I woke up today and decided to stream some gameplay. As I was setting up my stream, I lamented for a moment over how there has been much less activity in #botb recently. I get it. It's difficult for all of us to get along. It's not really anyone's fault if cliques want to part into their own subgroups in other channels or social media groupings and ignore the community's primary hang out spot. Also I don't blame anyone for losing interest and moving on. Kind of sad, but it is what it is.

So there I am streaming and I can see #botb the whole time. "Wow! This OHB has some traction" I thought to myself as I watched the entry count reach towards 15. Once it passed 25 though, well, I quit my stream to figure out what the fuck was going on.

Oh. Modern Art. Does anyone who participated in this OHB know fuck all about modern art? I can understand how the bitpack would lead you all down the path it did. "Make ... pretentious ... art" It's sad that a mob can quintessentially reduce a century long movement of art down to being pretentious. Modern art gave us the pointillism, surrealism, cubism and dadaism art genres to name the ones I know off the top of my head. I never even went to college and I know this shit. You want to point out that the most iconic piece of dadaism is a urinal on it's side with R.Mutt written on it? Fine. I guess that's an excuse. Marcel Duchamp is credited with the work, but without a nameless engineer of design, that specific urinal would have never been created and mass produced. The point I would like to make is that that very urinal, as a functional device, has nearly infinite more effort put into than most of these entries. Maybe the world would be better without urinals and we could all piss on each other like you did on BotB.

I know that Battle of the Bits' motto is "do your best or try your worst" and maybe it should be removed or appended. The latter part is really meant to offer comfort to n00bs in trying new things. It's not meant as a license to proverbially shit the bed. When you go to your friends house do you enter the bathroom, smear shit on the wall, and exit giggling saying "I made art"?

The whole fucking point of BotB is to challenge each other so that we can go on a journey of improvement.

If it wouldn't punish those who do take the pixel and drawing formats seriously, they would have been removed earlier today.

Do you know what sucked about not making the kickstarter goal? It wasn't not getting the money. While the campaign was running I was watching all kinds of BotBrs, both old and new, come out of the woodwork. Folks got really excited about BotB all over again. It felt amazing. But then the goal was missed and things just went sort of flat in the community. Was I a failure? I didn't think so, I did my best, but to some degree I felt abandoned by that energy.

And then this shit show happened. Finally the community explodes in a stretch of activity just to show off woeful ignorance in the differences between modern art and postmodern cynicism. HUZZAR

I am disappoint. I am so very disappoint that I want to turn my back on BotB as a whole completely until I feel like coming back. If it wasn't for the sizeable, altruistic, and honorable donation contributed to influence me into making gamejams happen, I would drop that too.

This ruined my day. A day I really needed to focus and study for an upcoming interview for a job I desperately need. Damage was done to me personally and my relationship with the site. I keep trying to tell myself that I am overreacting, but I've had about 10 hours to contemplate my feelings. I know this was not the actions of the majority of BotBrs, but it still feels so fucked up.

Also, making brand new alts just to post more mindless, no-effort shit? You are all so cute. I hope you're proud of yourselves.

TL;DR I know none of this was intentional. The #botb chat and OHB frequency have been in a lull recently. I am very, very passionate about this community I have built. And this surge of activity was a fucking joke and shitty slap in the face.

I'm glad you mentioned Duchamp's urinal, I actually had to do some reading on that during last semester at uni (for a music subject, mind you). It's kind of similar to Cage's '4'33"' in that if you take it just by itself, yeah it's kind of stupid. "One of the most influential pieces of modern art is just a urinal!" is akin to "One of the most influential pieces of modern music is just silence!" But both revolutionized their respective fields.

The thing is, while I understand you feeling frustrated at people taking the piss out of things like that, I think it's inevitable, and you shouldn't be too harsh on people. These sorts of works of art require, demand, a context. In the case of the urinal, in order to not just take it at face value you need to know Duchamp's intentions as well as art history in general. And when you're aware of those facets, you can truly take in how amazing it was. Same goes for things like twelve-tone music, or the really out-there experimental music such as musique concrete. They lack the immediately accessible beauty required to easily appeal to people. To 'appreciate' a work like this does take effort. And sometimes it's worth it, and sometimes it's not, and sometimes after all this effort all you want to do is sit back and say 'You know we're just making a big fuss over a urinal, right?' and have a laugh, break the tension, and then get back to serious study. This site has always been great for having a laugh and breaking the tension - and though I never made an alt myself, I can see the appeal from this perspective. Making a deliberately shitty work can be a great release from the stress of trying to create something great. And now that we've done it, we can return to creating art :)

As to BOTB itself though, I cannot express enough how glad I am that I got involved in this site a year and a half ago. It has introduced me to new formats, new programs, even new concepts in music. It has even allowed me to experiment in ways that have actually influenced my real-life composition - for example, my track 'Sunrise at Spring Valley' which I wrote purely for a BOTB battle (and would not have written otherwise), I later adapted and extended for full orchestra as an entry for a composition competition in my city. I haven't heard back (this was a month ago), and even when I do I doubt I'll have gotten a prize or anything, but I wouldn't have done this without BOTB. Plus, when I apply within a month or two to study postgraduate composition in various places, I am definitely considering submitting 'Adrift' as a sample of my work.
And I very much appreciate the effort that you (and others) put into running this site (let's not mention the .exe I submitted that one time). Even if it shut down today forevermore, it's most definitely left a lasting impression on me.

I've had a lot of thoughts on the matter because I'm fresh out of University with a bachelor's degree in science and have nothing but contempt for the liberal arts (which I'd get into, but I'll leave that out of this).

My two cents is this: relativism is absolute garbage, and embracing it will have you banging rocks against walls and saying things like, "music only needs timbre, not rhythm or melody". Find out what your threshold for bullshit is, and don't let any pinkos tell you otherwise.

It seems to me like you already have a pretty good threshold for bullshit, so carry on (... my wayward son).

