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I'm at work so I've mostly just read the thread up to Disjunction's absurdly long post, and I'll be brief here. I just want to play devil's advocate here because I've been on both sides of these situations so I feel fairly uniquely qualified to comment here.
Remember that even though some people are clique-ish and might be disrespectful that it doesn't stem from nothing. People rarely act rudely towards others for no particular reason. Rather than immediately retaliating at people who are criticising you because of the way they go about it, consider what they have to say. For example, maybe you, Orphic, weren't excluded from the lab solely because you aren't part of the "clique" and maybe people are right to doubt your teambuilding because there are very few examples of your building out there. Rather than get mad, make an effort to prove that you're better than people might think. I'm not saying it's OK for anyone to mock you or anybody for any reason, but there's definitely more to this and other things than just "x people dislike you." I know I wasnt comfortable adding you to the lab solely because I doubted your abilities, so prove me wrong.
I might say more later, but this felt important enough to get out of the way right now.
I'm home from work now, so I wanted to go further into detail on my post. I will not, however, fix any errors in my previous post that were caused by swype because I don't want to.
To go further into detail on my example of Orphic and the teambuilding lab specifically (because it is the main example that has been brought up), I don't want you, Orphic, to feel like I'm targeting you or to make you feel like I'm trying to invalidate your concerns because that's not my goal here at all. I'm just trying to make my perspective in the situation clear because I was specifically involved in it. I can even understand why you would feel the way you did/do about it because from an outside perspective, I can see how it might look like people trying to get only their friends involved with the lab. In reality, it's just easier to draw friends into it because we all know how well they build already. They've had the opportunity to prove themselves through countless hours of spending time together in calls on Skype, casually playing on the ladder, trying to get suspect reqs, playing for tournaments, etc. You haven't had that same chance because none of us spend much time with you. Is it fair? Not really, but it's how things work here and in real life. People close to others in power have more opportunities to prove themselves. As a real life example, one of the main reasons why I got my new job is because my sister works there and I'm friends with a lot of the other people who already work there, so they could put in a good word with the head manager. Now, I'm damn good at my job and I have previous experience working the very same job in another location, but that didn't stop my sister from originally getting hired there over me because she had friends who worked there already.
I'm not trying to say that we should just accept that this is how things work. There's no real way for me to control that in real life because I'm not the hiring manager at my workplace, but here on Smogon and in the NU community specifically, I am one of the people who actually can help change things that might be wrong. I'm not sure if there's any concrete way to do that other than just being more open to new users trying to get involved, but I can at least do that for you guys. Like I said in my last post, I've been on both sides of these situations. When I first got into competitive Pokemon, I was an active member on PO, and when I tried to get involved in the forums, I felt like my contributions weren't really wanted. Maybe it's because I lacked the right amount of metagame knowledge to make meaningful contributions. Maybe it's because I wasn't part of the inner circle there. Regardless of the reason, it sucked. When I came to Smogon, I didn't feel that this was the case at all. I got really involved in #neverused on IRC and started posting frequently on the forums. There was some pushback from certain members of the community who I have no reason to name because they are either no longer active or no longer give that same pushback, but for the most part, the community was really open and accepting. If I posted something that showed a lack of metagame knowledge or that was frankly dumb, nobody called me a dumbass for it. They usually respectfully told me why I was wrong or why they disagreed, and then I learned from it. I'd like to see our forums shift back into this direction. I do see some of that already, but I also see people being very closed off and unwilling to spend the time it takes to explain why a post might not be very good.
Here are some of the ways I can see this happening:
More active moderation
This mostly falls on me because I'm probably the least active in actual moderating in the subforum, regardless of how often I post in comparison to the rest of the NU mods. An increase in actual moderation, by which I mostly mean deleting or editing unnecessarily rude posts and deleting posts that are overall unnecessary (one liners, memes, etc.), can help to get rid of that general unwelcoming vibe that the community currently has a tendency to give off.
More frequent posting
This one might not fall as much on me because I'd like to think I post a decent amount, but as a whole I'd like to see our moderation team post more frequently. This extends a bit to our Community Contributors as well, but maybe not quite as much. We, the moderators and CCs, are supposed to be the leaders of the community. New users should be able to look up to and emulate our posts. This sounds kind of arrogant, but it's kind of the entire idea behind the CC badge. These people should be the ones you look up to.
More frequent rewarding of contributions
This is definitely primarily on me because Raseri does a great job of bringing up people who we should reward through badging or adding to the council, but it's still something we can improve on as a team. My standards for CC and other badges are probably too high right now, and while I still don't want to see undeserving users receiving badges, perhaps my threshold for undeserving should be lowered. Do note that this isn't an invitation to whore out threads and try to get as many contributions under your belt as possible. I personally care a lot more about the quality of contributions than I do quality, so while I do appreciate people who host a lot of different threads, I still don't want that to be good enough to get a badge.
More open to criticism
I think we're already taking a great step in this direction by opening this thread, but overall I want the members of our community to understand that they can come to me or Raseri if they have any concerns about the way things are being run. We aren't perfect; we fuck up just like anyone else. If you have some kind of criticism and Raseri and I disagree with it, you should also understand that it doesn't change our perception of you. Nothing bad will come from any concerns you guys express to us as long as you do it in a respectful way. This extends to the NU room on Pokemon Showdown and C&C as well. Just talk to us, be up front, and be respectful about it, and we'll be happy to listen to you.
If you guys have any other specific ideas on how we can improve, let us know in this thread or in PM. I don't want this to be the end of this conversation. This is just some transparency from me on my specific reaction to the content of this thread. Most importantly, remember that we're all here because we share a common interest. That doesn't mean we're all going to get along, but try to show some respect for other members. If you can't do that, at least have enough tact to be respectful to one another in public. It's really not that hard. If you can't do that, then fuck off.
haha i'm stealing the freshness of my nigga h-wood's post for my own
i'm not going to delve into CLIQUE vs NON-CLIQUE partly because i don't really give a shit, but i'm going to give some tips on being a better community and developing relationships and friends on this dumb site of ours. i'm an old man so i really only know a handful of you and i actually don't even know who's a part of said 'clique' and who isn't, even...
i haven't been heavily involved in NU since well before the time that most of you new kids joined town, back when #neverused on IRC was infinitely more popular than the PS NU room and when Django was actually relevant. our circle of players and participants was widely regarded as one of the best, if not the best outright. this was mostly because we had an amazingly fun and balanced metagame to play, but also partly because of how we treated each other as a whole and how we gave ourselves room to grow as a group of friends who like playing pokemon. for the most part, new and not-so-smart users were encouraged to continue participating & getting better until they became good players, ones who spoke their mind well and were knowledgeable. quiet users who occasionally shared a brilliant post were encouraged to continue speaking up - users like marilli, FLCL, and even the great Raseri himself were all once quiet players who started participating in the environment with NU only once they got engaged with our community and realized NU was a heck of a lot of fun.
