#DB10 - The Decade Retrospective

[Weasel]

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As we are called DevBest after all, we're going to try to give it a development theme! For the developers under us, you'll probably know what a retrospective is. I know, I know, don't walk away yet. It's not going to be one of those retrospectives. But, we are going to ask you for some feedback about DevBest. A lot has happened in the last 10 years, and the community has grown in a certain direction. But people also change a lot in 10 years, interests shift, the internet grows and so does a person's preferences. We are here today to find out in which direction the community wants to go for the next decade (...or maybe a smaller period of time). It's important that the community provides their ideas for the future, so we can see how the majority feels like we need to go forward.

I would like to start off by saying that we can't promise a certain change can or will happen. Please provide your honest opinion and feedback, but also respect those of others. The feedback can be anything, however, some points do have some extra interest, so feel free to discuss the following too:
- If DevBest would have to choose 1 main theme to put our focus on, what would you prefer? Gaming, development, or something else?
- Habbo has been a part of DevBest from the beginning. However, we get a lot of signals that this no longer fully fits on DevBest. What do you think? This is a broad subject, so feel free to discuss any options.
- Do you feel the same about other Server Files?

This retrospective thread is not limited to those points. If you have an idea about forum sections, subscriptions, or anything else - you can put anything here unless a Super Moderator or Administrator says otherwise. Below, I'll post a list of definitive answers. If the specific question or remark is on this list, please refrain from discussing it. For example, this is not a thread to complain about staff members.

We hope to see a good and healthy discussion. Please do keep it on topic.

Kind regards,
The Staff Team

Answered by staff:
- Moderation complaints:

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#DB10

 

[TesoMayn]

To address what you've included in the post:
DevBest needs to drop Habbo completely, the retro community is cancer and the only thing it brings are phantom accounts.
We should focus more on development,
"Server Files" section really isn't needed

I think we will get more members as a gaming community than as a development community, but the name is more towards development than it is gaming.

We need a new theme (this is one ugly, I've said that since day one lol also

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), we need more addons that'll make the community more active (

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)

If DevBest goes leans towards gaming, then we should also have community game servers, and not just Minecraft, but a large selection of games, even if they are rarely played at first, make a large number of game servers, see which one brings in members, keep those going and possibly get rid of the rest (based on usage)

 

[GayChilin]

To address what you've included in the post:
DevBest needs to drop Habbo completely, the retro community is cancer and the only thing it brings are phantom accounts.
We should focus more on development,
"Server Files" section really isn't needed

I think we will get more members as a gaming community than as a development community, but the name is more towards development than it is gaming.

We need a new theme (this is one ugly, I've said that since day one lol also

You must be registered for see links

), we need more addons that'll make the community more active (

You must be registered for see links

)

If DevBest goes leans towards gaming, then we should also have community game servers, and not just Minecraft, but a large selection of games, even if they are rarely played at first, make a large number of game servers, see which one brings in members, keep those going and possibly get rid of the rest (based on usage)

I agree literally 100% with everything here except for habbo. It's an important part of the community.

 

[DeniTO]

I agree literally 100% with everything here except for habbo. It's an important part of the community.

True, without habbo this Forum would be dead.

 

[TesoMayn]

True, without Habbo this Forum would be dead.

Because look how active it is with Habbo.

The only reason you two want Habbo on here is that you "play" it.

The truth is if Habbo was removed, and all the parasites that only come here to be spoonfed how to do X on Y CMS/emu, the community would grow.

If DevBest changed the focus to people over the age of 14, it would gain any members lost back, and they would be more active.

As it stands now, most people that join only post a few times, usually something so simple that if they can't figure it out on their own, they shouldn't be doing anything developer-related.

DevBest needs a fresh look, and a fresh take on things. Habbo needs to go for this forum to survive.

If you think this forum isn't dead now and that it needs to keep Habbo, you're too new to be posting in this thread.

 

[Adil]

To address what you've included in the post:
DevBest needs to drop Habbo completely, the retro community is cancer and the only thing it brings are phantom accounts.
We should focus more on development,
"Server Files" section really isn't needed

I think we will get more members as a gaming community than as a development community, but the name is more towards development than it is gaming.

We need a new theme (this is one ugly, I've said that since day one lol also

You must be registered for see links

), we need more addons that'll make the community more active (

You must be registered for see links

)

If DevBest goes leans towards gaming, then we should also have community game servers, and not just Minecraft, but a large selection of games, even if they are rarely played at first, make a large number of game servers, see which one brings in members, keep those going and possibly get rid of the rest (based on usage)

I agree with gaming and development
Always been two relatively consistent things about DB

Brings in more diverse traffic (more people interested in different things)

Also integrate discord more - chatbox is a bit dead nowadays, but discord is rather active

The podcast mentioned previously was also a good idea would like to see that explored

 

[Weasel]

Just a thought I had about Discord, currently we moderate on this quite a bit because it is actively taking content away from the forums, into Discord. Besides that, it's causing some safety issues for the users as malicious users sometimes exploit this. Any thoughts on this?

