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OK, I have inadvertently caused confusion by vanishing from the Discord Server so I better explain why. First, let me reassure the concerned that I don’t plan to leave the site, intend to keep running The Review Club on a daily basis and am still actively reviewing and writing as much as I can whenever I have free time (working on The Fourth Tale of Erenel at the moment).

The main reason I left the Discord Server and am avoiding the Forums is because I don’t like aspects of the internet culture there. This is very much my personal opinion and what I would call Cyberbullying, others would call Banter. Personally, I don’t like it and don’t want to be a part of it as I feel, by taking part in it, I am supporting it, hence my decision to absent myself entirely from it (sorry for the repetition, nerves!). I’ve raised these concerns with, or had them shared with me by, a few people, some support the forums’ culture, some don’t. The topic was covered pretty thoroughly in The R Slur Thread.

I’m not sure if, as a Mod, I should be publicly critical of aspects of the site but privately-expressed concerns have been ignored and I’d like to get stuff that has been pressuring and worrying me for a long time off my chest, even if there are consequences. If I were a Noob criticizing the site culture, I’d stand a good chance of being banned and / or having my posts re-written to make me appear as a creep (it’s happened before and I wouldn’t rule out it happening again here, my many stories and contributions to the site notwithstanding). To an extent it might seem justified as some Noobs, or even long-term site members, can be irritating and unable to learn to a moronic degree.

Some Noobs are trolls or act in such a way they might as well be trolls. Others, it’s hard to tell if they are just young, inexperienced or unfamiliar with the site. I think adults in authority telling inexperienced teens and pre-teens to kill themselves, that they should have been aborted, their dead parents are burning in hell ashamed of them, etc is not a good way of encouraging potentially talented writers, to join the site. Except as an outlet for frustration I don’t see its use and as a teacher with some students who are victims of cyberbullying, I’m haunted by the fear that if you keep telling mentally-distressed strangers to go kill themselves then one day, one of them just might.

Is this an unreasonable fear and are we losing a good potential source of comedy if we try to make our interactions more respectful? Maybe. Do some people join this site purely because this is a place they can abuse and insult others without consequences and are even encouraged and rewarded with commendations and points for doing so? Possibly. Where do we draw the line between what is and isn’t acceptable? That’s a question each person can only answer for themselves but all I’m saying is this is where my line is. I respect the fact that you might think very differently.

In fact, I know I’m in the minority at the sensitive (or snowflake) end of the spectrum – though I might argue that I’m only in a minority because most of the others that feel this way (including Mods and talented writers) have already left the site, avoid the forums or join in, encourage or at least ignore the culture of cyberbullying (or edginess or trolling or whatever you want to call it) that is encouraged here to avoid becoming a victim of it themselves. Others, as I mentioned, might be afraid of getting banned, punished or ridiculed if they speak out against it (a thought that has occurred to me!).

I wish cyberbullying didn’t happen but I get why it does. Sometimes we have unfairly bad days, people we’re genuinely trying to help can be intolerable or unreasonable and an outlet is needed. Some might argue abuse and racism are a normalized part of our society (and probably always have been), which to an extent is also true. I just don’t get why it needs to be such a big part of the forums of a site devoted to reading and writing CYOAs. It’s non-existent in the original series and in the published gamebooks that derive from it. It’s something fans like us have added and just seems completely unnecessary.

We all have different ways to communicate and different standards related to them and if we can just soften some of the more extreme ways of communication (the abuse, death threats and racism – most of us wouldn’t say the same things in real-life that we say online because in real-life there are immediate consequences while here, we are protected by the anonymity of the internet) it’d make the site a much happier and more welcoming place for high-quality writers in the long-term if we didn’t tell so many kids to go kill themselves, and other vile things, for being slow-witted when they first join the site. I’m not saying we should tiptoe about and talk to each other like characters out of a Jane Austen novel (“Good day oh Master of Ends, how fare thee this bright morrow?”) but perhaps there is a less abusive, more friendly and welcoming direction the forums (especially Newbie Central)
could take?

