The state of these forums, and why it needs to change.

[anoni]

Sunder, the forum changing is nothing new and old members not liking the change is nothing new either. We used to have a lot of very active members like Lokyar, Luggz, Wolf3117, Rice, Scar, etc, who have left the forum due them believing the forum had changed. They left right around the time you arrived. The thing is, in a lot of these situations it's usually not the forum that changes but the community that changes, people who are old get nostalgic, see new members, see friends go and think the forum has changed when a new phase simply passes.

  Now to Suther and Angder, I tried to make it clear what exactly I did when Angder voiced his concerns. My exact PM goes as follows

Thanks for the information Angder, I definitely appreciate it!

I've attempted to talk to Zeph and Tweak already about promoting Razot to full-moderator, I'm not very aware of Evna's rule change though. I want to make one thing clear is that Tweak is still active in the forum, though he has never been much of a community mod he is consistently doing work on the system behind the scenes and still pays for the site, he also currently is in charge of things only admins can do like let people in the adult board and stuff. But yes, Zephyr has gone off the map.

Rules are moderated based on a case-by-case basis and we try to keep consistent. It's impossible to generate a rule that will be applicable to all areas and "grey area" rules have ALWAYS been a problem for TFF since the very beginning. Generally look at what was done in the past and if you find inconsistencies you may want to point them out. If you decide to do something and a moderator gives you permission, POST that the specific moderator has given you permission to do something. That way, if another mod disagrees, instead of warning you he'll contact the moderator that gave you permission and a discussion will be made, most almost definitely won't be warned regardless of what happens but the content may still be removed without warning.

I have taken note of your concerns though and in light of this I'm going to start a thread in the staff boards talking about official concerns for members. It will be entirely anonymous and no member will be named in the process, all topics will be addressed and we'll have a discussion (hopefully). Invite your friends to send me a PM so I can add to the thread. We're trying to make a welcoming experience for anyone and we don't want people to be disappointed. Please do not POST on the forum about it, but instead PM me or other mods, as I don't want an ordinary or new member who has no trouble with moderators to start thinking something is wrong and start looking for trouble.

Everything in the PM I did, I made a thread, and I had already attempted to contact both Zeph and tweak about MrRazot. The problem is Tweak is not a community admin and he never was, he doesn't involve himself in community stuff, zeph does but Zeph has been out of reach. She's only recently gone in reach but the last thing she wants to talk about is forum politics. I was hoping that my PM was transparent enough but apparently it was not. I can't promote razot, that's not something I or any other mod have the authority to do, both logistically and technically. I and others can't change the rules either due to the same reason. The moderator consistency is something that's also difficult to change due to aforementioned reasons. We haven't ignored your claims, and I'm actually really disappointed that people think we have because of all the work and thought that we've all put into it. The problem is there's not much we can actually really do.

  And yes, you might go "It's all the admins fault for not being active", it's not Tweaks fault, he does enough for the forum and he's not the community admin. In a way, tweak sort of doesn't have the authority to promote people, like he does technically but he doesn't know how the community dynamics work, he respects Zeph's word above all else so generally (I believe) waits for Zeph. And I love zeph as a very good friend but she hasn't been active. The thing is though, complaining about it isn't going to make her come back, you can say "WE NEED THIS" and "WE NEED THAT" and we can say "we're working on it!" and we are, but it's not something we can magically do. Complaining about it just makes it worse, makes the death of the forum worse and worse.

  You guys have to really think these things through, I know it's tempting to just go "THESE GUYS ARE BAD AND IT'S SO SIMPLE TO FIX", but you have to trust us all in saying that if it were simple to fix, it'd be fixed. All your concerns have been heard and we've tried as much as we can but there's not too much we can do, and even though that's the case we still TRY to do new things, and then getting people telling us we're doing nothing is just sort of shit.

  So I'll make an effort to be slightly more transparent in my proceedings, but I don't think a new thread would be a good idea, for the reason I've mentioned before. New members don't join forums that have drama, so we can't appear to have lots and lots of drama. We were thinking, in our staff thread that I added, of having a suggestion box, but unfortunately again, this would require a bit of technical work and I don't know if Tweak has time.
 

[Angder]

Vosur:

Most of what happens in the forums in terms of maintenance and "leadership" is actually done behind the scenes. For those that are most visible, they prefer roles that are more direct. If you notice my role, it's not direct. I deal with situations that requires me to talk directly less than others because I do more research sides of things. I do take part in moderation from time to time, but I am closer to the administration side. Moderators tend to deal with people individually, administrators deal with the forum as a whole.

