Hello people.
I have been lurking around this forum for quite a while, and after a while, I noticed that the forum quality has been… dwindling down. And after a while, it went into complete chaos. I know there’s a post titled “Im gonna be honest with you” basically covering this, but I have noticed this problem even before then. In fact, if I wasn’t so shy to create an account I would have posted about this. Alongside this, I have some new things to add to the table, so I’m not completely regurgitating the same info. Plus, the OP basically went on a rage fueled rant on that thread about the problems on this forum, so I’d like to be transparent about this situation and offer some advice to those affected and are the causes of the chaos.
OK, here we go.
Things I’d Like to Talk About:
- People who are impatient for “iMPORTANT!!!1111!!” Escargot features
Ever since Escargot was brought to the forum, there have been a cluster of people who were constantly nagging for mainly WLM support, webcam features, etc. These are not limited to youngsters, which makes it more annoying. Ever since my time on this forum (during the Escargot era, I like to call it), I have stumbled across these posts a few times, and I facepalmed whenever I did (and I still do). Before I created this account, I had started a project to replace the now dead MSN webcam server, but I had postponed that for other projects and to not stress myself (have you looked at the documentation for the packets used for the webcam streams, it’s kind of confusing). After all, I actually wanted to contribute to Escargot’s development, which made me consider creating an account, but again, shyness. But back on track, a user notorious for these types of posts and many more, Leo_Historias, is one of the worst cases I’ve ever stumbled upon (more on him later). Case in point, people who fall into this category need to learn that “patience is a virtue.”
- Kids aren’t the problem
After seeing a few threads and posts ragging on them, I would personally like to say, kids aren’t the problem. In fact, JK has said numerous times that people of all ages are allowed on this forum, and of course, MSN Messenger. Yes, I know, kids tend to be annoying and ruin things, I should know. But not ALL kids are like this. There are kids (mostly teens) out there who can handle mature conversations and do “adult” things like program (not like Scratch and other kiddy programming languages), animate, draw, and video edit. Sure, they are few and far between, but if those kinds of children exist, why act like all kids will ruin your lives? I mostly feel like it is some sort of bias because I know they can know better.
- Is this an MSN-only forum?
I’d like to address something that I have noticed from a person who tries to shut up people who want to try to branch out Escargot to support other IMs or at least want to introduce others to other IMs (I do not want to name them in the name of civil discussion and to not pass him off as a suspect). To this I will say, this is not necessarily a problem. You know what, let’s play devil’s advocate. If the forum were to go completely off-topic and discuss about other IMs, I can see where you’re coming from. I’ll also assume that you want to prevent the forum from becoming off-topic to the point where it is unmanagable. OK, but as it stands, the forum hasn’t gone completely off-topic for a while now. I do not know JK’s stance on what counts as on-topic discussion, but if you look on the about page of this forum (http://wink.messengergeek.com/about), it reads “Discussion and support for Messenger Reviver and other software.” So from there you can make the conclusion that as long as the topics discussed here are not completely off the rails, it’s OK to post about other software, which includes other IMs.
- Leo_Historias
Yup. We saved the best one for last. I had some more problems that I would list, but were either too tiny or were already handled. Now, Leo_Historias is basically the embodiment of UNBEARABLE. When he joined (or at least when I saw his posts for the first time), he was constantly asking for WLM 8.1 support to be implemented on Escargot (along with some other bad eggs), and people were trying to get him to quiet up and be patient, and when WLM 8.1 support was implemented, he somehow couldn’t get it to work and simply said that it sucked because of his singular issue. Honestly, the kid annoys me to my wit’s end and I wish he would at least get a value pack of Patience™. What also makes me grinds my gears about him are his non-stop useless posts (e.g., WLM 2009-related posts, posts saying that he will make a server for Comic Chat or create “WLM 2017”, which are nothing but empty words, suggestions that he pitches in but are ultimately not really useful, etc., etc.). But what makes me understand his behavior is the fact that he is 10 years old (from what I have heard). Now that doesn’t mean his behavior is justified, but I can at least sympathize with the guy and not go full commando on him (not that I would anyway regardless of who is the culprit).
So remember the OP of the “Im gonna be honest with you” thread? Well, he basically threw an F-bomb behind the kid’s back. (Well, after typing out this lengthy post, he starting insulting him (“Go back to playing Minecraft”, “Burn in hell”, bla bla bla) and even sent him links to Meatspin (don’t go there for the love of all things good) and XVideos purely just to give him a big middle finger. Really classy, dude. Really classy. -_-) No matter who it is, you’re just trash talking him now. It’s one thing to sternly tell someone to stop with dumb nonsense posts or they’ll be hit with an appropriate punishment, but trash talking won’t help anything. Should be obvious from there.
Anyways, Leo is notorious for his grammar, which is not the best out there. People have even gone out of their way to make threads mocking his grammar. While he does seem to have some thick skin, overall that’s just plain rude and insulting. No matter how funny it is, you’re making yourself look like a jerk. That’s all I have to say.
Epilogue
Basically, the forum hasn’t completely taken a turn for the worst, but kind of unbearable and iffy. So here are my comments:
@Leo_Historias It’s for the best to learn that “patience is a virtue” and maybe not blindly say things that don’t have weight (like don’t blindly say that you’ll code a new version of WLM and not follow on it). If you don’t want to, sorry bud, but you can simply pack your bags and leave (or get IP-banned). You can still use MSN Messenger cuz’ it’s not entirely linked with the MessengerGeek forums, but from the amount of scrutiny you have been gaining, I don’t think anyone would want to talk with you, just saying.
@TReKiE I know you are one person and you can’t maintain a forum this big by yourself. So I’d say get yourself some moderators. I don’t care if they are members from this forum or random strangers. It’ll help you in the long run. If you don’t want to, I can respect that. I would personally say that moderators would help, so we could rid of major nuisances like Leo much more efficiently as a last resort if needed.
For the people who are mocking Leo (for himself and his grammar): Please stop. As I said before, it isn’t helping anyone and you’re just making yourself look like a jerk. If you don’t have any malicious intentions, I’d say put yourself in Leo’s shoes and think about how he would potentially feel. If this was another foreigner who wasn’t as big of a nuisance but still had very poor grammar, would you do the same things you do to Leo?
Welp, I’m prepared to get some scrutiny myself because “Leo sucks and you didn’t insult or mock him enought xd.” Just know that I won’t be very active much.
Bye~