Cheating, obscene language, lying, trading, public flaming, teamwork, posting endless and endless piles of garbage on the forum... Is this the new way to behave in this community? What has happened to this once vibrant community? What did cause this kind of behavior? How can it be ended? I do not like this community anymore. I get annoyed by it every single time I visit, but for some reason I cannot leave. I'm addicted to it but I long for the good old times. Melancholy. Despite the serious efforts of the admins and the contributing users, this community is heading on a downwards spiral.

BaRa

Hmm. I guess you're right BaRa. I wasnt here in the old times, but I myself have not contributed to helping. In fact I have done the complete opposite. I don't know about anybody else, but this forum thread alone is enough to make me quit acting the way I have been. I'll stop flaming, swearing, and doing anything else obscene that I have been doing. I think that the majority of users out there should do the same. And I think that anybody who doesn't should be warned. If they continue to do the same things, they should be kicked off the site. Thanks for posting your opinion BaRa. You're right

I am guilty of two of the things here, I curse like a sailor and I think he means I post garbage here too, well I really don't mean to. Sometimes I just want a hint, but I will try not to post something if I think I am really onto it, but rather pm someone who has solved it so that it will not ruin the challenge for others.

Don't you know how to search by yourself ?!?
I can't understand this.

Where is the interest in solving something when you were helped ?!?

In a general way, I have to sadly agree with BaRa.
But I think it's not only a TBS problem. The same thing goes on all challenges sites.
It's a shame.

/me is bothering for the new generation. You have nothing in your brains... You are so used to be helped that you can't accept when other won't....

Old guys, strong guys, respectable guys, where are you ?

You, all the lamers should ask you something. Why all respectable users left ?

PS : sorry for my bad english. I would be happy to post a roman in french but I can't, so I just threw some ideas away...

Just a suggestion but perhaps a new exclusive area should be created - invitation only where only those which have proven themselves can go - new challenges, open discussions etc.

Food for thought anyway.

I for one hate winers the most.

Yes, you can put this one down as a flame.

'Despite the serious efforts of the admins and the contributing users', so basically all the challenge contributers
and Inferno are the good ones (the other admins still exist?). I believe this attitude to be a serious reason for why the
"community" is being deprecated.

There is not a problem with the community besides that it is aging. face it most of us here have been through the
motions. The fact that the web 0.1 site design (you know the frames and stuff, lack of rss) make most casual surfers
click away faster. The immense amount of challenges. The closed "top of the community". People wining like hell in the fora.
The ridiculous "count the number topic.

The good old days were hardly different, we were different.

I tried several topics in the off-topic section, like proposing to work on polykrypt rootshell.be/~rhican.
And my latest "rating" about things that don't make sence. My notion for starting a bright-shadows v2.0.
which were all thoroughly ignored.

pick a project, put energy in, work on it, make it big. Don't just create another stegano/crackit/... that nobody but 20
users will solve.

Which is fine, I guess you all don't like me too much. Basically you all ignore new stuff, and reply
to senseless threads like this.

It is beyond ridiculous to start a ranting thread about how bad ranting and flaming has become in
the community.

I used to check this site regularly. But since I already said nf goodbye, I will now probably also drop this
one of my list of URLs to click through.



good luck you'll need it. Bunch of winers.

Rhican, first of all, thank you for your reaction. But just a couple of little things...

Indeed I said "Despite the serious efforts of the admins and the contributing users". But do notice I did not mention challenge creators in particular. I said "contributing users", by this I mean not only challenge creators! Au contraire, some challenges are awful and do not contribute anything but vexation to the community. But for arguments sake let us leave the challenges out of discussion for a moment and focus on what I was talking about: The community!
With contributing users I mean ALL the users that are a valuable asset to this community. Please do not twist my words around because I try to always pick them very carefully. You might not have noticed it, but even I see you as a valuable asset of this community, well... I once did.

My post neither was stated in an aggressive manner, nor was I pointing any fingers. So what you defined as 'ranting' is misinterpreted on your part. As I said, I wasn't pointing fingers in this post. Maybe you deduced it but if you read it again, you cannot find any trace of flaming. So, again you falsely accused me of something.