Most of my complaints come from both personal experience, AND certain behind the scenes information. As I said, even if there is isn't an issue, I know many people think there is, and that INCLUDES some of the mod team. That's a pretty big giveaway that there is a problem to me. even if that issue is "Too many people think there is an issue"

To affirm what Anoni has stated, ALL of the moderators/admins listed have lives outside of the forums, and as thus at times they are rarely seen. Now, for each situation:

1. Vee recently was married (which is by means NO small step in life), so her situation is easily expected and not needed to be announced in the main board of the forums until this point to explain for her.

that was, as I understand it, several months ago. But hey, I have never been married so I don't know how long these things take. Point taken.

2. Tweak has a family of his own to take care of, but he took the burden of keeping the forums going on his own shoulders, both financially and technically. If he did not, these forums would've been gone in 2010 easily (if memory serves me right as the previous change of hands). So, as one of the few remaining staff that has been here since the near-beginning of these forums, I agree to how he has been running things through his own pace at his own expense. If anyone deserves to run the forums, it's him because of what he does, despite lack-of-gratitude or thanks.

Despite being displeased with how tweak has been running things, I can't argue with these points directly.

3. WingedZephyr has had situations as of late preventing her from taking care of the forums, but she is very competent and has been through the forums best and worst of times (not too much longer than I have), so from what she has seen and done, she has my respect. Most situations of those that might cause issues with a staff-member to not be present are often discussed in private to allow continuity of maintenance of the forums with as little alarm as possible along with allowing that staff-member the privacy they wish to retain.

I am aware of winged Zephyr's issues, not in detail, but I am aware of them. That's why I mostly pointed my finger at Tweak. I know WZ has had problems from life, and I sincerely wish them all the best in dealing with those issues.

4. For the conflict of rulings on situations: after a situation comes up that requires immediate attention, there will be rushed moments that requires discussion afterwards, and thus there may be conflicts of interest before an agreement is made. Mostly every rule made is US-law based (ie: minors using cigarettes being a warning offense), and some even go above-and-beyond, but it is good reason since we've tried to hold a General Audience (G to PG-13) rating in the main boards. This is why we've stated "If you feel that a moderator has judged wrongly on a situation, CONTACT another moderator or admin, but remain civil about it."

Isn't this a sign the actual rules need an overhaul? You can't pause to discuss every time a rule is broken, you need to be able to act quickly.

5. As for the Forum "dying"... Anoni is still spot-on here. The statistics of the forum does NOT coincide to the forum dying, and we've been having quite an influx of new users. Most of them are lurkers for a while before making their posts, but that is usual for just about everyone. Every year, there's a change in how many people actively use the forums, quite possibly due to school being active during this time. We'll see a little bit of a spike of activity during the holidays, then drift back down when school resumes again. This is still normal in pattern.

The forums are not dying from inactivity, they are dying from the top down. The users will be the last thing to go most likely.

 Angder, I would have to say you have not yet seen enough to say what needs changing or not as you haven't been around long enough to see what is going on.

Alistair also supports my post, as does Cheza. (join dates December 13, 2013  and January 11, 2014 respectively)

Anoni:

Ok let me explain a few things very simply. In 2014, the forum wasn't going to exist. The forum was going to close down, permanently, due to Zephyr leaving and tweak being unable to pay for the funds. It took a lot of effort, by me and by a lot of other people, to get the forum running again, we pitched in donations but not only that, we got the forum to run on a cheaper server using VPS rather dedicated servers. Tweak still pays for the forum, donations very rarely are enough to pay for it so any that remains, which is usually a lot, is paid by tweak directly, through his personal finances. He also has a family, a son and a wife, and has a full time job struggling to pay for all these resources. He pays for the forum out of his own good heart, there's no reason he needs to pay for the forum and he is not entitled to pay for the forum or even manage it. He's doing it for free, and all people seem to do is complain that he's not doing enough, nobody seems to even thank tweak, at all, for all that he's done for this forum, that he's set it up, implemented a whole bunch of features for the site, and pays for the site every month, of every year, with no thanks and instead just having people asking "why aren't you doing more?". IF you stop donations, that'd be a hugely dick move, not on me, not on zeph, not on the admins, but on tweak.

I admit I have my doubts about what you say about the donations, but there is no proof either way so...

