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[Havohej]

What the fuck is MA?

Anyway, let's see... going to scan back through that and highlight the points I want to engage with, but cba doing fancy quoting shit.

door number one with 'Harden The Fuck Up'

Door number one was Chatsubo.  Back then, if you weren't part of a particular clique (let's call it what it was - the Jade/Revan cult of personality), you got shit on and you had to either HTFU or just not participate at all.  This forum exists because a lot of people believed that HTFU should not be a prerequisite to discussing RP in Eve.  Do you know what that means?  That means that if you have some constructive, helpful criticism to give, you can figure out how to see it without being a complete bloody nerdraging fucking sperglord bellend cunt about it.  Even if posts like that are hilarious to some/many and feel very self-gratifying (we all enjoy getting shit off our chests).  Your post in the funk thread, for instance, which I fucking loved - top kek - could've been summed up with links to PF and an explanation that it wasn't in keeping with what we've actually been given from CCP regarding blooders and a warning that it would not be well received or taken seriously by a majority of people in the active RP scene.  I loved your post, but it belongs where it is - in the Catacombs.

If that concept, which was so widely desired and agreed upon and which, I argue, is perhaps this forum's core, founding principle, is too restrictive/draconian/whatever for you...  well, harden the fuck up.

rules lawyering

The rules are explicitly subjective, rather than objective, to give us as moderators wiggle room to do what we think is best in a given situation/thread.  Whether that means mods gonna mod or mods gonna let that shit go, is up to the mod who's looking at it - and it only takes one of us to say, "You know what - this isn't appropriate, I'm moderating this thread/post."  This prevents the rules lawyering we saw on Chatsubo, this prevents the baiting we saw on Chatsubo for the most part.  However, it takes discussion amongst the whole team to press the ban button, so no single mod can have a bug up his or her ass about a particular user and press butan on them for the hell of it.  I think we have an understanding with each other that, in case of "EXTREME CIRCUMSTANCES" any one of us can do so, but to my knowledge this has not ever been necessary to date.

Pointless Bittervetting,

Can we go ahead and call this a prevailing sentiment, then?  Such that it should be taken under consideration for addition to the rules?

to address the topic of The Catacombs.

I'm of mixed feelings about this.  I can't recall just how the winning argument, so to speak, was worded back then but I think as far back as the Smoke-filled Room it was felt that, for the sake of mod/admin transparency, our actions needed to be clear and visible to all.  Part of the avoidance of cliques/factions controlling the board by having one of their own on the team.  At this juncture, I think that it may be more effective if the Catacombs are only visible to the team - we can police ourselves and if a user has a grievance with one of us modding their post/thread, we can all very clearly go and see what exactly happened and discuss it/deal with it internally.

Thoughts from the community on that idea?  Thoughts from the team?

EDIT: Also, Silver is best admin.   

[orange]

Anyway, the vast majority of your problems with Backstage have a simple solution: revive Chatsubo.

lol

Backstage was announced 24 Mar 2010.  A year later, Chatsubo was a complete ghost town, some might argue it emptied out even quicker than that.  The last content post was in Mar 2012 - someone looking for a corp.  To bad for Rustyn, no one saw it.

I think that much of the discussion in the thread linked came to pass - Chatsubo did not survive despite theories to the contrary.  Fragmentation did not occur, but two forums definitely did not survive.

Pointing at Chatsubo is effectively saying leave our community and go wander the desert.

[Vincent Pryce]

Anyway, the vast majority of your problems with Backstage have a simple solution: revive Chatsubo.

Pointing at Chatsubo is effectively saying leave our community and go wander the desert.

This Silver, is why I am just going to say go fuck yourself dipshit. At least I have the balls to say it outloud, wanker.

I'll make a better post if I can bother.

[Silver Night]

A compelling argument, Vince. However, the point is two-fold:

Either your ideas have some merit, in which case it shouldn't be hard to start back up Chatsubo (or, indeed, start your own forum with rules you prefer since while this is a suggestion thread, your suggestions are probably going to be too far outside of the core ideas of this forum) or your ideas are not one that will lead to a useful forum.

And if you don't want to post within the rules, Vince, you would have to post somewhere else - but you are trying to both complain that we are too protective and inclusive when dealing with members, and then not protective and inclusive enough of shitposting. I'm not sure it works. And pointing to Chatsubo is the longstanding response to people who feel this forum is too restrictive (I think you used to word Chokehold). The fact that Chatsubo is currently a ghost town hasn't changed the fact that it remained and remains an alternative option.

