• For our 10th anniversary on May 9th, 2024, we will be giving out 15 GB of free, off-shore, DMCA-resistant file storage per user, and very possibly, public video hosting! For more details, check a look at our roadmap here.

    Welcome to the edge of the civilized internet! All our official content can be found here. If you have any questions, try our FAQ here or see our video on why this site exists at all!

A Bit of an Early July 4th Message

Arnox

Master
Staff member
Founder
Messages
5,285
I know Independence Day is an American holiday mostly, but regardless, I find the day somewhat congruous with Sanctuary for obvious reasons. Really quick though, an update on those bad personal matters I was talking about earlier. Thankfully, I think those are coming to a close now and I can finally start moving on with my life again. Now as to Sanctuary, I've always loved the idea that regardless of what happens on other fuckawful social media sites, I'll always have Sanctuary here. I've never taken that fact for granted. Though, I will say, as of late, I'm not sure anymore if many of you guys really appreciate what this site is and what it stands for. Perhaps you did in the past, but for whatever reason, no longer do so. Maybe you just see it as a simply yet another site where you can talk and screw around. Maybe to give attention to certain issues. Maybe just to troll your ass off. But that's alright. As long as you follow the rules, it's your site to do with what you wish, even if I would prefer that you guys appreciated this place more and helped more to see it succeed.

As to why this is in News of the Sanctuary, well, linked to all this, I'm gonna try something rather different to promote Sanctuary. I think a shift in strategy is greatly needed at this point. As to what that new strategy is, you guys don't need to worry about it. I guess the TL;DR of this post is, I'm doing better now and I'm going to do something different and may be silent in terms of official Sanctuary going ons for a while. Also, I think I'm just gonna say, "Fuck it," and start posting a lot more again. If you guys don't wanna post, that's your prerogative, but I don't feel much anymore like restraining what I want to post and talk about just because you guys don't post much. Anyway, that's all.

Tomorrow, we celebrate our Independence Day in the U.S. as well as here at Sanctuary. Have fun. Don't blow your legs off. Go give your parents a call. That is all.
 

Houseman

Zealot
Sanctuary legend
Messages
1,068
I'd like to see this place succeed too.

But currently, it's boring here, because there are few users, and the users that are here mostly have the same values and opinions, which makes discussions boring.
 

Arnox

Master
Staff member
Founder
Messages
5,285
I'd like to see this place succeed too.

But currently, it's boring here, because there are few users, and the users that are here mostly have the same values and opinions, which makes discussions boring.
Well, that's exactly what I'm trying to fix, but it seems nobody cares enough to help out on that front. And again, that's fine. It's up to you guys, but yeah.
 

Houseman

Zealot
Sanctuary legend
Messages
1,068
Well, that's exactly what I'm trying to fix, but it seems nobody cares enough to help out on that front. And again, that's fine. It's up to you guys, but yeah.
Just because we don't want to sign up for a "staff position" doesn't mean we don't want to help.
 

Houseman

Zealot
Sanctuary legend
Messages
1,068
Then what do you want to do specifically?
Donate for advertisements, occasionally make videos for the channel, and spread the word wherever I can to individuals who might be interested.

Beyond that, if you have any other ideas (you've declined to let us in on your current schemes), I'm happy to help, but my time is limited, and I have IRL responsibilities, so I wouldn't want to make a commitment to become a "staff member".
 

Arnox

Master
Staff member
Founder
Messages
5,285
Donate for advertisements, occasionally make videos for the channel, and spread the word wherever I can to individuals who might be interested.

Beyond that, if you have any other ideas (you've declined to let us in on your current schemes), I'm happy to help, but my time is limited, and I have IRL responsibilities, so I wouldn't want to make a commitment to become a "staff member".
Keep in mind, being a staff member is not a full-time job or anything. Even if you took care of stuff for 5 mins a day, that would be great. Hell, maybe even every other day. It's more that you're consistent is all rather than any kind of requirement for long hours. Putting in long hours is not needed or even that wanted.

For example, if you had, say, a staff position for gaming, you'd make a schedule once a week or so and invite some new people to those games during the few times they happen.
 

Drathnoxis

Devotee
Messages
231
Honestly, I don't have any idea what Sactuary is supposed to stand for. What I'd like to see the site become is what the Wild West was on the Escapist. Chaotic nonsense and trolling, but without the risk of seeing anything really shocking or gross.
 
