Jump to content

This site is going downhill


Dog

Recommended Posts

When this site was created there was a lot of intelligent discussion about tulpas but now it is just the same questions over and over and the same threads over and over. It seems like the userbase is growing younger and this community is mostly made up of bronies now. Most of the general discussion posts are something like "eyy guys I want my tuppa to hav green hair but she wants blue hair should I start oveh???/" What happened? When did this site go to shit?

 

Oh also this is probably in the wrong board because I couldn't figure out what board this should be in.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Replies 29
  • Created
  • Last Reply

Top Posters In This Topic

I guess I'll move this to Forum Questions & Comments. This isn't the typical kind of thread that is posted there, but I guess it's still a forum question/comment. Plus it's not about tulpas specifically.

 

At any rate, I find some of your comments to be interesting. Such as that the community is made up mostly of bronies now. Considering the tulpa community's home was /mlp/ for a while, prior to this site existing, and this site's original members came mostly from /mlp/, I think it's actually safe to say that the density of bronies in the community has decreased.

Also, some months ago, I noticed that there was a significantly higher number of hosts with pony tulpas than usual. Although, more recently, I find that the numbers are beginning to even out more. I am seeing a higher proportion of human/anime/whatever tulpas than I used to.

 

Yes, the questions and discussion around here is quite stale, these days, but what exactly is it that you are expecting? In the early days of this community, almost no one had seriously developed tulpas--they were all working at it at the same time. The community was still learning. However, a while ago, a plateau of sorts had been reached, where a significant amount of people had achieved great progress, and things such as possession were no longer being "discovered". This is not to say that there is no more to be learned about what one can do with a tulpa, or other such things, but that that which has yet to be discovered is much lower.

As it is now, this site just tends to be about experienced members (hopefully) helping less experienced members in their journey.

 

Of course, there have been undesirable members who have joined, and many people would say that they give this phenomenon and community a bad name. Who is to say where they have come from, though. There are people like that in every community. A phenomenon such as this also attracts attention-seekers, and people with... "over-active" imaginations. Although this is not a new thing. People like that have been around this community since the beginning.

 

What do you think it is?

What do you think should be done?

What could have been done differently?

"If this can be avoided, it should. If it can't, then it would be better if it could be. If it happened and you're thinking back to it, try and think back further. Try not to avoid it with your mind. If any of this is possible, it may be helpful. If not, it won't be."

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I think the biggest problem is the maturity level of this site is going down. There was probably a higher percent of bronies here when the site began, but they were fairly mature and didn't really over-exaggerate things. I just pulled a random thread from page 99 from q&a and page 1.

Page 99 (old): https://community.tulpa.info/thread-how-to-spend-time-during-sessions

Page 1 (new): https://community.tulpa.info/thread-question

The maturity level has REALLY gone down. I have no idea why

 

It also seems like newbies just ask questions before attempting to find the answers themselves. This could be because the maturity level has gone down, or because the amount of guides has gone up. When I joined this site there were only 2 guides, now there are hundereds of guides with really no method of organizing them. If I have never heard of tulpas before and stumbled across this site I would have no idea what guide to read because there are so many of them.

 

The off topic / lounge section has really gone to shit. I don't think it is actually moderated anymore, there didn't really use to be anything in it iirc, but now its almost like /b/ without the porn.

https://community.tulpa.info/thread-bubbo

seriously?

 

 

I think this site might improve if some more effort was put into guiding newbies to the right resources, guides, etc. Some of that problem might be caused because the site uses 4 CMS's (I think) so it is a little fragmented.

 

If the same questions are being asked over and over again, the same answers are being given over and over again. It would save a lot of time if people could easily view the answers to already-asked questions instead of just asking the question again.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I certainly agree that too many of the same questions are being asked, and this is largely due to users not using the search function, and apathy towards reading around in general. I personally encourage using the search function, as well as reading all kinds of threads on the forums, to help inform yourself. I think that the use of the search function should be stressed more, as well as the idea of not making a thread the moment a question pops into your mind. This is for reasons beyond forum clutter, too.

 

I don't understand your concern about guide organization. There is a tag system that allows you to sort guides by their subject material, as well as a Great Big List of Guides that categorizes all guides in a similar way. We (the staff) do not stress the use of any one, or few particular guides, as we would not want to introduce such a bias to what guides are most often used. That is what would happen if we were to appoint a few "best" guides, or anything of the like, I'm sure.