Also, I want to correct a fairly important misconception: Saying 'Use Chatsubo' is not the same as saying 'Don't use Backstage' (though it is roughly the same as saying 'Don't use Backstage to post things that fall outside of Backstage's rules.') It was always an alternative - not a replacement. This was, in fact, one of the first things I recall explaining to people when we were setting up Backstage.

Edit: And in fact, it may be that Chatsubo's time has come again (or something like Chatsubo's time). People forget that while there were periods in Chatsubo's history that were(to say the least) problematic, there were also quite a few (probably longer) periods when it was actually useful and even occasionally somewhat awesome. Maybe we are at a point when the mix of folks in RP could use an alternative spot that lets them interact in a more mod-hands-off sort of way.

[Louella Dougans]

I think that it may be more effective if the Catacombs are only visible to the team - we can police ourselves and if a user has a grievance with one of us modding their post/thread, we can all very clearly go and see what exactly happened and discuss it/deal with it internally.
Thoughts from the community on that idea?  Thoughts from the team?

Poster A makes a post.
Poster B takes exception to one point.
Poster C, quoting another point from A, discusses that point.
Poster D discusses C's counterpoint.
Poster A again discusses with A and C.
Poster B calls everyone names.

Moderator X, removes all 6 posts, for perceived flamebaiting. Posters C and D are mystified, and ask "where did my post go ?". Poster A also asks where their post went. Poster B probably knows where their post went, but doesn't ask. Moderation team workload is higher, because C and D need to be told there wasn't anything wrong with their posts, and they are free to discuss that point again, without quoting the thing that seems to have caused a problem with B.

Having it all in the catacombs, with "removed for quoting deleted post", answers C and D's questions with little effort, allows them to continue.

Also, timezones and Rl things. Make post, go to sleep, or go to work, come back, everything's gone with no explanation.

Catacombs might not be ideal, but at least they're transparent.

[orange]

The fact that Chatsubo is currently a ghost town hasn't changed the fact that it remained and remains an alternative option.

It is not a viable alternative for conversation with the community that moved from there to here.

It was always an alternative - not a replacement. This was, in fact, one of the first things I recall explaining to people when we were setting up Backstage.

While I understand your intent, it is not what happened.  Backstage replaced Chatsubo.

[Silver Night]

I'm aware of the reality, in terms of current usage. What I'm saying is: if enough people think they would find value in somewhere with a different set of core rules, Chatsubo or something like it could be a viable alternative. I'm really not trying to be an asshole and go: 'lol, good luck, go live in the ghost town, hur hur.' I'm saying that Backstage isn't going to be able to be all things to all people, which we realized at the start, and so we committed to being certain things - if you are looking for other things, all it takes is a few like-minded people and a willingness to give it a shot (I know, because that's how Backstage happened.)

[Esna Pitoojee]

At this juncture, I think that it may be more effective if the Catacombs are only visible to the team - we can police ourselves and if a user has a grievance with one of us modding their post/thread, we can all very clearly go and see what exactly happened and discuss it/deal with it internally.

Thoughts from the community on that idea?  Thoughts from the team?

EDIT: Also, Silver is best admin.   

This may be getting a bit to subjective/situational for you guys, but I liked the idea a while back where threads would be catacomb'ed, while individual particularly bad posts would be just vanished.

More specifically, in places where extended sections of a thread slowly went pear shaped and had to be excised, it might be useful to be able to see what is missing in order to provide context to later posts.

In places where there's a specific post or posts that just need to be *snipped* because they were a dramatic jump into flaming or badness - well, those don't need to stick around. As Vince said, those are often people trying to get in a potent parting shot, knowing they are going to be modded anyhow.

[Silver Night]

I think it may be a problem of enforcement. Due to the way we handle things like warnings and bans, and the asynchronous nature of forum communication, what can often end up happening is a post gets moderated, but the person who posted (often in a situation where a warning or ban should clearly be issued, like when someone starts their post with 'I know this is going to be moderated' and proceeds to post anyway) doesn't receive any other punitive action to dissuade them in the future because mod discussion of issuing a warning or ban ends up taking too long, or one of us drops off the internet for a while or what have you. We could do a better job with consistency in making sure bans and warnings are handed out, basically. Even if people aren't convinced to stop posting the 'really bad' sorts of post, they would eventually get banned anyway (which is how it is supposed to work).

