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The bad behavior of Russ Pitts

Elijin

Outlander
Messages
13
Monoochrom said:
Aw, I love you too, shithead.

Turns out we don't actually disagree much. I don't think Freedom of Speech and Information is much of a Theme for a Forum either, I just don't consider that "edgy". Refering to that as edgy is kinda troublesome. Infinityshock was edgy, in other words a Dipshit who liked to write Nigger a lot for no reason.
There's the catch though. In the current age of political correctness, safe spaces and all that, something that presents itself as a hub of intellectual superiority and freedom of speech as it's defining qualities isnt very far disconnected from a sign saying 'Edgelords Welcome: Pick up your slurs at the door.'

Is it a generalisation? Yes. That's what first impressions are though.
You might personally feel like that connection isnt strong, but if you were to poke around I think you'd find you it's a common association.
 

Arnox

Master
Staff member
Founder
Messages
5,285
Elijin said:
The general nature of 'we're objectively better than you on all fronts' and the generally superior, but wanky, design of the place doesnt do much to attract.


Watching you guys complain about the escapist being blind to their own faults, while simultaneously labelling issues with your own user base growth as an external factor has some real throwing stones in glass houses vibes.


You could have chosen to brand this place as a casual hangout for discussing videogames, movies, politics and whatever else takes the fancy. Instead you choose the edge that it current is. Sure, it might ultimately be a casual hangout for those things, but to the new visitor, that's obscured by all the posturing.
Whew, OK, this thread kind of exploded. I think I can address your complaints. (Except the logged out issue. You should make a separate thread about that. In the future though, copypasta your text to Notepad really quick before posting it to ensure you still have your post. If it does happen again, try simply hitting the back button until you get back to the Reply box. Your post in its entirety should be brought back.)

First of all, welcome to the Sanctuary! And before I say anything else, I'd like to say that I actually do respect you a little for signing onto the forum and expressing your views, especially since they're rather contradictory to most people's views here. We need more discussion. We need more debate. Sanctuary is not an "alt-right" place or a "right-wing" place. Or a center-wing, or whatever. You say what you wish to say. You read multiple viewpoints from different people. While I will agree that our userbase is generally opposed to leftist values, that does NOT mean you shouldn't join, or that this place needs or even wants to be such an echo chamber.

Now, to address your post, you say "wanky" design. What specifically do you mean there? I need examples.

As to issues with growth, most every time I ask for input for the site, nobody ever tells me anything that they would like improved. If this site needs to be improved upon, I actually am open to suggestions.

And finally, I marketed the forum the way it is very purposefully. Do you know how many forums advertise themselves as a "great place to hang out"? Way too fucking many. I do get the complaints that the "freedom of speech" line that we use a lot sounds a bit hokey, but if not that, what should we use then? Freedom of speech gets almost the entire idea of our forum across in three words. Perhaps not very well, but again, I'm open to suggestions.

Finally, I'm assuming you read the Home page?
 

Elijin

Outlander
Messages
13
I mean, you say they're contradictory views, but I have gotten very little response, even the pushback I did have puttered out to a sort of 'I agree with a lot of what you say, if not how you say it'...


So lets sort of jump about here. Growth. Growth is a real problem because you dont offer anything unique, or have a unique identity. There's no way to arrive here except by being specifically led here by a user, or knowing it exists and seeking it out. In the year(?) since you re-vamped this place, I have tried to find a few times, and been unable to. The title is super generic making it a real pain to google. Even knowing the site exists, it clearly only gets placement due to my having actively been here over the last 48 hours. Shit last night before bed I tried to check on my mobile, which didnt have the site in its recent history, if you'd replied. Spent 5 minutes googling, failing to remember exactly what variation of sanctuary this was before finally googling your specific user name.


Unless you're ready to make a big branding commitment, and generate a community of some kind around that niche, I dont see how you even approach that problem. Because a site needs to have a "thing". And your current "thing" (freedom of speech) is swallowed up by alt-right nonsense websites and communities.


The "wanky" is the websites taglines and the... creative flair of naming some of your subforums. Even your own members are starting to say they're a bit on the nose. We get what you were initially going for, but it's time to let the medium carry that message and think of a new one to define the community.


