James

[quote name='0ber0n the Neko'] I think it's truly unfair to the real artists out there to refer to those who do not innovate as "artists" or "musicians". It's insulting to those who have to actually try to make an album great. Sure, not everyone can make a great album, but why are those people involved in music in the first place? It seems silly that of the recent explosion of music into the mainstream (due to the expansion of a mass media capable of reproducing audio at a minimal cost) there are so few out there who actually "create" music, and so many that merely "play" it. [/QUOTE] [color=#606060]It's interesting you say that. In this thread there's a lot of discussion about what groups we don't like (i.e. personal taste) but there's little objective discussion about which artists are actually innovating. For instance, Gwen Stefani. I'm the first to say that I'm not really fond of a lot of her newer stuff. But you know what? I think she's far more innovative now than she was with No Doubt. "Innovative" doesn't necessarily mean "pleasing to the ear", but honestly, I look at the last five or six songs she's released...and they're all doing something quite diffferent - genuinely different. Each new release is different from the last and as a sum, all of her post-No Doubt stuff has been significantly different from general mainstream pop. So although I doubt I'd buy any of her albums, I feel I have to give her a lot of credit for daring to be different in an age where confirmity rules all - especially in the pop music scene. I don't know how much of it is her, but even her music videos are remarkably unique compared to the general stuff that's out there. I assume she's the one driving it all, so yeah, I tend to give her credit for being relatively daring in a fairly conservative field. I think my atittude toward music has changed a lot in the last few years, with this sort of stuff. I listen to a lot more pop music now than I ever did before - maybe because I'm at an age where I don't care what's considered "cool" (not that I ever really cared; I think I just literally listen to more pop now than before). I just listen to music if I like it - and if there happens to be a strong creative element behind it, I appreciate it all the more. An example of this would be Australian artist Candice Alley. I think she's just released her second album. I'm only vaguely familiar with most of her music - but I recently bought "Before You Go" from iTunes music store (interestingly the album version is accoustic where the "radio" version is totally electronic...I prefer the former honestly). Now you may listen to this song and think "Just another pop track". And yeah, it is. But Candice Alley wrote the lyrics, wrote and performs all of the accompanying music [i]and[/i] she's essentially her own producer and promoter. So far she's had a fair bit of air time on smaller stations in Melbourne but not much exposure nationally. I really think it's a shame. While her music isn't incredibly innovative, it's catchy and shows talent - and most importantly, it all comes from her. I would be disappointed if artists like her were swept under the "mainstream pop crap" label that so many young people seem to use these days. In many ways, mainstream music can be the hardest to produce - I'd say it's more difficult and requires arguably more talent to produce something enticing for a mass audience than to produce something that caters to only a small range of listeners. I tend to like a bit of everything, but sometimes I feel that the words "mainstream" and "pop" are used incorrectly - in a derogatory sense, where these words don't necessarily need to have that connotation (especially when such a connotation discounts the efforts made by writers, singers and producers - many of which, I'm sure, work very hard and are very talented).[/color]

[quote name='GreenDemon'][FONT="Arial"][SIZE="2"][COLOR="Lime"]Being busy is my anti-drug. [/COLOR][/SIZE][/FONT][/QUOTE] [color=#606060]This is so true - being busy does make it difficult to do anything (drugs or otherwise). Usually being busy is a good thing, but sometimes it's a pain in the butt. As for the whole drugs discussion that is going on, I just think it all comes down to being responsible. Whether you smoke or whether you drink alcohol or whatever, if you're doing it in moderation and [i]you are in control[/i], it's usually not an issue. If you let something like that run your life, then that's obviously another story. I just tend to think that people are responsible for what they do. It's not my business if someone drinks or smokes if they aren't having an impact on me. And for me personally - like with alcohol - I am quite happy to drink socially and such but I could never become an alcoholic. So you know, "use of a substance" whether legal or illegal probably tends to come down to how responsible you are as a person.[/color]

[color=#606060]I'm probably a 7 at the moment. Things are good, but I'm on the cusp of a nasty throat infection...yuck. Not nice at all - and on my holidays, too! Still, holidays are nice. I've played more Guild Wars in the last couple of days than I have in the last two months. :catgirl:[/color]

