04/26/2014 06:20

BrandonMiaow wrote:

This all started when Jman left. Coincidence? I think not.

He was The Chosen One; the Terrible Bird; the One whom they called Jay Man. Only he could restore the balance. Only he could possess the power destroy the forces of darkness. Instead, he has left us to ruin.

Re: Rethinking the forums structure

videoheadcleaner — Sat, 26 Apr 2014 02:13:49 GMT

Author: videoheadcleaner

Posted: 04/26/2014 06:13

I don't want to reminisce about the old days, but when I first joined, on the whole the tone of the forums was music-heavy and civil. However, just as with new cohorts of students entering a school, the vibe changes.

This is not a bad thing.

I have been a member for 5 years almost and BEA becomes an addiction, a routine, a necessity at times in my life. The main reason for my joining was to create charts and chat about music with like-minded and polar opposites. This happened with some interesting members like Naples, Gary, purple and so on. This site even got me into creating my own music. For that, I am grateful as BEA is still my number one link to my music.

Now, onto the issue.

The current structure of forums is fine. However, without an off-topic or lounge, it restricts what can be said. Sometimes the more interesting discussions at BEA are off-topic. But I emphasis the word, discussions. Some of the threads and posts becomes meaningless, derivative and harsh. Compared to other sites, BEA's lounge was tame. Nevertheless, the tone changed. As society has become more inconsistent and irreverent, so has BEA. It seemed like the last two years, the more outlandish and crude someone can be, the more response people get. Argument for argument sake.

As a teacher, I find this hard to deal with in class. Conflicting personalities, complaints of "we never used to do that" and less private discussions are more apparent in schools and BEA. The lounge was a perfect example of the melting pot of personalities BEA has. Some discussed movies, art; others created Sims-like story lines or commented about other users openly. In saying this, people don't like being told what to do and not do. It is innate in our nature. We believe that how we see the world is correct and others are just misinformed.

I am not sure of my exact point here except that if albummaster brings an off-topic forum back or not, we deal with it.

You choose your choice on how to respond.

Re: Rethinking the forums structure

Anonymous — Sat, 26 Apr 2014 02:11:04 GMT

Author: Anonymous

Posted: 04/26/2014 06:11

This all started when Jman left. Coincidence? I think not.

Re: Rethinking the forums structure

Anonymous — Sat, 26 Apr 2014 01:44:14 GMT

Author: Anonymous

Posted: 04/26/2014 05:44

Necharsian wrote:

So people were leaving BEA when the lounge was open and people are now leaving with the lounge being closed. Its almost as if people leave internet forums sometimes no matter what :-k

absolutely. The lounge will stay closed or it will re-open, but either way, everybody has a different reason for leaving (or for staying) and it should be less about figuring out who to blame (moderation v user hostility v the lounge v personal sharing v lack of interesting discussion or whatever reason you may have) and actually work to make the BEA forums better, not just carp and dwell on it's occasional missteps, no matter how loud they sometimes may be.

Re: Rethinking the forums structure

Necharsian — Sat, 26 Apr 2014 00:38:42 GMT

Author: Necharsian

Posted: 04/26/2014 04:38

So people were leaving BEA when the lounge was open and people are now leaving with the lounge being closed. Its almost as if people leave internet forums sometimes no matter what 🤔

Re: Rethinking the forums structure

benpaco — Sat, 26 Apr 2014 00:23:17 GMT

Author: benpaco

Posted: 04/26/2014 04:23

Again, for me, we went WAY too far once, and although I wasn't involved, we is the right word here, the whole community did. Swede/Denmark/Stephen, I think I speak for all of us (or at least a lot of us) when I say we really are sorry for what happened, though at least I understand why you chose to leave.

That said, most of the other hiatuses/deletions have not been due to a hostile environment, but rather, due to a lack of interesting things happening. Yeah, music's interesting. I think the music sub-forum has a place here, by all means it's the centerpiece, but what makes this unique and interesting and special as a site was the lounge.

I'm not going to say I'm on official hiatus as I, similar to nezzle, visit this site WAY too often to ever really give up on y'all, but I don't think I'll be on the forums more than maybe once a week. I have little to say at this point, outside of things that should be in the lounge, and I feel that my presence has had no real positive impact here of late.

