Well...
I was considering either not posting or posting a short 2-3 sentence cheery positive message here about just leaving for private reasons or something and good luck to the rest and how amazing it was and crap but honestly... I'm just going to be completely serious here and say what needs to be said...
Nation at this point is full of cliqués. As such, it's hard to do anything without potentially becoming the bad guy for punishing someone's friend (who may just happen to be a lot of people's friend). And well, when there are a very few number of mods that would actually step in during any kind of serious situation, it meant that all of that negativity and hate was directly channeled at the only mods that actually did their jobs.
It became stressful and not enjoyable for me. So much drama... I just really don't need that in my life.
I've had to take a month break at one point, and honestly to get that stressed over something as silly as an internet forum... well, it's just nonsense.
It's a very thankless job...
When you have to step in and take action, you end up with a very negative group that just really seems to hate your guts and honestly.... it's just not worth it. I mean most people never see all that we did, but there is a lot of moderation that nobody ever sees and we never get people that are grateful or happy that we're doing our job. All we deal with are people that are irate and seemingly hate us.
To deal with such a drama filled stressful thing, and on a volunteer basis, and to only get to hear how bad people think you are and how much people don't like you... well, it's not very motivating to keep it up. If people don't like you so much, then why do it at all, right?
When I became a Moderator, it was never to be cheerful and loved by everyone and to make friends and be buddy buddy with everyone. I took my job seriously and without bias. I would punish my friends just the same as people that I don't particularly care for. I wouldn't pass on punishing my friends, or someone that is loved, because honestly that wasn't my job. I wasn't there to be loved. I was there to keep order and to moderate, and so... I did my job. I was hated for it.
It's disheartening to see the only ones thanked and praised being ones that arguably do relatively little to nothing, while the ones that take up the heaviest burden and do the bulk of the work get only hate and spite. It just leaves no motivation to keep it up and keep dealing with all of that drama and stress you have to deal with daily.
And on top of that, it's like lately the forum is descending further and further to where it's starting to look more and more like an unmoderated 4chan board. I'm not just talking 1 or 2 posters either. I'm talking like a good 70% of the active posters in the Mabination Community sections.
People are just so blatantly rude to one another, I see things all the time just like members directly telling one another to shut up, or calling one another faggots or stupid or worse. I mean, people are just being such douchebags lately, and it's on such a large scale that I don't even see what can be done.
I felt like it was my duty to try and fix it... I started a big staff thread out of concern over all of the horrible behavior as of late, and in turn it resulted in rule changes, but honestly... I don't think the rule changes are going to help at all. Practically nothing of note even changed. If anything, now people can openly swear and post dirtier things.
As for the behavioral problems... completely unaffected.
Honestly I thought what it would take is the staff team coming down with an angry iron fist and directly killing all instances of the behavior before it spreads too far, but with only 3 that would actually do it, then 2, and now just one.... good god, I say good luck to you.
I think honestly the community needs to come together and have a talk and self regulate because it's way too much for the only remaining staff member here, and if you don't... well, you've seen what kind of a sewer drain of the internet those unmentionable places are, and nation is quickly turning into one of those places.
You need to decide what you want nation to be. Do you want that, or do you want a nice close friendly community? You can't have both, and if you guys don't stem that kind of behavior now and I mean on a serious level, it's just all fucked. It's fucked man, it's fucked.
[video=youtube;pTifdoKXoxM]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pTifdoKXoxM[/video]
Dang! So true. I agree with a lot of this. I try to stick with the mabi sections only cause the other sections are just crazy some times.
+ Rep to bad your leaving though.