Heyyo, it's early in the morning and I should be at work but anyway, I just wanted to start the discussion too, with some questions, not just aimed towards you but I guess everyone! They're not super well-thought-out because it's early, I hate change and react badly naturally to any type of change lmfao, and I'm not good at first drafts, so please be patient with me.

Personally, I think with Classic and especially since a lot of people have been here for a really long time, there's a lot of deep-seated emotions running along with this site. I know personally I have both amazing and terrible memories associated with things and that sometimes, this site makes me confront myself with the worst aspects of who I am and my own personality, and I guess one thing I don't want us all going into this with is thinking that:

1) One person, or even one team, is ever going to fix everything. This is a wicked problem in a sense that there are so many aspects of things that people WILL be unhappy about regardless of what's being done around the site. We shouldn't be placing any responsibility OR blame on one party to fix everything, and I think it'd be overwhelming for anyone to think they can take up that mantle. I feel like overreaching and taking on too much responsibility and expectation is a huge reason for burnout in any aspect of your life.

How can we learn how to delegate more, and make sure all users regardless of their positions feel heard, as if their ideas are taken seriously even if they're not implemented? How can we work together and truly create a site that EVERYONE feels proud of?

2) I think a big issue, and this really is super applicable to me, is this idea that I feel like we're in a system that pits us against each other. I agree with fox's essay, in that CPCC and all these counters are a stick that's beating us down and there's not really a carrot anymore. While I understand its function and necessity, should we be committed to fostering a better relationship with activity and with each other, rather than enforcing things? Which direction is the staff going towards? Not to be logically extreme, but I think this is something the global community has been reckoning with for the last five years too.

Do we need police to enforce the rules and crack down on crime, or should we be building community resources to uplift everyone so they don't feel the need to rely on crime to survive? We hear defund the police a lot irl just like how we hear fears of staff overreach, but what can we do to increase transparency and still make everyone feel safe to speak their mind?

How can we find the right balance of staff feeling like they have something to work towards, while still taking everyone's opinions into count? How can we make sure users who disagree don't feel demeaned? How do we address problems without using the stick? How can we incentivize enjoyment (god I sound like my ex-boss) without making it feel like a capitalist neoliberal hell? Do we need to revamp what it means for the admin positions, or just the moderation system? Or do we all need to dig deep and find out what we really like about RP? 

How can we have conversations that lead to people wanting to volunteer and get excited about things? How can we make roleplaying less of a chore and more of community activity?

3) I don't know if I'm allowed to disclose this, but I guess having conversations with people in the past few weeks and seeing a little bit of what led to this (and once again, confronting my own responsibility in the way I react to things) I think the staff is right in saying that we've been reacting to things with hostility, myself included. Someone once told me about how we should be committed to trying to make 'good-faith' readings wherever possible.

I'm going to be vulnerable here and I hope everyone else feels like they can too, but I've been confronting this issue of the snowball effect in my own personal life. I started therapy a year ago and one of the things that came up was that I tend to do this thing where something happens, a minor inconvenience, but it bothers me, and I let it stew. How dare this happen! How dare they! How could they! They must be horrible! I'm a failure, I'm a disaster, I hate everyone...yadda yadda....Twenty minutes later, I'm fuming, I'm ranting, I'm telling my friends how I want to resort to violence. A day later, I look back and realize that wow, that was a really dramatic emotion to be feeling over something. Same thing happens when I talk about something that upset me previously. Same thing when I'm anxious about something at work. I let it snowball a little too long, next thing I know it's an avalanche or I'm caught like a cartoon character rolling down to my doom.

My best friend has a habit of, whenever I'm angry at someone else, she'll be like: hey what if they didn't mean to do that? They probably didn't realize you weren't joking or that you were really sensitive about it. Hey, they might have been super off-key and out of touch when they said that thing, but stewing over it won't solve it, why don't you message them about it when you feel better about having that conversation? She helps me reframe things a lot when I'm really upset, and tbh, once I reframe things to a more sympathetic perspective of: hey, they were just trying to do what they thought was best. They didn't meant to hurt me. I shouldn't react when I'm angry, things are...easier.