i actually distinctly remember that prior to the like system, i'd go directly to the profile pages of some users whose posts i liked to tell them that i really liked their post, and that i'd like to see more of them posting around. i still see some of those users that i remember talking to like that today, and they're still fantastic if not even more so. promoting the posts and input of new users is a very real thing, and it's what keeps our community alive and thriving with new blood. it also keeps everyone's mind churning with the development of the metagame - if all you do is work with the same few people that you like, how are you ever going to have truly new thoughts or new ideas on the metagame? on top of all this, polite criticism helps everyone get better too, and some people just need the smallest nudge in the right direction to become great posters rather than subpar ones that you (we) all laugh at in our skype groups.
i'd like to point out that Mr.378's post about the Ubers "Community" thread is a very real and very likely fate for this thread. while it is meant for discussing issues with the community, some of the coming posts will inevitably turn into a swimming pool of vitriol, so i'd really like if we could do our best to focus discussion on positivity where it's applicable instead of drowning in the *mad*. for example, some people are calling out this mystery Clique in regards to how they treat others on PS and in other places. i understand this and the temptation to blame all sourness of the Community Metagame (xD) on them, but i'd also advise that we don't use that as an excuse to try to a) blow apart said clique or b) make them feel like they're unwelcome community members either. bad behavior should be dealt with as always, but please please please always focus on encouraging great behavior and with encouraging new users to be a part of an awesome community rather than telling people they're purely at fault for the divide in our little family.
personally, i'd love to see NU become the place where everyone can feel at home, whether you've been a reject in the past or a famed ladder climber or maybe even a phenom tournament player. there is plenty more to be discussed on making the forums effective again, and on how to develop the metagame more to make it more fun and awesome, but if you all (i mean everyone, not just this clique) shift your mindsets about each other and about the community, there's absolutely no reason why we can't be the best community there is.
i think sg and marilli really hit the nail on the head with the general message that needs to get across to everyone in the community which is pretty simple: stop being (BAN ME PLEASE)s toward each other. Everyone should learn that if you disagree with someone or something that someone said, we all need to learn to deal with one another politely and with respect. With that, I know people fuck up and maybe they're having a bad day or whatever and someone goes over the line and acts like a real shit-bag towards someone, it doesn't hurt to reach out via PM just to let the other guy know "hey sorry i was acting like a complete douchebag today yadayadayada".
that's just a general thing, but I think something else needs to be addressed here before we go any further. People have been mentioning off and on a certain "clique" that everyone is casually mentioning is making the tier unfun and the community shitty, and i guess since people consider me part of it, I should probably make some stuff clear. I don't think our group has been very good in terms of approaching new users with an open mind, or at keeping our opinions (and our memes) behind closed doors and I think that it's definitely a part of the problem but I also feel like there's 2 sides to the coin here. I think people should remember that everyone was a new user at some point with no real friends / not knowing anyone in the community, Myself, ras, tennis, QoL etc. This is more of a general Smogon thing than anything, but even though it may seem unfair at the time, there is a specific way that everyone does things around here, whether it be the Forums or PS. There is a reason that a lot of PotW threads and Smog articles (with relation to PS! integration) say that one of the best things you can do is lurk a bit when you first start on forums. I don't think that it's realistic for a newer user to expect to be treated with the same respect as someone who has established themselves in the community. Speaking personally, I barely even spoke to any of the people that would eventually become some of my closest friends almost until I had recieved my Room Drivers, which was a good 4 or 5 months in.
Marikeinen, i'm sorry if the fact that a lot of higher-up auth aren't exactly chat regulars anymore, but just because we don't talk in the chat and answer everyone's questions, please don't take it like we're just straight ignoring you. A lot of us idle in chat while on the forums or on IRC, so we aren't even looking half the time. If you ever feel like you want to ask any of us something, a question about NU, life, whatever, you can always PM us if you want a direct answer. If someone doesn't answer your PM right away it's because they're just doing something else, and i'm sure they'll get back to you as soon as they get back. Nobody in an auth position would ever just straight ignore a question/PM from someone because they aren't a part of their group of friends, since if they did that they shouldn't be in an auth position in the 1st place.
I know that Smogon and PS! are really uptight about how people do things and are really pushy about making sure people do things the "right" way, up to the point where there's really not much room for error. Speaking from personal experience, I literally waited months to start actually contributing on forums, since I wanted to make sure with certainty that I was going to do things the "right" way. I think one of the biggest things that we as higher-ups are failing to do is to communicate with, and educate the community on how to do things (post on forums, talk in chat) the "right" way rather than just shitting on people that don't in private IRC channels/Skype groups. Maybe the solution is bringing back tutoring, maybe it's some other solution, i'm not sure right now. Whatever it is though, I feel like it's best possible way for us to move forward as a community.
Finally, I'd like to issue an apology from myself, and on behalf of our group to anyone that feels like we've driven them away from any aspect of NU or pokemon in general through our actions. I can honestly tell you all that it was never my intention to try and make anyone feel unwelcome or ostracized from the NU Community. As an NU Council Member, I feel the most at fault here for people not feeling integrated into the community, and I will try and do the best I can in order to improve the tier to the best place it can be.
Alright everyone, thanks for all the responses so far. I have a few things I'd like to comment on for now, but please do keep up this discussion.
StarmeiTheGod, i think keeping this more NU related for now is the best way to go. Although I do agree with you that every community on Smogon has similar problems, there are enough differences between each of them that the exact solution would be different. Going forward, I hope that we can set a positive example for how to deal with these kinds of issues.
I think soulgazer really hit the nail on the head with his points. If we could just respect each other a bit more, we could return to the glory days of the BW2 NU.
I was asked earlier about what I want NU to be, so I figured that I should share my vision for NU, and a bit of a plan on how to get there.
To me, the most important thing in the NU community is mutual respect. Back in BW2, when the community was much smaller, the degree of respect between players was solid. There were conflicts and people who didn't like each other, but because we all loved NU and Pokemon, we were able to put aside those feelings and work together when the situation called for it. Nowadays, with the community growing so large, it has become more and more difficult for this kind of respect to remain, but I think that if we set our mind to it, its something we could bring back. So to all of you reading this that are involved in a conflict with someone else, try to put it aside and look ahead. Things here are a lot more fun when you aren't upset!
Something else that is important to me that we have failed at is being a welcoming place to new contributors. As Can-Eh-Dian said, becoming a part of the "in" group on your first day is not realistic, when you're new to NU, you'll still be learning about what it is you like, and whether or not its the right place for you. But what we as a staff have failed at is helping to assist new people and make them feel welcome. Trust me, you are welcome here, if you ever feel lost, im sure a member of our staff will be willing ti help you. Cause if they dont ill woop them So if any of you have had negative experiences with the NU staff before, please give us a second chance, we will do a better job now!