However, this is a large reason as to why the GAT (Guide Approval Team) exists. They are members nominated from the community, by the community to review, and express their opinions towards the guides that are available. Because of this, the actual "Guides" forum only hosts guides which have been approved. It is true that just because a guide is not approved by the GAT does not mean that it cannot be helpful, but it seems to do just what you said you would like: significantly narrows down the host of guides into a relatively small, recommended bunch.

 

In addition to what I have stated above, we have been considering a "welcome" PM of sorts, to be sent to all users upon registering an account. This PM would likely include a link to the list of guides, and other useful resources (like the rules, no doubt), as well as detailing some helpful practices, such as using the search function. In honesty, this has been discussed for a while. It may well be time to implement it.

 

The Lounge board was actually created with concerns just like yours in mind. It was the Off-Topic board that would often get out of control, and appear to be unmoderated--and that's because it pretty much was. It said so, itself. Lounge was created to be an off-topic area that has more structure, and less spam. It is essentially a moderated version of Off-Topic; and, as is stated in the rules, it is largely moderated by the same standards as the rest of the forum--save the topic rule. I can assure you that Lounge is in fact being moderated, and that many spammy, offensive, and useless threads have been removed.

At the moment, there are not very many threads in Lounge, as it is still a relatively new board, and honestly, I don't find there to be anything "shit" about the threads that have been allowed to stay. You may see some threads that do not seem to have as definitive a purpose as some others, but, while this board is moderated, we would still like it to have a fairly laid-back atmosphere, where casual discussion about "not much" is allowed. Unless there comes a time that too many of these kinds of threads are being made, then I don't see much of a problem with having a few. Of course, none of them will be allowed to reach spam/circlejerk status, so no harm done, really.

 

I think my mention of the "welcome" PM addresses your concern of pointing newbies in the right direction. I also think that doing so would be a good idea, and may solve many problems now, and in the future.

"If this can be avoided, it should. If it can't, then it would be better if it could be. If it happened and you're thinking back to it, try and think back further. Try not to avoid it with your mind. If any of this is possible, it may be helpful. If not, it won't be."

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

This is disheartening, but for the most part I think true as well. To be honest, I haven't even been here for that long (A year? A year and a half?), and I do remember how the community was and has changed even in that amount of time. I had a fairly easy time pursuing my goals and finding information that I needed at the time here, and that might have to do with the organization of the site, amount of guides, quality overall of the guides or whatever else. It seems that nowadays there are a great mass of forum posts that don't really do anything (not referring to posts like, well...Bubbo...). A lot of the questions and topics posed mostly consist of about a paragraph or so, if that, of a basic, easily answered question or fairly uninteresting or unimportant topic. In my opinion, the IRC would be much more lively a place if these kinds of posts were directed there, which I think is a much better platform for those sorts of things. Otherwise we end up with tiny threads about Harvey Milktoast's Tupperware conundrum that get only a few responses and don't actually provide any substantial information that could build up the knowledge of the community as a whole, or even the individual users.

 

I remember that when I was first introduced to tulpae and this forum I was warned by my friend to be aware of the high concentration of pony tulpae presence on here. Nowadays, though, there seems to be more, as was already said above, humanoid/non-pony tulpae to balance out the community. I should point out that I haven't really seen any correlation between immaturity level of a user and whether they were bronies or had pony tulpae. In fact, many of the silly, almost pointless questions that I have seen have probably come from users not associated with ponies, but that might have to do with a change in number of users who are bronies, et cetera...

 

I know that some sites use a system (albeit often poorly) that works like this: a user will search something and find a post about it, and at the bottom of the page a small banner will appear saying something to the affect of "did this answer your question?" If no is clicked, it will redirect you to a place to post a thread of your own. This is something I've seen and while I don't think that this system should or could effectively be used, but I think bringing more attention to the ability to search for answers might help.

 

I'm perfectly fine with threads about, as had been said, "not much". I think the problem lies when people either are not aware of or don't look for their answers via the search system on the forums, and slowly we amass a pile of more or less uninteresting or unhelpful posts/threads that I think might cause an overall problem with the quality of the discussion here.

 

At this point there doesn't seem to a be what could be called a "problem" necessarily, but I think it should be encouraged to start more quality and substantial threads that really build on the forum's available information base. If it keeps rolling downhill, then there might have to be some changes, but until then I think everyone should try to contribute as best they can, if they can, to improve the site as a whole.

 

Anyway, that's just my two cents on the matter, and due to my time here and age I'm not sure (based on what has already been said) if it's even worth a damn, but I think this is important to discuss. I hope I could add something.

[align=center]Even though my username is that of my tulpa, Quilten, my name is Phaneron, the host, who does all of the actual posting.