We used to fight. A lot. We almost cut off this friendship in high school over something small, but one day when I was telling my dad about this, he told me: the thing is you two are like magnets. Something she did upset you, so you pull away. She doesn't know why you did that so she tries in her own way to get you back. Her doing that annoys you more so you pull away further. It's not about them trying to antagonize you, it's that your form of communication isn't working and your assumptions of boundaries/actions/etc. isn't communicated to her. You can say 100% but most people only will receive 10% of it, and yes, some of it is purposeful ignorance but most of the time, it's just because you come from different backgrounds, or thought processes. It's not you against her, it's you and her against the problem.

I have to remind myself of that a lot, and I don't want to escape the blame either because even now, I have trouble reframing myself, and it's so much work constantly to hold a sympathetic view, to try and understand the other's perspective, and to not react out of anger and to drag people into the snowball. There's no solution to this because we're all human and so capable of the trap of our own personalities and thinking, but there must be a way to make it so that misunderstandings are cleared in a better way, right?

How can we commit to a level of nonviolence, and be kept accountable without pointing fingers? How can we build a community that owns up to their own faults without feeling ostracised? 

4) I know we all think overhauls are the clear answer, and most of you will remember that months ago, I did too! I thought that the clan overhaul would solve everything, but it's not a panacea to our issues, and you know what? I'll admit I was wrong, even though I still think clan deletion is a viable option. I don't think overhauling the whole site works to the benefit of a silent majority who are literally only here to RP. I think sometimes, the most vocal of us have the best intentions to make this site a better place, but we all only speak from our own experience and the experience of our closest friends.

So how can we make it so that users from all walks and not just those closest to the staff get a say in what their vision of the site is? I was an admin in 2015-2016 and tbh, I tried to make an anon survey about how we could improve the site, and yet I remember people used it to send rude remarks, and I too, found myself becoming super defensive over criticism over my, for lack of a better word, regime, and frankly, realizing that I wasn't the right person to be communicating with everyone was a big reason I stepped down in the first place because frankly, I let my emotions and defensiveness lead me rather than my duty as a neutral party on the site. Still, the survey gave users a valid outlet for their frustrations, and at the end of the day, we did get a lot of honest feedback about how we could improve.

How can we get everyone on board with the direction classic is going in the least antagonistic way? How can we solve contrasting issues (aka, divisive ones that have strong opinions on both sides?) How can we change the community to make it less me vs. them, and more us vs. the issue?

Should we be bringing up the problems and letting everyone discuss and compromise first, rather than starting with a solution? How can we look at everyone as equal partners, rather than as competitors?

That was long, sorry!

I have a lot I could say but honestly it’s early morning I wanna go back to sleep. So i’m Focusing on this.

Clan deletion and overhaul have led to the most toxic vibe of classic hands down in my honest opinion.

The LSAC was hard sometimes but worse was the threat that if you weren’t making numbers they’d come to take your clan away.

They had no real identifiers. But there was this sense permeating through and given despite overhaul failing to happen people brought it up again and disregarded the damage it had done to the staff.

How can you feel like you’re having fun as a leader if the thing you’re pouring your heart into might be gone because it falls behind. That you’ve fallen behind and you’re the reason a beloved clan is gone.

Cause they’re all beloved. Even though we deleted it as a sacrifice to try and appease the demands to change things up, I miss WaterClan. I imagine others miss other clans that were gone.

And the reality is people love the mountain clans, the forest clans, and the groups.

It can suck when you only have a small portion of the overall site activity as a clan leader. But it’s far worse with the added ‘you do badly your clan is gone.’

Especially since the last deletion discussion disregarded the list that were identifiers for deletion.

And also was when overhaul was pushed again.

I don’t wish ANY admin team go through the hell we did trying to make that happen. It threw the site into limbo and what came out of it had the undercurrent of demands. Demanding the world of the admins.

I also disagree on just ideas being presented we’ve had ideas, the overhaul was ideas that was left to the admins to refine into a solution. Delegation was hard when we were being undermined and our requests on what we needed done went ignored and others instead shouldered in to get the chance to spearhead things that as you noted achromatic was more about competing than helping.