This is an example of mild flaming in a non aggressive way:
Rhican, a lot of you're posts are stated in a VERY aggressive manner. I see no reason why this is necessary. Maybe you use this tactic to fortify your arguments, but you certainly do NOT gain a grain of respect with it.

To conclude. You got me on the whining. Maybe it's a whining post, but I thought it was necessary to publish it. It just stated an observation which I've made. So if you are bothered by my whining, my sincere apologies.

Greetings BaRa

Well, we are all different people, we all think different ways, and we all come from different places, so why are people so feisty right now and jumping down other people's throats? I was here, a LONG time ago, 29.06.2003 is my reg date, and people say "if you were here 3 years ago then you would know this isn't how we act" and all this madness. Well, 3 years ago, I was here, and maybe we just weren't so diverse. But I've been here longer than I'd dare to venture saying 90% of the current people talking about these things. That's the problem, we all just need to talk about things, and fix them. I guarantee that nowhere you go in this world are you going to agree with everybody, but we should at least try to get along ...

@Chaosdreamer: O please. (crosspost)

@Bara.
premisse 1: there is a problem in the community
premisse 2: there is a reason that this happens
premisse 3: it's not the admins fault, or the ""contributers""
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
conclusion: there is a problem within the community - contributers

That's as close as you are going to get to playing the blame game. The fact that you don't come right out and say it, is just sugarcoating.
loosly defining "contributers" to fit your needs is just a way of an desperate ad hoc way of trying to prove your point. And it degrades
the quality of your argument.

As you stated I'm not a contributing member at least not anymore. So basically it's all on me.

your post was passive aggression :Indirectly and unassertively expressing aggression toward others, masking resentment or hostility.

You perceive my posts as aggressive, because I really don't give a turds arse.
I find it ridiculous to argue over style. If all you are interested in is sugarcoating crap. By all means do.

This notion of respect I find amusing. Also the fact that you believe you can speak for everybody is kind of funny.

also these posts were not agressive at all:
http://www.bright-shadows.net/forum/forum_showtopic.php?topicid=2624 (before I edited it.)
http://www.bright-shadows.net/forum/forum_showtopic.php?topicid=2604

So maybe just maybe you are playing the blame game, and consequently a part of the problem.

I have experienced you as hostile from day one. Which quite possibly is due to our personal differences, I am
sure you feel the same way about me once you drop the act.


If NOBODY here is even interested in topics like AACS, or developing something (even enough to type 1 forum post) tell me why i should even care about this
communitie's "respect"? maybe I would "still" have been a contributer if i posted some pictures of numbers.
Take it from me, the moment such topics start in fora, it's usually a sign.


seriously.

I enjoyed bb's crackits here, but after this thread I'm sure this is not worth staying around here any longer.

I'm not going to put any more energy into this.
I'm 100% sure i made some wrong choices along my stay here at tbs, I could have avoided a lot of 'trouble'
if I would have been quiet. And don't take viewpoints against those contributers. Even when they were
at least in my opinion, clearly wrong. Even if I spent more time spell checking, a lot of you anal folks
would have liked me better.

If you want the community to be vibrant and alive pick some projects and actually do something,
don't just talk about it.

Anyway it's your mess now deal with it.

I think the quality is degrading too.
There are too many bad challs. Those that are hard and clueless.
I think a good challenge must be interesting and educational.
You can't just invent a new crypto/stegano, throw it online and say, solve it!
No matter how interesting/creative your challenge is, if you want it to be solvable you should give out some clues/hints.
Good challs are those that are solvable with a wise hint.
Take "Treasure your smiley" as an example. Even with that many hints on the forum it's still qutie challenging for many people and much effort is needed to get the full smiley.
Some people are so mean that they don't want to give hint on any chall. Maybe because they don't want someone to overtake him? Or they just can't give wise hints?
With such things I think teamworking is the most logical way to overcome those.
Not sure about cheating, trading, blahblah...