[Jade Constantine]

In no particular order:

While I think most of your critique probably is more suggestive of a bad fit between your particular style and this forum, Vince, I would tend to agree that bittervetting is a problem. There, see what you've done: put it into our heads to introduce more rules. Also, overall amount of moderation is (drastically) down - due in part no doubt to declining activity, but probably in larger part due to declining moderator participation.

In terms of political correctness, I'm not sure what you mean - though I can see two possibilities (which might be incorrect):

1) In the non-eve section, we tend to lock down certain types of threads after a bit of run time. This is because this isn't really a forum for that kind of thing, and certain RL topics tend to just lead to arguments and trolling.

2) The whole point of setting Backstage up in the first place, which boiled down to essentially the idea that you can have a healthy debate or conversation with someone without dragging out insults and suggestions that they just need to 'HTFU' and otherwise belittling other users or derailing threads down into flames rather than having constructive interactions. In this case, you are confusing 'political correctness' (which rings the alarm-bells of nanny-statedom (to be fair a description Backstage might qualify for were it a state)) with politeness which is a tool that civil societies use to function and which online communities can use to have reasonable conversations.

As far as the Catacombs, the problem there is that while they are not an ideal solution, it would be worse if we just disappeared posts and threads, because then there would be no examples of what not to do, and no evidence of what we had actually done (so people could claim we were selectively modding them or what have you, when the real reason for moderation is that they were being a massive tool).

Also, decrying bittervetting while simultaneously suggesting that new people who try things you've seen before need to 'fuck off and stop bitching' if they won't listen to your (or, tbh, my) learned advice is a novel approach. Who amongst us hasn't dabbled in dark eyeliner and cannibalism in our younger days? And, as you said - and as I've very frequently said - RP is self correcting in that if people are being jackasses, noone will RP with them. Guess what: We don't need to change the rules so that everyone can announce that to them here. It happens by itself.

Anyway, the vast majority of your problems with Backstage have a simple solution: revive Chatsubo. Last I checked it was still up. It has - so far as I can tell - the exact ruleset you are looking for. The trouble seems to come when most people (though I suspect you wouldn't be one of them) really mean 'I don't want so much moderation of things I agree with' rather than a real 'I don't want so much moderation'.

I know it is very frustrating seeing people doing RP wrong and not being able to just tell them 'No, you're doing it wrong'. However, if you actually read the FAQ, there are some useful suggestion about how to point them in the right direction without veering into problematic territory. Whether you want to make that effort is, of course, up to you. As is the question of if you feel that effort is a useful way to spend your time.

I think you guys are reading a bit too much into the importance of specific forum rules on a special interest community forum against the backdrop of a 10 year old MMO really.

In my opinion there isn't much wrong with your rules here (and there wasn't much wrong with the rules in chatsubo back in the day either). I don't think the rules in either place had much overall impact on the viability of RP in eve but merely reflected the general health of RP (and interest) in the game of eve during the time's they were active.

Realistically - while Chatsubo got reviled by some as a pit of depravity and hellish flaming it was for its time a lively indicator of the health of rp in Eve - it was very active, there was lots of creativity and discussion - RP had many wars, conflicts, disputes and interesting things going on. Compare and contrast with RP now and it appears (from the outside) pretty dried up and stale. Does that mean Chatsubo moderation and style was right and Backstage moderation and style somehow stifled and killed off creativity in RP in Eve? - Nope of course not, its just the game has gotten older and people have gotten bored of it and CCP have not done enough to re-inspire new players to come along and replace the old.

There is a systematic issue with Eve being less open and less interesting today than it was 10 years ago and CCP as a company being far less supportive of their own fiction and RP. Eve is clogged with counter-atmospheric try hard external community drones glutted on half a decade of passive income who don't give the faintest shit about background RP, NPC factions, lore or quality roleplayed interactions. CCP consider this subset of players to be the most important voice. It isn't hard to figure where the core problem is.

As to this forum and what you can do about it - probably nothing is the hard answer. Certainly carrying on the ideological discussion about Chatsubo's anarchist glory vs Backstage's nanny state isn't going to solve anything except perhaps stave off a little tired ennui.