This can’t just be something kicked up to the admins and mod team we need solutions.

Solutions that recognize clan deletion would need to be done with extreme care, as at this point its hardsince we’re all connected to a clan I’d say.

Spring and night i’ve Poured my heart into them both. I love seeing the changes I made, my impact on night still stand despite the years pass. As any leader should. A testament to what they left behind for others to use and adapt to the night they want.

I love that NightClan is still in a cave with its own swimming pool (cenote) even if it’s underused.

And SpringClan is a friendly positive space. I have fond memories of the stories told there that I got to see during my tenure and I know it means the world to some of its members.

The threat of losing either was what made me feel more uncomfortable and distressed than anything else. Because they mean a lot to me and there’s other clans I love too. But my list may not match other users.

So if we do opt to go with deletion it needs to be carefully thought out and not slapdash nor can we ignore people’s trauma and feelings with both of them.

I’m glad that you’ve noted it’s not going to fix everything achromatic, because deletion won’t make someone decide to RP in x clan more now that y clan They loved is gone.

I will note that it is early in the morning and I wanted to throw this out there

Yeah I agree Jetclaw , to be honest one thing that stuck with me is that on another site I was on years back, we had multiple groups and yet, the activity constantly fluctuated on the individual groups. Some weeks, everyone wanted to do their plots in this one section of the site, other weeks people wanted to try something new and another section seemed unique and interesting. Did some groups go a while without activity? Sure, but the site activity was always at an all-time high, and everyone moved from section to section because they didn't feel obligated to stick to the ones they had to be active on.

It felt like we were working as a team, not just the staff but the whole site.

Would that be something we could encourage?

I think back in the day, I disagreed with you about the clan deletion but now, I sort of see where I went wrong. At the end of the day, I think we also put so much responsibility on the leaders to single-handedly carry the clan, when in reality, it's about the culmination of everyone just wanting to have a good time. There are times certain clans just bop really hard because there's a plot everyone can see themselves in, and other times when people are going through a dry period but they're finding enjoyment in other clans!

In a way, every group has its ups and downs and its high-activity period and its lower-baseline period, and I agree, we shouldn't be punishing people for that, we should be coming up with new ideas to encourage fun in those groups, or creating private or public plots around, and with new users too, they bring in a wellspring of ideas from other sites!

Just a few months ago, sunlight and woof brought in a load of new inspirations for SummerClan like the plot, the patrols and prey lists, and the random events, and suddenly I was RPing there more than all of my usual clans, and when NightClan had that new plot, I was suddenly making more plots with my NC characters, you know? Not to mention how the introduction of the caste system in WinterClan gave me an idea for a plot with bauble, or just coming up with random ideas for kittypets and loners or random groups of cats from outside the clans allowed me to get to know people who were suddenly interested too!

I guess all I'm saying is I love the actual energy of RPing when everyone's excited for it. When everyone's coming up with ideas and collaborating and doing something new, when someone comes up to you and goes: hey I have this giant plot I wanna do, do you wanna be a part of it? When people make new kit litters that have loads of ideas and plots and you're buying into the idea and the family as much as the character.

How can we encourage this kind of energy and activity? I'm sure that if everyone was just having a good time, we'd be way more active than when we're just replying for the sake of meeting requirements ♥

Jetclaw . Yeah...I figured this argument would be brought up by someone. I have my personal opinions obviously, but the last thing I want is a repeat of that whole fiasco, and there's probably no way we'd get as close to an overhaul again. And to an extent you're completely right: while from my point of view supply is far less than demand, closing off options isn't necessarily going to encourage people to move to a different clan - it might have the complete opposite effect. The actual overhaul we need is in how the site itself is actually run, because it not only isn't working, but has actively generated an environment of stress, burnout, and hostility for all users involved. The fate of a clan should not rest solely on a leader's shoulders. achromatic is correct, it should be a group effort that stems from creativity and shared ideas. And likewise, a small group of people should not be made entirely to blame every time something goes wrong.