I am grateful for Tweak keeping the forum alive, especially if what your say is true. But the issue is that this is all in the past now. in the present I see nothing from him, he is not doing basic things unless pushed. When things are pointed his way, his response is he will get to it "Sometime".

  All complaints you have made to me have been directed to both Tweak and Zephyr, they're in a thread right now that had been linked to every moderator and we had a discussion on it.

From what I have heard this is an outright lie, or at least a very recent development, I know there was a thread, but I also heard Tweak and WZ gave no response to it. Even if we assume its 100% true, it has been a long time, and from my point of view, nothing changed. Razot is still a local mod, the rules are still unclear, things are still being done based on personal preference from the mods.

A few things did come up with the discussion that we're attempting to push forward. One thing that definitely has changed is we are now making an effort to PM people about why their reports didn't go through if they didn't go through (though sometimes we forget). This is so that people understand what constitutes as a rule and what does not. It also should be noted that most inconsistencies that you see, like a mod being ok with drugs but then suddenly you being warned for it, they generally were the result of a discussion between the mods.

Again, the fact that was necessary shows changes to the rules are needed

There is a lot of discussion that occurs behind the scenes that not many people are aware, perhaps we should make more of an effort to detail the discussion and explain, very clearly and precisely, why the consensus of moderators thought this was the right thing. We also discussed Evna's rule change and we've also discussed the idea of adding examples to the rules, so that it's more clear what is and isn't available. I do agree that there is some inconsistency with some moderator ethics, especially with the degree sex, and offensive uses are said. The point is we haven't ignored any of the requests, it's something we're working towards.

Evna's rules changes were submitted beginning of this year. What progress has been made I ask? to justify such a long time.

  Now Zeph is an interesting one, she's been active in other places and is starting to come around, she's having more time and I'm hoping I can convince her to come back or at least hand the responsibilities to someone else. The problem is, and this is really important, there isn't really too much we, the moderators, or really the community, can do about zeph being here or not. Making posts like this is not going to make Zeph come back or promote moderators, if anything it'd make her want to stay away more. It was a struggle to keep this forum alive and I'm glad that we did, people like HollowHaze wouldn't of been able to join if we had let the forum die back in 2014, but we didn't and this is the result of what we did.

So your saying there is a problem? But we can't do anything about it, so should just stay quiet? The forum has been this way for months, until I start seeing change, I WILL publicly voice my opinion.  you can't just brush it under a rug.

  One thing that should be mentioned is I feel this issue is a tad overblown. From what I can see people are still having fun on the forum, there are things that need to improved, for sure, but this idea that the forum is dying doesn't really align with the statistics.

Its dying from the top down. Its not the users that are leaving. Its the admins.

 We've had more posts this year than the last three years, and we've had more members than the last 2. People are having fun and sure some admin things are wrong here and there, some people are getting warned inconsistently, and some things aren't getting changes as fast as they should. But that's not something that would destroy a forum, it's inconveniences and things that could be improved but nothing that is "the end of TFF as we know it".

Why are things not as fast as they could be? what's slowing things down?

  The reason I didn't want you to make this post (and I am disappointed that you did anyway), is because this is the stuff that actually kills forums. When new members come and they're gonna see this post and go, "this forum is not worth posting on, cause there's so many troubles". I've also heard talks of people starting trying to start their own forum, when I owned a clan many people in the clan split off to start their own competing clan. In every single case all the competing clans died out within a month and it damaged the original clan as a whole, almost all the founders regretted their decision. Drama is not attractive to a place that many people see as a safe space.

I tried doing it quietly, and to be blunt, nothing came of it. Honestly I did not want to do this, but it was the only way I could get a response. I tried to keep my post factual and to avoid unnecessary drama as much as possible. But I felt it needed to be said, and evidently I am not the only one. 8 people have stepped forward themselves in this one thread. And I reckon there are more who have not seen, or didn't to avoid getting warned.

  I have to leave like right now cause I'm late for uni, I'll be back in a few hours to respond to any questions that any of you might have but I just want to say. We know your complaints, and we're trying to fix them. Don't stop donations cause that'll worsen the situation, and don't complain like this all the time cause that'll worsen the situation even more. Trust us when we say we have heard of your complaints and many moderators agree with them and we are trying to fix them

Again, your asking us to not complain because its inconvenient. I know you have heard our complaints, but I see no EVIDENCE of them being fixed. Again, I will reference the fact that these issues have been around for MONTHS. Almost an entire year. If things are taking this long, you have a problem.