A big thing I want to focus on going forward is not who was right and who was wrong in getting us to this point, but instead accepting that things are not OK as they are now, and working together to find a solution, I don't want this to end up in a blame game. Some things were done poorly by NU staff members, myself included. But we are dedicated to making things in NU a positive experience for everyone involved. I think what hollywood covered earlier shows a lot of the things we need to do better going forward to make the forums a better place, while I have my ideas about how to make the PS room a better place
More active staff members
I don't mean that you can't idle in the room and have to be available 24/7, but having someone around who is willing to help is something we need. During peak hours it shouldnt be hard to find someone. Beyond having staff physically there, making sure that the same few people don't get burnt out is a priority as well, so hopefully with what was posted here, we can get our staff motivated to improve the room as well!
Building rapport with room regulars
This is something else that we will have to do a better job of going forward, as including people who reached out to me privately, there are many people in the room that just feel like they don't fit in, whether its due to social struggles or anything else like that. Reaching out to people that want to be a part of the room, but arent quite ready to do it on their own, is something I will personally try to improve on going forward.
Room activities
One of the things that people have commented positively on is our regular room tournaments, although the culture around them is still a work in progress, they will become more common in the future!
Fostering competitive discussion
This isn't something that was touched on a whole lot in this thread, but a lot of the time its difficult to have good competitive discussion in the NU room. Now I don't expect it ti ever be like the IRC days in BW2, simply because our audience now is so much larger, but going forward we will try to focus more on making the room about the NU metagame, and less about our in-jokes. We will still have fun though! Fun is allowed.
Improving the PS room is a very important thing to me, and by hearing what many of you had to say, I think I have a better understanding of what our room culture is like.
This thread is still open for any ideas you guys have to improve NU, or anything you think we might have overlooked in regards to fixing the current situation. Just remember to try and stay positive and avoid placing blame!
i haven't paid attention to the community at all recently, so i can only speak from past experiences, but i'll try my best to give my two cents
honestly i don't think alienating users is a problem that can be addressed. people on this site tend to make fun of stupidity, and even back in the "good 'ol days" we used to do that. but people need to know where to draw the line. if the user they're alienating for whatever reason is genuinely trying to improve, you should stop being dicks to them. now i'm not too sure what the exact scenario is or who have been complaining about being alienated, but i'm sure if people were not dickheads and decent at pokemon, the community would not actively try to push them away. if you feel "alienated" just because someone laughed at you for making a bad play, then you either cannot handle the culture of this site or need to practice more. a problem i find with newer users these days is that they're too eager to join the community and don't lurk enough beforehand. but like i said i don't know the entire situation here. if people were genuinely good users and the mainstays were still trying to boot them from the community then the mainstays are the ones who need to be removed
about trolling, you can just ignore people who troll. unless they're people with power and they do it constantly with a real intent to disturb. then they need to be taken out of a position of power and then ignored
i won't get into the people arguing part since i don't know the specifics, but i bet it would be solved if people just lowered their egos a bit
As someone who joined Smogon from the outside, forced my way into / created a clique in BW NU, and then after leaving came back to see what the NU comunity has become, I feel I'm pretty well qualified to comment on this. No I haven't contributed in fucking ages but I lurk.
Yes there was a clique in BW. Yes it was the auth (me) involved in it. The difference I can see FROM MY EXPERIENCE is that this sorta shit happened behind closed doors. There are always going to be people that don't get along. I had my fair share of differences with users but you keep it to private channels, don't let it spill over into the public eye. You don't have to like someones internet persona to play pokemon with them jesus.
Another thing I noticed in the last NUPL, and I might be completely misinterpreting the community here, was the amount of fucking inane memes and in jokes spread all over the forum and public channels. This is also the kind of shit which needs to be kept private (to a degree) as it just creates a huge barrier for new users trying to get involved. They see shitty memes and try to emulate other users to be funny and be accepted, but of course then they get mocked for not getting it spot on. And when you have people with badges etc posting this inane drivel what else do you expect from the rest of the community. Keep shitty jokes in firebot and maintain a higher level of professionalism in public forums. Alternatively dismiss this as the ramblings of an old man who doesn't get this young internet kid humour.
Finally, to the people who feel victimised / ostracised: move on. I know it's annoying and people are shits but at the end of the day its internet pokemon. If someone doesn't like you, fuck em. Go talk to someone else and laugh as the vitirol flows off you like water off a ducks back. In the words of our Goddess T. Swizzle: Haters gonna hate hate hate hate hate, players gonna play play play play play, I'm just gonna shake shake shake shake shake, Shake It Off, SHAKE IT OFF
Another thing I noticed in the last NUPL, and I might be completely misinterpreting the community here, was the amount of fucking inane memes and in jokes spread all over the forum and public channels. This is also the kind of shit which needs to be kept private (to a degree) as it just creates a huge barrier for new users trying to get involved. They see shitty memes and try to emulate other users to be funny and be accepted, but of course then they get mocked for not getting it spot on. And when you have people with badges etc posting this inane drivel what else do you expect from the rest of the community.
I will post briefly about this. To be honest I didn't really care about anything people posted about me or the jokes they made at my expense. I enjoyed myself here. I wasn't necessarily part of a clique but there are definitely these groups in the NU community. I don't really care if they continue to abuse newer users but many people do. So in light of the fact that some people can't take the shit they get here, I think the more known people should be setting a better example and really try to remember where they came from and their beginnings.
But it doesn't matter cuz I'm a NUPL champion and my haters aren't.
- Big Bad Booty Apprentice, son of Cased and Soulgazer
i haven't been heavily involved in NU since well before the time that most of you new kids joined town, back when #neverused on IRC was infinitely more popular than the PS NU room and when Django was actually relevant. our circle of players and participants was widely regarded as one of the best, if not the best outright. this was mostly because we had an amazingly fun and balanced metagame to play, but also partly because of how we treated each other as a whole and how we gave ourselves room to grow as a group of friends who like playing pokemon. for the most part, new and not-so-smart users were encouraged to continue participating & getting better until they became good players, ones who spoke their mind well and were knowledgeable. quiet users who occasionally shared a brilliant post were encouraged to continue speaking up - users like marilli, FLCL, and even the great Raseri himself were all once quiet players who started participating in the environment with NU only once they got engaged with our community and realized NU was a heck of a lot of fun.
i actually distinctly remember that prior to the like system, i'd go directly to the profile pages of some users whose posts i liked to tell them that i really liked their post, and that i'd like to see more of them posting around. i still see some of those users that i remember talking to like that today, and they're still fantastic if not even more so. promoting the posts and input of new users is a very real thing, and it's what keeps our community alive and thriving with new blood. it also keeps everyone's mind churning with the development of the metagame - if all you do is work with the same few people that you like, how are you ever going to have truly new thoughts or new ideas on the metagame? on top of all this, polite criticism helps everyone get better too, and some people just need the smallest nudge in the right direction to become great posters rather than subpar ones that you (we) all laugh at in our skype groups.
