by UncoordinatedPisces » December 9th, 2016, 12:40 am
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.