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I'm not sure if there's something like this in place already, because people who do this are usually banned anyway, but it seems like it's for unrelated reasons...

As you're all well aware, a writer can tell a good story about anything. No concept is dead. Spin an idea the right way and put effort into it, and it'll be fun and interesting to someone, or at least well written for people who aren't interested. The new rules were not made to turn away good writers, they were made to get rid of shitty games and shitty kids. We made these rules so we wouldn't have to deal with a cancerous tween fandom.

But there are other people who are good writers, who can make good stories, and... Let's be honest here, it's kind of awful to have to remove good stories because of their genre/subject, and it's also never a good thing when you start making exceptions to rules just because somebody made one good game. Now, I'm not gonna put this in the suggestion box or anything yet, unless someone decides it really should be moved there, but for now I just feel like the lounge is more conducive to opening a discussion, and I don't have any fully formulated ideas as to how this would be executed. Well, that and there aren't exactly many admins around that could actually validate the rules change were it proposed.

Maybe we should unban Warriors, but, to keep the bad ones away, we should instead enact a 3 strikes policy or something. After a certain amount of consecutive deleted games, or games with a consistent shittiness, the account of said user would be banned. Nobody gets turned away, and no exceptions have to be made. Besides, let's face it, people who consistently write 1s and 2s usually don't turn around and make games that are above deletion, and none of the good/reasonably respected writers around here have ever made anything that made it lower than 3/8.

With this kinda thing going on, we'll keep the obnoxious kids and their trash away without having to impede the writings of more mature authors, and we won't have to turn away good games by good authors, nor will good authors and their games be forced to wait eons for the mystical, ever-so-rumored "Unban" that will presumably come when everyone in the entire fandom grows up and turns out not to be stupid, since a real lift on the ban would just open our doors up to dumb internet kids again.

Oh, and we'd be able to put an end to any Bevan repeats in less than three games, methinks,  but I dunno. Maybe it would just increase the mods' workload for too little benefit.

We can just ban them again. The mods can see IPs, and it takes way more time to make an account than it does to lock it. Eventually they'll give up. It's not like any of them are that committed anyway. Ryder was very committed and ran sheerly on vindictiveness, but he came to his senses and quit. Surely someone that can not only understand social cues but also has the level of committment necessary to justify dead end pages and unfinished games with "Got bored" isn't going to stick around once they get a warning PM from the mods and then suddenly can't log in anymore. This would also quickly usher out things like Demos, "Ironically" bad stories, and other shit we're tired of dealing with. We'd reach a place where "suck" doesn't have a genre, only a username. Like Mousepaw.

Not like we won't get other bad shit like Warrior Wolves and all that eventually. Hopefully not for a long time, yes, but I'd rather tell all the bad writers to fuck off than one particular group.

" none of the good/reasonably respected writers around here have ever made anything that made it lower than 3/8."

I totally plan on making something that gets at least a 6. Mark my words. Timescape! 2: Bill Gate's Revenge will be a hit.

I'm pretty sure my first game was also a three.

Would it really be that to keep the "ban," but selectively let outstanding ones (insofar as outstanding in regard to WC games can be) through the gates?

That's likely going to give newbies who think themselves above criticism the wrong idea, (And they will likely be attracted to the site when they search for Warrior Cats games) when they see that good games can be the exception to the rule, and then we wouldn't have a policy set in place against them other than the fact that their games can be deleted for being bad, not that their accounts can be locked for being shitty. I mean, if we hold WC to the standards that WC games which are very outstanding get to stay, and nothing else does, we may as well get rid of the ban, or hold everything else up to the same standards, since, really, only games deemed "good" by the general populace escape deletion anyway.

I've never heard you be like this about this subject, Sent. True, true, the onslaught of terrible games has been heavily destroyed. But today, some little kids like Destoryer and such still make bad games, that are NOT pertaining to WC. In my opinion this ban should be lifted.....be still be heavily enforced. This site still has thousands of storygames that poison it.......so why not? I mean, with a good purge and a clean slate, the ban could be lifted. BUT isn't JJJ the one who made the ban?

Exactly. That's why I'm posting it here. It's supposed to be a discussion to see how everyone feels about this, since nobody who's been online in a while has the authority to change the way things are.

When I found out about it, I thought the ban on WC was somewhat unfair. I think everyone should have creative liberties. But I won't commit treason like Ryder over it.

Ryder didn't give a damn about WC and he admitted it on several occasions. (His real motives were revenge on mods / various members, mainly the ones who knew he was in a 'sexual relationship' with his pet, and a desire for control he didn't have in his personal life.) A lot of people fought to keep the fandom from self-destructing and they brought this on themselves. 

I know Ryder didn't care about creative liberties. And I thank you Keil and the other members that attempted to help out the WC fans.

#Heil Farren

My personal view is that I don't like blanket ban's on a subject, any subject, however I also don't like amputations and they are sometimes sadly necessary.

It might look like an extreme jump there but in reality it is very similar. Once a persons limb is injured beyond repair, usually by infection and cannot be saved without risking the life of the person to an unacceptable degree the hard choice of amputation is made. Everything else is tried first, we give anti-biotics, we do stop-gap surgeries to remove the necrosed tissue, we even put people on life support to save the limb but if it all fails, we cut it off wholesale in order to save the main body.