[color=#606060]I would agree with James Blunt for two reasons. One, his voice annoys the hell out of me. Two, his lyrics. In some of his bigger songs, I listen to the lyrics and think..."this guy has taken common lines from love songs of the last fifteen years and put them all together in the one track". There's just something highly unoriginal about a lot of his music; I think I take exception to that more than anything else. There's only one other artist that comes to mind at the moment...Mika? I don't know how to spell it. He did that song Grace Kelly. All I remember is the one line "Why don't you like me?" being repeated over and over in the first single, then in the second single it's "Love love me" over and over again. Does this guy have a serious self-image problem or is he just incredibly narcissistic? Not to mention that he seems to be trying to bring back some kind of 70's element that is long since dead for a reason. lol[/color]

[color=#606060]I have a lot of favourite moments, I don't think I could choose just one. Here are a few that come to mind though: [b]OB v3 Launch:[/b] This was a really triumphant time for OtakuBoards. We'd been through a complete mess with the end of v2...there were too many problems and neither Adam nor I really had the desire to try to fix them. It was more logical to start fresh. Not only did all the members return and re-register...but [i]more[/i] registered than before. It was a new beginning for OB. [b]v7 Launch:[/b] Yeah, another launch. Our current version. This version is our longest-lasting and probably our most successful. A large part of our history has happened on this version...it will be kind of sad to see it go. [b]Maverick Hunters:[/b] Apart from the fact that Personification is still going after several years...this series is really nostalgic for me. It's probably the longest-running RPG series on OB. It's been really fun to post in and to read as well - definitely some of the best fun I've had at OB. [b]Kill Adam:[/b] I think I was lucky that some of the very best writers I've ever seen on OB (and probably in general on the Internet) participated in this one. It was definitely just as fun to read as to post in...I think I will remember it forever. Shy and I discussed the future of it recently - hopefully we can finish Volume II; that'd be quite an achievement. [b]The People:[/b] There are just too many people to name...but honestly, I've met so many wonderful people through OB over the years and it's made my life all the better. The people are by far the best thing about this site - they're what make it fun (and sometimes frustrating! Hehe)[/color]

[color=#606060]The cool thing is that someone [i]can[/i] be banned three times. The fact that you can be the biggest jerk under the sun and still be allowed to return if you behave yourself is probably testament to the fact that the site is a lot more open than it may first appear. In response to Alex...uh, well, I don't know how you'd work out who to involve in that kinda party. Would we pull names out of hats? >_< lol It's amazing how you can find the source of a problem, get rid of it...and everyone's happy. If that's not a clear demonstration of what can be wrong with OB, I don't know what is. lol[/color]

[quote]Actually, my first intention was a more inclusive question of "What should OB be?" which is included in the question, "What is OB?" but fair enough.[/quote] [color=#606060]Who could tell? Some parts of your post indicated the former and some indicated the latter.[/color] [quote]My entire first post was rife with sarcasm, wit, and humor, and it seems most took it serious (in fact one person quoted my "Otakuboards is in the eye of the beholder" statement and said they agreed with me when I was merely kidding and making fun of the past "What is Beauty?" thread). So whatever, lol, it wasn't necessarily meant to be what it has turned into. But then again all threads here turn out like this. . .so I think I'll just go to a different forum that is actually intelligent, and values quality posting, and even artistic, poetic posts and doesn't call them "not fun" and be on my way. . .because sooner or later I am going to get banned just for having "fun" which is not "fun" according to James' terms I guess[/quote] [color=#606060]It was rife with sarcasm, wit and humor? Where? I'm sorry but I think most people interpreted it as being a vague and garbled set of comments with no apparent direction or clear foundation. Put simply, people had to wade through the post and try to work out what the hell it was saying. Not all threads turn out like this - only idiotic ones that have no real purpose and end up becoming some ostensible demonstration of how artistry and good humor are being quashed on OB, when the underlying purpose has nothing to do with this at all (the underlying purpose probably being far more narcissistic in nature). If you find random gibberish to be artistic and poetic, that's great. Have fun with that. The problem is that most people here find it annoying and largely undecipherable. Other sites might allow that - this one doesn't, lol. Believe me, if you think I'm the only one making a judgement about what's "fun", you're very wrong. If your idea of "fun" is to come here and frequently insult the site, the staff and the members while simultaneously contradicting yourself at every turn...well, I really have no problem saying that this kind of fun isn't welcome at OB, lol. Come on, wake up to yourself. I've had the good humor and respect to put up with this tripe for long enough. You don't like OB because it doesn't welcome your self-obsessed rants - we get that. Since you apparently can't drag yourself away from the site (despite hating it), I'll do the job for you.[/color]

