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Retirement and Passing the Torch.

This is a 50/50 thought. Some good to it some bad to it. Have you ever thought of deleting everything from the site and starting over? But I know theres a lot of good posts that people took the time to type or upload. Just start over.
 
FloofyNewfie said:
Nah... not in the dumpster. I decided to move forward and make the Dumpster Fire it's own category like I said I would last night. ;) It only appears that way because the ZV news and updates is now as the bottom of the general section instead of the DF.
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I thought that was what happened, or something like that. All good.
 
k9stripper said:
This is a 50/50 thought. Some good to it some bad to it. Have you ever thought of deleting everything from the site and starting over? But I know theres a lot of good posts that people took the time to type or upload. Just start over.
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So... take all the time people have put into discussing things on the site and just just throw it away? There been a ton of people that have put out a lot of effort into writing things up for the benefit of the community... so nice to hear that you think its worthless and should be thrown out. :cautious: Here's an analogy... your house... why dont you burn it down and just start over again. I know you've probably spent a lot of money on it and its valuable to you... but why not just start over?
 
MashaSobaka said:
BF should be resurrected. Read-only, like a museum piece. Does anyone have the complete database?
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SUPPOSEDLY, and assuming it wasn't more of the usual bullshit from the crew of misfits that ran the joint, the plan was for the BF drives to be first multi-wiped, then physically destroyed, and the server hardware was supposed to be dismantled and sold off as parts/scrap. Whether that actually happened is a whole different question...

The various incarnations of "BF dumps" that can be found here and there are the results of various users snatching everything they could get hold of before the place shut down.
 
Beaker did what he said he would do. He honored his committment. It is dead. There are some files around, mostly video, but there is also a group looking like they're pulling a "Capt Willard".

Of course, if it DID exist, certain of the resident blue noses would already have made it fit for Sunday School because there would not be anyone to argue about it.
Give a blue nose an inch and Alpha Centauri isn't far enough to escape its reach.
 
ZTHorse said:
Hey everybody,

As if late, i havent been very active on the forum and mostly been in the background taking care of things.

However my personal life has taken a bad turn and it has drawn me further and further away from zv in my focus and time. I dont see this situation getting any better for awhile and i understand that its probably better to pass the torch to the next generation of zoos.

Especially while things are at their peak and fuctionally stable. So @FloofyNewfie Will become the next nexus for ZV, and will be taking over all social, judgements and everything I managed with this forum.

And I trust him to do so. You should too. I will be around for the next few months as it takes time to move things into the new administration. I have a few things to wrap up. A few research papers in the pipeline, the comic will be fully released, financials, connections and contacts for the ads.. etc etc...

This is a big jump for the zoo community ive been serving for 6 years to my best ability. It started in 2019 and will wrap up this year.

Its been quite a fun ride, and helping to shape the entire zoo community to what it stands for, how to manage it, make it community involved, self funding, and a massive leap from BF and what it was before I got involved.

And i couldnt do it alone, to every moderator and the key people who help keep the servers running besides the constant attack, I and we all owe you a debt of gratitude.

A state of the union lol or forum of how things currently are

-the ideological formation and foundation of the forum being free-speech centric, libertarian minded, public space. It has had its ups and downs, but i cannot imagine the zoo community wanting to go back to worshipping moderators or admins, instead challanging them with real questions of where the community is going.

Ive been known to troll once in awhile, but in reality, this forum has operated with these idealogical principles, but its future rests now with floofys decisions. Im sure you will definately hold his feet to the fire just like for me.

-Helping other zoos in their projects.

Zooier than thou, Being the most successful, had their start from here and now is really nice to see its become matured.

Bestia amore, equibooru, the french and german zoo forums... we help other zoo with their projects. Thats the principle and have a non-prejidiced outlook so long as non-abuse is shown.

-Zoo Pride Week being a brainchild of mine, proving to be a successful celebration for 5 years now. Im glad to those who chose to meetup irl and leave the shadows because of these set aside dates. Really i think this is the biggest glue between real people i could have done to encourage. I hope this will continue.

-going from porn funding of Beastforum to 100% community funding and screened advertising to fund the forum.

-the careful controlled asset management of donations that is currently allowing the forum to grow. Investing in small zoo positive projects when possible.

-contacting scientists, conducting research and using zv as an asset for google scholar. This is has been a huge undertaking and its produced some peer reviewed papers.

-zoophilia.wiki exists. Still needing a dedicated writer and manager lol. But it exists and thats a future project.

-zeta chronicles was community funded and created. The remaining pages will be released shortly and its been positive!