What I will say though Silver Night is that for all your manners and veil of civilization you do need to accept that when you tell a guy like Vince to "go back to chatsubo if that's what you like" it is like telling him to "fuck off out the airlock with no helmet" - because frankly there isn't enough active community of RP'ers in Eve today to keep one sub category active in this little forum let alone create rival ideologically opposed forums viable (and there was never enough for that even in the glory days).

To be blunt, I would have had a bit more respect for you historically Silver Night if you had ever come out to say "yes, I was massively offended that Cosmo couldn't be bullied into banning people from Chatsubo because they hurt my feelings and so I decided to take away his power by leaving his forum a barren wasteland after the people followed ME! as the chosen one and true prophet of the texts of passive aggressive rules-lawyering dudly do-right hypocritical politically-correct doublespeak bullshit Muhhahhahahahahahahh etc" I mean, it would have been more honest! And too his credit Havohej pretty much did come out and say that  

Hi by the way!

I wouldn't say I'm a bittervet so much as a political exile from eve. I actually formally quit a while ago over the Wardec rules changes that protected the largest alliances in the game from empire space harassment - but I do read Eve forums and perhaps a part of my heart still hopes one day that CCP wake up and burn the coalitions and make nullsec a genuinely dangerous hell hole again (or at least even the playing field and let old anarchists like me have some tools to fuck with them again).

Where this ties into RP really, is that to revitalize eve RP you do need a purging of all the anti-RP feeling in the nullsec player base and CCP itself. While a huge active and influence slice of the community has zero respect for any kind of in character interaction or lore and while CCP mirror that approach and tendency then nothing good is likely to come. Until CCP manages to arrest the declining subs situation in a way that allows them to again hire some background writers and events team and refocus away from out of game community try-hards being the biggest cocks they can for e-notoriety then you have issues.

Realistically you probably need an existential crisis in the game that leads to most of nullsec quitting and subs dropping enough that significant management changes (ie people with absolutely no stake in helping their mates maintain power and influence come to have a genuine look at how to refresh the playing field regardless of sacred cows) and the game gets the genuine strategic overhaul it desperately needs. Perhaps when server slides back to the 10,000 level with a smaller team what realizes that paying a few guys to run events is actually a fairly good draw and maybe event scripting tools and some dynamic conditions would be cool too - then maybe we get a second golden age of RP in eve once the people using the game as a second income and rl space empire have fucked off.

But until then the sad truth is that Chatsubo probably saw the glory days of RP in Eve and while it may have made a couple rage quit with hurt feelings the majority saw the best of what eve RP had to offer discussed and reflected in those flammable pages not because it was a super brilliant amazingly moderated forum - but simply because the time was right for it and Eve was simply more interesting for RP'ers back then.

Backstage has done okay - but its been the RP hangout during a decline in the game and reduction of people's interest and involvement (and certainly with CCP's support) of RP in Eve.

And to Vince - nope, these mods letting you tell people they were fuckwits for playing silly Eve RP characters would not have arrested that decline. All that would have achieved would be accusations of bias that you were allowed to be an abrasive wanker and others were not and eventually a bunch of politically-correct posters feeling disenfranchised from the regime would have advocated another forum split and further divided an already minuscule community.

In a way Silver Night is being honest (ish) in saying that what you want is probably Chatsubo style rules and environment but he does of course forget to mention he was one of the guys that killed that off by helping to manufacture the last crisis.
 
I'm not such a prolific image poster as you but I think I've got the right video to illustrate!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=89Gi7N3Rxag


 

[scagga]

Oh how I have missed these posts.  Thank you Jade.

[scagga]

Thoughts from the community on that idea?  Thoughts from the team?

EDIT: Also, Silver is best admin.   

I for one feel the catacombs are a very important record.  Not just for transparency.

It is important to understand that even posts that get moderated for one reason or another may be someone's genuine sentiments, and they should not have their records completely deleted from public view just because they broke forum rules.

Preserving the moderated posts allows for unmoderated debate to continue off the forums if necessary, and allows late-comers to understand the context of the discussion.

[Jade Constantine]

Oh how I have missed these posts.  Thank you Jade.

Well you know, these days I reserve most of my posting for LARP conflicts in other worlds - but am still interested in the story of Eve (if not the day to day playing through the decline).

[Morwen Lagann]

WARNING: if you're a sensitive wallflower who flies off the handle because someone uses a swear word that might be even remotely headed in any direction but away from you, skip reading this post, or at least the first half of it. I'm not filtering or watering down my thoughts just for your virgin ears/eyes.