In other words, if I don't see you for a while, peace out y'all.

Re: Rethinking the forums structure

mickilennial — Sat, 26 Apr 2014 00:04:34 GMT

Author: mickilennial

Posted: 04/26/2014 04:04

I agree with albummaster, completely and wholeheartedly. Though I admit closing the lounge wouldn’t have been the avenue of moderation I would’ve taken in his stead I do understand why the decision was made. But I will say that I hate this idea that half of the forum is “too sensitive” and after some thought I don’t necessarily think the forum is “too toxic” but it’s definitely not showing the tone that I came to this message board for. I mean I was invited to this forum by Outlaw not too long ago (last year, spring or summer) and I actually enjoyed the atmosphere that was present and between that time to now I didn’t feel the same way—I did not change emotionally, I’ve always thought the sort of passive-aggressive elitism, condescending hostility, and childish trolling were all aspects that I didn’t want in a music community anymore. I hope BEA can be above these three elements that plagues /mu/ and parts of the RYM community.

Should I also get on top of the soapbox? Since I was invited back to the site a few months ago by Swedenman I’ve had a good deal of problems that I’ve tried to keep moderately under control and was many of the people who considered closing their account and not coming back. That said: there’s a lot about this site I like and I’ve been trying to splinter my times with other hobbies so I can at least bring something productive to the sight now and then (still in the middle of a BEA interview due to such time constraints) and have considered working with that whole “user album of the day” concept since it’s going into hiatus-ville.

Quote:

we can't tell people how to act / That was never true; one or two vocal users don't represent an entire site.

Moderators can “dictate” us how we act as certain behaviors can be oppositional to the terms of use signed when people made accounts on BEA in the first place. On communities that are anarchic with devoid of moderation it leads to a bad picture where toxicity truly does run rampant. I’ve been on Gaiaonline, Rateyourmusic, /mu/, and over a dozen other message boards in the past ten years and I’ve seen it. Personal attacks still end up inbetween hyperboles and the rare elitist comment on BEA but it’s not in full-swing, but let’s not pretend BEA has never slipped into a fit of hostility. More than two “vocal” users have expressed their distaste and more than two “vocal” users deleted their accounts as a sign of visual protest.

Heck, I’m not sure I can get my friend Tyler to come back to this website due to the last month or two, so to a new user there was certainly something uncomfortable that wasn’t simply minority value. There was even one time where somebody came to me to open my old message board as a place of refuge which I did not as I feel like BEA isn't a dead horse and I'm an optimist.

Re: Rethinking the forums structure

RockyRaccoon — Fri, 25 Apr 2014 23:31:48 GMT

Author: RockyRaccoon

Posted: 04/26/2014 03:31

If people think this place is hostile, they need to visit some other parts of the internet, cause this place is far from hostile, and I'm not even someone who's that well-traveled on the internet.

It's pretty simple:

1. The lounge needs to come back. The break was needed, and I get that, but it's been long enough, it should come back.

2. Everyone needs to take a second and calm their tits. Because people are getting a little tense and a little reactionary.

3. Everyone needs to remember that, hey, we actually kind of like each other here, and we all share a very important thing in common: a deep, personal love of music. While we may differ on other things, we will always have that. That's why we came here in the first place and it's part of the reason we stay.

tl;dr- calm down people.

Re: Rethinking the forums structure

Defago — Fri, 25 Apr 2014 23:16:19 GMT

Author: Defago

Posted: 04/26/2014 03:16

denmarkman wrote:

Oh wow.

Deleting your account loses its point if you're still lurking 😁

Re: Rethinking the forums structure

Antonio-Pedro — Fri, 25 Apr 2014 22:55:38 GMT

Author: Antonio-Pedro

Posted: 04/26/2014 02:55

denmarkman wrote:

Oh wow.

Someone three months ago wrote:

That wasn't swedenman in your dream. That was my dream-walking arch-nemesis*denmarkman*

man.... Dreams come true
sorry needed to make this joke.... Sorry if I screwed the climax