People like different shit for different reasons. People also seem to get offended when people bash shit that they like.

I'm also pretty sure the quote is "can't we all just get along?" and not "can't we all just be the same?"

Didn't take part in that OHB... but I do have an opinion on "Modern Art", as unqualified as it may be. The thing is, the "art" definition of the modern art scene just isn't compatible with my own. For me, art is primarily a form of non-verbal communication. It's a language that works on an emotional, perhaps sub-conscious level. (And that includes literature - it's not about what the words say, it's what's between the lines). Art isn't something that can be explained in words - it's something that makes me feel a certain message. In other words, if you need a 10 page essay to "put it into context" and explain what your piece of art means, then it's very likely not a good piece of art in my book. And this is where modern art went wrong, in my opinion. You can't intellectualize art. You can't have an academic discussion about it, because words are an inadequate means of art reception.

Now, I don't mean to look down on modern art and derogate it as "pretentious". To me, it is simply something that lives in another level of reality, one that has little to do with my own artistic work. And mind you, that seems to go both ways, as modern art people tend to discredit art happening outside of their niche as either "pop" or "primitive". What I very much dislike however is the modern art's tendency to overstate its own importance. The way I see it, modern art has never had much impact outside the academic world (and by extension, the realm of galleries and such), and for the most part 99% of the population don't care about it, myself included. There are certainly plenty of exceptions - pieces of modern art that work just fine without an "explanation" - and needless to say the mileage may vary from person to person. But overall, given the relative irrelevance of modern art and at the same time seeing the huge amount of (government) money that goes into it (as opposed to, say, funding grass-roots projects like botb), the amount of negativity towards it is neither surprising nor entirely unfair.

Well, that's just my 10c. Feel free to disagree.

So much vitriol lately. I wish I could fix it. But I'm over here tryna work out my own issues.

[post redacted]

... I mean, I didn't join that OHB, but... I mean, unqualified. I assume.

EDIT:

Well, I have nothing to say. I don't want to break ohb and admins and BotBr itself with my saying.

Just. please define me "modern art" please.

EDIT2:
Sorry for a lot of editing.

We can make it better. also, we can fix this.

Excuse my possible lack of sensitivity, but aren't we taking this incident a bit too seriously? This was not an attack on modern art or the concept of modernism. I'm sure everyone can acknowledge that modernist and abstract art has its merits and can require effort, thought, and talent.

This was a joke. A joke. Nothing more, nothing less. It spawned from some lighthearted riffing in some various circles and turned into something bigger. Did it get out of hand? Perhaps, but this really should not have been taken for more than what it was, and it's seriously foolish to be somehow offended by the existence of that OHB yesterday.

Is BotB supposed to be some kind of website where the users are expected to take their craft as gospel, to treat everything they do as if it is their last work? Is there no room on this website for freedom, for experimentation, for fun?

As someone who joined the OHB I can say it was fun to just fuck around for a couple hours and joke about being intentionally poor or provocative. It's stress relief and it is a lot better than constantly worrying about battles which require more effort and thought and have higher stakes.

That's all it was. A joke that got out of hand. It never needed to get to this point, and frankly I'm somewhat disappointed that people reacted so angrily to this.

cant say much but if you want to know why the bitpack was created, it stemmed from a discussion about art that ended up having me defend blank white canvases as art while everyone else poked fun about modern art. the joke went on and stemmed an ohb i guess, but becuse of the jokey and low-effort requirements for this ohb (the theme of modern art was never serious, this was more a satirical theme?) i guess everyone hopped on (including me)

im not really telling you guys how to think, but im surprised that this discussion is still going on. i thought that this type of goofiness every now and then was how botb works, but i guess cause of the circumstances that isnt so trie this time.

"music only needs timbre, not rhythm or melody".
also is it bad that i agree with this statement '^'

I don't know why I bothered defending modern art.

That wasn't point.

I guess I should be glad people use the site at all.

If people want to shit in or on a house I built I should be grateful.

Fuck it's purpose.

[post intercepted by n. korean gov't]

Yeah, i don't understand why people are latching on to the modern art part of it. That's not even the point of this thread, from what I'm seeing.

This is directed at a certain subset of people "in" the botb community:
<SketchBed3> an average of 1 entry per month in the last year
<SketchBed3> nice
(since august of last year, only 7 compo entries. )
<SketchBed3> it really like....
<SketchBed3> bugs me when people who aren't even compoing and contributing "quality content"/...
<SketchBed3> are complaining about the quality of the content
<SketchBed3> if you think it sucks, then make something that doesn't!
<SketchBed3> mootbooxle compos always bring out big incentive for people to outdo themselves because mootbooxle is really cool and inspires people to be cool too
<SketchBed3> if you're going to cry, stop slacking
If you think people are making bad stuff and you can do better, then participate and let your example inspire people to follow suit and transcend themselves. quote"Evil"unquote triumphs when good people do nothing, as the saying goes. Sitting on the sidelines crying foul instead of getting into the game and hitting a triple-double is worse than hitting the ball directly into the pitcher''s glove.

I am not against humor.
I am not against satire.
I am not against cynicism.
I am not against being childish.
I am against lazy troll entries.
They are going to happen.
There's nothing I can do about it.

Yeah, I'm not a fan of the increasing number of troll entries on the site lately. I'm cool with joke entries, but imo they should still have effort put into them.

I think scrubbing people for submitting troll entries would be a good way to prevent this.

Maybe the ailment could get worse after each offense as well.

@FamicomForever:
"music only needs timbre, not rhythm or melody".
also is it bad that i agree with this statement '^'

Yes, and you should feel bad. This is the cornerstone for why I find the liberal arts insufferable because it's gone so far down the rabbit hole with "relativism", "open mindedness", or as somebody else brought up (more in reference to duchamp), "merit divorced from technical effort".