First things first: I've remained quiet on this thread thus far because I'm sick and tired of the hypocrisy of "whine at Morwen when shit you think needs to be moderated doesn't get moderated (probably because not a single fucking person sent in a single fucking report), then whine at/about Morwen again if he does moderate stuff" that happens here, and elsewhere. You would not believe the number of complaints I get over Skype, MSN, forum PM or EVEmail about shit on this forum that are never accompanied by an actual clicking of the goddamn "Report to Moderator" button, even when I tell people to go submit a report.

Neither I, nor any of the other moderators, have the time or patience to put on the Fascist Forum Moderator hat and read every single fucking post in every fucking thread on this forum, just to nuke that one post that might piss someone off. If you do not report things that are problematic, we may not see or respond to them in a timely fashion. We read EVERY report, whether or not we choose to act on it or not. The number of times we have to repeat this statement makes me sick.

In addition, since it isn't obvious to anyone who isn't a moderator, over the last year or so, I have been consistently going "to bat" for posts that are borderline and saying they don't need to be moderated. (It's the same fucking thing with the Summit ingame, for the record. Ask Ava or Esna how many times I've said "it's not worth stepping in over." Go ahead - I'll wait. Or you could go to that hilarious thread from Diana to see a good example. I'll still wait.) Just because I prefer to come down like a ton of bricks on people when it gets seriously out of hand does not mean that I am the trigger-happy, ban-all-the-things moderator people like to claim I am. So if you're one of those people, seriously, go fuck yourself. Whether you know it or not, I have probably defended your actions or behavior to one or more moderators either ingame or on this forum, and I don't fucking appreciate being shit on just because I don't put up with bullshit from people.

In my opinion, we need to tweak the rules away from this pussyfooting wankfest of pampering. If someone is doing it wrong, let people voice their opinions provided that they give a well formed argument on the topic of why they feel this is so. Now you spend half your post trying to dance around bad rules to make a point to someone and even then there's a danger of getting the Catacombs if someone feels snowflake's feelings have been hurt. If your feelings are hurt from a well formed argument, then I suggest you take either door number one with 'Harden The Fuck Up' or door number two with 'Fuck Off'. If you feel it's your 15€ a month and you get to do as you want instead of trying to play nice with others, then do it, fuck off and stop bitching when people won't play ball with you. Roleplaying is a joint venture, community is a joint venture. Fresh ideas are welcome, but repeating bad cliches is not. People don't have easy time distinguishing unless you can go and say to them 'no, don't do that, it doesn't work and here's why'. What to some newer blood might seem an edgy cool choice can be worn-out droll to the ten year old community.

Pretty much full-on agreed here, but I would still argue that you would still need to tone it down a bit to remain within even relaxed YDIW rules, Vince.

Pointless Bittervetting, this should be moderated way more than doing it wrong. I am the first to admit that I have been and occasionally am guilty of this, but nothing kills new enthusiasm more than this. If your last time logging in is six months ago don't tell us EVE is dying or it's shit for this or that reason. You are unsubbed, let that be a testament of your disapproval instead of countless shitposts of 'bad game yo'. We don't really give two shits about it, some of us are having fun for their first time, some still after many years and some, like me, have found that joy once more in playing EVE Online.

Again, agreed. If you want to bittervet, you should do it on the official EVE forums or on FHC, not here - if you've been around long enough to consider yourself a bittervet, you've been here long enough to know that those are the correct places to do it.

And yes, most of the moderators do not play actively anymore, as far as I know. I suspect Silver and I are the only ones who are actually anything resembling active, though I figure he's only active in EVE to continue widening his SP lead over Ghost.

Regarding the Catacombs: I would not object to having a dual-combs setup where things that just go off the rails and are unsalvageable go and can be read, and posts that are flagrant violations that need immediate dealing-with go into a moderator-only area for our own records. We've already got areas that are only visible to us, it wouldn't be hard to do.

As a lesser note; There is also some dickwaving going on about their RP street cred everynow and then. Understand that it's ok to be proud of your achievements and immortalization into the game world, but after a while telling about them to everyone all the time gets trite and old. As a result people will find it - and you - annoying in the end. You are not the only one, and you will certainly be the last one to live on in Prime Fiction. While we commend you for your efforts please stop rubbing it in everyone's face in every goddamn discussion. Have a glass of humility.