[color=#606060]I don't really think there were any insults there; you were just told to keep the bickering and insults to PM (though that's probably not advisable, lol). I don't really feel the need to keep saying it, so this will be the last time: there's a huge difference between going off topic and posting absolute rubbish that nobody is going to wade through...and actually having fun. The former is probably a chore for everyone, the latter is supposed to be a bit more inclusive I think. I've already addressed your issues with OB pretty concisely in my original post in this thread. If you have any [i]constructive[/i] suggestions, PM me. Otherwise, let's keep the thread going as it's been going (i.e. "What is OB?" rather than "What should OB be?") I think that's all pretty fair.[/color]

[color=#606060]Man, the drama! Some of you have far too much time on your hands. I think there's one bottom line here. A Moderator made a decision and someone else didn't agree with it. The Moderator has provided his reasoning and there's still disagreement. In a case where this happens, I am happy to step in and make a decision. I'm sorry I haven't yet, but I haven't had much access to the 'net in the last few days - I've been ridiculously busy in the "real world", lol. I do want to make one point though. Whether or not I decide that Sandy is right or wrong - whether or not I agree with what he did...there are two things to remember. One, Moderators do have to have some discretion - otherwise their jobs would be impossible. Two, every single decision doesn't need a public debate that gets blown way out of proportion. Seriously, some of us are adults...and this stuff is just a pain in the *** to read constantly. Apart from all of this I can see that there is some misunderstanding about what is and isn't allowed in Adventure Square. I will go over this myself and I will post an announcement and, if needed, a new sticky thread to clarify my position. No matter how clear the rules are though, I do think there will always be disagreements. This doesn't mean there's some massive conspiracy or some issue with the rules themselves - it just simply means that people have differing opinions. There's nothing wrong with that. It's just a matter of handling these issues in the right way - preferably, via PM with the relevant staff member and myself. In future I'm going to be a lot tighter with allowing these drama filled orgies on OB, I think. Nobody needs them and they rarely achieve anything of substance.[/color]

[color=#606060]I don't really have much to say about it. The movie itself, by objective standards, was your typical action flick...although there were some genuinely funny and heartwarming moments. So it was an action flick, just not as emotionless you might expect. As someone who grew up on Transformers (I wore the tape of the '86 film down to the bone pretty much - I'm actually about to buy the DVD because it's such a nostalgia trip), the movie was [i]okay[/i]. I don't think you can ever expect a film like this to really be true to the original story. There are many reasons for this - changes in audience, logistical/time reasons, design reasons (i.e. updating designs for today's audience so that the film doesn't look like it belongs to 1986), etc etc. I think when you see this film as a Transformers fan you probably have to assume the worst, especially with this style of adaption. So I prefer to think of this as being a "new or different interpretation" of Transformers, rather than something that directly links with the original series and film. The movie doesn't set out to do that so I'm not really holding it to that standard. So in that context - in terms of it being a totally new and different interpretation of the Transformers concept - I think it was handled well enough. The visuals were great (although the only Transformer design I wasn't fond of was Megatron - his physical design was sort of overly-complex and a bit too "hey I'm a demon-like bad guy"). The story was so-so; they did not emphasize much of a backstory - it was very thin. What they did include, however, they executed well. I think this was probably an opportunity to develop a more deep backstory that provides more material for future films; that is, if you are wanting to "start Transformers again" as a new interpretation. So that potential was missing. Overall it was probably a slightly above-average action movie. Nice effects, unique concept (as compared to other action films) and it was generally well put together (reasonable - and sometimes surprisingly good - dialogue, for example). If you think of this as a movie that intends to be true to the Transformers you know, you will be disappointed. If you take it for what it is - a completely new film that doesn't really pretend or try to be directly connected with any previous materials - you will have a more pleasant experience.[/color]