I don't even care if somebody lambasts me for being closed minded, or attempting to make some kind of jab at my potential, skill or whathaveyou. The reality is this: Music needs timbre, rhythm and pitch. No, not just "good" music, but music in general.

Let's go outside our western view for a second and look at other traditions that supposedly don't require pitch. Even african drumming traditions, although based in rhythm, needs timbre (the attack, decay and sustain properties of each drum) and pitch (subtle differences in the tightness of each drum skin, allowing listeners and drummers in the group to differentiate between the notes).

What about free form improv? Still hopelessly dependent on rhythm/pitch, as rhythm is space (albeit less rigid) and pitch is that which gives rise to tonality, mood and all these other wonderful things that brings the human heart into the listening as well. Jazz musicians have varying degrees of success when it comes to this kind of improv. Not surprisingly, the kind of improv that's not strictly improv is the most aesthetically pleasing.

I could go into other traditions and talk about why there's a summation of those three elements, but I think I'm getting into preachy/lecture-y territory here and I'm gonna stop.

Yes, make botb the site every jackass on the internet thinks it should be instead of being what it was made for. Good plan. That'll totally work.

This is what happens when you take the naive stance that everyone is an agreeable person and deserves to be catered to. All the shitters enter and shit up the place. There do exist shitty people; deal with them or expect shit.

My takeaway from this is "Don't piss on BOTB's leg and tell them it's raining."

This isn't so much about the current conversation but more a blanket statement about any situation on botb that turns volatile.

Maybe I've said something to this effect before, who knows.

We should be aware that botbrs are two things:

A: Emotionally unstable internet weirdos.
B: Emotionally unstable musicians.

This means powder kegs will blow every now and then. We are one big and dysfunctional family. All we can do is endeavor to be one of those cute dysfunctional families like on teh TV.

Good luck with your job, pukes. I know things will work out in the end! :)

The thing I forgot to say in my initial post is that if this was a smaller OHB with 10-20 entries I would have been laughing along. Watching the site get crippled by a joke might make it even funnier for most. But as the sole admin of this site who's responsibility it is to keep it running, well, it felt like an attack. Like I said, I know this was not intentional.

I've tried my best for many years to address the community as professionally and openly as I can. I thought I had waited long enough to share my views, but mayhaps I did not. Charlotte brings up some very valid points about how this joke brought people together, but if I had said nothing I also feel it would have encouraged this behavior. This site is not a youtube or imgur built on elastic virtual resources with a large to huge team of developers and venture capital. BotB has limited resources and a specific purpose.

I apologize for not being a bigger person.

If I ever get the pleasure of meeting you puke7, I'll give you a nice long hug and treat you to dinner. And I promise to make every effort to refrain from shitting in your house or on your walls.
But thanks for being honest, that imho is better than not saying anything at all.

And I still get nostalgic about that kfaraday kid

yo, i feel like i should weigh in on this since we're talking about trolly stuff

just wanna say that i love botb for reals. i make weirdass music but i do it because it's fun and i legit like that sort of thing, not "for the lulz" or to troll the site. instead i was surprised that non-cran peeps responded so well to my first few entries; i was all "woa, there are others who love wtfmusic too." that's exceptionally rad and motivating as shit and gives me inspiration to write both goofy and Serious Shit(tm) as well, so yay

it's probably worth disclaimering that i'm an alt of a dude who also makes ""serious"" music, just to let folks know i do the crazy stuff "on purpose," but my thoughts here are 100% genuine for real so i hope folks understand the "on purpose" bit is for the love of weird, not a "fuk da system" gesture. gotta keep the cran in the right can, is all.

moreover, i genuinely enjoy wacky stuff limkin park ass (like there's some real cool tunes like "anis artwk" and funny shiz like the trump one) despite the derp, and i don't see it as a stain on the site at all. sometimes such things get a little too "lulzy" though like the modern art ohb, but folks are smart enough to realize "whoops, not again" when it gets too severe. i think. mo' less.

i dunno if any of this helps but there you go.

no need to apologize, puke7, imo.

love ya, puke7; you most definitely are the most heroic admin i have ever meet on internet; you made the most awesome chiptune community ever just by solely using your coolness to maintain its longetivity despite the innevitable internet's trolls tries to corrupt BotB.

trolls are always going to make its moves eventually, if BotB is still standing is because you managed all the situations flawlessly up to this far; you should feel proud of yourself

You open the gates to let anyone run battles and things like this are going to happen. It's an OHB, not a major. I'm assuming this is why playas can't run majors. I don't agree with the punishment badge method, especially without a warning to individuals first. I think it discourages playas from coming back. If this is really a place to grow and improve it has to be about change in attitude and intention as well. Hopefully through positive reinforcement.

There obviously needs to be some sort of positive outlet for drama in this community. Too much pent up frustration and angst.

We know we are liberal artists who let basically anything go. We're also whiney bitches time to time when our butts get hurt.

We need another bash major for catharsis or something. puke7 can even enter and poop on his own walls for a bit, perhaps. :)

You know we'll all be around to clean up the mess after the party is over. We have good people here.

I second b00daw's request

i've not been around here lately but man i'm disappointed in this deal

some of those entries are plain shitposting; if you want to shitpost go to r/circlejerk

I wholly disagree with b00ds by the following logic:
We all need to eat, botb should provide grocery shopping.

I.e. we can handle that business elsewhere. Might I suggest shitting in a toilet instead?

i think by that analogy, b00daw is suggesting erecting a portapotty on botb grounds so we don't have to go the nearby Denny's.

really tho i auto-support a poop contest major because it'd be a cranmajor. my bias is biased.

so how about featuring trollist points which one could earn on troll hour battles

edit: i am being sarcastic, no h8 pls

I can't imagine Puke7 would be too happy about the toilet talk. The creator of botb said he's so upset that he was thinking about deleting some of you (which I'm pretty sure has never happened in Botb history). Maybe "MOAR SHEIT!" isn't the answer right now. Couldn't hurt to read the original post before responding with troll comments.