Anyway, apologies for the controversial opinion that all abuse and racism is wrong and my general long-windedness, I just want to explain my personal views on a subject that has been bothering me for a long time and why I am absenting myself from certain aspects of the site and things connected with it. I hope my views will be respected in the same way that I respect the views of others, even if we do not agree with each other, and if not going on the Forums and Discord Server are incompatible with me remaining a Mod that is understandable. It’d be a shame if I wind up banned because of this (or maybe I’m being over-anxious here, guess I’ll find out!) but even if this happens, I’ll still enjoy reading and reviewing the many great stories of the many talented writers on this site as a guest.

Incidentally, I am not absent from the Forums entirely, I am encouraging and supporting The Review Club every day, keeping an eye on some threads like MHD’s Most Needy Storygames Contest (80% finished now!) and End’s Writing Contest (still available as a Judge if required!), and doing anything I can connected to producing, or helping others to produce more quality writing or providing feedback for the same (it’s pretty much all I’m interested in). If anything of a Mod-based nature is required to help out around the site I’ll do my best to help.

My other reasons for leaving Discord incidentally are comparatively minor – I’m not really into the discussion topics in the Discord Threads and, as a distant third, I do sometimes have some difficulty accessing it by VPN. In regards to not taking part in the discussion about Cel’s Anti-Semitic views being bad, I was travelling and jetlagged for a few days at the time and by the time I went on the site action had already been taken so it didn’t seem necessary for me to do anything or mention that I also think that supporting Nazi ideologies might not be a good thing.

Locked.

(Guys, how do we break it to Will that locking his posts does nothing?)

Did you go to China because your dick is small here, but over there it would be considered big or average sized?

Thara, this isn't the place to post about your insecurities.

At some point we are going to have to establish a canon for the size of Thara's dick.

I'm big in China.

Just like Willy-boy. :)

I'd be insecure if I was Will's personal Asian masseuse/live-in-maid/secretary/ball-handler/cock/cum gargler/mouthpiece.

Fortunately, I'm not.

But wait a minute, aren't you Asian?

Ahhhhhhhhh!

I did not know will was a passport bro. That makes him even more based than he is.

Wait. Aren't passport bros the guys that go to countries with dubious age of consent laws and live out their fantasies?

Cel... you can't be Nazi and a Kiel! 

He's from the UK and moved to China to (illegally!) teach a school, it is pretty based that he could get thrown into a CCP torture dungeon at any moment. Although at that point I think he might have more things to worry about than cyberbullying.

Will's a man desperate enough to break the law to get close to kids!

Hi Will, thank you very much for sharing this. I certainly appreciate the positive vibes you and a few are bringing to the site!

Sometimes things go off the rails in the forums, though, with a guilty conscience, I have to admit that I did in some cases enjoy the ensuing drama.

Regarding Cel and more recently Eire, while I disagree strongly with their views, it is good to have these discussions out in the open. What is more worrying is that some admins seem to have an edit war regarding Cel's points, which could be construed as some admins supporting his views (though one person made it clear they didn't).

Regarding newb abuse, as a teacher you probably have much more first hand experience than other people, so it is good to hear this from you. I personally have much less experience in these matters. But I think for some people there is also a value in learning that they are not the protagonist of every situation they walk into. Learning this on an web community is preferable to learning that lesson from, say, employers or government agencies.

When people in Newb-Central have been met with immediate negative responses or bans, I was assuming that admins knew more than I did.

Anyway you are probably right, though some of the chaos still has the function: It can also be liberating. Seeing people say crazy shit on the forum creates a space where people can push boundaries, which can be painful but benefits the writing.

I also have a genuine question: Do you think it is actually more harmful for somebody to be told to go and kill themselves than calm down-to-earth factual criticsm? I always thought that the latter actually hit much harder. This might be other function of the vitriolic comments: They make it easier to bear the substantive critisicm of writing that is necessary but may be harder to bear.

Anyway as a final thought: Personally, I find the occassional nasty post much more acceptable if they come from people who have made large genuine contributions to the site by writing great stories, hosting events, keeping the wheels turning in the background or being an encouraging presence on the forum.