-Those whom have come to me behind the scenes with secrets that ive kept for safety of the zoo community. To protect zoos in various nations, your trust in me has always humbled me. These are real people in real danger, and I can say in confidence that it wasnt misplaced.

Loose lips sink ships and my mind is at ease, things were solved in complete quiet confidence. I am honored with that responsibility.

-Rulemaking, judgements and forum policy i served as the final judge and set forth standing rules and case law for the next administration. Of which, will change or not but solely up to them to rudder this ship.

Lastly, in the end, ive always be an adovocate for the protection, love and genuine union zoos have with their animal mates. Really, it comes back to the beautiful animals we love and serve wholeheartedly.

This forum, is human stuff. Our animal mates dont care but only care that we love them. If this forum HELPS the humans love their animals more, teaches them to love more and corrects bad behaviors towards animals, then its a gem that should be protected.

The moment that stops, it is you the community that should carpet bomb this place and start anew. Let that be the final crossing line of this forum.

I loved this community, and i may pop in time to time but i will just be that, a citizen, a retiree. To take the example of george washington, and to hand power over to become just a regular joe.

Thats were I have to go, and hang my hat. I only wish and pray that ive done good for real people, their animals and the world.

Its time for floofy to take the throne soon, and may we all give our blessing for this transition. We are going to need it.
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Wow, I'm in same place. Was a proud bf pack member. Then now zf. Just retiring. Not on here much. Who knew, retirement is more work then working. It's up to the pups now lol
 
@ZTHorse thank You very much for all You did to this forum. Convinced by my bf I really enjoying to be here. Have a good time and best of luck! ?

Meg
 
FloofyNewfie said:
I think what many people forget is that this is a HUGE monolith of a site, essentially governed by 16 technical staff members, only about 9 of which consistently monitor this site on a day-to-day basis. It's a ratio of 16:223,000 members on the site. And you might say... oh but most of those 223,000 accounts are either abandoned, duplicates, loss password dead accounts, etc... but to put it into perspective ZooVille gets around 9,000 to around 10,000 individual user logins per day, and an average of 1,500 posts per day. Yes, per day. It's massive. We, the active staff team, try our very best to manage this forum. But, it's not perfect. The very idea of "perfect" is unobtainable... it's a complete fantasy. Someone, somewhere, somehow will always find problems no matter what we do. It's an inevitability.

It takes a certain breed of people, a breed of crazy, to take on this role of moderator/administrator, unpaid mind you, because they want to see betterment within this community of a webspace. Are we perfect? Pffft... no, myself included, nobody's perfect. Again, perfect is unobtainable. We simply do our best. For some people "our best" is good enough, and for others "our best" isn't good enough. That's just how the "civilized" world works.

Like mentioned before, don't expect HUGE massive, shocking, unthinkable, dramatic, over-the-top... etc. change on this website. I plan to makes some changes over time here and there, probably one of the first being to separate the Dumpster Fire from the general sections into it's own category between the general sections and the porn. And over time small changes will be made. That's been the case since the beginning of this website. We no longer allow fence hopping, we don't allow food bating, we don't allow hobbles, we've clarified some of the albeit limited rules of the DF, we've reworked many of the overall rules over the past nearly 5 years. Things will eventually change for the better, but don't get your hopes up for rapid change that you personally want to see immediately done. It's a balancing act, but being too rash too quickly will more than likely have the unintended consequence of tipping the scales unfavorably.
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Pes made a great example of how better moderation tooling could allow him to moderate more content, and there's plenty more great solutions from mods and users. Technology improvements help with the mod to content ratio and also can influence user behavior to create less rule-breaking content than before. ZTHorse almost never supported site changes which made being overwhelmed, in part, a choice. One of my top hopes is that there's slow and careful *but steady* improvements in the site.
 
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FloofyNewfie said:
Nah... not in the dumpster. I decided to move forward and make the Dumpster Fire it's own category like I said I would last night. ;) It only appears that way because the ZV news and updates is now as the bottom of the general section instead of the DF.
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Easily put the DF at the bottom of the page. Garbage should not be at the top of the forum.

asd2.jpg asd1.jpg
 
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FloofyNewfie said:
I think what many people forget is that this is a HUGE monolith of a site, essentially governed by 16 technical staff members, only about 9 of which consistently monitor this site on a day-to-day basis.
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I keep an eye on things. As in I have noticed posts going years back. When I say I'm observant I mean exactly that. Been looking at you more recently. First, I have a concern.

If you ever see any post saying "I'm scared" or "I'm afraid" (word for word) then either address it or let me know (I will deal with those situations ASAP if I notice them). Just trust me on this one. It can be so easy to overlook those short and simple posts.