I see that OHB as a mad surge of fun for some, and a big annoyance for others. While I'm one of those that had fun with it, it's best if it never happens again or only does rarely, since having these kinds of battles more often than necessary will definitely have a negative impact on how this site is seen from the outside.

I love these kinds of joke events, but when they get out of hand, they cease being funny and become very bad to deal with, not just for the event itself but for the side effects it can have. Just imagine getting a bunch of kids join every day like WHERE'S MY JOKE OHB or stuff like "BotB once a hub for creativity now is the laughing stock of chiptune".

At any rate, don't be mad guys. I understand now why some people were not very happy about this happening, but it's part of the past now and the best we can do now is learn from it. I trust this site's users to do their best to keep this place running like it has always done too, overall just being a place where you can chill and find other cool people to interact with.

This is me getting thoughtful at 5 AM, I should go back to working on my assignments lol.

Poop Contests are loads (lol) of fun. I've hosted a whole bunch of them! Some of the funniest and most creative pieces have come out (lol) of them.
But I contend that effort must be exerted in order to make a proper turd! That is the difference. A total lack of effort is a hallmark of shitposting, and that is not the kind of shit we should be advocating here at BotB.
Have fun, make poops. But make highly creative poops, not audio-visual diarrhea.

let's go home and make chiptunes

The solution for preventing ultrashit contests like the Historical Incident here is an acknowledgement by the community: if you're the type of person who is using botb as a surrogate for your natural manly needs for competition, domination, and fulfillment of acquired autonomy and power to contrast the bleak reality of your offline self, then it's time to leave botb. In fact, it's a good idea to escape virtual and social media inspired competition in general. Let your natural juices run into something more threatening and tangible for a while.

Back in pre-2013 botb, the times were very different. I joined in early 2011 and was generally quite active here up until mid-2015 so I've seen the general trends evolve over the years.

Pre-2013 was cool as fuck. It was cool because the community was generally made up of much healthier individuals. People didn't live and breathe social media similarly to how they do now. People also didn't live and breathe the fucking online sewer culture of twitter metamemes, edgy metacynical sensibilities and flauntingly shameless neetdom trends. Maybe it's just a result of the times, hell I don't fucking know. One thing I do know is that the culture, music, ideas and topics of conversation here weren't so preemptively established, browbeaten and boxed in like they are today.

There are a lot of repressed and extreme personalities within the community and this is where a lot of the conflicts and issues arise from. Once the majority of the fearful, parasitic people leave the community to take care of their problems, only then can this place return to something resembling its former golden days. It applies to all the young ones too. Developing your young spirit on the internet is like, fucking disastrous. Christ. Generally, if you're the kinda guy who's just postponing what your deepdown gut is telling you and buying time, having faith that one day it will all be better, please take it from a recovering fuckup and believe me that it won't. Getting your rocks off through internet replacements is at best only an endless distraction from all the mundane horrors perpetually looming over you.

I guess I'm sounding preachy at this point but that wasn't my intent in writing this. These days I check in on this place once in a blue moon and saw all this stuff. Actually I saw it a couple weeks back and it's kinda been stewing in the back of my mind for a while. I guess it finally bubbled to the surface and now I'm just expressing it.

Btw, modern art is really cool but it's fucking lame and poisonous when it's taken too seriously, and honestly I can't think of a better parallel to draw with all the problems that have slowly gripped chiptune and vgm communities over the years.

Eh sorry gyms, but you're a pretty repressed and extreme personality yourself. Why else would you write a huge post condemning this community as it is now? (j/k) ;P

This is where I get ~triggered~. You're just being unnecessarily negative. Moaning about how you miss the old days isn't going to accomplish anything. How about you become more active on the site and show your good side instead?

Looking at your fellow BotBrs as a bunch of repressed and extreme personalities, it just feels toxic to me. Yeah, we have a bunch of people like that, but they're a minority, and they certainly don't dominate the atomsphere on this site.

Personally I don't like memes or social media trends, but BotB irc is much more than just that. They come up occasionally. There's plenty of good convos to be had there if you look past it.

As far as I know, the amount of depressed irc-addicted NEETs stirring up drama was much higher in 2012. Most of them have either gone or grown up. I certainly don't miss the faction warfare, gender arguments, 4chan crossposts and cm.o/LSDJ/Ubiktune bashing I saw in 2012. I don't know about you, but I think that's a massive improvement.

Also Jangler, I don't like you bumping this thread and making stab at how the people responsible should move away to a reddit circlejerk.

Some people take these jokes too far, but from my experience they're also the chill kind of people who defuse drama rather than stirring up drama out of nowhere. As long as they realize that, and have the common sense to learn from it they're fine to me and I would love them to stay.

I'm going to be cliche here, but I think both of you should embrace the positive~

I think It's better when we actually call each other out directly by name on the exact things we don't like. I'm happy I wasn't around when the OHB happened. I probably would've joined, and felt guilty about it afterwards. :x

I think most people who participated in this OHB realized they took this joke way too far. Or at least respect that there are many people here who feel so.

I'm happy when can work out our differences, rather than just expressing our cynical disappointment and calling it a day.

@Yuki –

i didn't say that anyone should move away from botb. i said that if anyone wants want to shitpost, they should take it somewhere that accommodates shitposting. i don't need to call anyone out by name because that sentiment applies to an action and not an individual; i didn't even bother to take note of who did what in the modern art OHB. i think i was pretty specific about the thing i don't like.

while i don't like what you said about gyms and i mostly agree with his thoughts on the changes in botb culture, i can't speak for him.

i'm not going to be nice about this. for all you say about defusing drama, in my estimation you've been perhaps the single greatest catalyst for drama in botb – and intentionally so. if you want to talk about toxic behavior, here's a great example: you twisting other people's words and framing them in the context of your own personal brand of bullshit. fair?

"Once the majority of the fearful, parasitic people leave the community to take care of their problems" What do you mean by this? Fearful of what? Parisitic on what?