-------

On a semi related track, i would like to thank you for your response, i was fully expecting to find this thread deleted, and myself with a huge warning. The fact this did not happen shows I am right that the mod team is at its core, fair and decent. I can not say how glad I am about that. I will reiterate the fact that I support the moderators here fully, and believe they are doing their very best

I also Apologize for not addressing Anoni's response to Sunder, but this post is already a mammoth, so for now I am leaving it here

[anoni]

I am grateful for Tweak keeping the forum alive, especially if what your say is true. But the issue is that this is all in the past now. in the present I see nothing from him, he is not doing basic things unless pushed. When things are pointed his way, his response is he will get to it "Sometimes"

I didn't realize paying for the forum was something in the past. The forum doesn't magically become free, the forum is rented on an external hosting server, it costs $1200 a year to maintain, money that is almost never payed back via donations and which tweaks pays back with his own money.

From what I have heard this is an outright lie, or at least a very recent development, I know there was a thread, but I also heard Tweak and WZ gave no response to it. Even if we assume its 100% true, it has been a long time, and from my point of view, nothing changed. Razot is still a local mod, the rules are still unclear, things are still being done based on personal preference from the mods.

  I meant what I said, the thread had been directed to both Tweak and Zephyr. Tweak is not a community admin though and had no word about it, Zephyr didn't respond because she's inactive. But they have been directed and really there's nothing more I can or anyone else can do. And before you start saying I haven't tried hard enough, I've attempted to contact Zephyr several times, not just once, but a lot.

Evna's rules changes were submitted beginning of this year. What progress has been made I ask? to justify such a long time.

  The fact that we don't logistically or technically have the permissions to change the rules. I have as much permission as Evna does in this regard, only Zephyr can really change the rules and she's not around and again, we've tried to contact her.

So your saying there is a problem? But we can't do anything about it, so should just stay quiet? The forum has been this way for months, until I start seeing change, I WILL publicly voice my opinion.  you can't just brush it under a rug.

  Being quiet about is not sweeping it under the rug. I'm asking you to be smart about it. What does complaining DO, actually think about it Angder, what does complaining do to all parties?

  Will it make Tweak fix the issues? No, Tweak pays for the forum and handles the technical side, he doesn't handle the community side and he doesn't plan to, he has no need to, if anything this won't make him want to fix the issue, this will make him want to stop paying for a forum that doesn't appreciate him. Tweak was already, back in 2014, considering dropping the forum but we managed to convince him to keep it.
  Will it make Zephyr come back? Ask yourself this, do you want to come back to a place that's like "EVERYTHING IS BAD AND IT'S ALL YOUR FAULT", if the answer is no, then Zephyr is no different.
  Will it make Mods change the issues? No, cause we CAN'T, we literally can not change these issues without someone with the permissions to.
  Will it make new members happier? No, it'll make them leave, not want to stay on a forum due to all the drama that you're causing.

  Like, you seriously have to think about these things. You have to remember that admins are people, that you're not entitled to anything really, Tweak pays for the server for no reason other than he wants to, Zeph used to be an admin on the server for no reason than she wanted to. We don't get payed to do this, we do this cause we want to. And we're trying to fix it, we're doing everything we can, but yelling at people and complaining like this is seriously one of the worst things you can do to help the situation

Its dying from the top down. Its not the users that are leaving. Its the admins.

  If the forum has members and it has staff, then it's not dying. If it's gaining members and some staff are leaving, it's still not dying. A dying forum is a forum with no one and your idea that the forum will die is baseless. It's an assumption, it may be true, it may be false, I don't know, but I do know that we're getting more members, not less, and I do know that doing threads like this makes the situation isn't helping.

  The rest of your posts about "Why wasn't it done quick enough" were already addressed in my post to Sunder, we're doing the best we can but we literally do not have the permissions to solve most of these problems.

[Traum]

I understand Angder's concern, though admins aren't bad just because they are not as passionate as they were in the past. Do you really think after 7 years you would be the same person? Staff needs to be refreshed from time to time, but it doesn't look like they were well prepared for obvious. I'm not saying like current admins needs to be thrown away, they can stay, just give other more active members more power.
TFF is far from dying, community is still active, though it might saw better days

[Midnight Madness]

I'd like to toss my words into the ring in a brief notation of my life situation and stance on the issues at hand. So I'll put it into two parts for the sake of concision.

