I think that people in the tag need to remember that a majority of the content IN the tag is coming from burner/secondary blogs, and anons that are filtered through those blogs that won’t even put their name on a throwaway account. So a lot of the things that people post in here, especially in the wake of issue after issue with the site, are essentially Vent Posts, and aren’t exactly the best place to look for any sort of validation when it comes to user engagement, site functionality, or even just meta discussion of roleplaying, unfortunately
These aren’t full, measured statements of anyone’s full opinion of the entire site or their experiences with it, and any observation that someone is making about the community at any given time isn’t an end-all-be-all statement about some big issue like everyone tries to make every passing comment out to be
The mods are humans with limits that, regardless of how I feel about their handling of so many things, ARE writing and rewriting this site just so we can all use it, and if every bridge along the way doesn’t get burned down I still believe there are enough pieces here to form a half-decent community
The userbase, regardless of how thoughtless and/or bitter individuals may have become, are also human. Most of us are just regular people that have put a lot of time and energy into this site, and deserve some basic info about what’s going on without it being drowned in snark and anger at more vocal members of the community that the mods have beef with
I think being more hands-off with the community and downsizing the discord are good moves, and I truly think that revisiting the verification process and the off-site movement ban would help to offset some of the vitriol on both sides
People can understand that an indie site goes down sometimes, they aren’t that stupid. What is at the heart of this frustration is the lack of security and control that comes with feeling like it might all be gone at any moment, without any sense of knowing when it might happen and if you might ever talk to this person that you have made considerable investment of time and emotion into
Whenever people want to downsize other’s frustration over this, they say “it’s just a hobby site”, but like... Hobbies are important, and you’re here too? Especially now, in a global pandemic, being able to feel like you can foster these hobbies, particularly a hobby that is steeped in escapism and used as an emotional outlet, is important. Being made to feel like these bonds mean nothing, and that, if your shitass userbase is cruel enough to mods that lash back out at them (and, as a result, YOU), it could all just be gone one day, is stressful and irritating, no matter how much healthy detachment you have.
People come in the tag and talk about how stressed and irritated they are, because they are usually here when the site goes down. My advice, if you want to get anything useful out of the tag, is to wait in between these waves before attempting to initiate any discussion in good faith