Tulpas: Quilten, Jira

[/align]

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Guest Anonymous

Yes, the questions and discussion around here is quite stale, these days, but what exactly is it that you are expecting? In the early days of this community, almost no one had seriously developed tulpas--they were all working at it at the same time. The community was still learning. However, a while ago, a plateau of sorts had been reached, where a significant amount of people had achieved great progress, and things such as possession were no longer being "discovered". This is not to say that there is no more to be learned about what one can do with a tulpa, or other such things, but that that which has yet to be discovered is much lower.

As it is now, this site just tends to be about experienced members (hopefully) helping less experienced members in their journey.

 

Repeated questions is never a bad thing, no, that's how sites like these stay alive. Provided it's within reason, mind you, and not some cheeky kid that can't read the thread below him. This kind of site cannot constantly generate new content. Period. Without repeated questions this place would be even more inactive. It's just the quality of them that matters. It's easy to ask the same thing in different ways. The site's information honestly plateaued in late 2012, only the accessibility improved. Guides made things easier to digest, got rid of the "journey" in making tulpas which would weed out those who wouldn't have a dedicated mindset. But that's oldfaggotry shining through. Hourcounts, man.

 

There's no excuse for the quality drop. My guess is the advertising. Reddit, Tumblr, one can list scapegoats all day. As more angstpatties came in, those already here found it more and more worthless answering their questions and putting up with their nonsense. They left and now it's becoming quite apparent they were vital to this community.

 

Of course, there have been undesirable members who have joined, and many people would say that they give this phenomenon and community a bad name. Who is to say where they have come from, though. There are people like that in every community. A phenomenon such as this also attracts attention-seekers, and people with... "over-active" imaginations. Although this is not a new thing. People like that have been around this community since the beginning.

 

What do you think it is?

What do you think should be done?

What could have been done differently?

 

It'd be nice to have a good image, honestly. Not be a laughing stock. Though the "For Science" vibe has seemingly died out, it doesn't mean this phenomenon can't be taken seriously. If it means pulling a few weeds, so be it.

 

What do I think it is? How accepting the community is. What happened to taking everything with a grain of salt? What happened to calling others out on their bullshit? People throwing their lives away switching, cops coming to houses because people are playfully threatening to scatter their scalp across the ceiling. For attention. Goddammit.

 

Should be done? Kiahdaj, it starts from the top. You've done a damn good job, I'll be honest. Nobillis too. Zero needs to be removed, you know he isn't coming back. Not to mention it's been four months since his last post. Biotech needs to actually post as well. Moderation is not about deleting posts and managing reports. Anyone can do that. It's being there to improve the community. When there's hot threads, it's participating in them. When there are none -- generating them yourself. It's setting the example. And Christ, that isn't being some circlejerking asshat without a spine. No, by all means. Pick on the little buggers that think they're cute starting immature/attentionwhoring posts. Part of it is telling them that's not right. I know all of that is impossible to ask. At least for one person. I sure as hell couldn't do it. But between 5? 7? I think you guys could.

 

Though my vision is probably clouded with this. I've preached about moderation for so long, hah.

 

I think this site might improve if some more effort was put into guiding newbies to the right resources, guides, etc. Some of that problem might be caused because the site uses 4 CMS's (I think) so it is a little fragmented.

 

If the same questions are being asked over and over again, the same answers are being given over and over again. It would save a lot of time if people could easily view the answers to already-asked questions instead of just asking the question again.

 

Again, even if you put a bright red banner that says "NEW? READ THIS" they'll still act the same. It's how can you make the newfags worthwhile and if they aren't, can you turn them into something worthwhile? Would a more serious tone help? A better image? Advertising to another set of people? What else?

 

In addition to what I have stated above, we have been considering a "welcome" PM of sorts, to be sent to all users upon registering an account. This PM would likely include a link to the list of guides, and other useful resources (like the rules, no doubt), as well as detailing some helpful practices, such as using the search function. In honesty, this has been discussed for a while. It may well be time to implement it.

 

The Lounge board was actually created with concerns just like yours in mind. It was the Off-Topic board that would often get out of control, and appear to be unmoderated--and that's because it pretty much was. It said so, itself. Lounge was created to be an off-topic area that has more structure, and less spam. It is essentially a moderated version of Off-Topic; and, as is stated in the rules, it is largely moderated by the same standards as the rest of the forum--save the topic rule. I can assure you that Lounge is in fact being moderated, and that many spammy, offensive, and useless threads have been removed.