Despite Zebraiken being an irrelevant nobody, I wanna echo these two paragraphs cause they are basically my thoughts on this whole thing. I remember encouraging a ridiculous amount of users on the forums and IRC (not in the homo way that Zeb did, who posts on a randoms wall LOL), and that community was one of the best things to be a part of. Honestly you get so much out of interacting with new people and the community at large will benefit from it. Maybe we were lucky though, and it was only possible because we had a smaller number of people. Even still, it's something to aim for.
Just a sidenote I know I'm not perfect in this regard either. I know I've bullied certain users out of places and I totally regret that. I like to think I'm past that immature stage however, and helped to build something that I want to see continued.
I don't think that it's realistic for a newer user to expect to be treated with the same respect as someone who has established themselves in the community.
I know I'm picking out a tiny part of your post, sorry about that. But surely we have to treat every user with the same amount of respect here, isn't that literally what everyone has been saying? Actually liking someone and interacting with them is different to giving them a basic level of respect I think.
Also I literally don't understand leremyjus post so ok.
This thread is actually very important to me, considering we're talking about the golden days of BW2 NU, which were very enjoyable for me once I was able to become apart of the community. I've made a lot of good friends, namely FLCL / soulgazer now. But I'd love to talk about my experience as a player, because a lot of people who currently play NU are mainly players who started in XY / Late BW2 NU, and know me as someone who's generally been disrespectful and have a "don't give a fuck" attitude. Week1 and Week2 of SPL 5 (when I was a good boy) are good examples of me being generally respectful of my opponents, especially after I befriended Soulgazer slightly after that week.
I've learned that being on this site, the most important thing to have is thick skin. Even if you're playing at a high level in a tournament, or a random tournament inside the Neverused PS Room (Which is where this alienation seemed to begin), you need to be able to shake off whatever commentators say, because Pokemon is essentially a spectator's sport, there's a reason no competitive games are Hidden Room'd on Gold.psim.us, we play for the people in random and official tournaments. I know some users in the Neverused room (and on the site regardless), may not be the most social at their schools or environment, and I don't defend alienation but I think there will always be a few users (Which I'm going to get into later), who will attempt to alienate people, and there is not a single user on this website who hasn't been called a bad player by somebody out of rage or annoyance (zzz maybe sometimes I get mad), but PS is a good place to learn how to ignore / shake off people who say that.
The issue with this is not just the certain (obvious) players who technically create a clique, it's every single person who has power in the current Neverused room on PS and on the forums, because you are the faces of NU to a lot of the newer players who are looking to learn the guidance / behavior / ability to play to become successful in the tier. I'm not quite sure how this certain alienation is happening since this used to occur in the #neverused room on IRC. But I'm glad this alienation is happening now and people are actually standing up for themselves in order to create a change, something a lot of the alienated BW2 NU players weren't able to do, which is what brings me to this.
Posting about this kind of stuff does really bring me back to SPL 5 where a lot of top players, Raseri included (you wonder why I disliked you from the jump, and still dislike you) attempted to alienate me by trolling me with almost every single top player (FLCL at the time / Annoyer / DTC / Ium / Others) by insulting me whenever my name was brought up, trolling me on IRC, and all of those things. Of course I've never even spoken to Ras or half of those users at the time, but hey who cares, it's hilarious! I think it's absolute bullshit that you can turn a blind eye from the shit that was happening to me pre-SPL 5 and the things that would happen to the players who were alienated during BW2, notably JCM and cbt , people who were alienated and made fun of constantly, and cbt wound up not even wanting to learn XY NU when it came out because he didn't want to deal with certain cliques shitting on him. Considering I hungout in the #neverused channel pre-SPL 5 to see what it was like, only to watch the tier leader shit talk me with his friends for a literal hour. Also this post was only 30% salt and 70% having people get on alts and troll me.
I got really upset when I read this for multiple reasons but I'll focus on one
Hi guys, as many of you know, lately the NU community has been struggling with a lot of issues that desperately need to be addressed. People in positions of power have been alienating new users, people have been trolling in the NU room, arguments between people have gotten out of hand and its been spilling into the NU room and onto the subforum.
I don't expect everyone to suddenly become best friends and for us all to hold hands and sing songs, there are a lot of fiery personalities in NU, and I know people will always butt heads and get worked up over things, but we as a community need to learn how to handle this better. Please remember that there is a person behind every name on this website, and the words you say while angry can really effect them. Take the time to cool off and don't try to hurt other people.
I'm no saint, and anybody who has known me from XY and on knows the shit I say could be regrettable at times. But I choose to act the way I did because when I used to act nice and turn the other cheek, you and your friends would continue to troll, insult, and annoy me for your own enjoyment, if that's not what this thread is about then I don't know what is. Include yourself in the, "People in positions of power have been alienating new users," but I can't imagine how many people had to complain to you about this alienation because you had no issue with not helping the players who were alienated during BW2, but I hope it stops now because I've always said that the NU players care the most about their tier, and I've never seen a playerbase that takes pride in contributing more than the XY/ORAS generation of players.
Something good NU has been doing is forum contribution, it was at an all-time high about 5-6 months ago I believe. There were different players posting different threads, but this alienation is going to really force a bunch of willing NU players to go into different tiers, where contributing players actually enjoy having new people learn a tier they enjoy. I'd love to tell players who are being alienated to turn the other cheek to insults and things of that nature, but it's by no means an effective way to stop the same players from doing it to others, I'd suggest speaking to people of a higher power than even Raseri himself, aldaron or generally powerful people on Smogon. If alienation was easy enough to turn the other cheek to, it'd already be extinct.
This is literally coming from one of the most disrespectful players on the site, but yeah, shit needs to change and not just the targeted playerbase needs to change, everybody in charge needs to change. Change comes from the top - Django
Django confirmation BODYBAG BONGRINE: Did you even know me BODYBAG BONGRINE: pre-SPL 5 Django: vaguely Django: I remember people shitting on you badly BODYBAG BONGRINE: From what I've heard from a lot of guys BODYBAG BONGRINE: I probably had the worst end BODYBAG BONGRINE: Of alienation Django: yeah Django: you had it real bad
I definitely fall into the new/bad smog on player category, despite the fact that I have been playing for almost 2 years now. I’ve certainly experienced the toxicity being discussed when battling top NU players. I play on an alt that is different than my username because I don’t want some asshole on PS who’s mocking me during a battle to come onto the forums and continue to talk shit. So I’m both encouraged to see this being discussed, and discouraged that more people like myself aren’t sharing. Although I’m new to the smogon scene, I have been involved in my local smash bros scene for a while now. There’s a pretty significant difference between an online and in-person community, but even so I think I can provide some words of advice and very specific methods towards improving the community feel of NU (smash scenes are known for being very friendly toward new players).