My life situation is rather... harsh, to put it lightly. Firstly, I had to move again, and this time, to end up on my own. I'm fortunate enough to have friends to visit along the way, and they are a blessing to say the least. And on top of all that, my Honda broke down for good, so now I'm trying to get moved and I'm without a vehicle of my own. Plus, due to travelling, my communication and access to the internet is limited. Posting is a goddamn pain from my phone, so I'm not very active in myself due to rather serious circumstances. I'm starting a life of independence like I've wanted since I was 18. And to do so while getting to room with a few other furs? That's killer.

As for the state of the forums, generally, I'm siding with Anoni on this. However, I can perfectly and fully understand the feelings everyone is voicing. Having worked at Walmart on the bottom rung, I can say it felt like things only got worse with time, and that the managers couldn't have cared less. However, the matter remains that as you deal with similar annoyances over long periods, unfounded or otherwise, you simply lose patience with them. That said, the forums have hardly changed (bar the inactivity of a cool Cagon and other staff also having tough life struggles all around the same time), it's more the perceptions from the individuals that have changed. I could name a few events that have made me see this all too clearly and even show my change in perceptions, both on and off this forum.

Do the rules need some modification and do we need to optimize enforcing them? Not a doubt in my mind.

Do I think the forums are dying? Absolutely not. There was a time where I did, and I discussed it with Trixsie, but that time has long since passed.

The influx of members and the attempts at progression from both sides is astounding, and I can't say I've seen a community, no less of furries and teenagers, actually react maturely to a situation requiring opinions and change. Furaffinity has a civil war, SoFurry feels horribly disjointed and is rather... opinionated, and yet here we are, discussing an unfavorable turn of events on the forum and voicing our grievances on it without going for the throat. Applause and yet another reason I love this place.

However, I want everyone to understand one thing. Regardless of what happens, change is inevitable. Nothing is forever, and that includes opinions or feelings. That said, once you hit the bottom, there is nowhere to go but up. Now I'm not saying I want or would be happy to see this place hit a crux in terms of drama, absenteeism or that such events would be fun, but if we do reach that point, pointing fingers and just tossing opinions around and whining about why it's happening would do absolutely nothing but worsen the situation you're in tenfold. If rock bottom is hit, everyone will need to accept that and work towards a solution rather than argue over who's wrong and who's right and who or what caused it.

A community divided often breaks under its own weight.

(On a side note, I'm not very good at being super concise. :I No idea how I managed to pump this out on a phone, either, but I always surprise myself with that kind of shit anyways.)

[Vosur Aekira]

Parting thoughts before I attempt for sleep, Angder:

If you suggest that Tweak and WingedZephyr step down from their roles as admin, who would you put in their place that could upkeep the forums (previous cost of being 2400 USD, but reduced to 1200 USD due to Tweaks' personal technical administration handiwork), especially when donations do not always meet or exceed %50 of that. Also, suggesting to divvy the bill between all staff-members would promote favoritism or start having staff-members leave, so that would be out of the question.

Evna cannot change the rules on her own, and there has not been any rule changes since January of 2013. There may have been stricter enforcement of rules due to how often those rules have been broken but specific individuals, but no changes have been made since over two years ago. To further on 'consistency' of rules, staff members are NOT perfect, what one individual sees as 'okay' may not be 'okay' due to some of the staff residing-in/having-come-from other countries. When such moments arises, our process has us to keep records of what we do and we can go back and correct them, often at times helping one another through this method. It may not be perfect, but it has worked for well over four years confirmed, maybe well over eight years if I dig hard enough into the records.

As for going back to Tweak himself, I stated before that what he does is not visible to the main of the forums other than stability and functionality of the forums unless you were to see what other admins or moderators could see. Even then, that visibility would be limited as he does a lot more for us than what we could see ourselves. If we were to truly lose him as a technical admin, then these forums would crumble from the lack of troubleshooting he does where we can't see and then probably financially since he is the only one who seems to back this place enough to keep it going.

I've seen the forums in better days, I've seen it in FAR worse. If you don't believe me, I have horror stories to tell that can be confirmed by a few members who may still be present.

If you wish to help the forums, there are far better (and more tactful) ways of doing so. Contacting a moderator with suggestions ("how about we do this?") instead of making demands ("if I don't see results, this will happen!") will get you most likely to be heard. The staff members are volunteers, as in we give of our free time willingly without recompense to keep this place going. If you feel like a rule was wrongly administered to you (warned without reason, excessive warning for a matter), that is when you need to contact another moderator or admin. Again, we keep records of what we do and we correct each other at times.