At the moment, there are not very many threads in Lounge, as it is still a relatively new board, and honestly, I don't find there to be anything "shit" about the threads that have been allowed to stay. You may see some threads that do not seem to have as definitive a purpose as some others, but, while this board is moderated, we would still like it to have a fairly laid-back atmosphere, where casual discussion about "not much" is allowed. Unless there comes a time that too many of these kinds of threads are being made, then I don't see much of a problem with having a few. Of course, none of them will be allowed to reach spam/circlejerk status, so no harm done, really.

 

The welcoming message is certainly a good start to the issue. Remember though: it requires them to read. It's a step in the right direction.

 

The Lounge. Frankly I imagined it to be full of threads like the Robin William's thread, Candy thread, X fanbase discussion, and other news/preference related stuff. Keep making threads like that -- they're good. All of bersinger's threads don't belong. Why isn't he at least hellbanned yet? He's just fucking around here. MavericktheCat's thread too. A readability requirement or something. Then again, why is MavericktheCat still allowed here?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Guest amber5885

I hate to agree but I half to agree. I don't mind helping newbies at all even a little that's what this site is for but.... Ugh!

 

Bronies are whatever, that's a personal taste and I can deal with that but even in the short time I have been here it's gone from halfway interesting topics to pure and utter garbage and that's not to mention the few posters who have posted the same question worded different ways five times in one day. No names mentioned but that guy made me eye roll so hard I could see my own brain lol

 

I've tried to post a few semi I suppose interesting discussions to get the flow going but it seems like what's happening is a bunch of high school kids found the site and just went to town.

 

You know it's bad when even my tulpa hates coming here anymore. I still check in time and again for the people I've made friends with and the random interesting question but I'm tired of the BS posts that either A) are so long/cryptic they don't even make sense or B) people who didn't even bother to do some research let alone check the basic facts page asking BS questions like "why is my tulpa trying to kill me?" "I made my first one today and she's totally sentient guys can I make two more tomorrow?" or "help! I've only been forcing for two hours and nothings happening is she gone? Does she hate me? Why can't I make with the sex now??"

 

I don't think the sites going downhill though. But it sucks having to wade through shit river to find land around here.


And omfg thank you whoever up there mentioned bearsinger! That guy is such a troll


Another thing, my last reply and maybe it's just me but there's been a few posts lately that are cringeworthy in the questions board and maybe it's just my ethics but people coming in and asking how to make sex slaves out of tulpas.

I get that that is their thing and it's fine for YOu but If we're trying to keep the tulpa creating community's name clean or at least steer people away from those types of creation processes then I don't think that should be allowed or .... I don't know I don't wanna step on anyone's toes but I was under the impression that creating servents, slaves or being abusive to your tulpa is wrong and not really condoned in the community but the responses I those posts seem otherwise. That's just me if I'm way out of line in saying so feel free to let me know.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I can't quite quote on mobile effectively, but as Derp said it: "Repeated questions is never a bad thing, no, that's how sites like these stay alive. Provided it's within reason, mind you, and not some cheeky kid that can't read the thread below him. This kind of site cannot constantly generate new content. Period. Without repeated questions this place would be even more inactive. It's just the quality of them that matters. It's easy to ask the same thing in different ways."

 

I think I agree with this. You have a point especially mentioning that new posts (even when about something already asked) keep the forum more active of a community. I also agree that slowly the older members are slowly falling away and the community has suffered as a result, leaving the "angstpatties" to be the greater majority. I think that there are enough quality users who post often enough that it provides supporting pillars for all of this, but they are slowly drifting out.

 

I agree with Derp as well concerning the "duty", I suppose, of the moderators and how they should go one step further and actively help the community out when it needs it. I know we still have a handful of active, intelligent, capable people here who are in the positions to be able to do this and I think it would be awesome if we could see some more site moderation, upkeep, and quality support of the site from these guys.

 

I think another aspect of the newer community acting the way they do is a result of the fact that they go on the forums and see a few short posts and think that they should ask some random question too, for whatever reason, thus prompting even more of the new guys to do the same. Informing those who do this or are not posting for good reasons (attention whoring, joking, extreme overexaggeration, et cetera) should be informed by the community when this happens, and I think that this would help out in deterring the lower quality side of the community.

 

Though the Lounge is being moderated, I've seen a multitude of cases in which there are threads that are pointless and obviously meaningless shitpost-esque word salads. It's good that it's moderated more than Off-Topic but maybe it could be moderated with a higher filter. I think it might need to be made clear that "Lounge" is not equivalent to "See how close to the line you can get".

[align=center]Even though my username is that of my tulpa, Quilten, my name is Phaneron, the host, who does all of the actual posting.

