Rants, Forums, Lighthouse
By
0zymandous,
Posted on: 2006-12-13 19:34 in CoH and CoV General Discussions
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Unfortunately rules are rules. They have to be enforced.
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All of them? Even questionable ones, or questionable interpretations of them?
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Like it or not the mods are final arbiters on interpretation of the rules. If someone disagrees with that, it should go on PM.
And yes. All of them. The rules are there for a reason, as usual some of them seems very restrictive, but they are there because of that minority that always abuse them otherwise.
Remember always, it is always the few that ruin it for the many.
That being said, I am completely on Lighthouse's side here. There are many threads that have been allowed to go on way longer than they should have. But he is just one man, and he's gotta have time to play as well...
Main Hero: Flame Blade (Scrapper lvl 50; Katana/Regeneration)
Main Villain: Elenor Seahawk (Mastermind lvl 44; Necromancy/Poison)
My Arcs: #337278: Learning Curve
Fight my Brute: SMASH
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Like it or not the mods are final arbiters on interpretation of the rules. If someone disagrees with that, it should go on PM.
And yes. All of them. The rules are there for a reason, as usual some of them seems very restrictive, but they are there because of that minority that always abuse them otherwise.
Remember always, it is always the few that ruin it for the many.
That being said, I am completely on Lighthouse's side here. There are many threads that have been allowed to go on way longer than they should have. But he is just one man, and he's gotta have time to play as well...
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It's unfortunate that many mod deletions bear little resemblance to applications of those rules. Not all, but enough for people to notice.
You've seen threads go on longer than you think they should have. I've seen threads deleted for no discernable reason.
Elsegame: Champions Online: @BellaStrega ||| Battle.net: Ashleigh#1834 ||| Bioware Social Network: BellaStrega ||| EA Origin: Bella_Strega ||| Steam: BellaStrega ||| The first Guild Wars: Kali Magdalene ||| The Secret World: BelleStarr (Arcadia)
A suggestion if I may Lighthouse,
Instead of closing the entire thread (because 1 or 2 members choose to reply with remarks that go against the Forum Rules and Guidelines) how about monitoring them and send them a warning and delete that specific reply rather then closing the entire thread where as the OP had already stated that the remaining thread contains well written suggestions and or comments on the topic at hand.
Because I too have seen quite a few threads closed that didn't need it. I know you are just trying to do your job and make the best of the forum community but the stick you carry is in my opinion a bit too heavy.
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Actually, I think Lighthouse being stricter has actually improved the forums. I agree, things were pretty out of hand. I have to give Lighthouse a 
for cleaning things up.
Now, can Lighthouse drag a few of the Cryptic folks out here for some PR work. We forum people have some questions to ask the devs about recent changes.......
Please Lighthouse? Be stricter about dev PR work? 
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Hi LadyExxotica,
Thanks for taking the time to post your feelings and concerns. I have also received feedback on this same topic since I started. This is home for a good number of people and they've let me know (and some of the Dev's too!) how they feel it is being handled. Some people have expressed they like the change of pace and felt that the forums had grown a bit unruly. Some others let me know they felt I was being overly prohibitive and stifling. I respect the fact that I'm the newcomer here and do my best to keep the feelings of our posters in mind.
I do lament that I don't have as much time as I'd like to just involve myself in discussions on the forums. Unfortunately, that means that a lot of times when I post into a thread, it is as you said, to address some concern with how the topic is progressing or to shut something down. So, that is to say, I can understand your feelings about my presence on the forums. It is something I'm aware of and working to address.
We do have good reason for the Message Forum Rules and Guidelines that govern conduct on these forums. This place is not an open soapbox for anyone who wants to stand up and rant and bash the game or to talk about topics not on the game. We have these forums to help players get the most out of the game and those rules are a good part of keeping that experience a positive one.
I welcome any input and feelings about how we run things around here. If you don't want to voice that here, please feel free to write me a private message.
Respectfully yours,
Lighthouse
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H: Blaster 50, Defender 50, Tank 50, Scrapper 50, Controller 50, PB 50, WS 50
V: Brute 50, Corruptor 50, MM 50, Dominator 50, Stalker 50, AW 50, AS 50
Top 4: Controller, Brute, Scrapper, Corruptor
Bottom 4: (Peacebringer) way below everything else, Mastermind, Dominator, Blaster
CoH in WQHD
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I guess it's just me, but it seemed to me that the forum locking hadn't gotten more frequent, but rather than Lighthouse happened to just post when he did it. I remember just a while back when I posted very infrequently and read a lot and I often saw threads being locked with no explanation as to why: people just knew.