Jangler, those are some severe accusations. Care to give me any examples of me "framing" people like that? You must have plenty since you seem absolutely sure that I'm the single greatest catalyst for drama.

Oh and don't give me any stale examples that are more than 2 years old. I know I used to be pretty vindictive about what I felt was right. And I learned toxic that can be.

I think I've grown a lot since that era, and I believe I don't do stuff like that anymore, but if you can point out that I've been horribly toxic over the past 2 years, I would really like to hear it.

I don't want to be a toxic drama whore. I know I used to be, and I'm not proud of it at all. If you really think I still am, then tell me what I've been doing wrong in the past two years.

What if we start countering low effort entries by issuing ailments to those who submit them

edit: i cross-posted with Savestate; this is @Yuki –

as i'm sure you know, i've only been around periodically for the last two years, so i can't really give examples of anything ugly you've done, other than that i dislike the rhetoric you've used in this thread. even if i could name examples, i don't think it would benefit anyone. it would just be noise in the thread, and a waste of my time and yours and probably anyone else's.

if you've changed for the better over the past couple of years, that's great! really! i'm just not getting that vibe here.

anyway, i've said my piece. i'm not trying to start a flame war. people can make their own choices, and i think at this point we're all more or less on the same page about the issue at hand.

@savestate

Isn't that what Jimmyoshi proposed?

Oh lol it is Razerek

Yeah, maybe scrub->zombi->mummy(ban)

Perma banning on a case by case basis?

I really don't think we should instate new rules and punishments every time something bad happens. More police isn't the solution to everything that's not a rogue chinese spambot attack.

Like, it makes BotB considerably more unchill place to be, and it wastes precious admin time and effort which is better spent in more constructive ways.

I think puke gave a great explanation why it's a bad thing. Even if some people didn't get it, most people understand at least that it's a bad thing.

I think it will work out from here because most of us are mature and responsible enough to not be spoonfed another set of explicit rules, restrictions and punishments. Have faith in yer community! :V

---------------------------------------------------

Some people seem to be suggesting to issue ailments to ANYBODY who submits low-effort entries. I think that is a bad idea. Low-effort entries can be funny and raise our collective spirit when done right, at the right place and at the right time.

"But Yuki-sama, what defines the right place and the right time?!?!?"

Obviously, it's not the right place and the right time when you have 40 people doing the exact same thing. Use common sense.

"But Yuki-sama, I don't have any common sense! It's unfair how you want to judge me based on something as arbitrary as that!"

Then you probably shouldn't submit any troll entries ever.

ancient legend reads; once every 3 years, the sinisters of troll, scrubbing, noising and latists rise from the abysm, thus the world best warriors gather and emerge victorious, then the ban hammer sleeps once more.

this is known as the first rage quitting war.

3 years of peace has happen since then until suddenly the four evil sinistrals make appareance once more in a unexpected modern art place, this is known as the second rage quitting war.

the light of the ban hammer shines brighter than ever, the triumph of the sinistrals is imminent; the world needs his heroes.

could the heroes bring a new golden era to botb?
may Strobe appear from his hideout and save the day?
anyone has enough power to stop the evil acts of the sinistrals?

only time can tell~

thank you, vilxdryad.

i agree with Yuki here. explicit lists of rules only get you so far since 1. most people don't read them and 2. there are basically infinite ways to be disruptive. i also doubt the efficacy of ailments as deterrents for bad behavior. punishment for its own sake just creates bad feelings all around.

if someone's reasonable and well-meaning (as most people are), then you can just explain to them why what they did was problematic, and they'll know better next time. if someone's not reasonable and well-meaning, then essentially nothing you can say will stop them, and it's time to pull out the hard ailments and bans.

it's hard to know where that "disruptive behavior" line lies as a botbr, and it's so, so hard to know where to draw that rare "hopeless case" line as an admin. but if you're not sure, err on the side of caution.

P.S. this doesn't just pertain to admins. if you've been around for a while and know how stuff works here then you can sure as hell let people know when you think something is a bad idea.

I sorta stopped hanging around in the IRC a couple of years ago now, but I do check in to this site every now and then. Oddly this situation seems kinda reminiscent of what happened with the Famicompo series. Previously awesome cross-continental compo series turned 300 entry clusterfuck full of lazy troll entries that made sifting out the good ones near impossible.

I guess the point is, joke contests are fun every now and then, but I can see why ~40 people collectively shitting on the site during an ohb on "Modern Art" is crossing the line.

Also:

Gyms: "Developing your young spirit on the internet is like, fucking disastrous. Getting your rocks off through internet replacements is at best only an endless distraction from all the mundane horrors perpetually looming over you."

As harshly worded as this quote is, I second it. Seriously, please don't spend all of your time looking at memes and hanging around in the same circles over and over again on the internet.

Something my mid-2013-joining self finds goofy: one of the original points of contention in this thread is questionable use of alts, yet I have no idea who "Yuki" is. :P


[important post-disclaimer: no hate intended]

i'm just glad people are getting all their thoughts out concisely in one forum section and not spraying it all over the place. :)

poop thread! :D/

edit:

I have an idea for poop major that may be fun...

If you want to enter, you hit the participate button and it gives you a random format (previously unknown to you) that you have to submit something for within the next hour. so you enter your best shot random poop for the format. most creative poop obviously wins in the compo. GOLDEN POOP TROPHIES, YES?

