People Act Like Timmies on 2o2p

This blog is an response post from Jcats blog today.  It was a great post and talks about a lot of things that I have seen over the years on 2old2play.  I figured I would take my comments over there and put them into my own blog to let others see the point of view of a long time member and admin. If you didn't read the blog, it essentially talks about how members of 2old2play can be mean, disrespectful, and act in many ways just like a "Timmie."  Since I have seen a lot about this recently (this idea shows up on the site about once every 4-5 months) I posted my response below.

The site has always had an issue with personalities rubbing people the wrong way.  In fact, when we first started we had broken off from another site because people over there took things too seriously.  We wanted to have fun, poke fun at each other, and generally act like douchebags.  The thing is, as new people started to join we have to slowly ween them on to our type of comedy.  Not everyone got it and many left.  I think it's safe to say that back in those growing days I banned more people then I ever have in the last 2 years.  Why?  One because we knew exactly what type of people we wanted in our clan and Two because banning someone back then didn't mean days of protesting PMs' posts, and flame wars.

The biggest issue then and  now  is more personalities.  The best way the site can and has dealt with this is to form more clans.  At least with clan, you can create smaller areas of the site in which more like minded adults can game.  This frees up a lot more of the he said she crap that you can often see in the main areas of the site.  Its a place to air your grievances.  Even still you are not going to like everyone in you clan and issue are more then likely going to arise there as well.  It's simply how you deal with those issues that dictates whether you leave the clan, join a new one, start a new one, or leave the site.  People tend to take their one bad experience with a members and pin it up as "How the sites members ship acts."  With that they also tend to refer to how immature the site is.

The truth is that this is not a mature gaming site.  In fact when we started long ago our original motto was, "An immature gaming site for adults."  I personally have always been fully aware of how the general public can act on the Internet.  With no accountability and no real way to ID someone, there will always be drama.  Age has nothing to do with it. Like I stated above, we never wanted that in the first place.  The site was built off of steering away from the idea of age = maturity.  I think the biggest problem with peoples ideas of 2o2p is that they think its possible for a site to deliver the same type of personality that one member has within all its members.  Unfortunately, no site can do that. 

What people need to remember is that 2o2p serves as a place to meet other people with in your age bracket.  People tend to forget age doesn't mean you are not an asshole.  Just like real life, you have to weed out the people that you don't get along with.  A web site cant do that for you.  We can't police how one group acts with another, nor do we think we should.  If you dont like a person, stop talking to them.  Why continue with back and forth internet talk that gets both parties no where?  We saw it a lot back in the politics forum as well as the comp forums.  In the end you dont win or lose.  You just waste more valuable time that you could be gaming.

The real question you should be asking yourself is, Have you made more gaming friends because of 2old2play then without it?  Do you have a better time when you are playing these games because of it?  If the answer is yes, then 2o2p is doing its job.  If someone is an asshole on the forum, then you are in no way forced to listen to him.  Thats what clan forums are for.  ;)