To make this short, I'm really not seeing a problem with what Lighthouse is doing. He's just letting us know that he's doing it, so we're considerably more aware of his presence.
At least, that's how it appears to me.
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Hi LadyExxotica,
Thanks for taking the time to post your feelings and concerns. I have also received feedback on this same topic since I started. This is home for a good number of people and they've let me know (and some of the Dev's too!) how they feel it is being handled. Some people have expressed they like the change of pace and felt that the forums had grown a bit unruly. Some others let me know they felt I was being overly prohibitive and stifling. I respect the fact that I'm the newcomer here and do my best to keep the feelings of our posters in mind.
I do lament that I don't have as much time as I'd like to just involve myself in discussions on the forums. Unfortunately, that means that a lot of times when I post into a thread, it is as you said, to address some concern with how the topic is progressing or to shut something down. So, that is to say, I can understand your feelings about my presence on the forums. It is something I'm aware of and working to address.
We do have good reason for the Message Forum Rules and Guidelines that govern conduct on these forums. This place is not an open soapbox for anyone who wants to stand up and rant and bash the game or to talk about topics not on the game. We have these forums to help players get the most out of the game and those rules are a good part of keeping that experience a positive one.
I welcome any input and feelings about how we run things around here. If you don't want to voice that here, please feel free to write me a private message.
Respectfully yours,
Lighthouse
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PWNED!
Alright, so;
1. People have let you know how they feel about your moderation style
2. You regret that you can't post in threads in a conversational manner (which no mod ever does to any real extent anyway).
3. The rules exist for a reason and they include no "bashing" of the game or other posters
4. Topics must be about the game.
Tell me, Lighthouse, at what point have you actually told us anything? This doesn't actually adress the OP's concerns, it's just more white-noise framed to look like an official response about a concern.
You should run for office.
EDIT - Thinking about it... I guess it's better than no response at all. I mean, really, what can you say?
Brother of Markus
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The Legendary Living Hellfire
Fight my brute!
Funny, I just had my entry deleted from this very thread about the topic. It was here a few hours ago.
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I applaud all forum moderations. Without them, we'd have the WoW forums (shudder).
He has a job, and guidelines to follow. He does the best he can with what he's got. I have been modsmacked on many occasions. I expect to be smacked again in the future.
For example:
Lighthouse is almost as sexy as Jay, and I'd fluff him anyday.
Smack me, you big hunka-modness, SMACK ME AGAIN!
*swoons*
Oh, and the safety word for today is "Positron".
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I wouldn't blame everything on Lighthouse. I think a lot of moderators have become a little smack-happy.
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I agree 100% with this statement.
My memory's not as sharp as it used to be.
Also, my memory's not as sharp as it used to be.
"The tip of a shoelace is called an aglet, its true purpose is sinister." The Question
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I guess it's just me, but it seemed to me that the forum locking hadn't gotten more frequent, but rather than Lighthouse happened to just post when he did it. I remember just a while back when I posted very infrequently and read a lot and I often saw threads being locked with no explanation as to why: people just knew.
To make this short, I'm really not seeing a problem with what Lighthouse is doing. He's just letting us know that he's doing it, so we're considerably more aware of his presence.
At least, that's how it appears to me.
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Thread locking and deletion frequency increased noticeably once CuppaJo left and continued to increase. I've seen people comment on it here and on other forums, and it definitely started before Lighthouse came around.
Elsegame: Champions Online: @BellaStrega ||| Battle.net: Ashleigh#1834 ||| Bioware Social Network: BellaStrega ||| EA Origin: Bella_Strega ||| Steam: BellaStrega ||| The first Guild Wars: Kali Magdalene ||| The Secret World: BelleStarr (Arcadia)
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I welcome any input and feelings about how we run things around here. If you don't want to voice that here, please feel free to write me a private message.
Respectfully yours,
Lighthouse
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For my money, the moderation here is entirely too light. For one thing, there's little to no indication that you've done something wrong or had a post culled unless you're actually watching the topic. If you post and move on, you can have a post deleted or edited without ever knowing what's happened. How can I know what I've done wrong if I don't even know that my post was deleted?
When someone gets in trouble, nobody else knows about it unless that person advertises it. "It's none of your business," you say? Sure, I can see that, but if someone else gets in trouble for something and I learn about it, I can keep from repeating their mistakes. If it happens behind closed doors, then I can't learn from it.