Cutting off a genre entirely is the same thing for a writing site, it is a whole and unique outlet for writers to explore. The issue came after everything else was tried and had failed. It was a slow decline of weeks as more and more 'fans' arrived to write literally hundreds of stories which almost exclusively ranked as a 1 or 2. Some of the only exceptions being stories with the ending locked out in a vain attempt to artificially boost a game by preventing anyone but the chosen few fans with the password from completing it.

Talking was tried, restrictions were tried offering help was tried by many of us, nothing worked. Offers of help were flat out rejected, comments with helpful guidance ignored and the spam continued. This led to the massive several week long crap fest in the forums where, at times, literally every thread in the lounge was about WC and every thread in the forum games too. The community then became a stage for trolls to fight with 'fans' and nothing else. People left, others got banned purely because of it.

After that there was no other option. Any comment that was not 100% supportive, even constructive helpful ones were responded to with tirades across the site and even the most level headed members were starting to post rants against them or the stupid fight itself as the trolls kept to argue back and insult. So they were cut off.

It's really sad that the entire genre had to be cut off, but it did. Going back on the ban relatively soon is only likely to bring the old issues up immediatly. It is somthing I'd like looked into in the future again but for now it is safest to leave things as they stand.

If I remember correctly, we didn't just ban people who made consistently fucked stories. We usually waited until after they went on a tirade or something. Let's say we do start banning for horrible games alone, and extend this to everything else as well, and the tirades won't mean anything because the authors will be shoved off anyway. That means we'll also have to enact penalties to trolls that go full retard and people who can't even provide constructive criticism the first time around. We let people in, be cordial until we know they're beyond hope, and then swiftly cull the offending masses. Speak softly and carry a big stick, right?

Again, if we look into it in the future, it won't really do anything. It's a fandom based on children's stories. It will attract children. We're going to have annoying kid fans knocking on our door no matter what, and time won't really change that, except increase the chance that maybe an adult who didn't grow out of it decides they want to write a CYOA and comes to this, of all websites. And that's a kind of specific chance.

As I also said when the WC ban was first brought up for discussion, I'm not a particular fan of banning a whole category of stories outright. In my opinion, if a story is above minimum site standards, it can stay.

However, that doesn't mean that I think a the total WC ban can be completely lifted all at once. Even if good stories get written, I think the past has shown us that many younger writers don't necessarily look to them as examples of good writing, instead believing themselves to be the best writers on the site.

Furthermore, I also don't have the best impression of our regular(ish) userbase, and the chances that more forum flame wars will erupt once WC writers get back on the forums.

I do, however, think that a partial lift of the WC ban could be considered. I propose a transitional arrangement, where WC is technically still banned, but good/decent stories are allowed to stay. Of course, what defines a good story is up for debate, but I'd imagine a rating of four or five could be a minimum.

Once it has been proven that it's possible to write decent WC stories, and the WC fanbase and the rest of CYS can get along on the forums, a further lifting of the ban can be considered.

Also, what did Mitchekie do?

While I agree that WC should be unbanned on a probationary basis and I have nothing against this. But I honestly believe that the community is incapable of learning or taking advice from good writers, making any improvement of the WC stories impossible. I even proofread for one of them, however, when I told them their mistakes he started calling all sorts of names for not saying his story was the next Eternal.

However, despite all that I believe that at first WC should be unbanned only from making storygames to see if they've grown capable of having proper grammar and learning to take people's advices. If they have, then they should be unbanned from the forums as well, however if they haven't changed at all they should be banned again both from making stories and forum posts.

How about "3 bad stories = captive-bolt to the face"?

I know, I know, I have suggested murder several times, and, consistently, it's been shot down (no pun intended), but I don't feel it is an option that has been adequately explored.

Just think about it, guys.

I just feel like, if we create an opinion-based system to justify murder, somebody's going to abuse it, or campaign to have someone killed. That's a big no-bueno for our PR.

The mods can change a game's rating fairly easily with a single vote, and the membership obviously already trusts the mods' ability to do right or they wouldn't stick around.

On another note, I even found a pamphlet endorsing my approach.

I can appreciate the desire to find a more forgiving solution and though everyone seems to understand that the blanket ban was absolutely necessary, perhaps another solution is warranted now.

However, there is no real point in debating this without 3J, as any different conclusion you all reached could not be put into practice.

Ehh, I'm more of a damp afghan, really.

More like a moist quilt, if you know what I mean. ;)

Or a humid napkin. ;)

Yeah, I was just trying to get a discussion rolling, to see how the community would feel if something like this was put into motion in the future, and just so we could say we have some ideas if 3J ever does come back and reconsider.

Oh, I figured. My comment wasn't directed so much at you as it was at possible future inquiries of "so why don't we fix it now?" from any eager, less-versed members.

Don't be so considerate! It's confusing!

*cackles* But that's the fun of it! 

Who was Michekie and what did he get banned for?

It's a sad thing to have it happen. I hope there will be a way to get some through. Banning the whole thing does as much good as prohibition, beside you know the illegal activities.