I respect you for posting this. I don't really know what the right solution is here, and I've usually avoided personally participating in the noob witch hunt threads. I do think several noobs fall victim enough to certain common mistakes like spamming the forums or creating alts or posting AIslop or tagging EndMaster that we should probably ensure they are informed of these rules BEFORE they are allowed to post on the forums. Kinda like how most discord servers have you read their rules before you are allowed to post in any of their channels.

I know pinned messages are supposed to serve this purpose, but it seems like they are being ignored in most cases.

Kinda like how most discord servers have you read their rules before you are allowed to post in any of their channels.

I know pinned messages are supposed to serve this purpose, but it seems like they are being ignored in most cases.

 

How about we put the Rules of the Forum/Site (not using alts, no AI, etc.) right in front of noobs when creating an account (or at least before being allowed to post in the forums) in a way that prevents copy and paste and then make them type out the Rules of the Forum exactly as they were shown into a text box, before they can create the account/post in the forums (account creation/forum privilege is interrupted or blocked if what they typed into the text box doesn't match the shown rules)? It would be a significant enough amount of effort to weed out the frivolous accounts, add another obstacle against trolls spamming from multiple accounts, and the content of the rules should register with even the most soft-minded of users.

That seems a bit much, but when a rule is violated we should make the offender write "I will not break x rule" 100 times as their penance and then ban them anyways 

I would love to make them pass a literacy test, but I don't know if we'd ever get a new user under the age of 26 again unless they were ESL.

Everyone always think they're getting banned for stuff like this when that's never really been the case unless it's just some noob trolling to bitch about the site. Hell, if someone like Cel and Ben are still around, you're pretty safe.

I actually wasn’t surprised you left or were going to do much on the Discord anyway since we’ve actually had this conversation a LONG time ago in PMs even back in the 2015-2016 era.

In any case, I’d argue that the site is way less "hostile" than it used to be.

But I think Mizal probably has more of a well worded opinion on all this, so I’ll let her take the lead since she had more of the issue with you suddenly disappearing from the discord and she’s been trying to contact you about other stuff and it seemed like you were ignoring her.

>In any case, I’d argue that the site is way less "hostile" than it used to be.

I don't intend to get into a debate about it, as I think that would lead to a pointless derail, but while it's completely legitimate for Will to air his feelings here, it's also my legitimate conclusion that he is cherry picking somewhat and ignoring the thousands of interactions where "hostility and cyber bullying" does not occur in favor of characterizing the whole community as being full of the behavior he doesn't like. When there was far more of that going on back when the median age for users was like, 14.

The "CYS is full of toxic edgelords" thing is imo a pretty stale and outdated meme. The Discord especially I have to question whether he ever looked at it, which is fine, I was surprised he wanted an invite at all. But it's like, come on...pictures of food, work and family anecdotes, people openly discussing their mental health and medical conditions in a supportive environment, cute animals, video games, movies, ancient history and religion, books we're reading, the latest political trainwreck, writing we're talking about allegedly thinking about doing, Sabley's redneck diary, tabletop games, MHD's art streams, somebody struggling with Chinese homework ffs, all real "toxic" daily topics that anyone trusted with that kind of access to the personal lives of longstanding community members (which is a very rare thing in recent years for a reason) is free to take part in. And plenty of this stuff has also been known to be discussed on the forum as well?

It is really difficult to read and reply to large text walls on my phone, I am going to have to try to tackle this point by point on my laptop at some point after work, which right now is unfortunately also difficult for me to do.

Haven't done much more than skim yet, but clarifications on a couple of points though:

1) I have been told racism was a major issue for you, and you've mentioned it a couple of times here. Where at you seeing newbies being targeted with racist comments?

2) Would you characterize many of your points here as having already been discussed in this pinned Newbie topic?

