What Is On Your Mind?

*reads the answers thread*


....I think it's time for me to go to bed before I get really angry.

 

Woo! And for me to go to bed before this chinchilla's ULTRA MEGA drunk~

 

And I will stay awake to follow this drama.

 

Agreed, way too tired for this now. Starting to get a headache. More anger not needed.

 

I also feel that there's some backhandedness going on in there. I feel like yes people were not exactly nice but they were that way because of the giant cockup that bad dragon caused with heaping load of shit after heaping load of shit. So people finally had enough and snapped. And instead of wagging the shame finger at the people who did BD needs to own the fact that that was a predictable response to their actions and therefore their fault. All of the dirty laundry came out at once and it was bad but hopefully with it all aired and with some well placed apologies we can move away from it so it doesn't happen again. Wagging the shame finger at users is the opposite of helpful.

 

I agree with you there Kira!

 

Hrm... As per usual, things are for "reasons" and it is always about shifting blame. There is never an an ounce of accountability in every bungled attempt to climb out of that whole that keeps getting deeper. It always feels like a condescending head pat with one hand and a slap with the other.

 

Me: You might have to deal with me calling you beautiful as a pet name.
Her: But that's not a pet name.
Me: You're right, it's what you are. ;D
Her: Unreasonably smooth, damn.

ajdklfja;kdlsfja;kdlskdjfalksdkdjicantstopgrinning

 

Does anyone mind if I message some old friends of mine to ask them if they'd like to join these forums? Most of them used to be on BD.

 

Go for it Kira, I don't think anyone would mind.

 

So what is the main consensus? Is the apology good enough to win back customers who swore off supporting BD once and for all?
Tbh, I'd still rather be here than there.

 

Most people will go back. In a year or so, something else will happen and then they will leave and new members will stay. That's what Bad "fuckup" Dragon does.

 

To be honest, I'm surprised I didn't see it before but a lot of Varka's blame shifting and "you should be thankful we didn't just take away the whole forum" attitude really is manipulative and abusive. It's the same logic abusive assholes use on their victims. "Apologize" while shifting blame for bad behavior onto victim (when the fault lies on no one but the abuser) while basically saying "you should be thankful I didn't make it worse" and dismissing the feelings of the victim.

 

Woooooooow, yeah no, not going back there with Varka being like that.

 

yeah at first I was like yay apologies!!! and now I'm super duper uncomfortable because bd made people angry, turned on fans and gave us mountains of shit and then blamed us when they got covered in it

 

Tat's why I basically went "fuck you Varka" and wrote a note so nice question. Because fuck you Varka.

 

Yeah......I'm not going to be swimming in that any time soon!

 

Holy shit, I was kind of glad BD wasn't closing, but after seeing Varka's condescending attitude, I'm not so sure anymore...

 

It's weird to me. I don't feel like we're victims. We're customers and fans, I can't see anything he wrote as victim abuse. They planned to do away with something extraneous to their business model that was causing them a hassle and they didn't see the value in it. That's not abuse in and of itself, that's them just not being interested in running a forum.

And who's to say it's not our fault? I'm not sure what anyone thought the point of the original forum was, and therefore how we could stray from it. Maybe we did abuse the service they gave us, for free, and cause them issues they didn't have a planor dedicated resources for dealing with. Maybe we dragged them into doing something they didn't want to and weren't enthusiastic about. And as soon as we got all emotional and the vitriol started flowing, they saw that doing away with the community element of the website was just going to cause more problems in more areas than it solved.

So here we are, two days later, and they're trying to give us as much of what we want back without the stuff that was causing them the most hassle. It sounds win-win to me, though I'm perfectly content staying here and seeing what we can make when the community decides what it wants to be. Here our identity and nature is entirely up to us, and the Admin. There is nobody here who bit off more than they could chew, and nobody who wasn't prepared for the challenge. We're all committed to keeping our community alive, even if they aren't, and isn't that really how it should be? They have a job to do, making great toys and offering the best service they can. Our job is to be enthusiastic and social. I say it's better that way. I say we're better at being the BD community than they are and that's perfectly fine.

 

Exeter what people are upset about is this:
BD caused a shit storm by repeatedly doing bad things. Then the shutdown was announced and it was the straw that broke the camel's back and so people sounded off. The anger was completely understandable and expected (when the forums were shut down for april fools people were really upset too, so this reaction can't have been unanticipated). And then after we raised enough hell to get them to reconsider they post an "apology" that wags the shame finger at people who got upset. This form of invalidation of emotions is an abusive tactic. The abuser riles up or puts down the victim until the victim can no longer take it and lashes back, then the abuser gets up on their high horse and scolds the victim for lashing out. That is exactly what BD did.