Sandbox? More Like Cesspit
I’ve not written anything regarding my opinions or thoughts on whats been going on over at the RSBANDB forums for some time. So I’m going to take a shot here.
Now unlike a lot of other people, I’ve not really been terribly anti sandbox. I still post in it from time to time and until very recently I believed it to be a focal part of RSBANDB. It was something that set us apart from other forums. A place where members had a lot more freedom (relatively speaking) and could treat it almost like a chat room of sorts. Sure some pretty ugly stuff can happen in there from time to time but for the most part it remains pretty civil.. Right? Wrong. Maybe that viewpoint would have been more fitting 6 months ago. But in the last 6 months the sandbox has taken one further horrific mutation in it’s journey towards complete idiocy and moronic behavior.
Now it is little more than a place for people to mindlessly spam, a place for people to turn what may have been perfectly civil discussions in to the most sly and childish mud slinging matches by the second post. The level of immaturity is almost staggering and I can see why many choose to avoid it all together.
The biggest problem of all is that most of the underhanded and childish behavior that goes on here is ‘above the rules’ so to speak. If we punished it many would cry out that we were being too ‘heavy handed’ or unfair. There is nothing we can do to stop this epidemic of idiocy. As much as we’d like to.
As much as it would upset a lot of people, and many may leave, I think removing the sandbox would be the best for the community. Anybody who leaves just because they don’t have the sandbox to post in is worth losing.
I agree here. Especially with that last sentence.
I agree entirely, and I understand how the behaviour that goes on is usually ‘above the rules’, but I don’t see why the rules cannot be changed.
I have respect for the moderating staff, for RSBANDB and its rules, but sometimes people still need to be told to grow up. In school, teachers are quite easily allowed to say that to their students.
The (sometimes) sad thing is that like school, if you’re not in a position of authority you have no power over anyone else. Only teachers are allowed to criticise their students, and only teachers can be taken seriously when they do so.
But yeah.. remove the sandbox and none of that will be an issue anymore anyway. Hail Brad.
REMOVE IT@@@
Then, maybe, might we become one of the more mature RS sites around? Maybe. Spammers might go to another site in which they can mindlessly spam, But, They might stay, and we’ll still have the same site with the same bunch of retarded spammers and less activity.
I dont know what i’m going on about
ROTFL
Because calling people stupid and telling people you don’t like to get the fuck off is not “above the rules” or “immature”.
@Slimppu
?
Uh, remove it.
The sandbox was derived for people to test out their signatures (both graphic and text) to see if it worked out in the forums all right.
Does anyone still do that?
Not to mention I haven’t seen any sand in there ever. Might as well call it the Dumpster.
The sandbox was all I really came around for after a while.
Then it became unbearably lame so I only log in once in a while.
But I don’t think we should remove it.
Without the sandbox we lose what “sets us apart from other forums”.
The place goes through fluctuations of failure.
I don’t think it has reached a point low enough to justify its removal;; yet.
Perhaps REPLACING it with something would be more acceptable.
I…
I just can’t seem to imagine in my mind an RSBANDB without the Sandbox.
But who knows, maybe its removal would redirect Sandbox-goers to the other forums which aren’t nearly as active as they should be.
I’m not going to say anything for or against the sandbox except for, what do you expect? The ages of people joining BNB and staying active have gone slightly down, and with younger people will come immaturity. Completely removing the sandbox to me sounds like what Jagex did with real world trading. Yes it would solve the problem, but it would also completely eliminate it in a hard blow.
I don’t know. I just think this was something long coming. With many old sandbox posters leaving the sandbox and the general age of people visiting the forums going down, what else did people expect?
As Brad said, “Anybody who leaves just because they don’t have the sandbox to post in is worth losing.”
I think that would make me a little more inclined to visit RSBANDB regularly tbh. :$
@Chief
With much respect, I wish you would’ve told me that you were concerned about my reprimand toward you in the Sandbox. I didn’t see the topic at hand as being particularly offensive or violating the rules, so I didn’t believe that the person deserved to be told to grow up.
I had suggested that we hide the Sandbox from view back in November was nearly impaled for even saying it. Since then, I’ve come to the conclusion that we really don’t need to do away with it. I don’t mind moderating it and I come across some fun discussion once in a while.
If you look at the Runescape-related sub-forums, they’re filled with interesting and mature discussion. Non-RS discussion has gone a little downhill in terms of interesting content, but that’s something that happens now and then. My point is this: if you don’t like the Sandbox, why go to it?
Yes, people do like the Sandbox. Some like posting “FAIL” pictures in there, or talking about Mudkips. I frankly don’t care. As long as relevant discussion goes on in the other sub-forums, I’m happy.
Oh it’s fine MQ - if I was that worried about it I would have discussed it with you but as I posted in the topic later, I only kinda realised afterwards what I’d said. You had every right to tell me off.
If that seems contradictory to my other comment then idk, it’s complicated. Half of me thinks what I did was right and was deserved while the other half feels guilty for having said it because I’m usually not that kind of person.
I do remember your suggestion to hide the sandbox - if I remember correctly I didn’t have anything to say about it because I was still wondering whether it was necessary myself. XD
I think Brad’s post confirmed my thoughts for me; I know there are some fun topics in there once in a while and that’s why I visit it, but unfortunately many of the other topics hold no discussion value whatsoever and waste my time going through them. It irritates me when the same people post video after video in individual threads respectively, when they create blank topics comparable to havens of idiocy and, possibly most frequently as of late, use the forum as a public private-messaging system.
I can see where you’re coming from with the “If you don’t like the Sandbox, why go to it?” and I don’t doubt that would’ve been an opinion of mine once upon a time. The problem is that I do like the Sandbox, but I don’t like most of the topics it contains. At least imposing a temporary removal would force people to get out more, see the rest of the forums, and thus behave properly in them. Not a surefire method of getting them to behave in the Sandbox also, but hey. No way of knowing unless the method is tried.
I’m willing to surrender it for what I believe is the good of RSBANDB.
I don’t agree with the whole ‘ignore it if you don’t like it’ thesis. As long as people still act like complete dicks in there I’ll have a problem with it, and anyone who doesn’t have a problem with that sort of behaviour obviously doesn’t have the forums best interests at heart.
The idiots and morons are what drives away a hell of a lot of prospective new members. Ask yourself; would you want to sign up on a forum if you saw the majority of what goes on in the sandbox? Hell, a bronze member with 1 post would get treated like a piece of shit in there. Regardless of what they had to say. So no, I don’t think just ignoring it is a viable solution.
Ignoring is typically saying “It’ll work itself out.” Well, how long has the Sandbox been like such?
Sure, I understand that, but you guys make it out like the Sandbox is promoting rape, incest, and drug abuse. Yes, people can be snippy to each other in there but we DO have topics like “Browser Warz” that sort of promote silly debate. The Sandbox is really only guilty of one thing: telling jokes that are no longer funny.
As for experimenting by taking away the Sandbox, I love experiments and think it’d be interesting. I’d rather have the general population of RSBANDB say what they think about it before we do that though.
Democracy sucks.
Why now.. why not 4 months ago? :/
It was getting worse with time, not better. It wasn’t as bad 4 months ago. The only way to stop it was to remove it?
I have to agree with you, Brad, but now that the sandbox is gone, I feel like something is missing. Oh well. I hope that after time and more maturity growth in other forums that it could bring back the sandbox.
You came to a RuneScape forum to discuss RuneScape. Not idiocy. Hopefully people know that by now.
Sandbox was just a place to test signatures, years ago, that’s all it was for even.