3) As long as we're discussing problematic mod behavior, can we address the fact that MHD responded to losing a contest by telling one of the winners, "You better watch your four-walled, lockless-windowed house with no fire alarms"? Like, not only is she mocking their poverty, this is an actual threat or arson? Is this the kind of environment we want to foster here? I already suspect that beloved penguin Sentinel avoids the forum primarily out of fear of MHD's out of control hostility and threats of violence over their long standing feud, maybe this thread will give him and her other victims an opportunity to speak out.

4) Naz's parents aren't actually dead, her mother is a transgender prize fighter in Mexico who should probably be arrested for leaving an 11 year old to pay her own rent and fend completely for herself in the world, but with the politics being what they are, what can anyone really do.

Okay, I shall attempt to set out my thoughts on the matter. There might be edits later if I can think of more precise ways to phrase things.

To preface this textwall, I’m not saying that we have to be so careful as to fret about the unlikely hypothetical consequences of every single thing we post, or that we have to help noobs regulate their emotions. Of course, freedom of speech and creative liberty are important, and I’d rather not police posts on the site, but sometimes I wonder if behind a screen, some members stop thinking of noobs as actual people with real emotions and thoughts (and sometimes unstable/fragile mental states).

I know what some of you are about to type in response to this: we don’t need to coddle the deliberately annoying kids who are special snowflakes that get their feelings hurt by the mildest papercut. In rebuttal to the argument I’m pre-empting, I think of what is known as the 'thin skull rule' in law, where it isn't a defence to say that the victim's thin skull is the reason they have sustained more injuries than the average person. We have to take each individual as they are. How does this apply, then? If a person has openly talked about suicidal ideation or self-harm, maybe think twice before telling them they’re a waste of oxygen and would be better off ending their life. Could you deal with the consequences if a message you thought was banter ended up being the reason someone went through with the act?

I might as well address Fabrikant's point here that substantive writing criticism hits harder than vitriolic comments. That is likely a case by case situation (where actual effort has gone into stories, I can see how your point stands), but if a member has dealt with suicidal ideation or worse in the past, the combined effect of the negativity bias and reconfirmation bias would mean the latter would be far worse.*

*Some term explanations for Avo/anyone else who needs it. The negativity bias: if you receive ten great comments about a story and one negative one, the brain has an odd tendency to latch onto the negative one and attribute it more weight than the positives. The reconfirmation bias: if I ask you to look out for red cars the next time you’re on the road, you will start seeing a lot of red cars. This is because our brain unconsciously seeks information that is congruent with our normal thoughts - if we think everyone hates us, we will misconstrue neutral evidence like silence to prove our own point, and vice versa.

I completely understand the annoyance when dealing with trolls. After having my effortpost advice being ignored in favor of them spamming the site with their illiterate drooling messes, I have become a little more cynical over time. This will always be a case-by-case assessment, because someone who is well aware of the site culture and actively trying to annoy everyone will be unphased by negative comments hurled their way, whereas a newer person who is perhaps just mentally-challenged might require a bit more patience. Not to name anyone, but there have been instances where the infuriating noob deemed irredeemable has gone on to be featured as one of the site’s greats. 

Another point I should address is the site culture. A lot of things are normalized here which aren’t as common elsewhere, like the “lol fag” meme and the creatively-worded insults that may alarm the uninitiated but are never meant as more than a fun pastime for the regulars. Perhaps just keeping in mind who is and isn’t familiar with such things before posting them could be helpful. As with everything else, you will have to strike your own balance in light of all the relevant factors. It could just be that we’ve gotten so used to how things are on the site that we’re desensitized to some of the harsher insults which cause culture shocks to others.

There are certainly a lot of wholesome aspects of the site. I particularly like how new noobs are positively-received with helpful links to articles and story recommendations when they arrive. Every time someone wins a contest, every other member gathers to congratulate them. Comments tend to be more encouraging/complimentary than insulting for the most part. If you post a well-meaning question, someone will be willing to answer it in depth at the cost of their own time. I am of the opinion that the forums have more positivity than negativity, but then again I might be biased towards my favourite site. 