There's also something to be said for shame. If you know that your "u suk" post is going to get you in trouble and everyone will know about it, maybe you'll think twice before posting. If not, you'll face the consequences and we're all going to laugh at you.
I'm spoiled by the boards that I spend most of my time in, where there are several levels of punishment, all of which are made public. There's a page you can go to where there's a list of the people that have been probated (and the length of their probation), banned, and perma-banned along with the reasons why. This is an excellent system and keeps everyone in line.
Well, mostly in line.
There's also a problem on these boards that I almost never see over there (since it's something you can get in trouble for), and that's thread [censored]. What is thread [censored], you ask? Well, it's when you come in and do nothing but post off-topic "I don't like this thread/person" comments. It happens here a lot during periods where the ire is up over nerfs and certain posters color every comment someone makes with those nerfs in mind.
Make a comment about whiny posters? You must mean the people who are against the changes, so they come in and crap up your thread about something completely unrelated just because they're mad their Defender can't solo Giant Monsters anymore (used as a wild and generic example that I've actually seen happen - don't take it personally). It would be one thing if the thread was about Defenders who can't solo Giant Monsters and their players being bad people who kick puppies, but in a thread about costume pieces and some of the community's unrealistic requests for new items, it makes no sense (again, a generic example, but I'm sure I could find someone doing this if I looked hard enough).
If someone came in and crapped up a thread with some completely unrelated topic that was already being covered in 137 other threads, they would end up being banned.
Another problem I see is that there are people that break the rules over and over again, but they never end up in trouble. All the mods ever do is delete posts and lock threads with little to no consequences. When all that happens is your post being deleted, this isn't going to improve your behavior. All it does is make the individual thread fit the rules more closely.
If I have a post deleted every day, there should be consequences. The only person I know who was ever banned from these boards posted slasher fanfic with extremely graphic sexual content. Twice. Did he deserve to be banned? It's hard to argue against it. What about the guy who posts inflammatory comments about a specific supergroup every time there's a Hamidon Raid? Every single time. The posts are deleted, but then the next Raid occurs and there's a whole new crop of posts to delete.
Yet, this type of poster never ends up in any trouble even though they're consistently breaking forum rules. This doesn't make sense to me.
It does the community a disservice to allow consistenly bad posting to continue.
What I would like to see would mean a rewrite of the board's software and some major work for the mods in the short term. In the long term? Well, banning a few hundred bad posters and getting a few thousand more to rethink their posts would go a looooong way to making this a happier place to visit.
As it currently stands, I come to the boards for power info, to give build advice, and unintentional comedy. If I want to actually discuss the game I go to our private forums.
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I think Lighthouse is doing a great job
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As you can tell, I have rarely posted on the forums. That being said, I do read through select ones nearly every day. Lately I have noticed a disturbing trend regarding rants and the forums and Lighthouse.
More and more discussions/rants are being closed down by Lighthouse. I realize he is the Community Relations go-to person, but in trying to establish his unique presence in that role, I feel he has gone a bit too far at times, more than not.
I cringe everytime I see his name in a discussion. Maybe I am not very sensitive to people's feelings but Lighthouse seems to be politically correct to the extreme. Someone could use the word "butthead" in a post and he will close it down. Have we become such a community that we cannot tolerate even minor rants and dissenting responses?
I wonder how many respones this will generate before Lighthouse closes this thread down.
What I would like to see is a bit more balance from Lighthouse, more leeway being given to rants. Maybe it is me, but the rants lately have been generating some good discussions, some good feedback with only a few poor posters using inappropriate language.
Rather than merely closing down the rants, Lighthouse could close them and then open up a new discussion forum where he has distilled the rant's thoughts/points and then invite feedback. Would that mean some more work for Lighthouse? Yes, but he is the Community Rep. Wouldn't his job be to not only monitor but also direct and redirect discussions in a more positive vein?
I know that this post will divide many on the issue of Rants in general and I know some will take sides over Lighthouse. I do not dislike Lighthouse - I have seen some quality respones from him. MY OPINION is that he could back off a bit on his politically correct stick and allow us to work out our rants on our own or step in only when really neccesary.
A final suggestion - a forum dedicated to rants only? A free for all rant forum where users would have to agree that what is said in the forum stays in the forum?
Thanks for listening. This has just been something that has bugged me from day one of Lighthouse being here....
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These forums are read by many people and it is best to operate at the lowest common demoninator.