If the user cannot submit in that amount of time they are not allowed to hit the participate button for 24 hours. ;P if they are able to finish an hour poop entry of the correct format, they can participate again. :)

I wish my brain worked well enough to contribute to this thread besides liking posts. I don't feel involved enough ;___;

its reasonable to feel that way savestate - i feel on some level that this is kinda the type of thread where not having anything expressly to say is okay though

like, as with any important discussion, it's usually better for it to proceed slowly and carefully from thoughtful post to post rather than be filled with attempts to make sure one gets their thoughts in on the matter. this isn't meant to be a shot at anyone tryin' to defuse the situation with a lil joke or two of course, because those can help break the tension; it's mostly just an observation on how these discussions can be derailed until no one's really sure what anyone else is trying to say

perhaps a good thing to do at this point would be to try to boil down the problem to a few specific points that are particularly frustrating or things that people really want to see in this site's community again before ya start attempting to create remedies? i know "create a list" is a bit like the silly kind of thing one'd have been told to do in grade school, but perhaps it'd be more efficient than simply quoting a time period that people may have had different experiences with and then fiddling about with remedy ideas

i dont rly have the experience necessary for any sort of perspective on the main topic of this thread, nor do i hang out on the site enough to really deserve a spot in said discussion, so i wish ya'll good luck and do hope things get sorted

sorry to interrupt

melts into the ground

I feel it's be stated what to do. Troll entries are alright. Once and a while, hey sometimes they turn out good. Focus on being creative and learning/growing in music composition and diversity of formats. Don't be an asshat (as best as you can). Like, if the higher-ups and older folks who are the foundation, framing, insulation, roof and utilities in the house you're in are all in agreement that something isn't being done right and another good majority seem to be saying adios it might be a good idea to respect their wishes! If we oust the people the made this site great, there will be nothing left. I really miss a lot of you guys, like Jangler, zanzan, ant1, nys<3, gyms<3<3, etc etc, and seeing a lot of my friends not want to participate anymore makes me really sad. I'm sure we can all be ourselves and mature respectful people at the same time. I'm the first to say that I can be a sarcastic gorilla dick sometimes, but I know when to cool it and let things go. That's what community and relationship is all about.

(Honestly I just really miss talking to gyms, zan and ant1 all the time, love you all~)

imo the only substantial problem is mismatched expectations

edit: and i have no idea how to fix that

http://hastebin.com/raw/pocavoweca

edit: ... well. it's over.
edit2: Well. I want stop this thing if I can.
I hate everyone attacking someone to w/o meaning.

gyms, might I suggest editing your post to contain the hastebin text? They're known to delete their content after an arbitrary amount of time.

... Why.

I'd say "no".

Since I joined this community by... who. I don't know.
But.... I love this community.
So I'd say "no". I don't post anymore in this thread.
It's over. (For me)
I want stop this "mess"(Sorry for using this word),If I can.

yuki = slimeball I think

seriously, where does all this drama that people (who hardly ever visit, or participate in botb) have been complaining about for the past two years take place? I've been here for that amount of time and I rarely see any negativity or drama. I've seen plenty of people practically drop off the face of the earth, but why? I've asked this question before, and I've never gotten a straight answer, and I want one now.

In all seriousness, the only time I've ever witnessed drama, Gyms, you were involved in some way. Maybe you didn't start it but you get really wrapped up into drama when it does happen. You don't know how many times I've said to myself, "Oh, Gyms and B00daw are at each other's throats again.." I personally think that is the source of a lot of your frustration at Botb, and I think you guys need to settle your differences. Hopefully you have, but I wouldn't be able to tell because you're never around anymore.

I found a lot of what you said really disheartening and somewhat hypocritical. Maybe at one time your points were valid, but they were completely alien to me. You hate that people are taking all the social media crap too seriously? Who really cares about comments and lieks? Clearly you do. "I truly hate your stinkin guts" Maybe that was a joke, but if not then you're the one who is too serious about all of this. As an admirer of your music, it hurts to think that you might feel that way towards me, and the things that I might find enjoyable, make me brainwashed in your eyes. I don't think that things are as bad as you say, and I hope that you and all the others who left will one day come back and see that.

Since I never witness these sorts of things, and no one ever says their true feelings to your face, then this kind of behavior that people despise must be happening somewhere outside of Botb. I think it's low to drag us all down if that is the case. I really hate this whole "MAKE BOTB GREAT AGAIN" mentality. Stop beating around the bush, and let's all say what specifically is bothering us. Maybe then we can move on and "play nice". If something or someone is bothering you, then come into the irc, or do anything to let more people know so we can help. Don't take things all on yourself if it's going to lead to a big fallingout.

My opinions probably wont be popular but it is how I currently feel about all of this.

i think BotB is pretty great right now

I hope you guys actually read what I said and not just what I put in bold lettering..

to be real honest with you guys, imo botb is better than ever; of course there are one or two in the community i do not feel like to be around of, not just here; it happens everywhere too and is part of having a personality BUT despite that trivial side of me, i still enjoy being around here; this place is really good administrated, the battles are more challenging than ever, and the eventual changes to the layout and features of botb are really appealing to both; experience and expect, including the gamejams project in which i would like to participate, resuming; this site is great and the community has a good base to project a cool standard behavior to all botbrs; also all i noticed in this topic is that, the ones blaming botb are all referring to is to few specific botbrs or even ex-botbrs in the history of the site, not botb itself; and that is perfectly fine, i believe actually there are no big community on which everyone can hang well with everybody, as for me; even i can do with everyone regardless if inside botb's community or anywhere, this said; i love how the vast majority of botbr who i had the possibility to share with actually are~

Cessor I will try to give you a straight and fair answer. I'll try not to be so dogmatic. Also what I'm about to say probably only applies to what was going on in 2013~2014, so I'm going to speak in past tense and also speak in generalities so to not single anyone out.

Also I know people would rather me just shut up at this point. Sorry but I'm not finished yet, and I respect Cessor for being open and honest and I want to give him an answer.