I shall end my post with a point of law. Do you know that it is a crime to coerce minors into causing harm to themselves or others in the US, even through the internet? Coercion is defined under section 3397 of the Ending Coercion of Children and Harm Online Act (ECCHO 2025) as including ‘the use of extortion, threats, fraud, deceit, duress, intimidation, harassment, humiliation, degradation, or manipulation’. For those in the UK, encouraging serious self-harm could lead to imprisonment. The Online Safety Bill (yet to be released) will target those who ‘hide under the anonymity of the internet’ and is criminalised ‘regardless of whether or not victims go on to injure themselves’. So if nothing else, please try not to get yourselves or the site sued :)

Okay, serious question for you and Will. Do you think we should just do like every other site and social platform and blanket ban anyone under 13 years of age?

That would have meant people like Avo and even T Cat as well as others couldn't have established a presence here, and I always considered it a unique thing about CYS that we did welcome younger users while other IF sites did not, but not dealing with the bullshit of children seems to be a powerful enough motivator for the entire rest of the internet. Especially if it's going to generate complaints from within the community no matter if they are or aren't given special treatment when they knowingly and repeatedly return here for the purpose of breaking the rules, it seems like a no win situation.

*Note that I don't think this will lead to any less need to ban repeated alt accounts, it just provides less opportunity for their feelings to be hurt, or our own time to be wasted if we don't interact with them on the level of trying to explain why little keithafraidofnilly's writing is not up to site standards for instance. Which just gives the children more opportunity to annoy everyone by digging deeper. Usually this just escalates to them making demands on the mods and legitimate site users to accept their presence, backed by threats of spam, and that's the point it becomes open season.

I am willing to become more aggressive about contacting their schools to get the site blocked from their network as well if this is really deemed as a wanted course of action.

Perhaps the site needs a three-day soft-ban feature?

I personally don't think that would be necessary, seeing that CYS has been pretty good at educating younger members (and in fact, members have been known to be wholesome with kids like Avo, AL, TCat and a few others whose names I can't quite recall). I like all the efforts to recommend books and literature to the newer generations. I never checked, but it does make sense that all the trolling noobs are under 13 years. 

As I mentioned in my post, for me, it isn't so much a problem with trolls who know what sort of treatment they will receive on the site and continually prove themselves to be an annoyance, as they cannot claim to be adversely affected when they know exactly what to expect by that point. That's a good point, using it as a reason to stop them from getting their feelings hurt and thus spamming a thousand alts could reduce the need to deal for mods to clean up their messes.

And thank you for handling things with the schools, I appreciate all that you do for the site, especially with everything you have going on. Until somewhat recently I never realized how much moderation goes on beneath the surface.

Well, a good deal of the ones that keep returning to bait interactions (like Rooster and Daiki for recentish examples) are around 15 or 16, while Blister claimed to be 17. But the actual concerns being expressed seem to be about "bullying" the younger ones. Who often are the most aggressive about spam, and I don't expect that to change either way.

I've only contacted a teacher one time, and that was after months of almost daily drivebys by Harper, who also doxxed himself. (And the teacher turned out to be his mom, lol.) It's still a theoretical possibility in many cases though, especially if it's just to ask the school network to block the site, nothing is needed but an IP for that.

Goodness, I liked the idea of them being immature 12 year olds better because at least I didn't need to think about how badly the education system failed them. Yeah you made the right choice with Harper because he posed a real risk to himself with the doxxing. 

Though I never felt like you'd just ride off into the sunset unannounced after this long, it's a good thing to learn we're not actually losing a valued member.

I probably already fall into the guilty through apathy group, so there's not much value in me taking sides, but I do share some of your sentiments towards at least the treatment of noobs (some might deserve it, some don't). At this point however the only thing that could maybe change this approach would be the site actually dying due to lack of traffic, which is unlikely.

And I wouldn't worry about being banned, after your years of service one would need to especially petty to nuke you for not sharing their views about bullying.

Not having been in the discord for a while, I am definitely missing a lot of context (given my name keeps getting repeated I assume some whiny little penguin-shaped bitch or possibly two have whined about it a lot), but that's not really my point for posting.