Tulpas: Quilten, Jira

[/align]

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Guest Anonymous

I clicked this post intending to reply "Going?" but you were surprisingly reasonable, and correct. Yes, there is an issue where the mods do not like to address things such as attentionwhoring or plain stupidity for a few reasons:

 

- Some things that look like attentionwhoring may be legitimate issues

- Brushing a user's problems off as attentionwhoring, whether the issues are legitimate or not, will cause a decline in users

- Calling a user stupid as a mod is stupid of itself, and I see a lot of mods prefer to shut up instead of changing their wording

- Being selective about what users should and shouldn't post is a form of bias and we want to be unbiased

 

Now, I disagree with all these reasons. The first one - yeah, sometimes you make mistakes, whether they're regarding attentionwhoring or not. The probability of making a mistake shouldn't be a reason not to fix an issue. Imagine if bomb defusion squads held that mentality.

 

The second one - this is an issue of valuing quantity over quality. I'd rather have 10 good users in my forum than 1000 shitty ones, but not everyone feels the same way. I think this shouldn't be an issue, if somebody's going to leave because they're not allowed to demand attention, they should.

 

The third is an issue of fear and laziness on the mods' behalf. That said, it can sometimes be a huge pain to deal with an unreasonable user who's refusing the fact that they're begging for attention and calling you a terrible person for brushing their "problem" off. I believe that those users should just be silenced or ignored, but that of course isn't a mentality that will always work. This is a serious issue of balance, I'd have no immediate solution for this.

 

The last reason is pure bullshit because we already are selective about what we do and don't want to see on the forums. Only difference is, shitposting is easy to spot, easily defined and easy to back up, whereas with more sensitive things like attentionwhoring people have a hard time explaining what about it makes it attentionwhoring, so they prefer to just let it happen rather than work to find a solution.

 

All of these issues stem from fear, laziness and misunderstanding, and there's no magical solution to all of them. I'd say we need a team who is capable of dealing with these issues - but I've only become active again very recently, so I don't think I'm well informed enough to be able to make that statement. It would be based on the team's behavior several months ago.

 

 

 

EDIT: Also, I didn't read the thread at all and thought that the post above mine was the OP.

 

EDIT 2:

Zero needs to be removed' date=' you know he isn't coming back.[/quote']

But Zero was never a mod? How can you have been in the mod team and not know who is and isn't a mod? Zero has been permabanned from the .info channels because people kept whining about me being biased in his favor or some crap. He came up with the GAT, that's about it - and he's not even in it anymore. Really, if you're going to complain about the moderation team, at least make sure you're informed.

 

Unless you're referring to me, in which case you're being extremely rude and I don't see why I should listen to your post.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The Lounge. Frankly I imagined it to be full of threads like the Robin William's thread, Candy thread, X fanbase discussion, and other news/preference related stuff. Keep making threads like that -- they're good.

All of bersinger's threads don't belong. Why isn't he at least hellbanned yet? He's just fucking around here. MavericktheCat's thread too. A readability requirement or something. Then again, why is MavericktheCat still allowed here?

wow at first i thought that comparison was mortally insulting but makes sense in one way - lately i've developed a near-clear theory that Maverickthecat is a conscious work of intelligent satire about everything laughable about tulpamancing and the tulpamancers - and that IS the kind of shit i would've picked up if i had learned to value it on time :D

 

and serious discussion in the form of "thousandth reprisal of popular topics" is so inconsctructive, if you are to repeat yourself you could just as well start a series of retarded memes like >bubbo:D and it would be equally worthless, and especially applicable in this kind of community where you can't take more than half the userbase seriously anyway :D

 

additional information; it is necessary that everyone develops a wider eye in recognizing what an actual paradigm shift in the community is, if just ONE person such as myself can make a place "almost like /b/" - if i really had this kind of influence, i'd have my hands full in squeezing some potential out of this place. maybe even seriously :D

 

additional information to other general topics with a backstory; seeing that the nature of this phenomenon mostly attracts a demographic of short-sighted/immature/hasty/desperate/idealist escapists, it's blind faith to assume that more than fraction of our userbase will achieve the kind of consistent & long-term success even close to the "for life" happy endings the OGs were and keep promising to every loser in line. still, even in my view it's not just a "whatever" issue because quality control still makes the difference of what comes out afterwards - functional people who have learned actual values through error, and bubbled, entitled outcasts who feel others should have any acceptance for their "happy" existence in their "subjective realities" - those kinds of folks are just to be ignored, or be told to do something about themselves before anyone will want to take them seriously :D

tell the rapper what i'm gonna do with all this money

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...