Observation is my skill. Lot of time on my hands. So if you need something found I can probably find it. If it's "people related" then whatever answers you might want to obtrain might take some time. I have gotten answers quickly for others before, but it might not always be the case. It depends on wherever people can do straight answers. You've probably noticed some arguments but it's mostly playful banter. Better to get "through" them. People learn to laugh sooner or later.

Pushing people away is a no go for me. It goes against everything honesty and accountability stands for. This means anyone talking with me would always have an open ear. Just keep in mind I will question and correct. Sometimes I'm wordy (threads and all). Sometimes I'm not saying much (messages can work better).

I also want to point out that if someone isn't talking back with you then it could be because they are very very afraid. It can be easy to cast blame, but sometimes people really are struggling that much. This is what I have to keep in mind above all else.
It takes a certain breed of people, a breed of crazy, to take on this role of moderator/administrator
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Here's the thing though. As a mod people will be more afraid to "talk back" with you (this is what other users will say about mods at least. They'd fear being banned after all). I don't have this complication, since I am not a mod. It could make it difficult for people to speak their mind more with you. Even if this site is better the harmful actions of mods on other sites will put people in that mindset when coming to this site. Not only does this cause users to be more hesitent with speaking up with mods, it can also make people hesitent to want to be a mod themselves.

Perhaps "Support staff" to help mods where people don't push away could help? People can can "lend an ear" or something. Does it really have to be "mod" specific?

I'm wondering how you handle the pressure. What I know about you so far is that you have a fear of being judged (as I said, I'm keeping an eye out). But that's silly really. It's better to let people judge. Just takes some adjusting too.
myself included, nobody's perfect
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That's what I like about this site. It makes me happy when Oldman can type in all capital letters at me. Because they can FEEL. Mods don't try to be perfect here. That's why I can trust this site more. It's not pretending to be "perfect". It's authentic. It's good to speak up and get things off your chest.
That's just how the "civilized" world works.
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Which brings me to this point. Normal is the problem. It's costing people their sanity and lives (online as much as offline). People try to do the "normal" thing. But what's the "right" thing? You want an idea of "civilized"? 66% of people working are depressed. More crazy please. Jack Sparrow has the right idea.

It's all a very amusing game to me. We ALL make mistakes. It's about who ADMITS their mistakes. It's about accountability. That's all I want from people. For them to go "I did this".

I'm guilty. You're guilty. We're all guilty. And you know what that means? That we're all in the same boat. It's the people pretending to be innocent to look out for. They'll make any excuse to avoid admitting their mistakes. I'm so crazy that I will always listen 100% of the time. Not a metaphor. Got to make up for my big mouth somehow.

Who always listens to you?
 
Mesond said:
Pushing people away is a no go for me. It goes against everything honesty and accountability stands for.
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the issue is with a site like this, some people are here just to troll and bottom feed. Waste of time to rationalize with them and they drain the group as a whole. they are mood vampires. Look how many of the actual woken here just give up and stop posting. Better to treat the trash like trash and show them he exit, vs letting them linger about and trash the whole place. “if you put a trailer park in park avenue, they will either bulldoze the trailer park or park avenue will move Martha”
Mesond said:
Perhaps "Support staff" to help mods where people don't push away could help? People can can "lend an ear" or something. Does it really have to be "mod" specific?
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it is very commendable to do. I do this more in the Brazil groups, but sometimes in the open threads. When I got here I was lost and Floofy, Oldman, Saddlebum, and our dearly departed leader helped lead me through the mental and emotional weeds. I look for the people who truly want help, filter out the ones seeking jerk bait, and pay it forward as much as possible.

except the dumpster fire - if you go in there I am striking with my claws out. That is open season.
 
sarahsingletono98 said:
the issue is with a site like this, some people are here just to troll and bottom feed. Waste of time to rationalize with them and they drain the group as a whole.
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It's always worth trying. People that give up won't understand why.

Try or do worse then fail. That's how I see it.
it is very commendable to do. I do this more in the Brazil groups, but sometimes in the open threads. When I got here I was lost and Floofy, Oldman, Saddlebum, and our dearly departed leader helped lead me through the mental and emotional weeds.
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Explains a lot then. I deal with messages form people that self harm and get suicidal at times. On other sites that is (and discord). When people get that unstable they will want answers. Sometimes it's better to push people more, but it needs to be carefully handled. "Make it happen". Instead of "Turn a blind eye and let it blow up". If it's incoming regardless then better to make it happen. Control it.

Here's the funny part. Make people go crazy more. It honestly works better.

All it takes is for people to admit they're afraid. If there's nothing to worry about though...
 
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