A few concerns about the state of this community

[Elton John]

But if my opinion doesn't matter, why should I respect or tolerate others opinions?

Its because our opinions matter that I respect and tolerate others even if they do silly things like hating Nala.

[FlipMode]

[quote="The Lionvengers"]But if my opinion doesn't matter, why should I respect or tolerate others opinions?[/quote]

Because theirs don't matter either. I'm not saying don't give your opinion or reply to anyone else's. Just to understand that it is just that - an opinion.

[Elton John]

But if their opinion is completely and utterly worthless doesn't it mean I can show them a complete lack of respect? Which I don't want to do....i don't want to disrespect people I mean.

And if my opinion is completely worthless why bother discussing things on this site?

[UncoordinatedPisces]

I'm coming at this a bit more objectively because as some of you are aware, I'm always disappearing and reappearing but ultimately I'm still here. Also a pre-warning, I'm not very eloquent so bare with me.

I've not really seen the situation unfold but I've had it explained to me, on both sides of the argument. With respect to the mods, from what I've seen there have been some hasty decisions. Though just to put it out there, I am empathetic towards their predicament right now, especially some of my closest MLK friends are on the staff. On the other side of things, I can see where everyone else is coming from to a degree. Especially Reg's point about this community being made up of predominantly older people. The conflict arises however, when we all remember this is a Lion King website that does attract children. So the example of Malibu making that underage comment in the MLK Crush thread, while off-colour, it certainty shouldn't have warranted an immediate temp-ban. A warning would've sufficed surely - again, I don't want to sound like I'm telling the mods how to do their jobs because I've never been a moderator - but Reg has, and he speaks much more elegantly about the responsibility etc. I also provide the example when I had an avatar with a swear word in it (broken up with *) and I got a warning to take it down - and sure, that was completely reasonable. It would've been ridiculous if I had got a temp-ban for that.

Maybe I'm hypocritical, talking about bans, when I've been banned in the past. I was so stupid back then, but again it stands as a point that I've grown up. I was a child when I joined, I'm an adult now. The same can be said for some of the other members. I do think sometimes certain members can make comments to other members that can be a little too harsh whether they are in the right or not, I've had it done to me before (this is excluding a bit of banter). At the end of the day though, it is impossible for everyone to get along. It doesn't work in the real world, it doesn't work in the virtual world.

There is another quick point I want to make in this ramble of nonsense, and that's friendship groups. During my time on MLK, I've almost always been part of a 'group' of friends. People I talk to offsite, Skype call with etc. My best memories of MLK mostly come from these offsite interactions. Now, I don't know if people feel threatened by these friendship groups or not, but they really shouldn't. Inside jokes on the forum have been a constant thing, and yeah, sometimes you might get a feeling of exclusion. Hell, I still feel out of the loop on MLK. People have just got to realise that's part of the way things work. That doesn't stop us all from interacting nicely though, as a community - I would never go out of my way to make someone feel like they shouldn't be on MLK (unless they have been horrible or are committing a crime) and I really don't think anyone else here does that.

To sum up, I do think that miscommunication between staff and members is probably at the core of the problem. In terms of the community, I do think the remedy for that are things like contests (something everyone can get involved with, I don't mind restarting MoTM or something), radios and offsite group chats (though that one is a bit more complicated I've heard). Anyway, my constant returns to this site serves as a testament to how important this place is for me, both on a social and personal level. I want it to stay a place I vent about my life in the WAYTRN thread, post some silly stuff and communicate with people from all walks of life.

[FlipMode]

[quote="The Lionvengers"]But if their opinion is completely and utterly worthless doesn't it mean I can show them a complete lack of respect? Which I don't want to do....i don't want to disrespect people I mean.

And if my opinion is completely worthless why bother discussing things on this site?[/quote]

You can do but then that would just make you a disrespectful idiot who nobody wants to talk to anyway.
Better to just chose to be a good person I reckon, it's not that difficult to just chose to be nice to people is it?

[Elton John]

That's what i've been saying. And my opinion does matter. Your opinion matters. Even if we don't agree with each other, we remain civil. Why? Because we are friends. We might have heated debates but at the end of the day, we don't let it get to us. Or we try to not let it get to us.

[Carl]

As long as we all, staff and member base alike respect one another in spite of our differences or conflicts we may have had in the past and begin communicating better, situations like this one can be avoided in the future. We can't help you if we don't know you're having a problem. We did fail to get all necessary sides of the situation before acting, and definitely could have been more thorough. For that, I apologize. Alas, we too are only human. However I would like to echo Moka and encourage you all to bring anything to us that you feel needs attention—we want everyone to feel welcome and cared for here and want it to be a fun and happy place. Everyone here matters.

[Timon the great]

[quote="it means no worries"][quote="Timon the great"]My point is, if a member is going to have an attitude of bashing a character simply "Because I can" or "Nobody likes X character. So I can say whatever I want", those kinds of attitude will NOT foster any kind of truly good or friendly environment for anyone on a forum like this.[/quote]

You can as long as you aren't being offensive, that's called an opinion.[/quote]
So bashing a character that people really like doesn't offend or hurt them at all in any way.

Alright. I'm just going to ignore that statement if that's what you're meaning.

[MalibuTrashDog]

[quote="Timon the great"][quote="it means no worries"][quote="Timon the great"]My point is, if a member is going to have an attitude of bashing a character simply "Because I can" or "Nobody likes X character. So I can say whatever I want", those kinds of attitude will NOT foster any kind of truly good or friendly environment for anyone on a forum like this.[/quote]

You can as long as you aren't being offensive, that's called an opinion.[/quote]
So bashing a character that people really like doesn't offend or hurt them at all in any way.

Alright. I'm just going to ignore that statement if that's what you're meaning.[/quote]

Can we stop talking about Timon this thread isn't about him. If you want to argue about your feelings on people's opinions about him please make another thread because you're really derailing this one.

[Timon the great]

^None of those posts are about Timon. I was clearly meaning them in general. I was simply replying to what it means no worries quoted me on, as it is relevant to this thread.