Well, I have no idea what suddenly spurred Tero into action, but action has indeed been taken on Metal From Finland, both the news site and the forum.Thank fuck!
I wrote here before about how out of control I thought the site was getting, how depressing it was, and how poorly it reflected on Tero, whose site it is, and the people who participated there. The bashing & hatred also, I believe, reflected poorly on metalheads.
Now, there is a full time moderator on the forum. It's still early days and things have not settled down yet, so it remains to be seen how things will go there, but it is indeed, in my opinion, a very good step, and one that is long overdue.
Of course there has been backlash - from the embittered "hater" crowd, and that is only normal. I totally expect there to be a lot of pissed off users. But I think once the initial shock & anger has died down, this could possibly be a respectable, friendly site once more - the way it used to be when it started.
So, my hat is off to Tero for taking some action - and taking the risk it involved; pissing a lot of regular users off is risky. But I think it was even more risky to allow the free-for-all to continue. Thank you, Tero!
And good luck to the new moderator: you will need it!
14 comments:
I agree that there where some things that needed to change. But this is just respect less towards the people who used to visit that forum every day.
But then there were others who were pissed off enough to quit the forum, like James & Lizzie. Mermaid, I know for a fact from both James & Lizzie, was responsible for their decision to quit. That's not right.
The regular users there who were in the Mermaid camp of course are going to be angry. The free-for-all aspect was what was appealing about the site. And I totally get that.
But as someone who just got sick of it because it was tiresome, at times disturbing (example: Lyssa), and full of ludicrous insulting - and these things not being contained in the thread in which they belonged (i.e. all the spill-over into other threads) - I think a clean-up was in order.
I think the site might have embarrassed Tero. If it were my site, I would have been embarrassed for sure.
And it's HIS site in the end. Jess is acting with HIS authority. We have to respect the fact that this isn't OUR site, it's someone else's, and he can run it any way he wants to.
But it just sucks that Jess needs to close down everything that the other users liked. It was already like that for a long time, so why change it so drastically? And it's Tero's fault from the beginning if he didn't wanted it to be like how it was. If he wanted it to be like this, he should have done more to that from the beginning. And not change everything all of the sudden. Leaving the people who kept the forum alive standing outside of it. 'Cauze you can say whatever you want, but the way Jess and her camp acted towards the rest as new comers, didn't made sense at all. THEY teased Lyssa more away then the persons on the board.
I agree Tero let it go too far, totally. And he has to take some responsibility for that. Unfortunately, that means a sudden change that is unpopular with a lot of folks there. But he had to do something, and the quicker the better.
And Lyssa got as good as she gave. She seemed to me to definitely be one of those "you can dish it out but not take it" people. Besides, she has another forum to spew on so she isn't as persecuted as she made herself out to be.
Hmm. I don't know. I tried to settle it down a bit, but that didn't worked out (you know, with the fight between Jess and co vs. most of the others).
But I don't like MFF as much as I did. I don't mind that there is going to be more moderating. But letting Jess doing that, after what happened, just doesn't seems right. And besides, a little bit more respect towards the persons on there would have been nice. We never said bad things about Tero or MFF. So I'll never believe that it's right.
And that is fair enough, Sorcha; I respect your opinion.
The problem was that there were never any moderators to begin with ... I mean, in theory there were loads of moderators, but there were only like one or two of them who ever visited and posted at all, and the rest just didn't seem to exist. No one even knew them or had any idea who they were. Spam in the forum was not deleted despite our urging. No wonder everything spun out of control.
The lack of moderator activity was a factor that didn't help with my displeasure with the forum. When you take on such a post, you should take it more seriously.
About Lyssa, what other forum are you talking about?
Lyssa posts on Metallichicks, where last year she started her own Anti Anette thread, which of course heavily emphasizes Lyssa's suitability to replace Anette, blahx3. She came to MFF after this thread was well established, saying (and I'm paraphrasing) that she felt persecuted for her views about Anette on other boards.
Now, she has moved to another forum started by Mary's Blood, AKA Claire from the UK, who also posts on Metallichicks with Lyssa, which is specifically for Anette haters, and where I think a lot of the MFF haters, like Mermaid, have gone to since moderation happened on the MFF forum.
I agree 100% that the inaction of the forum moderators contributed to the problem. Had all the bullshit been nipped in the bud early on, none of this drama would have happened.
Hmm, too many forums! If anything the whole crap about Tarja's firing and the aftermath only contributed to a harsh splintering up of the scene :-/
I agree. What an incredibly divisive move on the part of NW, something from which I doubt they will fully recover from.
"What an incredibly divisive move on the part of NW, something from which I doubt they will fully recover from."
Well, Karma's a bitch, ain't it. :D
In fact I was talking about the whole female-fronted yadda-yadda symphonic metal scene - you've got forums sympathetic to Nightwish but opposed to Tarja, forums dominated by the opposite "climate", forums trying to cater to the fans of both, forums that try to be neutral or don't care either way, forums with users who cannot stand either, or only Nightwish until a certain point, forums that allow for various shades of criticism ...and seemingly every other conceivable combination - it's probably mainly dependant from the moderators' attitudes. And if you find yourself with the wrong opinion in the wrong forum, trouble ensues. It's a huge mess.
I mean, the whole thing is a shame for such a lovely genre/movement. There's so much potential in it.
Post a Comment