As for the home page, it's irrelevant. I assume that's a bummer to hear, because you put your effort into it. But you'll find a bulk of newer traffic will skip right past that wall of text to let their gut feeling do the assessment. Only after they've decided to give it a chance would that even become worth reading. And the all black website with 'Freedom of Speech - Freedom of information' at the header of every page....well, we've already covered the impressions that makes.

An alternate impression someone just communicated to me:

The "lost" slightly blurred font on the header paired with the Freedom of Speech & Truth makes this seem like a conspiracy nutjob website. I chuckled, but they kind of have a point now I see it.
 

Arnox

Master
Staff member
Founder
Messages
5,285
Elijin said:
I mean, you say they're contradictory views, but I have gotten very little response, even the pushback I did have puttered out to a sort of 'I agree with a lot of what you say, if not how you say it'...
No, the general consensus here is that they definitely think the "freedom of speech" angle/approach is hokey, but they've disagreed with pretty much everything else you've had to say.

So lets sort of jump about here. Growth. Growth is a real problem because you dont offer anything unique, or have a unique identity. There's no way to arrive here except by being specifically led here by a user, or knowing it exists and seeking it out. In the year(?) since you re-vamped this place, I have tried to find a few times, and been unable to. The title is super generic making it a real pain to google. Even knowing the site exists, it clearly only gets placement due to my having actively been here over the last 48 hours. Shit last night before bed I tried to check on my mobile, which didnt have the site in its recent history, if you'd replied. Spent 5 minutes googling, failing to remember exactly what variation of sanctuary this was before finally googling your specific user name.
The problem of not being able to find us isn't really our fault though. Google actually used to drop us to the bottom of the results due to us not having HTTPS implemented at the time, but that's since been fixed. Now it's much better. If you google simply "sanctuary forum", we're the sixth result down. Not that great but passable for now. What is annoying is if you change the "forum" to "forums", we get dropped a lot further down. It gets even weirder too. Try googling "free speech forum" and Google won't give you anything related to a BBS. As to our domain, well, sanctuary.com is, of course, taken already. We could move to sanctorium.nl, but I feel that wouldn't be much better. Maybe even a little worse. It would also be a big pain in the ass to set up.

As to your complaint of us not being unique, I get that we may look kind of generic, but the reality of it is we are FAR from generic. No site offers exactly what we offer at all. In fact, most sites offer LESS THAN 50% of what we offer. And trust me, If you can tell me a site that does at least a lot of what we do, I will HAPPILY close up shop and move the community over. But I think I can guess what will be the result of that. You won't find a site like ours because a site like ours is either so obscure as to be buried too deep in the internet to find or it simply doesn't exist.

No, Elijin. We are quite alone.

Unless you're ready to make a big branding commitment, and generate a community of some kind around that niche, I dont see how you even approach that problem. Because a site needs to have a "thing". And your current "thing" (freedom of speech) is swallowed up by alt-right nonsense websites and communities.
You say that like there are a ton of alt-right racist/homophobe/sexist/etc. websites and communities. If so, where are all of them? At the bottom of the internet pits where you have specifically do a Google search for them to even have a chance of seeing them?

The "wanky" is the websites taglines and the... creative flair of naming some of your subforums. Even your own members are starting to say they're a bit on the nose. We get what you were initially going for, but it's time to let the medium carry that message and think of a new one to define the community.
Fine. How about "One Forum to Rule Them All"? That'll be especially true once I implement a XenForo license and really pimp this forum the fuck out somewhere in the future. Because that's what it's meant to be.

All in all, I think you have one or two valid points, but even those, you don't offer much in the way of alternatives. Also, I need to bring everyone together and see what they think about a different kind of "branding".
 

Arnox

Master
Staff member
Founder
Messages
5,285
Breakdown said:
I left the Escapist about a year ago, it's bizarre how much it's changed since then. Russ Pitts seems like a bit of a dick.
Glad you're here. :) Welcome to our forums! If you need help with anything at all, please let me know! Also, let us know what you think about our branding.
 
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