Last edited:

Houseman

Zealot
Sanctuary legend
Messages
1,068
Keep in mind, being a staff member is not a full-time job or anything. Even if you took care of stuff for 5 mins a day, that would be great. Hell, maybe even every other day. It's more that you're consistent is all rather than any kind of requirement for long hours. Putting in long hours is not needed or even that wanted.

You should review the language and tone you use when asking for staff members, both in the topics you made and in the "staffing policies". or ask someone to review it for you. It does not come across as a "casual 5 minutes a day" thing. I do not get the sense that you are humbly asking for assistance or wanting to work together. You make it seem like it's some weighty responsibility and people to be held to some kind of high exemplary standard. Maybe you do, maybe you don't, but just the way you write about it sounds like it's some big intimidating thing and only "THE BEST OF THE BEST OF THE BEST SIR" should apply. I already have a religion and a job, I don't need a second of either of those.

Just look at the vocabulary you use:

> "staff" - has connotations of work, a job, as opposed to "volunteer".
>"WE ARE NOT LOOKING TO FILL ANY POSITIONS AT THIS TIME" - like it's some kind of job opening at a company
> "Who gets picked as staff here is treated INCREDIBLY seriously"
> "...it will be because they have excelled completely"
> "The people we pick must be model posters."
> "We will only accept the best and will expect a lot out of them no matter who they are."
> "They will be held to a very high standard"
> "Anyone who is picked as staff is held to a rigorous standard"
> "they will BE the standard"
> "will also hold a very high level of respect from me and the other admins."
> " this will be a lot more responsibility than privilege"
> "Those people will report to me directly "
> "I need to know that you're going to take your position seriously."
> "They are the keepers of the Sanctuary."
> "I will never promote unsatisfactory posters to a staff position"
> "the people I pick in the future may disgrace themselves"
>" I will not hesitate to demote that person back to peasant level."
> "if you've been demoted, you can still earn your honor back and be repromoted."
> "it will get much harder each time you are demoted."

So that's partly why I'm not applying, because I don't think I'd measure up to your lofty expectations. If my actual boss or my religion spoke to me this way, I'd quit and go do something less stressful, like join the army. I don't need that kind of pressure.

It seems like you have a habit of doing this, like with your AMA, presenting yourself and the site with a kind of unearned, unwarranted importance, like how you presumed to know better than Kiwifarms and tried to tell them what would be best for them and how to act. Same with Giraffe Boards, IIRC. I always cringe when you introduce yourself of "the founder and administrator". Yeah, I can buy a domain and spin up a forum too, big whoop, those titles don't mean anything, try being more humble about it.

I think you need someone to help with PR, who will preview your communications and slap you every once in a while whenever you start having delusions of grandeur.
 

Arnox

Master
Staff member
Founder
Messages
5,285
Honestly, I don't have any idea what Sactuary is supposed to stand for. What I'd like to see the site become is what the Wild West was on the Escapist. Chaotic nonsense and trolling.
We stand for freedom of speech and bringing back a better form of social media. That said, at the end of the day, all I really want is to get a ton of people to actually use the site I built and follow the rules. That's it. The rest will follow. All my immediate goals for the site stem from that goal.

Maybe you do, maybe you don't, but just the way you write about it sounds like it's some big intimidating thing and only "THE BEST OF THE BEST OF THE BEST SIR" should apply.
WITH HONORS.

But yes, I think you're both right and wrong. Let me explain.

You and I have both seen tons of moderation teams in our time, and I think one thing we can agree on for sure is how many do an absolute shit job at it or have a power trip and call it a day. But wait, it gets even worse. Maybe the admin never intended that kind of behavior, but it doesn't matter because the user who got unfairly blasted probably already has his mind made up now about that site. The site staff, like it or not, are watched constantly. That's just how it is. No matter how light their duties may actually be, users are going to put them to a much higher standard than any other standard user.

Take this subreddit mod for instance.


Because of that shit, I'm probably never going to visit that subreddit again.