Everyone should know my views on telling people to rope, so that's also not what I'm here to talk about.

I'm here to latch on to one tiny little section I haven't seen anyone respond to, which is editing people's posts (and other mod abuse, which is taken lightly by seemingly everyone except mizal and now will).

And I think something should definitely be done about that, especially given I think there's only one "admin" in particular that likes doing it.

But then I'm sure that discussion's been had by the admins many times before so idk what my actual reason for posting is, other than to say that even the token Nazi doesn't like it and thinks some higher standards should exist for admin behavior.

Your name only came up because we all got accused of being racist towards newbies or something, like that was one of the major complaints apparently. Which prompted me to ask why he hadn't weighed in on that pinned thread about if it was a subject he felt strongly about, and I'm still wondering who was being referenced there if not you.

(Note that I didn't get to ask Will this directly, Mystic had to act as secretary and go between explaining the feelings of an uncommunicative man until 3am her time, which is such a hilariously stereotypical thing that afterwards I can only imagine he asked her to pick out an anniversary gift for his wife and wrap it for him too while she was at it. I am glad he did make this thread btw or I would have started to get annoyed.)

Far be it from me to decry racism, but I don't actually think I've seen very many instances of people being racist to anyone in particular. In fact the most "targeted" racism I've seen is against "the europeans" and/or me.

If there's racism of any kind, it certainly isn't done by most people, and it isn't usually targeted. In fact I don't think I have even once unironically been racist towards anyone in particular (being racist in general against specific groups is a different thing entirely, but it's certainly not happening against "young noobs").

Scrambling much after the hard R in the forums debacle?

You are literally the only one whining. Putrid cunt

Ah and that's whiny bitch #2. Thanks for saving me the effort of asking. Please refrain from further useless comments though, this is a serious thread.

Says the most useless commenter of the decade, bitching and whining on his ai automaton cringe routine

Obligatory

He has a point though, besides the behaviour he is criticising being actually illegal in most places.

Before this bit escalates (Or possibly this will escalate it further for lols) Thara actually hasn't been the one deleting your profile or docking you points. She's sort of just been taking credit for it because well she knows it annoys you and that's how she rolls.

In fact, pretty sure she's the one that gave you 500 recently. (Which was taken away obviously)

Now there's actually been more than one taking away your points. I mean it shouldn't be too surprising that your views are going to piss off a lot of people.

And yeah I've been the one trying to give some of those points back and NO not because I'm supporting Cel's views, but I do believe in a sense of fair play for the most part.

Like I already addressed this in the discord that if Cel really is pissing off all the admins so much then obviously put him down, but if we're keeping him around for whatever reason then leave his points alone unless he's obviously doing shit like unironically talking about gassing Jews or something, not just because some lone faggot is whining about him.

Well, deleting the profile did annoy me, until I realized I still have the CYSbackup and just copy pasted it from there lol.

And the points themselves, as well as the commendations, have stopped meaning anything since the point they started being given out like candy. I know the prevailing opinion is that JJJ was a massive faggot, but if there's anything I agree with him on it was the whole "don't commend a post just cause it's a snappy humourous response".

And it's hilarious if people are still butthurt about me without me doing anything. I've stated several times I like the site and have decided to keep unironic "the painter was right" posting for my other communities, given the prevailing reception here has been negative.

Iirc the deletion was because of an incel link on your profile which would be bad if members stumbled upon (and you obviously knew well enough not to add that back), so let the record show that there was no mod abuse in that case.

If you equate "incel" with "well meaning book intended to help people find love" then sure, it's incel content.

You are giving me far too much credit with "knowing well enough", the CYS backup I copy pasted did not include it lol.

But thank you for proving much of the book true with the emotional reaction to it without even reading it. Yes, telling people to hit the gym, get their shit in order, take responsibility for their lives and not blame others, as well as learn to socialize is "incel content".

Don't think this is the thread for that though.

I might be misremembering but wasn't it a google drive link? I also remember clear and conclusive photographic evidence of a certain discord server that was enough to lower my opinion of you considerably (which I didn't think would happen given the friendly conversations we used to have in the past). But you're right that this isn't the thread for it so there is nothing more I'll say on this matter.