[color=#606060]Basically I agree with Shy. I think that Adventure Square is an "RPG" location but our definition of an RPG should be loosely defined. Does it need a sign-up thread? No. Does it need a deep backstory? No. Kill Adam had very complicated characters, but the story was shallow as hell. It wasn't so much about an epic story as it was about dialogue and character relations. That was the core of the RPG - not the violence or the story as such. I think there are probably limits and unfortunately with RPGs and "story-based" threads, it's often a taste thing...one person can see something and think it's spam and someone else can think it's the funniest thing they've ever read. There's no accounting for taste, you know? We can probably "officially" broaden the limits on RPGs and Games (perhaps we should return to Games & Stories afterall?) and we can just encompass everything with that. I have told the Moderators to "lighten up" and for the most part I think everyone has kept to that. Sometimes the message doesn't get through on the first try though. So yeah, I do agree with Shy really. We should not be too rigid in how we define collaborative works like RPGs. RPGs can take many forms and there are many types of collaborative creative writing ideas that aren't RPGs but aren't necessarily fit for Anthology either. Maybe Anthology should only be for solo work or pre-written group work and Adventure Square should be for ALL collaborative storytelling and game-type threads. I still sort of feel that caption games and stuff should remain in OL (since OL really covers their definition), but yeah...that's always going to be interpreted differently by different people.[/color]

[quote name='Nerdsy'][color=deeppink]Otakuboards is just a silly little message board I post on from time to time. People talk about stuff, (mostly socks), and occasionally some people band together and try to start a revolution. Also, it's blue.[/color][/QUOTE] [color=#606060]This post gets my nomination for the Nifty Fifty, whenever that comes around again. :animesmil The chat doesn't have to be official...it can just be something we do now and then and whoever's online can join in. In the old days it was always just ad-hoc like that I think.[/color]

[quote name='Gavin'][SIZE="1"]I actually miss those massive AIM chats, it was always a lot more fun just chatting to people in a kind of relaxed atmosphere and laughing at some of the random things that would occur. MyO seems to have lost most of it's hype, at least compared to it's introduction when everyone and their mum had a MyO.[/SIZE][/QUOTE] [color=#606060]I think there are more people now with myOs than before...it's just that most of them aren't on OB. It's a little weird in that way, hehe. I miss the AIM chats too. Maybe we should think about putting another one together, yes? ~_^[/color]

[color=#606060]Yeah, something like that. Anyway, as I said, as long as everyone can treat each other well there's really no need for any major issues. I think it's easy to forget that. I'll tell you one thing I sometimes dislike about OB though: we are a very introspective community. We constantly have threads about our experiences here and our history. That stuff is all great for Otakupedia...but often I wish we would focus on building [i]new[/i] history, rather than frequenty reliving the past. I'm all for nostalgia (I did encourage Otakupedia afterall and I'm very happy about it), but what I really love to see are new concepts and ideas...new artwork, new stories, new everything really. This is why I'm very open to new suggestions and it's why a lot of site elements have changed lately. It's good to keep things fresh and to continually think of new ideas. I just wish I had the time to put together some of my more recent RPG concepts... [/color]