Now let's take another sort of opposite example. But this time, I'm going to talk about Sanctuary v1.0. We had a user that I had made a moderator called equanimity. Apparently she was famous for trolling Zoklet like mad in the past. Nevertheless, when she came to Sanctuary, she was always very nice and polite the whole time while being completely honest about her past, and she really wanted to help out. That didn't matter to the userbase though, and she got blasted for a long while. It did settle down after a bit, but regardless, my point is the userbase can be harsh and unforgiving. So, coming back to my thread and staffing policies wording here...

You do still have a good point. I can see how the way those posts I wrote are too intimidating and the harsh wording wasn't needed. Nevertheless, I do still stand by the fact that anyone with a staff title of any kind should be posters who I know can be relied on and can also be counted on to not give the site a really bad name. You don't have to be perfect at all. You just need to make an honest attempt.

It seems like you have a habit of doing this, like with your AMA, presenting yourself and the site with a kind of unearned, unwarranted importance
A couple things here. One, I need to market the site and the AMA. Plain and simple. Two, I say I'm the founder and administrator because... That's who I am. I'm the founder and administrator. You can be a founder and not be an administrator. You can be the administrator and not be a founder. One of the things I absolutely strive to be when I put on my "founder and administrator" hat is professional. And one of the things professionalism entails is being precise.

If I talk a big game, it's not because I'm proud myself, although I can absolutely see as well how it could be seen as that. Rather, I'm very proud of and love this site. Literally its only issue (although it's a pretty big one) is that we don't have enough users. That's it. Everything else is amazing. The site is hella customizable, has a good userbase, looks graphically pretty, runs on a toaster, is easy to make good posts on, has a perfect rules set, and even can act as a front end for hosting and downloading files. When you have all of this, it's really hard not to get one's jimmies rustled when they say, "It's just another dumb boring forum." Well a lot of money, thought, and creativity went into making this "dumb boring forum" as powerful and as convenient and as functional and as pretty as it is. Things that so many forums just completely and utterly lack. It's just... Not fair, you know?

I think you need someone to help with PR, who will preview your communications and slap you every once in a while whenever you start having delusions of grandeur.
Funnily enough, that actually doesn't sound like a bad idea. I'd love to have someone to bounce ideas off of regularly.
 

Houseman

Zealot
Sanctuary legend
Messages
1,068
A couple things here. One, I need to market the site and the AMA. Plain and simple. Two, I say I'm the founder and administrator because... That's who I am. I'm the founder and administrator. You can be a founder and not be an administrator. You can be the administrator and not be a founder. One of the things I absolutely strive to be when I put on my "founder and administrator" hat is professional. And one of the things professionalism entails is being precise.
You're not the CEO of a company. You're not "Bill Gates, co-chair of the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation" (does he still say that after the divorce?) You're nobody important or noteworthy. To announce yourself by a self-appointed title that anybody can give themselves just by spinning up a website is cringeworthy. Please, and I mean this as a friend, get over yourself.

Professionalism is all fine and good, but only in the proper time and place. By all means, be professional when handing out moderations or resolving disputes. But please stop introducing yourself with a title to people outside of the site. That's not the place for it. You're embarrassing us.

If I talk a big game, it's not because I'm proud myself, although I can absolutely see as well how it could be seen as that. Rather, I'm very proud of and love this site. Literally its only issue (although it's a pretty big one) is that we don't have enough users. That's it. Everything else is amazing. The site is hella customizable, has a good userbase, looks graphically pretty, runs on a toaster, is easy to make good posts on, has a perfect rules set, and even can act as a front end for hosting and downloading files. When you have all of this, it's really hard not to get one's jimmies rustled when they say, "It's just another dumb boring forum." Well a lot of money, thought, and creativity went into making this "dumb boring forum" as powerful and as convenient and as functional and as pretty as it is. Things that so many forums just completely and utterly lack. It's just... Not fair, you know?
Like you said, the only thing is that we don't have enough users.
To everyone else that's the only thing that matters. To everyone else, it's just another dumb boring forum.
Nobody cares about the features but you, so I think it would be an improvement if you would cut those parts out of your pitch.
 

Arnox

Master
Staff member
Founder
Messages
5,285
You're not the CEO of a company. You're not "Bill Gates, co-chair of the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation" (does he still say that after the divorce?) You're nobody important or noteworthy. To announce yourself by a self-appointed title that anybody can give themselves just by spinning up a website is cringeworthy. Please, and I mean this as a friend, get over yourself.

