The state of the forums... and the site. - RealWorld forums

PLEASE READ THE ENTIRE THING BEFORE REPLYING. I WILL NOT TOLERATE ANY OFFENSIVE/INAPPROPRIATE COMMENTS IN THIS THREAD.

Hey everyone.

This isn't the usual post I would make, but I think this is a good idea to just share my honest thoughts about the state of the RealWorld Designer site. But anyways, here I go.

Ah yes, rw-designer.com. It's a good place to share your cursors and icons to the world so they can use them for their own... or is it just that? Well, no. Of course not. There's the forums and the option to comment on sets and different pages on the site. Is it good though? Simple answer: No. The site's filled with problems. Yea, there's some usual ones like the site being http, but it goes farther than that. From what I've seen, most of these problems come from the comments and forums.

First and foremost, the anonymous users. I have seen some ones that are actually responsible on the site, but a majority (and I mean a majority) of them are absolutely hideous. I've seen comments from them such as containing racial/homophobic slurs, containing inappropriate content, and many other problems. One main spot for their "activities" are the general forums.

One prime example I saw here was the creation of an "18+ chat" thread. I absolutely hate it. This site is meant for everyone, not just for a specific age group. They need to be aware that everyone on the site and click on your thread and read everything that's said on it. That includes people under 18. Also, the fact that the thread was made by an anonymous user as well just makes it stupider. I'm not saying all anonymous users are bad. It's just that most of them aren't very good.

About the comments they make, I hate most of them. I'm totally fine with people who make comments to give opinions on it, but from what I've seen, they're very bad comments. Like I said before, these comments include racial/homophobic slurs, inappropriate content, and such. Thank goodness for the option to delete anonymous user comments on sets. It does help a lot, but they still are around though. I think it can be a little better.

In conclusion to all of this, the state of the site is not very good right now. I think it could be better with what anonymous users are doing to the site's forums and comments. Again, I'm not criticizing against every anonymous user on the site. Some of them are actually not too bad. I've thought up of some solutions that could possibly help with all of this. I know these ideas probably wont be implemented on the site, bit I think it's a good idea to share my thoughts.

• More forum moderators.

The site had sixλxis as a forum mod, but they retired about a few years ago. I'm completely fine with them being retired. They probably have life to tackle so I'll let them do that. But I think it would be nice if we had a few more forum mods hired. They should be trained to look carefully at posted forums and to delete ones that could be offensive.

• Actual site rules

I'm not sure of this is already implemented or not, but we do have a Terms of Service page on the site. I've looked through it, and it basically goes through main things about the site, like how you can't make alts or about posting assets to the site. I think it could be improved a little to include posting rules as well. Yes, there's the Posting Rules thread, But I think it's a good idea to include these rules not just for forum posts, but for comments too. It would tell the user about these rules beforehand.

• Restricted forum usage for anonymous users

I think the things that anonymous users can do on the forums should be restricted a little bit. Something that could help is manual acceptance by the thread creator. Let's say a user crates a thread on the forums, and an anonymous user makes a reply with a racial slur. When they make that reply, only they and the forum post creator can see it. This is so that the creator of that thread can manually accept or decline that reply to be shows on that thread publicly. This can make it so logged-in users have control over what's posted on their threads. This can make the site a better place. Well, anonymous users could open new threads, and them being anonymous users... well, you know. Maybe this next idea could help with that...

• Reporting forum threads

This would actually be a good idea. Logged-in users could have the option to report threads on the forums. There could be a report button somewhere on the thread's page. The user can select which rule it breaks, and can type in a description of how to breaks rules. The info can be sent to mods and they can manage that thread if needed. This would help clean up parts of the forums.

Well, I think that's all I have to say. If I missed anything, please let me know in the replies.

Have a nice day. Hope to see better from this site soon.

I 100% agree with this forum post

same here

I love this forum post and I agree with it 100%. Their plaguing my ASCII thread!

fr ong no cap fax true

True

Don't forget spam posts...and messages containing spammed text, often cursed text, sent by anonymous users.

I 100% agree with you on this one. The online culture is falling apart in many ways, and people are making spam, scams, 18+ content and bad news, and as such, the internet is struggling to become a better place.

Hey, it's like they say.. things have to get worse before they get better. But that doesn't work in the real world to a certain extent.

That's why the past is better than future

Yes, but.. I'm more than sure that most of us haven't experienced the past where the internet didn't exist. So you need to be more specific when you're talking about the past.

2010 and 2000 (Even if i wasn't born until 2010)

Also don't forget the ASCII spammers

Also, don't forget these nude icons uploaded in junkyard by anonymouses

Although is nothing related, those nude icons wake up my wrath!

theres an nsfw thing for rw desginer, so nude things are fine

@eveelover64 I see what you mean, but remember that everything is basically clickable on the site by anyone. Minors could just come across one of these things. We all need to be careful about whatever is on this site.

I agree with everybody here!

I do too it is so bad that there is blood cursor. blood is not good and gore is not good either. can someone pls delete the bloody cursors? it hurts my stomach seeing it and my head too

I agree, sadly im one of those but trust me, im not having metal problems

I'm sorry to hear that you have to deal with immature anonymous trolls saying cuss words in comments and very inappropriate and violent things. But in regards to the blood cursors, as long as they aren't offensive in anyway, they should be okay for the site. If they make you feel queasy or bothered just don't search up "blood" in the search bar. Hope everyone is having a good day/night.