See, this is one of those cases where you said something in a way that shouldn't get moderated, but had I said it my way, it would have been catacombed the instant Silver saw it. (I agree fully, fwiw.)

In this case, you are confusing 'political correctness' (which rings the alarm-bells of nanny-statedom (to be fair a description Backstage might qualify for were it a state)) with politeness which is a tool that civil societies use to function and which online communities can use to have reasonable conversations.

The issue is that most people are confusing the two. As far as Backstage being considered a "nanny-state", this would cease being an issue if people learned to HTFU and didn't get offended with indignant rage every time someone so much as suggested there was a better way to do something, no matter how politely it was done. Comments have been made about people being criticism-averse. They are accurate.

Also, telling people to go back to Chatsubo violates Wheaton's Law regardless of how you phrase it. Seriously, not cool. Don't do it. (Not because Chatsubo is bad, but because there simply aren't enough people for it to even be a valid suggestion, as a few people have pointed out. TY to Dex for catching that immediately. Jade also said what I thought on this matter, just with more words. So predictable. )

I might expand on this later when I get home from work.

[Steffanie Saissore]

I've just entered my second year of playing EVE and in the beginning, I would say I was rather excited, if a little cautious, about entering the RP community. Not because I haven't rp'ed before (I've been role-playing in one form of media or another for 23 years now), but as with any established group, being the new guy on the block I didn't want to make any critical mis-step that might ostracize me from the community.


I was impressed to see the apparent wealth of stuff going on and that had happened in the past and to be honest, that itself was intimidating...seeing and hearing about stuff that had happened and trying to come up with a concept and such that wouldn't get a "oh, another baby snowflake" comment was a little daunting.  Still, that said, I found the RP community both in Backstage and in EVE itself to be mostly supportive and helpful...I think it may have been the fact that having had experience and having a natural inclination to watch and observe first, helped with that.  Unfortunately, I have seen what appear to be new players jump right into the shark tank without any safety device.  In most cases, people have been good enough to provide assistance after the feeding frenzy.


Anyway, what seemed to be a wealth of rp seemed to slowly drop over the last few months...I realize in some cases RL happens and other stuff, but I think the changes that have been happening at CCP and the apparent direction they want to take EVE has left a lot of the RPers feeling abandoned or even betrayed.  RP in EVE seems to have gone from public gatherings to small insular groups that keep to themselves and either afraid to or have no interest in trying to interact with other groups...and I believe much of this is in thanks to CPP and the recent ingame events have reinforced these divides between groups.


My enthusiasm has diminished in that year...not sure if that is because of bitter-vetting here or in EVE, my dislike for the constant and consistent pandering to null-sec pvp at the expense of expanding and filling out a universe that has so much potential, or the fact that without rp-interaction EVE is a very boring game when you get right down to it.  I keep showing up in EVE because of the friendships I've made and the hope that something might inspire me.  My activity on Backstage though...part of it is not keeping up with stuff for a while and then trying to catch up felt daunting and then to see more or less the same stuff over and over again, I just stopped checking.  I don't know if there is a way to fix that perception or if my perception is actually right, but it just seemed that a lot of threads would start off with some enthusiasm about something and then quickly turning into why EVE sucks.


On a side note, I have to agree with Jade...not just in general but also in the context of I truly feel that a massive shake up of null needs to happen.  How to do it though, I'm not sure.


Anyway, I think I have just been rambling.  Backstage, for the most part, I think works for the most part. A little less with the bitterness and coddling...I know criticism can be hard to take (trust me, I have a hard time with it at times especially when it is with something I have put time and effort into, but if done properly, critique should elevate you in the end), but in that regard, I have to say "suck it up princess". Also, if you can't handle critique, I would advise not handing out critical statements of others...I don't think that happens much here, but really, if you cannot or do not want to be under the gun, then don't make critical statements.


With the exception of the occasional HTFU or YDIW statement that creeps up from time to time, I think Backstage has given a decent place for good arguments and debates to occur and for the most part a supportive bunch of people to help with some of the preparation one needs to get into the RP side of EVE...it's not perfect, but I don't believe there ever will be a perfect solution...we are a large group of intelligent, creative, and opinionated individuals.  There is always going to be some dissent and the occasional emotional outburst, but for what it's worth, Backstage and the community here seem to be able to handle it with out excessive "DIAF!" ::ragequit:: reactions.