Professionalism is all fine and good, but only in the proper time and place. By all means, be professional when handing out moderations or resolving disputes. But please stop introducing yourself with a title to people outside of the site. That's not the place for it. You're embarrassing us.
lol I appreciate the bluntness. Thank you. Not being sarcastic about that.

I still personally really don't see the big deal in it, but I've missed things like this before, so I'll defer to you I guess and stop using those titles.

Nobody cares about the features but you, so I think it would be an improvement if you would cut those parts out of your pitch.
Then what should the pitch be?
 

Arnox

Master
Staff member
Founder
Messages
5,285
Personally, I would focus on the "freedom of speech" angle, and appeal to the censored and oppressed people who were cast out for having different opinions.
Alright, but again, that's a very dangerous angle to take. Or at least, it is with what little activity that we currently have. It might also bring a lot of immature anger down onto the forum when someone decides to, say, post bestiality and then get themselves banned and then say to themselves, "OMG! I'm going to DDoS the Hitler site that banned me!"
 

Vendor-Lazarus

Arch Disciple
Sanctuary legend
Messages
936
I agree with Houseman that those kind of people should be our focus. That's not the end all and be all though. Gab and communities.win purport to do the same, but they're overwhelmingly turning into copies of twitter and reddit, although with less speech restrictions. If you're not christian, you're basically not welcome. I think there's a golden middle road where the more centrally aligned people can speak, without downvotes. Forums like these are also a better place to organize, research and collate information and material with regards to otherwise taboo topics. The permanence could be leveraged as a bonus, unlike the often fleeting conversations that happen on modern social media.
 

Houseman

Zealot
Sanctuary legend
Messages
1,068
Alright, but again, that's a very dangerous angle to take. Or at least, it is with what little activity that we currently have. It might also bring a lot of immature anger down onto the forum when someone decides to, say, post bestiality and then get themselves banned and then say to themselves, "OMG! I'm going to DDoS the Hitler site that banned me!"

Beggars can't be choosers.
 

Battousai

Brother Sharp
Sanctuary legend
Sanctuary contributor
Messages
560
Occupation
Cookmaster supreme
This all seems to be boiling down to 2 extremes:

1. You keep everything is as it is right now, nothing will change and people's lack of interest will keep them away from the site as it has been doing so far. Everything remains stagnant.

2. You drop the pompous formalities and just tell the people you have a nifty site where they can post their stuff with no strings attached. You open the floodgates, there is no holding back the tide of what comes, you can only do damage control later wherever it might be necessary.

There is no middle point here, you have been trying to do that and it has been failing at every turn. You cannot control the people on the internet, much less what they like and will choose to post on a place that gives them the freedom to do so, and the net is filled to the brim with a wide array of idiots that can go anywhere from being racists, pedophiles, radical extremists, or simply trolls looking for a reaction. There's way too many people with diverging points of view and different tastes in this World Wide Web to even pretend they will all agree to follow an imposed ruleset by the book and be happy about it.
 

Arnox

Master
Staff member
Founder
Messages
5,285
This all seems to be boiling down to 2 extremes:

1. You keep everything is as it is right now, nothing will change and people's lack of interest will keep them away from the site as it has been doing so far. Everything remains stagnant.

2. You drop the pompous formalities and just tell the people you have a nifty site where they can post their stuff with no strings attached. You open the floodgates, there is no holding back the tide of what comes, you can only do damage control later wherever it might be necessary.

There is no middle point here, you have been trying to do that and it has been failing at every turn. You cannot control the people on the internet, much less what they like and will choose to post on a place that gives them the freedom to do so, and the net is filled to the brim with a wide array of idiots that can go anywhere from being racists, pedophiles, radical extremists, or simply trolls looking for a reaction. There's way too many people with diverging points of view and different tastes in this World Wide Web to even pretend they will all agree to follow an imposed ruleset by the book and be happy about it.
I should say, I knew we were going to get troublemakers EVENTUALLY. That's fine. I'm just very nervous about possibly taking such people on now. Regardless, it is a strategy we haven't given a chance to yet, so I'm still somewhat open to it, but let the record show that I don't think this is the best idea to directly advertise (at least during our beginnings here) as a place for banned people.
 
Top