This means no profanity. If you cannot communicate without using profanity then you need to re-assess your value to society and your basic education. 
It is not your right to post here, it is your privilidge; that privilidge comes with responsibilities to adhere to the rules. The rules state that no profanity and no defamation would be tolarated. :
The mods and Lighthouse are doing a good job of keeping the forums in line and keeping the undesireable words in check. I applaud them.
A note about the profanity filter: it is not a license to curse; it is a protection to those who would not see your cursing. Just as a Bulletproof vest is not a license to shoot Law Enforcement officers but it is there to protect them. And just as you will go to jail for shooting at a Law Enforcement officer; you may be banned for using profanity. 
Seryphim : Virtue : Empath/Archery Defender
Fueur-Engel : Virtue : Fire/Thermal Corrupter
I've had lots of threads 'modded' into extinction, and some deleted in the entirety.
Only once has a moderator contacted me in PM to say that something was changed. Once. In more than two years.
I'm sure that some of my offerings, being blunt and lacking tact, are designated as too offensive to let live. I'm also sure that some of my tongue in cheek offerings have been wildly appropriate to the forum, and yet they were deleted without any comment whatsover, by some jack-booted moderator who has nothing better to do than troll through threads, looking for stuff to 'moderate.
Moderation (the job) is a thankless task. I don't envy people who do it.
I think that this forum is PARTICULARLY evil in the moderation stakes. I can see that the OPs forum of choice is even worse, with 'lifetime bans' being arbitrarily rewarded. I like the Ars Technica open forum, they have moderators, but they actually talk to people if they consider their actions unworthy, and the forum population is a great deal less involved in personal attacks than this one (not saying personal attacks don't happen on Ars, just that they are the exception rather than the rule).
This forum needs to be moderated. Undeniably.
But the even hand of fairness should be applied, rather than the sledgehammer tactic of deleting swathes of content merely to mask out a single poster making an undisguised reference to genitalia.
Ex
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Ex.
Part-Troll, who used to be Excession777, now playing pantomime with people's mindlets.
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Here's what I'd like to see. Give Lighthouse a blue name. I hate going to the "Dev Digest" and seeing it filled with his thread closing crap. I go there to see what the DEVs post...not the "Forum Nanny". I want to know what's going on in the game. I have no desire to see his "I am God feel my ego" garbage filling up a thread I want to read. Usually I just totally avoid anything he posts. But occasionally they give him something important to put up and I have to suffer through the ego trip to get to the good stuff. Give him a blue name, or purple, or pink....but for God's sake take away his red name!
Naz
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He's well within his rights to lock or delete this thread.
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True. However, a thread with dissent, or even an alternate suggestion to a change backed up by numbers, often turns into a thread that could be locked. When changes are made and someone doesnt like it, it doesnt take long before the Abuse rule and the Respect Opinion rule come into play. Arguably, even the one about spamming to buff your own board count comes into play. A sub section of the Abuse rule defines trolling as posting in an attempt to bait them. Most posts from rants to well thought out disagreement very quickly get posts such as "Can I have your stuff" or "I want a pony" or "I like pie." .... these are deliberate attempts to bait people into a response, disrespecting people who are unsatisfied, or a blatant attempt to bump post counts for the purpose of getting a thread closed.
Still, you see these kinds of posts all the time.
I wish they'd add some language to the policy guidelines that makes it clear that it is inappropriate to derail and/or squash dissent threads (or any threads) by passive-aggressive baiting. Making posts with deliberate forum violations, in posts you dont like, in the hopes it will get the thread locked, should be dealt with the same as any other forum abuse.
For all I know, Team Lighthouse is already doing the right thing on this topic. I just wish that it would be spelled out in the forum policy OR else explicitly rejected, so we will know where we stand. I can only say I'm tired of people using the letter of the policy to call out people, and yet violate the spirit of the forum themselves by baiting.
Lewis
Random AT Generation!
"I remember... the Alamo." -- Pee-wee Herman
"Oh don't worry. I always leave things to the last moment." -- The Doctor
"Telescopes are time machines." -- Carl Sagan
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Another problem I see is that there are people that break the rules over and over again, but they never end up in trouble. All the mods ever do is delete posts and lock threads with little to no consequences. When all that happens is your post being deleted, this isn't going to improve your behavior. All it does is make the individual thread fit the rules more closely.