The reason why you don't see the source of the negativity and drama that gets brought up in threads like these is because, you're right, it didn't happen out in the open. I think a lot of people who used the site were healthy and emotionally balanced folks, but there were also a lot of people who were not, myself included. And what I mean by that is, there were groups of people who did virtually all of their socializing online. In my experiences, these types tended to discover one another through the site and irc and they went off in their own group chats or talked a lot one on one over skype or whatever. This is the point where it becomes more abstract to explain and maybe harder to understand:

People end up chatting a lot away from the botb public chat and it can get very intimate. What I mean by "intimate" is people open up to one another, develop close friendships, and share a lot of personal and sensitive information about themselves with each other. I think it's particularly strong cos botb brings people together with such niche interests in common. And for whatever reason, people eventually start to gossip and trash talk each other and this causes a lot of tension between groups of people and also between individuals.

So essentially you had a scattered sub-subculture developing in parallel, but directly related to botb, full of people who frankly had a lot of emotional issues. This caused a lot of unpredictable things to happen. As you can imagine, this stuff happened away from botb but people would bring all of it with them to irc and to the site. The more sadistic types resorted to behaviors which I consider bullying.

An example of such bullying is taking some sensitive information you know about someone and teasing them through the site with it, such as making fun of an insecurity they have through making some loose, cryptic reference out in the open which only they could understand. It is teasing in such a way where it seems to any bystander like a random, innocent comment in a thread or on a profile. So the bully knowingly gets away with these provocations in broad daylight and out in the open in front of everyone. The bully knows he's getting away with it, the person he's messing with knows he's getting away with it. The person getting messed with knows that the bully knows he knows, and vice versa. It's messed up.

I'm not going to go into it further, but you can probably imagine how people could use the lieks and haeits to screw with people too.

I think the reason you witnessed myself being involved with most of the public drama is because, in my view, I'm one of a few who didn't keep ignoring it. I'm a hothead and I don't have patience or tolerance for meanness, so if people want to be sneaky and conniving in broad daylight, past a point I don't care if I make myself look bad and I will self destruct if it means exposing something. Ultimately it's futile becuase the bystanders who witness it have no idea what is happening or what the context is and it just looks like a few crazy people going at each others' throats.

And look, this isn't to say bullying was a huge problem. It wasn't. Botb has always been great for the most part, but this stuff did happen. There are people who straight up left and didn't come back because of this stuff. It's really ugly and toxic for me to be bringing all this stuff up, and being toxic seriously isn't the reason why I've come out of the woodworks to voice my opinion on things in this thread. But anways, I've always talked in cryptic circles around this junk, so hopefully it makes a bit more sense now.

And yea I do take all this very seriously cos I was fucked with pretty badly. But look that's not the point. I put a lot of effort into trying to express myself well with words but I'm really clumsy with concision sometimes, especially when I'm flustered. I really don't mean to pop up out of nowhere and just spew toxicity all over the place. Here's my point:

Some people seem to be shocked at puke's reaction to the modern art thing. Some people think it's an overreaction and I don't think it is. It's frustrating for me to see people react with this sort of confusion about the situation when it seems clear as day to me what the problem is, why it happened, and why puke is angry about it. That's the main reason why I'm here now.

And yea, like Savestate said, for the most part botb is just fine and most of what I'm spewing might as well be fiction. But seriously think for a minute, why would puke get so pissed off to the point he says, "I am so very disappoint that I want to turn my back on BotB as a whole completely until I feel like coming back."

It's fine and good if you guys think botb is great, cos yea I mean it's a cool place. There's really no other place like it, but if you find it odd, the dependency between what how you feel about it and what puke has expressed himself in this thread, this what I'm trying to address here.

And I don't mean to speak for puke here, I'm just saying how I think it is. It's possible that I'm totally off the mark.

But in my estimation, as I've already expressed in my previous posts, the core cause of this modern art thing traces back to botb expanding itself more as a social media type of platform. The rest of my rants have been about how memes and social media trends screw with people's sense of reality, and I'm pointing out that it's only a matter of course that botb would develop certain problem down the line when it started doing certain things like allowing likes and hates and profile comments.

Maybe it seems hypocritical for me to say anything about distorted senses of reality given that I was involved with all the drama on this site, but the truth is I've since gotten rid of all my social media shit, my skype, my soundcloud, everything. Maybe it doesn't seem apparent in the tone and severity of my presentations here, but I'm doing really well these days.

What I'm trying to express and convey in my recent posts is probably futile due to the enormity of the subject, but I was compelled to try anyway. There are a few things I was saying earlier about brainwashing and stuff that was actually pointed at a broader, societal scope and not directed at botb. Sorry, again I'm clumsy and overly ambitious with what I'm trying to express sometimes.

Cessor, you should know I don't view you at all in a bad way. I think you're a really cool dude and I respect you a lot and also enjoy your music.

Anyway this is my last post. Sorry to be such a lame and unfun cheerio-pisser, but I'm just an irrelevant dinosaur anyway so just ignore me if I'm not making any sense. I actually do have better things to be doing than beating this dead horse so I'll take my leave. Thanks for tolerating me, guys.

"I've seen plenty of people practically drop off the face of the earth, but why? I've asked this question before, and I've never gotten a straight answer, and I want one now."

It's what people do. Communities change and users come and go... like friends. It happens and you're not necessarily owed an answer as to why.

Personally, aside from modit mania, I don't compo or hang out on the IRC anymore. Simply put, I've quit because I wasn't getting the same enjoyment from compos as I used to, and it got to a point where even making an entry into Winter Chip felt like a waste of energy because I wanted to invest time into other projects.

I stopped hanging out on IRC because bluntly put, I got sick of it. I got sick of IRC in general. I log on every now and then an chat in some places but I don't stay. I have met potentially lifelong friends through BotB (some of whom I've met with irl), but I hated the drama. That includes all the crap that went down in 2013 and 2014.. and yes, there was drama. Though they are few and far between, there were times I felt like I had to leave because of certain incidents that made me feel uncomfortable. I came back to BotB briefly but felt way to dejected from the community to want to make a habit out of it. And I'm fine with that; I've got other stuff I want to be doing.