First off, if you read new/bad at the beginning and decided to not bother reading the rest of this, you are part of the problem. Just because someone hasn’t been around since these so-called glory days of BW2 NU doesn’t mean their opinions and ideas are unintelligent (although to be fair in regards to the metagame they usually are). New players aren’t just a bunch of 12-year-olds. We are smart, but we’re green and need some help understanding team synergy and thinking long-term. Veteran players are the greatest and only resource for new players to learn, so when they are quick to disregard the new players, it’s going to cause the tier to stagnate and perpetuate “meanness”, for lack of a better word. Smash scenes are known for being new-player-friendly because returners are so willing to play and teach newcomers, and never make the new/bad player feel bad for making a dumb play. You guys can emulate this easily; it’s not something that only in-person communities are capable of.
In terms of the forum page, I recommend taking a look at UU. They do an excellent job of providing resources to new players, as well as fun events for anyone to participate in. For the PS page and battles, I can think of a few easy ways for NU pros to make the new player experience better:
NEVER complain about hax in-battle or on the PS page. Two reasons. First, it’s literally random and part of the game, so you should be ready for it. Second, this isn’t VGC, it’s not really a big deal. Find a private place to vent. Just to be clear, things like “NOOOOOOOOO” or “:[“ are fine. Any player can empathize with that. Things like “of course” or “I hate this game”, even though they don’t target the other player, aren’t really acceptable because they take the fun out of the battle. You may not be having fun anymore, but you don’t need to ruin it for the other player. And obviously, never call the other player bad or hate on them for hax.
Avoid comments like “why would you…” If you really care about improving their play, explain why you question their play and why you think they should have done something differently. If they respond kindly and with genuine respect and desire to learn more, encourage them by offering one-on-one help or set them up with a community member who’s willing to if you aren’t.
The only people who should be talking during a match are the players. Everyone has the right to spectate, but spectators do not have the right to say whatever they want, whether that be egging their friend on to talk trash or participating in the bullying. Unless the other player says it’s okay, spectators should not be in the chat at all. You can always share replays so you really don’t need to comment on every play.
If you guys can start with this, it will go a long way. I want to end by saying that you truly become your actions. You could be the biggest dick on the site, but if you act nice towards new players and refrain from cursing them out, you will become the quality leader this tier deserves. I love playing on PS and reading these forums, so I really hope this community can improve and make the experience for everyone more enjoyable.
I know I'm picking out a tiny part of your post, sorry about that. But surely we have to treat every user with the same amount of respect here, isn't that literally what everyone has been saying? Actually liking someone and interacting with them is different to giving them a basic level of respect I think.
I spent a lot of time trying to figure out the right word, looking back respect wasn't exactly the right one. I was trying to condense what Hollywood said in his post about the lab and not getting the same exposure. Now that it's not 1 AM, I think that recognition is a better word. I dont think people should expect to be treated with the same level of recognition as an established user. Reading back it makes me come off as a total dick so sorry about that @_@
I spent a lot of time trying to figure out the right word, looking back respect wasn't exactly the right one. I was trying to condense what Hollywood said in his post about the lab and not getting the same exposure. Now that it's not 1 AM, I think that recognition is a better word. I dont think people should expect to be treated with the same level of recognition as an established user. Reading back it makes me come off as a total dick so sorry about that @_@
What about established users who are still treated poorly? I know people from XY and even BW2 who aren't treated as equals, much less human beings. None of these posts address that.
This has derailed from a post about treating people poorly into defending condescending attitudes with arguments such as:
"I had to deal with being treated like shit (maybe not even to the same degree) so they should to!"
-People are different, and maybe people who claimed they're over it are still adversely affected by this treatment...All too often many people here become extremely defensive at the drop of a harmless joke, I think this stems from being picked on in the past and as a result becoming extremely defensive and volatile people. Probably more psychoanalysis than needed, but this is my belief. Also no one deserves to be treated like shit, just like abused people shouldn't become abusers.
"I treat people like shit sometimes, but not always! Everyone has bad moments"-
I find this akin to the saying "If you can't handle me at my worst you cant handle me at my best"
...No, you are an abrasive and mean person who is trying to justify your bad behavior. I know plenty of users who I've seen in my 2 years here, who have never degraded someone to the degree that I've seen recently, and as mods/auth you should be held to that same standard. If you can't always be a decent human being, then you shouldn't be an auth. That isn't so much to ask.
Also note how joking around/playful banter "Ah you haxing goon" differs from being a terrible person "Wow go take a bath with a toaster, you piece of shit"I think some of you are clumping to the two together
What about established users who are still treated poorly? I know people from XY and even BW2 who aren't treated as equals, much less human beings. None of these posts address that.
This has derailed from a post about treating people poorly into defending condescending attitudes with arguments such as:
"I had to deal with being treated like shit (maybe not even to the same degree) so they should to!"
-People are different, and maybe you are still adversely affected by this treatment...All too often many people here become extremely defensive at the drop of a harmless joke, I think this stems from being picked on in the past and as a result becoming extremely defensive and volatile people. Probably more psychoanalysis than needed, but this is my belief. Also no one deserves to be treated like shit, just like abused people shouldn't become abusers.
"I treat people like shit sometimes, but not always! Everyone has bad moments"-
I find this akin to the saying "If you can't handle me at my worst you cant handle me at my best"
...No, you are an abrasive and mean person who is trying to justify your bad behavior. I know plenty of users who I've never seen in my 2 years here, ever belittle or degrade someone, and as mods/auth you should be held to that same standard. If you can't always be a decent human being, then you shouldn't be an auth. That isn't so much to ask.
Also note how joking around/playful banter "Ah you haxing goon" differs from being a terrible person "Wow go take a bath with a toaster, you piece of shit"I think some of you are clumping to the two together
I completely agree with all of this, you cannot justify disgraceful treatment of others with "that's just me folks" and then expect to keep auth. The way people are rewarded must change, it needs to be shown that you can't get away with being a total dick all the time and still achieving promotions and such simply by being friends with or part of a clique. Merit should be rewarded, backed up by the way a person treats people.