 

[Adil]

Just a thought I had about Discord, currently we moderate on this quite a bit because it is actively taking content away from the forums, into Discord. Besides that, it's causing some safety issues for the users as malicious users sometimes exploit this. Any thoughts on this?

discord is a difficult one as it ties into people's flow a lot more than a forum unfortunately (log in get access to all your servers/chatrooms)
for long form content forum should be encouraged (e.g. dev discussions - a discord bot that could pick up conversations about something technically nebulous could be cool, i.e. when garett goes super rust nerd and starts talking about funky interesting shite)

malicious users should be banned straightaway

 

[GarettM]

- If DevBest would have to choose 1 main theme to put our focus on, what would you prefer? Gaming, development, or something else?

I strongly believe we can't choose one thing to focus on, that is what makes DevBest great in my heart, We have people who are into Habbo, Minecraft, IT, Software Engineering, and different hobbies, Maybe Gaming and Development could be focused on a little more, but honestly we just need community projects to attract new people in my eyes.

- Habbo has been a part of DevBest from the beginning. However, we get a lot of signals that this no longer fully fits on DevBest. What do you think? This is a broad subject, so feel free to discuss any options.

I don't believe we should get rid of it, but i feel like the section could be cleaned up and maintained a little better, we have quite a few good developers on the platform and i believe if we teamed up we could build a portal that would serve for a lot of "Help client stuck at 76%" or something similar threads that pop up

- Do you feel the same about other Server Files?

I feel like we give some games a category when in all honesty they aren't popular enough to really have one, like Battlefield or COD, like yeah they are cool but they could easily be absorbed by a FPS category or something similar .

As for things i would love to see in the future with DevBest is a custom app, or something, so i can get notifications on my phone, yeah a 3rd party solution probably exists, but i hate loading bloat onto my phone lol

 

[Eclecticlad]

As a relatively new user, I wanted to throw my two cents in. Only for the purpsoses of helping to retain new users like me. Despite the suggestion earlier in the thread, that new users who have differing opinions should not be commenting on how to change or improve DevBest. That attitude will push new users away, in fact, I even thought twice about contributing further to the forum because of it.

If DevBest would have to choose 1 main theme to put our focus on, what would you prefer? Gaming, development, or something else?

Similar to what @GarettM shared about the fact the forum encompassses a broad range of linking interests is what I think is unique about DevBest. Any suggestion of moving to a gaming focused forum (completely removing a development focus), negates, DevBest's unqiue selling point. Indeed would probably require rebranding. If I want to join a forum for any specific game, there are literally hundreds of forums with very active members which I can join.

I second @GarettM 's suggestion regarding community projects, I would specifically like to see competitions. Be that graphic competitions, game specific challenges or projects or even development (web dev). All of these things invite discussion, feedback and overall community engagement with each other. As a new user who wants to become involved and not one just here for the guides or download links, that is what will keep me retained here. With retention not only does the population of the server grow to become more diverse and valuable but also I am more likely to then contribute to the upkeep of the server. So it becomes a self-fufilling loop.

Habbo has been a part of DevBest from the beginning. However, we get a lot of signals that this no longer fully fits on DevBest. What do you think? This is a broad subject, so feel free to discuss any options.

I think from a statistical point of view, the Habbo section has the largest number of posts and therefore with that amount of content I assume will likely drive the largest amount of traffic (currently) to the forum. That is, in fact, how I found the forum. On a selfish level, I enjoy the Habbo element so would like to see it stay. Whether it should be a focus or not could definitely be debated.

 

[CosmoPeak]

DevBest is Habbo and I think it should do more to cultivate that community rather than shit on it all the time. There are still a lot of fantastic projects and developers around, but there's a lot of animosity towards anything Habbo-related. I think DevBest is really well-placed to help bring out the best in the Habbo retro community.

The only non-Habbo thing about DevBest is a few members of the DevBest clique chatting in the shoutbox.

Overall, I believe DevBest still has a hold on the Habbo retro community, and it should harness this and use this to help expand other areas of the forum, not try to shut it down.