Remember, it's always important to keep the female's self esteem low.

I'm going to reset your profile because Elric Alphonse is actually a great character, and you're disgracing him after I was forced to read your book in which you emotionally manipulate fat chicks with low self esteem to hop up and down on your tooth pick dick to break.

You're unironically a repulsive human being for a shoot!

It's not even a work! 
 

Edit: Lel. Done.

Well okay she did do that one.

Looks like she gave you the points too using my style. So congrats?

He still has the backup!

And 500 points of hush money?

Thara, is this what they call tsundere?

Is butthurt at Sent for no reason eons later

 

Is complaining about mod abuse 

 

Lol fag

Just want to say I agree with about 90% of what Will is saying here and have had similar concerns that have led to me distancing myself from the site multiple times over the years.

This is a tricky situation, because the competitive environment is one of the things I love about the site, since it creates an environment where people feel comfortable seriously criticizing each other's work. I love this about CYS, and have not found literally ANY other writing community where people feel comfortable giving and receiving direct feedback like this. I do think insults have an important place in this. Fabrikant raises a good point about insults in writing feedback allowing the more meaty level-headed criticism to go down easier (for some--everyone's different). As a reviewer you can say exactly what you mean, and as an author you know that your reviewers mean exactly what they say. The last thing I would want is for people to start going easy on Noobs and deny them the valuable critical response that is a defining feature of the site.

Forum-wise, I have no issue with the banter & insults that occur between longtime site members. I like that forum culture allows this, and I enjoy a good internet argument. Again, I find this fosters a writing and social culture I like where people feel free to be brutally honest.

Similarly, I have few issues with the political discussions that take place here--while I often disagree with the views being expressed, the lack of censorship has allowed the quality of discussion between people with wildly different viewpoints to reach higher levels (and lower ones; it's a mixed bag) than I've seen in most other communities.

However: I really think we go too far with how we treat Noobs, particularly children and teens. Can they sometimes benefit from tough love rather than indulgence? Yeah, and as a teen, I did, and I've seen cases where CYS has directly helped people by providing this. Do they often behave unacceptably after multiple chances? Yeah, and I did the same as a teen. Is it sometimes best for the community to ban them when they can't play by the rules? Yes, that's how life works. Are many of them trolls just baiting people? Almost certainly yes.

What isn't helpful in any situation is insulting and mocking them without explaining why, and treating them as a source of comedy rather than people who are new to a place and still learning the rules. At best, it just makes them feel like shit. At worst, as others point out, people with sensitive dispositions might actually hurt themselves. There's a big difference between harsh & brutal honesty, and actively trying to lure, bait, and hurt someone to provoke them into doing something funny.

CYS isn't for everyone. Not everyone likes a competitive & brutally honest feedback writing environment the way we do. These people are not going to like the site, and may be unpleasantly shocked if they stumble on it accidentally and don't thoroughly review the forums in advance. Some of this is unavoidable culture shock, but as Mystic says, bearing in mind who is new to the culture before posting stronger forms of banter & inside jokes like editing each other's posts could help.

(To respond to Mizal's question--I would lean against auto-banning children. Many kids are cool, good writers, and/or benefit from site culture, like Avo & TCat. Maybe sending a very direct warning about site expactations to people whose birthday is below a certain range could help? Actually, sprucing up the automated PM to include very explicit warnings about site culture could probably help with a lot of these concerns.)

This ain't gonna become the noob coddling club though

Yeah no reason it should. Like I said being too lenient with Noobs would just deprive them of the signature harsh CYS environment many people thrive in. But there's a lot of wiggle room to avoid things like suicide bait without coddling anyone.

>and actively trying to lure, bait, and hurt someone to provoke them into doing something funny

Tagging Endmaster isn't actually that big of a deal you realize, the only time it results in a ban is when someone was already about to be banned for other reasons.