[color=#606060]I pretty much agree with Mitch in the sense that OB is in the eyes of the beholder. If you want an issue to peddle and you see OB as a "police state", that's what you see. If you're here for fun and not to troll...chances are, you'll have fun. It's pretty much what you make it. I think we have a trend at times where some members ironically call for higher quality while simultaneously telling us that quality standards are too high. In reality, we can never - and will never - be able to please everyone; especially those who just want to have a good argument. That's life. That's just how things are I guess. I think Mitch's advice about "treating members nicer" is something he and pretty much everyone should remember. That includes being respectful of others and dealing with issues or disagreements in a reasonable manner. You can't claim that new members are scared to post (implying it's something to do with the way the site is set up) and then post endless paragraphs of vague and insulting tripe which itself is probably what's scaring new members more than anything else, lol. So yeah. To make a long story short...I think [i]everyone[/i] should remember that principle of treating others with respect and if you can't say something pleasant, don't say anything at all (or at least be constructive in what you say!) If everyone tries to stick to that simple idea, we'll all be able to get on with our fun (whatever brand of fun that may be). :catgirl:[/color]

[quote=Shy]I post almost exclusively in The Arena and I really hadn't noticed. From a creative standpoint I could see why the accidental filtering may upset people, but it's not a huge deal... most of the time people can tell what you're trying to say anyway. The only annoying thing will be when the censor is lifted and all of the old swearing is still blacked out. [/quote] [color=#606060]Yeah, this really sums it up I think. Mitch, get over yourself. There's really nothing about OB that's "repressive" - if you think blocking out a few swear words classifies as repressive, then you don't know what the word means. In all honesty, I think some people need a severe reality check. It's posts like that which make OB painful - not anything else. If you dislike OB so much, don't post here. Simple. If you continue to troll the site you're only proving my point - that you, rather than OB, are the problem.[/color]

[quote name='Sesshomarufan']Doesn't it make it all the more fun though when you see the stuff blacked out, or the sounds bleeped out? We all know what the BLEEP you mean anyways, so what's the BLEEPin point of being able to see it in print?[/QUOTE] [color=#606060]In reality nothing is really being censored anyway...we've had the language filter disabled in the Creative Works area for quite a long time. That this has changed recently is really not deliberate, obviously. I'd say there's a pretty big difference between being Victorian in approach and simply filtering out swear words in general discussion. If the former applied we'd probably also be talking about subjects and concepts as well as words and obviously that's never been an issue.[/color]

[quote name='Semjaza']I don't really think anything I said implied that I inferred anything that was remotely the equivalent of "discovering god", but OK lol.[/quote] [color=#606060]I'm obviously exaggerating. What I meant was that it's clearly not going to be a major improvement in terms of the site's performance (I don't think I implied otherwise, but I obviously came across that way) but every little bit helps. The elimination of redirects probably makes a reasonable difference where fractions of a second count.[/color] [quote] Well, perhaps moderator settings are different from those for normal users? I have no idea... all I know is that my image is perfect before I upload it, yet full of artifacts once it is up. I mean, just look at it lol. Solid blocks of color are also handled differently than more complex imagery by JPG compression... I don't know how much of this is playing into that as I don't know what the settings are.[/QUOTE] [color=#606060]I've never experienced this problem but if it's an issue then hopefully it's something we can fix relatively easily. Although it seems odd that vB would have one setting for Moderators and another for regular Members - especially when the file size limits are the same for both groups. I assume our settings have always been the same for this so it's a bit weird that it would come up now - although perhaps this has something to do with settings being different on the latest install in an area that we just haven't looked at. Either way I suppose it can be added to the To-Do list. :catgirl: [b]Edit:[/b] Thanks Des! Hopefully this is resolved.[/color]

[color=#606060]I think the Quick Edit feature makes things faster and more convenient in general - whether or not you are on dial-up (but particularly if you are). Even if a page is cached, I know that redirecting and reloading the page can still take time - especially on a slower connection (and for that matter, a slower computer). So although I doubt that Quick Edit will be the equivalent to discovering God (something I don't think I really implied), it will certainly be of benefit to everyone. Avatar sizes are likely to increase in the future regardless of this - I believe there's already been a thread on that subject. All of these other enhancements are peripheral to that. In other words, every little bit helps when it comes to making things faster and more convenient.[/color]

[color=#606060]Since when does a language filter have anything to do with us being Victorian pigs? And I thought "Peach Head" was harsh.[/color]