I received a PM from someone who wishes to contribute to this thread, but also wants to remain anonymous, so I've agreed to post for them so their voice can still be heard
i love it how everyone in this thread knows who "the clique" is, yet we all dont name them because these people use their positions of power and respect in the community to unnecessarily shit on people, who are often years younger than them, and have no one stand up in fear that the same will happen to them. this feels a lot like a gradeschool playground, with "the clique" being the kids who beat others up just for their lunch money. "the clique" seems to be aware of their influence over the nu community, yet only uses this to glorify shitposting and sucking up to those in power. not to say there arent great people in the community, and some of my good smogon buddies play nu as their main tier (who im sure would prefer to have their names excluded from this, lol), but these are too far and too few between. things in nu have gone so far that ive had friends who literally got out of playing nu because the community is toxic, and who've literally rejoiced that something was being done about "the clique"
I'm not an NU player, more just friends with a few nu players, but I feel I can share something because I used to be that guy who really misused my auth status to totally shit on people. I didn't really realize what I was doing and how retarded it was to act better than people as a new driver in a small room that most people wouldn't care about until certain other people acted that way to me and made me realize what I was doing. A major way that any room issues can be helped is a lack of talking down to any new users, regardless of who they are. If people have been proven to be shitty after becoming a regular presence you might have an issue but no new people need to be totally alienated because some auth starts putting you down for using lombre, acting stupid in the room, or whatever. Whenever I get on and join PU or Chess, it shouldn't be a chore, something I feel obligated to do as a mod like I know some people feel, it should be something I do to try to be a positive influence and help newer people to improve the community. If you're there just to fuck around with friends then you shouldn't need to be a negative presence and if you don't want to be positively contributing then don't still get on to make the connunity a worse place.
Sry for any typos, did this on mobile
Edit: looking back on it this post seems kinda random. Basically if you're gonna be a dick, why do you need to do it in the room or in any way that impacts forums. There's no reason to act cancerous and cause a thread like this if you just stop acting like having rank makes you better or gives you the right to shit on people
I would like to add on my first post a bit because I felt it was an oversimplification, and it sounded like the clique/cliques are to blame. That was not my intention.
We are all to blame. People who actively condemn people are to blame. People who are rude at the first place and give people juicy material to shittalk about, but then can't laugh at the shittalk also share the burden. Silent contributors that let it happen because it's none of their business, shitty memers that spill them onto public domain, people who rage on the ladder, people who troll on alts: we're all to blame. Yes, and that means I am to blame. For a lot, actually. But it's not about who's to blame, or branding the problem on someone (or a group of people) and being done with it. That merely leads to more animosity.
Urgh that part sounded like victim blaming and it probably is, but for every individual who's voiced my discontent I've heard both sides of the stories. Now I have no idea whose story to believe. From what I can see, bullying is no good. But also the conflict often stems from something that woulda been easily resolved if we just simply said: hey sorry guys, sorry I acted immaturely. Can we move on? Instead, we have animosity rotting between players, and it stinks.
I think it's time to make things right.
I can confirm that even though I try my best to not act abrasive, I still am prejudiced. And I'm pretty sure my prejudice affects how I interact with those people that I'm prejudiced against. For example, I find that it's much easier misconstrue or misread something in a negative light when someone says something and I don't have a positive impression of them either by experience of by hearsay. I could blame that on being a nonnative speaker or a bad reader, but I'd be kidding myself. My intention was to never be abrasive, but I can't help but think to myself that I must have been along the way. For instance, my apologies goes to Cased, Hyunation etc. because I heard bad things even though I never directly interacted with you, and even though I never intend to be abrasive or annoying otherwise, I understand I can be without meaning to do so. (Also being incredibly petty here but swear to god the alt was never reg'd, I know you had no reason to believe me but just fucking check for yourself if you don't believe me.) And also to a bunch of ghostwriters in C&C that I got pretty annoyed at in the past, etc. Well, I did directly interact with some of the ghostwriters and they were kind of rude, but that's besides the point. Deej Dy for this reason I think you're also simplifying things a lot. A lot of clashes happen unconsciously when people don't realize they're being douches but do realize when other people are being douches to them. It's even worse because a lot of us are socially unaware so people don't realize what they're doing.
The cliques happen. The existence of cliques are not to blame. Let's not just shift blames. Shittalking about the cliques behind the cliques' back isn't solving anything. You're part of the problem.
I've had multiple users come to me and complain on this topic, who will remain anonymous. My initial reaction to them was: Well, I don't really know! From BW, I always made it my policy to not get involved in the drama or people relations much. And maybe people talked behind my back or thought I was fake or whatever in BW1, I won't even deny that because I tried to act doubly and triply nicer than usual, and I would be surprised if nobody was annoyed at me, at least in the beginning. But somehow I was tolerated. One of the people who asked me for counsel asked me a question: what would I do if in their shoes? If I were involved I would ask them for forgiveness on anything I may have done wrong, intentional or unintentional, and if they still say screw you you still suck, then they aren't worth your time. Report them to even higher authority like cased said, ignore them, whatever suits you.
As an addendum: as mainly a lurker of these skype groups that everyone is talking about, I feel like we shouldn't exaggerate what goes on in the skype groups.
i feel like a few casual raseri nudes would bring the community together
since i used to be really heavily invested in little cup, i know a little thing or two about smogon bullying and bullshit cliques (holy fuck lc is cancer). all in all, i kind of just agree with case in some degree that you really do need a thick skin to handle this toxic and cancerous community. i hate to be a downer but my concern is that really, regardless of the efforts and good intent you might have, you really can't deal with cancerous behavior within the community without attempting to forcibly remove the tumors. shitheads are just going to be shitheads. all you really can do, then, is develop a fostering community with valuable staff and player outside of the shitheads, a little nu sterilized bubble if you will. if you don't want to exclude anyone, then you have to just accept there is no way things will be all that welcoming.
it's seriously a "get tough" approach. if you don't want to accept dumb shit dank memes on the forums, delete the dumb shit dank memes. if you don't want to accept dumbshits spewing wretched annoying retard shit in ps chat, then mute and lock and ban them until they stop. if you want to fix the cliques, or the bullying, or what have you, you either need to weed that shit out with the iron fist of moderator law, or ignore it and hope it goes away on its own. because really, regardless of how much you want it, immature fuckstains are going to be immature fuckstains unless you whip out your dick and show them who's really in charge.
thus, the casual raseri nudes. ahhh the full circle is here
This thread is actually very important to me, considering we're talking about the golden days of BW2 NU, which were very enjoyable for me once I was able to become apart of the community. I've made a lot of good friends, namely FLCL / soulgazer now. But I'd love to talk about my experience as a player, because a lot of people who currently play NU are mainly players who started in XY / Late BW2 NU, and know me as someone who's generally been disrespectful and have a "don't give a fuck" attitude. Week1 and Week2 of SPL 5 (when I was a good boy) are good examples of me being generally respectful of my opponents, especially after I befriended Soulgazer slightly after that week.