If I have a post deleted every day, there should be consequences. The only person I know who was ever banned from these boards posted slasher fanfic with extremely graphic sexual content. Twice. Did he deserve to be banned? It's hard to argue against it. What about the guy who posts inflammatory comments about a specific supergroup every time there's a Hamidon Raid? Every single time. The posts are deleted, but then the next Raid occurs and there's a whole new crop of posts to delete.
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If it helps, I am personally aware of two bannings, and I think there's a third and a fourth as well. They do happen, although I think it helps to go to Lighthouse and point out the behavior problem. I recall pointing out a particularly problematic poster to CuppaJo, who later PM'd me and posted to the thread in question about how I'd got the gestapo to modsmack him (his words), so I know it used to work. If it's on the scale of the stuff that I PM'd Cuppa about, I would be completely unsurprised if Lighthouse were to take action in similar circumstances.
No, I won't name names. That's against the rules.
Edit: Just to be clear, I only know of the bannings because the bannees told me about it. Except the one who hated me, but he abruptly stopped posting after an extremely nasty misogynistic post and has not been back for well over a year, so...
Elsegame: Champions Online: @BellaStrega ||| Battle.net: Ashleigh#1834 ||| Bioware Social Network: BellaStrega ||| EA Origin: Bella_Strega ||| Steam: BellaStrega ||| The first Guild Wars: Kali Magdalene ||| The Secret World: BelleStarr (Arcadia)
I keep thinking Lighthouse is a woman.
Old habits die hard.
However, there are other mods than Lighthouse and maybe they have new SOP for threadlocks.
IBTL
End Of Man - Ill/emp Troller <- First 50.
Robosaurus - Robo/Dark <- Second 50
Urban Viking - BS/Regen <- Unplayed
*Altaholic*
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Give Lighthouse a few more months to settle in.
Then we'll get the torches and pitchforks and head to Austin.
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LOL, fantastic way to close your post Lady_Athyna
'If Champions Online is what "CoH was supposed to be", I'm glad that I have what I have rather than "what it was supposed to be".' - The Alt oholic
"I solo'd Hamidon...but I also totally cheated." - Back Alley Brawler
"It is still early. Someone is going to get stabbed tonight I can feel it." - Ishmael (said in Jello Shooters chat)
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Unfortunately rules are rules. They have to be enforced.
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All of them? Even questionable ones, or questionable interpretations of them?
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Since NCSoft owns the space, yeah.
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Right but then that enforcement should be consistent. I've seen numerous threads denegrate into jokes when a serious and VERY game related topic is being disucssed, due to thread jacking. I'd like to think that needs to be dealt with also.
EDIT: Ofcourse I realize its not always easy to do this. As every mod's style is probably different. Also someone's interpretation about what is and isn't related to any topic of a discussion might vary.
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These forums are read by many people and it is best to operate at the lowest common demoninator.
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Gods what a horrible notion. Let's lower the bar to accomodate the least capable participants in a given community. Let's apply rules to everyone derived from the excesses of a few.
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This means no profanity. If you cannot communicate without using profanity then you need to re-assess your value to society and your basic education.
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Flick that for a game of soldiers.
"I don't swear just for the hell of it. Language is a poor enough means of communication. We should use all the words we've got."
- Inherit the Wind
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It is not your right to post here, it is your privilidge; that privilidge comes with responsibilities to adhere to the rules. The rules state that no profanity and no defamation would be tolarated. :
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I personally feel that careless spelling should not be tolerated. But that is not in the sacred rules.
Customers are not entirely serfs to be granted privileges at the sole discretion of the vendor.
My scrapper doesn't need an AoE. She IS an AoE.
I am an active member of another forum that deals with a lot of subjects that can get very heated very quickly. The mods there are all active members, as are the two admins. There is seldom a week that goes by with out someone getting banned for behavior issues. In all cases, the bannings are announced publicly with the reason for them, and few are ever overturned. These bans are for life. If it can be determined that a banned member has started a new account, that one is banned for sneaking back in, even if no other infraction was committed. I don't post here much, mainly because of the open, and often unchecked, hostility I see in many of the posts. Compared to the other board I mentioned, this one is is in a state of anarchy.
That does not mean there are not good people here. There are. It just means that the mods have been far more lax in the past when it came to warnings and bannings than on other boards, and now that someone is here to pull back the reigns, some people are reacting as if they are being oppressed. I really don't see that as being the case.
My first short story (detective fiction) came out in Jan-2012. Other stories and books to follow, I hope. Because of "real writing". COH was a big part of that happening.