[color=#606060]I think the newspaper may need to be separated from Otakupedia so that they aren't exactly the same thing. A newspaper shouldn't be like an encyclopedia - I think it should be more conversational than Otakupedia, probably. My suggestion would be to pool your resources and publish something weekly or bi-weekly - it could include imagery, links and interviews as well as just articles. I think your articles could be different to Otakupedia - smaller articles with a more conversational tone. You could cover general trends and the less "significant" subjects on OB. That way you can co-exist with Otakupedia. Otherwise if you want to merge with Otakupedia...you might as well just post in the Otakupedia thread, you know? Of course, if you produce a couple of longer and more in-depth pieces...there's no reason some of those couldn't be picked up by Otakupedia in the future. So you can cross-over while still being different.[/color]

[quote name='The Boss'][color=darkred][size=1] I've been told that. It is a bit of a pain, but it ultimately doesn't matter, seeing as how it will only effect people who want to go back and read old RPG or Anthology posts. Any news on when it'll be fixed or will it be just when Des gets to it?[/color][/size][/QUOTE] [color=#606060]It'll be fixed whenever Des gets to it, yep. There are a number of other more critical things for us to look at first. The language filter in Adventure Square is a priority though so you can bet it'll be sorted out before too long.[/color]

[quote name='Sesshomarufan']which uncovers the paradox of life. no matter what, you can never please everyone. james is trying to please all of us, but it can't be done. you have people within the site that you try to be cool with and within this circle of people....you tend to develop a bond that may seem to others as favoritism to others....so try not to be offended if james doesn't automatically delete every "I'M back" or "HI" thread that's shows up. he's only one person[/QUOTE] [color=#606060]It's really got nothing to do with any bond - I don't think I ever knew Fish as well as some others did. It's just simply the fact that the rules have changed and we're trying to be more lenient with these types of threads. We'll give it a go and see how it works out. If it doesn't, we'll just go back to banning intro threads altogether. Either way it's not a big issue and there's certainly no conspiracy to it, lol.[/color]

[quote name='Semjaza']Personally, I can remember at least a few closed threads that had the very same "Wow this place is different!" phrase. I don't think that's a factor here. I honestly wouldn't care if there were tons of these threads, but considering past examples it's kind of hard to not take it as favoritism. That's another argument for another place altogether, I suppose.[/QUOTE] [color=#606060]Those threads were closed before the rules were updated - that would be the clearest answer I could give. Ultimately no matter what we do some people are always going to view this type of stuff as favouritism. There's not a great deal I can do about that. Either we actually ban these types of threads all together or we allow them - but if we allow them, I obviously don't want to see OL completely covered in them. So I think it's going to depend on the type of discussion that occurs. This thread has a bit of nostalgia to it and people are actually entering into some kind of discussion - in other words, the thread is going somewhere. If it were just full of "Hi!" or "Welcome!" you can bet it would be closed or deleted. So yeah, there's no deliberate favouritism going on here. It's all just part of the difficulties of trying to please as many people as possible while still keeping some basic standard of quality on the site.[/color] [quote] I think what you said before, James, was perfectly fine. . .but if you follow Tony's reasoning there is really more to answer than just what you said. [/quote] [color=#606060]Not really. I think if you look for more reasoning you'll find it...but I don't really look at the issue on that level, so I can't comment on what people perceive about it. As I said above though, there's definitely no deliberate favouritism. A million threads like this have been closed or deleted no matter who posts them...so it's all been very even-handed in the past. The only reason this thread is different is because we've recently changed the site's rules. That really sums it up I think.[/color]

[quote name='The Boss'][color=darkred][size=1] I've been around a while, homie. It's not because of that. You read one page of [b]Kill Adam[/b] and you'll be bombarded with expletives and naughty things. And that was by [b]James[/b] and [b]Shy[/b] (along with several other mods). That's why the Creative Works section has rating systems, so that can go on without people being offended. [/color][/size][/QUOTE] [color=#606060]Exactly. The censor was a custom thing that has been overwritten as part of the vB upgrade - it isn't a big deal, honestly. All it means is that existing swear words might be blanked out. If it's a huge issue those words can be replaced once we've sorted the filter out. It's a pain, sure, but it's ultimately not a big issue.[/color]