None of this is to say that I don't like BotB. In fact, I think BotB is the arguably most invaluable chiptune community out there and Puke7 deserves an unfathomable amount of praise for all the work he's put into this site. I've had some great years here, and it pains me to see it being desecrated. But I get what Gyms* is saying about the inevitability of needing to move on, and that when members become parasitic it leads to some toxic behaviour, and perhaps more importantly, stunted personal growth.

_{*This post was written before gyms'forum post above so sorry if any of this is redundant}

i have read all; and stand my point, you are blaming botb just for a few specific botbr or even ex-botbr as i stated earlier, i perfectly understand how do you feel; though that kind of situations occurs in every big community, is comprehensible that you stayed with the flavor of bad past experiences; and is hard to overcome when someone cross the line BUT regardless how hard was the situation; one tends to blame the whole environment rather the actual people who actually has to do with a harsh event, i am sure we all happened to see how people on facebook can get because of its pseudo likes feature BUT that does not mean everyone is the same way dealing with it, of course there even are ones here who misuse it BUT they are not more than 1 or 2, said this; even generalizing is those 1 or 2 people the ones who blame rather than the likes or haeit feature as is that 1 or 2 people involved in your bad past experience here to blame rather than botb nor the community, this said; blaming someone does not solve what happened before neither makes you feel better, and in most cases; is better to stay out of a community if sharing with the people who did mess with you makes you feel like you do not want to feel, sadly this is not what i want and i am sure lots of people neither want to see you leave here; BUT your priority is your integrity over all; even if what started all is a big misunderstanding, which in most cases it indeed is; a complete misunderstanding of intentions; there are three things that can solve stuff; one is overlooking the past situation, since actually it stopped being a thing; and the other both is to talk and express your point to the ones who did mess to you and if no one of these work; sadly avoiding the community seems to be the smartest decision.

what is not a good decision is to do something that might hurt yourself, or that does not help to the situation that took place in the past; you can try to overlook the situation since 3 years is commonly enough time for trivial things to lose importance, or also try to expose your view to the one who did something you did not liked, if neither of those works; try on a couple of months later if you still care about what botb really is; a music competition community.

Nice job letting all of this stuff go in a civilized manner, guys. Good to express this stuff. :) I think we can all relate that at times in our lives we aren't entirely in control of our emotions and may poop on people that we care about because they're the closest; regardless of being internet friends or real life friends. Friends are friends. If we didn't care about people we likely wouldn't care about their feelings.

Personal development may have its hills and valleys. As long as we continue to communicate with others and be true to ourselves we continue the cycle of development. :)

<3

Pointing out toxic behavior in an attempt to stop it is now toxic. Okay.

Okay maybe this is just me being an aspie psychopath, but what's so wrong in naming and shaming?
Can the truth of reality really be that bad?

a public forum is not a good place for discussing private grievances

Well I'm just going to go out and say this but if I have ever grieved anyone in the manner gyms was referring to just st want to apologize, not that it will make it all better because words of regret don't make up for hastily spoken ones, but it should be said because I don't want any bad blood between anyone and am always willing to make something right no matter the cost.

Drop a line if someone wants to talk, ever.

I'm seeing that this thread has been ongoing for a while, understandably so. I held off from posting in here, just to see if there would be any resolution to this, but so far, there has not.

I'd like to say that I apologize if my entry into this OHB - as my inaugural entry into BotB - is inherently offensive, by demerit of being associated with this particular OHB. This goes to puke7, and the driving forces behind this site, those whom have managed to create, curate and collaborate on the meanest, greenest piece of the chiptune community on the 'net.

While I did post inamongst the chaos, I did attempt to make a genuine effort at an entry. It's a commentary on recent events in gaming, if the name didn't give it away. I felt that it could be represented in a simple graphic. A couple minutes later, in GIMP, and I had a PNG ready to go in.

I do expect to continue participating here, and elsewhere in the community, positively. If anything, participating in such debauchery - harmless, we thought - was a sharp introduction into the ways of this place.
Please don't take it personally that my entry was part of a stain on your site, I truly did not mean any malintent by participating.
Thank you for listening.

Thnx Gyms. Glad your doing well! Keep it up, proud of you.

this thread itself is a piece of modern art, Qui vivra verra

(i'm glad you're doing better gyms, i've been doing pretty well too! dunno if you'll wind up reading this but i'm glad to read of your betterness even in the midst of a giant rant haha)

clearly i need to come back

My buddha, gaijins, another day, another drama!
so you want these 'unsolvable nightmare-ish cyber drama' never happening again?

Guess what? i dont know how, and i dont know how to tell you
however, i can tell you something like... zen question

Things are easy, you need is 0.1db wisdom and pint of will

Long live community has a long list of jargons, many lively memes, and so on (sniff)

Good community is good at affect with other communities
and good rice! where my rice? is that how your guys treating fellow asian friend?

Best communities is not best, clean, friendly
but its know how to coexist with baddies and fools

If you want win, everyone is loser in internet
maybe you winning shame and depression tho

Boo hoo... whining at things never solve the problems but FUCKING BEING "HARD" IS WORSENING THE PROBLEMS YOU IMBECILE!!!11

Actually, like, things, are, good (tl: drama are good influence sometimes)

There is no answer, but there is balloon called knowledge
you can inflate with understanding, copy and pasting, editing, and applying
never pop, so you can do whatever you want

Now take these balloons! its free balloon day!
use wisely tho, deflated balloons are useless like your stubbornness gaijins!

that it, now i need to do next zen training (aka listening music and being useless) toodles gaijin *tips chinese hat

(I actually wonder if my 'ballon of knowledge' popped)
well no.
>Things are easy, you need is 0.1db wisdom and pint of will

I probably need that irl.

*******************************
***A merchant stands in your front.***
*******************************

vilxdryad: whatdya buyin'?

- Ring of Wisdom
- Armor of Will

So, how about 1 avocado each?

*********
**>YES***
**-no.****
*********

@Vil
How much does Avocado costs in real life money?

And i should select both yes :P