[Dr. Alka Wolf]

You know, I was originally going to be a bi-stander in this situation. It seemed like more trouble to get into than it was worth. But, after reading through the many responses by both the moderators and the... not-moderators, I'd have to side with the mods on this one. I really just think this entire thread should get locked and possibly removed because it's a fairly massive stain on what is generally a nice forum base.


All the points raised by Angder, don't exactly apply to me. And I've only heard 2 cases of people getting wrongly accused and receiving bans because of it. The admins and some mods not being online, I can also understand. It's a bit harsh to just assume they can dedicate all their time and that, especially since their adults. This post has definately gotten me to respect Tweak a lot more than I did before.


I really think everyone should give the mods and admins a break. Well and truly, if you don't like things here, you shouldn't cause problems because of it. And I will admit, I can respect how Angder is fighting for his cause, which is something I wish I had the balls to do, but it's just not necessary at this point.


Could we all just... maybe leave them alone? Leave them to solve the issues and stuff? I'm sure they enjoy the forums and want to keep it as nice a place, so just give them the time they need to do so. If you rush anything, it'll just come out bad.


And to the mods, admins and all the staff behind TFF, Thanks for all the effort you guys put in to the forums, be it big at times, or small. It's because of you guys that the forums aren't just filled with sex driven 13 year olds, looking to make some sexual RP, or people more abnoxious than Dubaku coming on and ruining RPs for everyone. I'm not speaking on anyone elses behalf, but I'd just like to thank you guys, since it doesn't seem like anyone else will   

[The Past]

I didn't change the rules. I rewrote them for the public rules page and worded things clearer because there are official rules that are completely missing from the public page.

[anoni]

I think everyone's had their say for now. I'm locking this thread, but you can still converse with moderators and stuff via PM if you have any questions or concerns

[Tweak]

I suppose I better put my two cents in here at least, rather than let rumors continue to mount.

I took over the technical aspects of the forums back in 2008, I took over the financial responsibilities in 2009, for 6 years I've continued to pay out a lot of money to keep things running. Are they perfect? No. Do I want to change things? Yes. Am I able to right now? No.

I took over the forums whilst I was in University, I had a lot more disposible income and at that time was not worried. When I graduated I lost all of my income from loans and bursaries and also suffered a severe relapse in depression, it was the first time in years I seriously contemplated suicide. But, through people I'd met here as well as my family, I continued doing what I could.

In 2012, I emigrated to the United States to live with my wife and adopted son. Such a move burnt through every bit of savings I had, with the last bit of money going to securing the forums for another year. I had difficulty finding a job - as many people here do - and slowly increased my debt to keep paying for the costs that are linked to the forums. In May 2013, I finally got a minimum wage job which paid the bills, but didn't pay down my debts. Later in 2013, I secured a long-term, well-paid position doing what I love and 2 years later I'm still there. But with an increased income came increased taxes, with the need to buy medical insurance and other things, I see only 50% of my check (yay taxes!). But, a chunk of it still goes here.

With the move and getting settled into a job, my activity dropped significantly, the forums grew weeds and became overgrown and I did disappear for a time, but I had and continue to have trust in the staff here to keep things running. Late last year, my activity increased and I got a lot of things fixed up, I planned to get a lot more done but unfortunately, after trying for 4 years, my wife suffered a double miscarriage and we lost twins. This wrecked us both and I had to use every bit of strength to keep strong for her whilst undergoing multiple surgeries. I also lost my Grandmother around this time.

Now, to the present. My wife is currently pregnant with a healthy little girl. I've spent time getting debts sorted and am working on other projects to secure more means of income. These can be used to improve not only the service around here but allow me to have time to fix things that are needed.

I'm not going to pretend that it'll happen tomorrow or next week, it could still be another year, but I will continue to cover the costs and keep watch. I respond to PMs as soon as I have a spare minute and I keep an eye on things. If the server goes down, I get it back up as soon as possible.

Now, I don't post this for attention, or apologies, or even thanks. I post it so that everyone here can understand why I haven't been doing what I should and to show that I do still have an interest in being here. It's only a few clicks to kill this place off for good, and though there have been times in the past I'd have considered it, the forums are something I am proud to be associated with.

If you have major issues or problems or even questions, please PM me. I might take some time to reply, but I will do so.