I've learned that being on this site, the most important thing to have is thick skin. Even if you're playing at a high level in a tournament, or a random tournament inside the Neverused PS Room (Which is where this alienation seemed to begin), you need to be able to shake off whatever commentators say, because Pokemon is essentially a spectator's sport, there's a reason no competitive games are Hidden Room'd on Gold.psim.us, we play for the people in random and official tournaments. I know some users in the Neverused room (and on the site regardless), may not be the most social at their schools or environment, and I don't defend alienation but I think there will always be a few users (Which I'm going to get into later), who will attempt to alienate people, and there is not a single user on this website who hasn't been called a bad player by somebody out of rage or annoyance (zzz maybe sometimes I get mad), but PS is a good place to learn how to ignore / shake off people who say that.
The issue with this is not just the certain (obvious) players who technically create a clique, it's every single person who has power in the current Neverused room on PS and on the forums, because you are the faces of NU to a lot of the newer players who are looking to learn the guidance / behavior / ability to play to become successful in the tier. I'm not quite sure how this certain alienation is happening since this used to occur in the #neverused room on IRC. But I'm glad this alienation is happening now and people are actually standing up for themselves in order to create a change, something a lot of the alienated BW2 NU players weren't able to do, which is what brings me to this.
Posting about this kind of stuff does really bring me back to SPL 5 where a lot of top players, Raseri included (you wonder why I disliked you from the jump, and still dislike you) attempted to alienate me by trolling me with almost every single top player (FLCL at the time / Annoyer / DTC / Ium / Others) by insulting me whenever my name was brought up, trolling me on IRC, and all of those things. Of course I've never even spoken to Ras or half of those users at the time, but hey who cares, it's hilarious! I think it's absolute bullshit that you can turn a blind eye from the shit that was happening to me pre-SPL 5 and the things that would happen to the players who were alienated during BW2, notably JCM and cbt , people who were alienated and made fun of constantly, and cbt wound up not even wanting to learn XY NU when it came out because he didn't want to deal with certain cliques shitting on him. Considering I hungout in the #neverused channel pre-SPL 5 to see what it was like, only to watch the tier leader shit talk me with his friends for a literal hour. Also this post was only 30% salt and 70% having people get on alts and troll me.
I got really upset when I read this for multiple reasons but I'll focus on one
I'm no saint, and anybody who has known me from XY and on knows the shit I say could be regrettable at times. But I choose to act the way I did because when I used to act nice and turn the other cheek, you and your friends would continue to troll, insult, and annoy me for your own enjoyment, if that's not what this thread is about then I don't know what is. Include yourself in the, "People in positions of power have been alienating new users," but I can't imagine how many people had to complain to you about this alienation because you had no issue with not helping the players who were alienated during BW2, but I hope it stops now because I've always said that the NU players care the most about their tier, and I've never seen a playerbase that takes pride in contributing more than the XY/ORAS generation of players.
Something good NU has been doing is forum contribution, it was at an all-time high about 5-6 months ago I believe. There were different players posting different threads, but this alienation is going to really force a bunch of willing NU players to go into different tiers, where contributing players actually enjoy having new people learn a tier they enjoy. I'd love to tell players who are being alienated to turn the other cheek to insults and things of that nature, but it's by no means an effective way to stop the same players from doing it to others, I'd suggest speaking to people of a higher power than even Raseri himself, aldaron or generally powerful people on Smogon. If alienation was easy enough to turn the other cheek to, it'd already be extinct.
This is literally coming from one of the most disrespectful players on the site, but yeah, shit needs to change and not just the targeted playerbase needs to change, everybody in charge needs to change. Change comes from the top - Django
Django confirmation BODYBAG BONGRINE: Did you even know me BODYBAG BONGRINE: pre-SPL 5 Django: vaguely Django: I remember people shitting on you badly BODYBAG BONGRINE: From what I've heard from a lot of guys BODYBAG BONGRINE: I probably had the worst end BODYBAG BONGRINE: Of alienation Django: yeah Django: you had it real bad
There were definitely problems with the way many of us treated contributors such as yourself, cbt, JCM, celever, and Draggi, among others. If it was possible to change what happened, and treat all of these people better when they first arrived, I'm sure all of us would do it in a heartbeat. Unfortunately that is not the case, so instead of focusing on the past, instead we are choosing to learn from it, improve ourselves both as individuals and as a community, and move forward to prevent this kind of thing from happening again.
Honestly I don't really have too much to say on the clique stuff mostly because at the moment I'm not trying to get involved with it, and that works for me. But that doesn't work for a lot of people, as they want to get involved with the community more and contribute, and to do that they have to engage with this clique. It's perfectly fine for the clique or whoever to doubt whether someone is qualified to contribute to stuff like the Teambuilding Lab, but they should also give them an opportunity to prove that they are qualified (having them build a team for the lab for example). I also want to say that it's important for new people to lurk the forums to get an idea of the metagame and what a good post looks like, but even if they don't and they make a bad post, you should be nice and not make jokes at their expense, all they did was make a bad post, just explain what was wrong in their post and advice them to lurk more. I really like Brawlfest's idea of an unknown player of the week thread, and I think that's the type of thing that would really help to solve this issue.
What I do have a fair bit to say however is on all these people being terrible to each other.
I first joined ps under a different name, and didn't play NU and mostly hung out in the Tournament room. I was new and not particularly good. One day I participated on a tournament being held, and I won it because I haxed two fairly well-known (though not auth) users in the last two rounds. I have never received the level of aggression I got in my entire life. They spammed the chat. They called me a piece of shit. A f*g. Told me to get gtfu. Told me to kill myself. And they said a bunch of other things I just don't even want to mention. While this is far from the worst experience of my life, I have never really seen in person somebody be so unabashedly terribe, they were vicious and angry and all I could really do was just sit there and write "sorry" over and over. And these were two well-known, liked users who were friends with the authority in the room, so I was intimidated and couldn't report them. I more or less stopped going to the Tournament room after that, and I changed my username to this one, and this is legitimately not OK. Though similar things have happened to me since, thankfully none of them were at the level of what happened to me that time. This kind of stuff happens. Often. And it just drives people away from the community; I didn't want to be even close to anything related to those people, and it just reinforced the image of Smogon, and in general these corners of the internet, as these really unwelcoming, bad places that aren't worth engaging with even if I really like playing this game.
What I'm trying to say is to be nice to each other, and to realize that this is a goddamn game. All of us have our bad days, but that doesn't excuse that kind of behavior. And if one day you say something mean and unnecessary to someone else, go find them and apologize to them; people appreaciate that. Say "gg," "hf," and say "welp" or "noo" or ":(" when you get haxed. It's nice to be nice.
I want to make it clear that I'm not a saint; I've been an asshole sometimes, and I regret it, and I've apologized to the people I've been terrible to. And if I haven't, feel free to PM me, tell me what I did, and I will apologize, and learn from that, and try never to do it again.