I'm trying really hard to remember in recent times if anyone who wasn't already cruising for a ban was treated abusively right out of the gate, newbie threads are usually pretty welcoming up until the ignoring of all advice and other obnoxious 14 year old behavior starts, or unless it's an obvious alt.

I wasn't specifically thinking of the tagging EndMaster thing; though I suppose that's included under that phrase. I think of that as more mild hazing/pranking, since it's usually reversed immediately. I suppose it might be best to avoid doing that with people who might be "thin skulled" to use Mystic's terminology.

I don't have any recent examples of this since I agree that it hasn't happened much recently (yay!). (Or I just haven't been checking the forums much.) Past instances I'm vaguely recalling include people getting mocked at their first post threads for harmlessly cringe things they'd written on their profile, people planning how to reply to a Noob to try and get under their skin, and more than once when someone gave a helpful reply in an intro/site help thread others on the site jokingly saying it was ruining their fun.

Will probably could've addressed this in our unused mod forum on here, but turning this into a bloody gladiator spectacle for the public to join in as opposed to boring backdoor executions was a much better idea.

Say what you want about the place, but you don't get this sort of entertainment at other IF sites!

Community run site, only fair to let regular users weigh in, and in a situation like this you want to see what the active people actually think so that no one's assuming they're speaking for anyone else. (We only have to declare democracy not to exist if the opinions are bad. )

I have the experience of being a newb in several eras of this site, going back to the early 2010s. As such, I’m writing this with a perspective informed by the “good old days”. I have shared this site with several friends before who have said they loved the art, but were turned off by the acerbic humor. Coming from that angle, 100% see how the site can be quite harsh, especially in the older years, so I find this 100% valid. I’m certainly out-of-touch with the site nowadays, however from what I have seen, folks have gotten a lot nicer to the average member. Some people, mostly kids, trolls and extremist types, do tend to get roughed up. Schadenfreude isn’t really my thing.

I haven’t been in the Discord in many years. Unless it has changed, then I suspect there’s a mix of some wholesomeness and intense banter. I remember when I used to be around there were times where banter went pretty far. I don’t have precise memories of any examples, but that is the general impression I remember.

I think this comes down to the community valuing having thick-skin. Of course being able to take criticism is really important. Banter and roasting each other is a great way to grow accustomed to criticism and build camaraderie, but I do agree that this could go too far and turn some perfectly good folks away. Hell, I’ve had my own moments of sensitivity. I was even banned once for being cringe long ago. There’s some pretty provocative art on this site, and we have a maturity rating for those stories for a reason. Why not have something similar in forums? We don’t have to stop partying, just stop putting acid inside the punch when people don’t know of it.

Will doesn’t seem like the type of guy that is “whiny” or “weak”. He’s always struck me as a very friendly presence. I value Will’s stories and reading his posts have always been fun.

Ultimately I am on this site primarily as a reader and to practice my writing. I can handle a few harsh comments, not that I really think I’ll get any.

To sum up my unsolicited opinions, I do think the CYStia is a lot less aggressive of a community than it used to be, especially compared to the Villains and anti-CoG areas, but the website does have a bit of a grim reputation for a reason. I’m find with that, but not everyone is. Grimdark, edge, and harsh banter does have a place here, but personally I think that the more hardcore shit is funnier when targeting people you’re already kinda familiar with. I’m not saying all the jokes n shit are always bullying, but they can be. While I am fine with some pretty extreme jokes coming my way, that doesn’t mean everyone that has sensitive thoughts can’t contribute well-written content. Not every sensitive soul is a complete bitch.

In the case of protecting kids from cyber-bullying, maybe if there was a notification or something that new forum users could read telling them that this community has a long standing history of roasts and insult comedy, that would be something? A little advice that if folks start getting upset they can just disengage, or something to that effect.

Well yeah you were last here during the Steve era lol.

Gotta love that guy.

He dead yet?

Nope, worse.

He became a very boring lawyer.

I will always miss the times when he drunkenly slurred his funny Irish words, asked me about my partying, and flung slurs at me like a horny leprechaun throws gold at his favorite stripper.