[bunniey]

Okay, essay time maybe unless I get bored of typing before I finish.

1. What should the forums be for?
The obvious answer from a staffing standpoint is essentially anything directly server-related, and leave anything community-oriented to the discord, but I will always entirely disagree with this notion. Discord is good for more in the moment conversations. If you miss a conversation in the discord, you probably won't even know it happened. That's how it's designed to be, fluid ongoing conversations, with certain specific places being infinitely static. The forums are a great place to have an ongoing conversation about a very specific topic. Relegating the forums to be specifically for specific server issues means you're not utilizing a large part of its allure anymore. That's why people come here to complain about stuff, or make posts about people being retards, because here it will stay at the forefront, anyone can look up a thread and see all the relevant comments about it in one place instead of having to sift through them. So saying that all of the communal use of the forums can go to the discord is just wrong.

2. The true issues with rep manipulation
Rep is a punishment/reward thing. It's true. When you see a bunch of people agree with you, you get an endorphin release. When you see a bunch of people disagree, you feel crummy. But people are making it sound like the worst thing in the world is to be -1'd a bunch. I'd take 10 -1s on a post over someone basically shitting on me here and in the staff discord any day (specific example in mind, won't comment further). Words carry far more weight than that -1, so pretending that being -1'd a bunch is akin to ostracizing and bullying is just foolish at best, because lord knows anyone has been far more wounded by the words of other people here, even staff members, than some -1s, which were probably warranted as more often than not it's over saying something pretty dumb. No one gets mass +1d or -1d just because of who they are, either, that's silly. Everyone who has a lot of rep has said things that netted them a good chunk of -1s. But this idea that it should be some super happy safe area where discourse is treated as fundamentally wrong just feels...fundamentally wrong. Why try to fix something that isn't broken? It's been the same way for ages and the community has still gotten less toxic, from my understanding, than it used to be. There's such a thing as making things /too/ nice. Conflict is part of what holds any community together, and trying to completely minimize it any time it crops up instead of looking inward and figuring out the core issues is silly. No core issues have ever had to do with rep. People don't make posts because they want rep, that's just a meme, and always has been. It's quieter without it because on several facets it feels like the community is being told to act in a more and more specific way, to make staffing easier. I don't know how to end this part, please clap.

3. Actual fixes that involve reimplementing but fixing some of the issues
-1s need to stay. Honestly, having -1s and not +1s sounds better than the alternative. Having a comment with any agreement/disagreement shouldn't be required, and absolutely shouldn't be seen as lazy, Fish. It's a quick way to agree or disagree with something on a good portion of posts, and gives a good gauge on how people feel about things. How the community feels about anyone/anything is honestly more often than not a pretty good indicator as to the right path to take with an issue, anyway. When every single person has nothing good to say about someone, for instance, that someone probably shouldn't be around. But trying to make it a requirement to have something to say when sometimes other people just put something as good as you can is silly. Real fix is a clearly defined rep manipulation (which honestly should only be seen as going out of your way to +/-1 things that are entirely irrelevant to any conversation going on, like old posts), not just a lot of people treating one comment the same. What seems to kickstart stuff most often is when staff are "targeted" with -1s, which is kind of hilarious. It has always been a thing that the playerbase is just more likely to disagree with staff, don't be so hurt ab the internet points. They don't need to always be treated as a personal affront. It sometimes is just merely a disagreement, not because someone hates you.

And honestly, most things on the forums, aside from alts, should be pretty much in autopilot, anyway. If someone is being -1d a lot, why bother doing anything with it? That doesn't mean it's not warranted if it's happening, I think there has just been a heavy misconception that the rep is what caused drama, when really, any drama is caused by how serious/unserious issues are being taken.

tldr just reimplement it and stop worrying about it so much it literally wont hurt anyone ((if the internet points somehow come to live and start stabbing people or stealing socks, i will advocate for it being removed)