I think this thread has great intentions (trying to assuage the tension among some community members, vent our feelings on matters that we believe are troublesome, and ultimately improve the community as a whole), but I don't think anyone is going to alter how they act, feel, or view the community because of the words said here. Hell, I don't think half of the people have done more than skimmed a couple posts, dropped a "Like" by some of their friends's posts or by a long time nu players's post, and maybe posted their own thoughts at one point.
I don't mean to play the role of the pessimist or the downer here, but we're all going to have to work if we wish to improve this community - it's not something that will simply happen over night or with the blink of an eye. This requires a couple things: 1) following up on your/others's words in this thread (meaning if user X says to be open to new users and change in the community, for example, and you agree, then you have to actually reflect what user X said in your actions - I know this sounds like common sense, but you'd be surprised how easy it is to hit the "Like" button, say you agree with something once, and continue to contradict that with your future actions and thus not improve the community whatsoever) and 2) considering the fact that a lot is at stake in the near future - if we all work together to try and improve the community, matters could very well settle themselves out smoothly; however, if we fail to do so and neglect this, things could get even worse and the community could fall apart. The last part about the community "falling apart" may sound a bit dramatic, but who knows what could be a byproduct of continuous disagreements and only a few people genuinely getting along when the playerbase is fairly large.
tl;dr - make sure your actions reflect the genuine words of this thread, use common sense, and don't be a shithead
Well, as I'm sure most of you know at this point...I've quit Smogon primarily due to the fact that the NU community is really cancerous and being surrounded by such negativity constantly made me stop enjoying the game.
So I figured I'd share a few thoughts.
I love how people are referring to "the clique" as if it's some mystical thing that nobody is certain of if it exists or not. There is a clique, everyone knows if they are in it or out of it. Simple.
How did this clique start?
Well, I believe either late 2014 or early 2015 I created a Skype group with a group of 10 friends from Smogon. Most of these people were NU players as it was the tier I was playing the most at the time, and I said at the beginning of the group that this was meant to be a small group of a core group of friends with a reliable group to discuss teams for tours/chat/and just have a good call to fall back on. It was never intended to have people added to it. However, despite it being my Skype group, people slowly began adding people without even asking me first, and the majority of these additions were people that had power in Smogon, it was really an extreme form of ass kissing tbch. Due to the supreme level of ass kissing, most of the people in this skype group started getting promotions within the NU room, or sometimes even globally regardless of whether or not they deserved it. Over time, the group got larger and larger as more and more people were added, and I didn't even know around 80% of the people in the group. Complete strangers in MY group. This was pretty aggravating to say the least. Now this group has climbed up to around 50 users (predominantly NU players or other smogon auth) and the general consensus was that the chat was "cancered" up by a few people they added (shocking I know, adding a bunch of people you hardly know because you're trying to get ahead sounds like a great idea!). So they made a new skype group, the NU group. This group is basically just as large as the old one, but with new additions from people from PO and also kicking out old users that they did not like anymore for some reason. Somehow I made the cut despite the fact that I rarely even participate in this chat, but it's really intriguing getting to see what's happening. (fascinating chats full of (monkey),(celebrate), and "xd" as the only forms of communication!)
Why does this matter?
I know it's completely normal to have a group of friends, as humans we're going to be drawn towards certain people. But in an environment where you're trying to create a culture and/or a feeling of community, its important to make everyone feel accepted. The first example I'm going to use is with Orphic. I really don't know Orphic at all, and that doesn't really matter. The fact that you, hollywood, say that "maybe its because you're not a good teambuilder" is actually fucking laughable. I was there and you know that there were discussions about keeping Orphic out of teambuilding lab as well as preventing him from taking over BOTW because the group didn't like him. If you really believe that someone who is not only badged, but has also consistently been a good presence on forums isn't capable of teambuilding (or running a poll every week (so challenging)), then maybe this would be a good opportunity to take in a user who is trying to contribute and talk with him more about general teambuilding ideas. Or bounce ideas off each other and try to improve as a community. But no, "oh I don't like him, don't let him do it".
Secondly, the constant feeling of superiority among members of the clique is amazing considering many of them have actually done nothing significant in any sort of tournament scene. There have been countless times that I was shot down for not being good enough, or not playing this tier enough, or not agreeing with the hive mind that is the clique despite the fact that I had actual SPL experience and went 2-2 against the four best NU players in the tour. Any time someone makes a suggestion that those people disagree with, it's "kys" or "that nigga is fucking retarded". I'm not really sure that that's how auth are supposed to act. Was I a perfect auth member? No. But I was willing to stand up for what I believed in (not treating people like shit constantly) and publicly stated my frustration knowing full well that I'd lose my position.
(If you're curious about that. In a game that iplaytennislol was playing, his opponent made an amazing play going for HP Fire with Magnezone on a Talonflame predicting the Ferrothorn to come in and got a kill. I said "oml" in the chat. This caused tennis to put on modchat and say "why don't you talk now goomy? oh wait, you can't...you're not global voice".) Classic.
What about Alienation/Participation?
Before I got into NU, I was predominantly an OU player, and as such had a lot of OU friends, including being a part of a private OU room. Why does this matter? Well, in the end I invited a few of my NU friends to this private room, and the sucking up to the people with power continued here as well. At this point, people literally said "I would suck your dick for an NU private room". ... So an NU private room was created. However, this was not a room for the NU community. It was a room for the clique. In the end, users like Teddeh and Sir Kay 9 were excluded from the private room for fear that they would bring "their followers" into the room. Teddeh and Sir Kay are a few of the people that contribute most to the NU chat, why would they not be included? As it stands, the private NU room is basically a ghost town because the only people that are in it are in the Skype call anyway and why talk in a private room on PS when you can just post something in the Skype group?! And most of these people don't contribute to the actual NU chat at all anyway because they don't want to talk to anyone outside their group or that they see as "beneath them". I have also received word from people like Shuckleking87 that say they felt alienated because they didn't want to do the things that these people were doing.
Memes?
Memes are funny to an extent. I've generally been viewed as someone that has a track record of making "meme" posts (which I don't really understand since most of my likes came from SPL victories or RMTs), but the majority of the NU chat is currently "venom" or stuff like that. It's just not conducive to a good community. Making fun of people with memes is something that happens far too often, and really the only time I believe it's acceptable to go after someone on forums is when they have consistently shown that they are ignorant and the only way they will learn is through discipline (ex:) Leremyju or flowre.
All in all, this website as a whole, but particularly the NU community is so bad that I'm not willing to be considered a part of it. I hope that at some point I will be able to rejoin this community and start my way back up from the bottom. But for now, I will continue to play Splatoon and VGC. Good luck Raseri, and I still love you CanadianWifier.