 

[Haid]

RE: Habbo - Depending on what happens with Habbo in the coming months, it could be decided for you really.
Either it will tank and die off completely, or there will be new projects and you could well see new projects coming here, considering RZ has all but died for anything Habbo related (even support).
DevBest is currently the place to go for that and is that a bad thing?

It's an unpopular opinion but I stand by it, a clique of old Devbest users who hate Habbo but provide absolutely nothing else for the forum are the reason Devbest is stagnant.

Post automatically merged: Oct 2, 2020

It's an unpopular opinion but I stand by it, bullish moderation and a clique of old Devbest users who hate Habbo but provide absolutely nothing else for the forum are the reason Devbest is stagnant.

This literally just said "bullish moderation" in my original post - Wess edited it out and literally proved my point.... it's related to the future of Devbest so not off topic.

 

[Weasel]

RE: Habbo - Depending on what happens with Habbo in the coming months, it could be decided for you really.
Either it will tank and die off completely, or there will be new projects and you could well see new projects coming here, considering RZ has all but died for anything Habbo related (even support).
DevBest is currently the place to go for that and is that a bad thing?

It's an unpopular opinion but I stand by it, a clique of old Devbest users who hate Habbo but provide absolutely nothing else for the forum are the reason Devbest is stagnant.

Post automatically merged: Oct 2, 2020

This literally just said "bullish moderation" in my original post - Wess edited it out and literally proved my point.... it's related to the future of Devbest so not off topic.

Alright, I'm going to break down something and indulge you in an answer about this once, as it actually also fits in with your other remarks. To be honest, I'm neutral when it comes to the Habbo section. However, I do see some issues with this. There's a difference between an active forum based on posts and on users. There's a lot of Help threads in the Habbo Section, but that's about it. There's no proper active development, no special releases (mostly themes and furni, etc), and a lot of those users only tend to come online when they require help, and some of them even delete their content after the question has been answered. Is this the kind of activity we want?

And that's not even everything. The amount of toxicity and rule-breaking happening in that section is more than in any other place. To top that off, as your example is a great one, most people who receive a warning in that section always think they are above the rules. So this ties into your "proved point", you're actually proving my point. Within the OP, it states clearly this is not a place to debate the staff team. I already skipped on giving you a warning because I wanted this to be an open forum, and only removed the part of your post that did not fit in here. But still, even after a staff member (in this case, me) alters it, you still want to be above it and post it again.

It's been said before, and it's not going to change. People who have complaints about a certain staff member can forward this complaint to the appropriate level of Staff (MODs->SenMODs, SenMODs -> SuperMODs, SuperMODs -> Admins). It's been like this for years. So I wouldn't say bullish moderation is the issue, but people knowingly breaking the rules is.

That's your definitive answer about moderation in this thread. Feel free to discuss the rest of the message.

 

[Haid]

My entire post was looking to the future IE what could happen with the section as Habbo2020 happens, as a reason for why it might be best to just see what happens with it instead of arbitrarily deciding now to get rid of Habbo just because Devbest happens to be 10 years old. In real terms even now I agree with what Teso said it's dead, the fact it only gets a few posts is indicative of Devbests lack of activity not that the Habbo section is lively.

Of course the Habbo section has the most rule breaks... it's the only forum that gets posted in.

As requested I won't mention anymore about it.. but I was simply talking about Moderation being inconsistent not trying to report a specific mod!

 

[Weasel]

Regarding the deletion of Habbo, as this is one of the probably most impactful suggestions regarding the future, it's exactly one of the reasons why we created this thread. So please don't mistake this conversation for actual facts. However, it was long overdue to actually talk about this on the forums in a way like this. We, as the staff team, need feedback like this to make some decisions.

On a personal note, I fully understand everyone who is pro-Habbo. However, we just don't want to be a Habbo forum. There are lots of users who also have no interest in it anymore, and if Habbo2020 is going to kill off the game, the community, or whatever, it's not going to be good for the forums. I'd personally like to see the forums move into a direction where a more diverse set of subjects can be actively discussed. And that's something that we don't see happening right now, but do want to achieve. I also think that in the most minimal sense, the way Habbo is part of the forums should change. I'm not sure yet how, but a change is needed. Even if it's just reducing some of the sections, spam, or one-question-and-gone users. Maybe even just reducing the emphasis we have on it (like a separate shoutbox/Discord channel).

As for your last part, debating moderation indirectly is debating the moderators. Moderators enforce the rules. Depending on what the moderator feels at the time, this can only work to your advantage. Same as how cops sometimes let you off with a warning instead of a fine. If a moderator is doing something that is not allowed, once again, there's a process for that. Besides all that, if I edit your message, it's a sign. It's great you have a different perspective on how to perceive the rules, but the way you're going on about it, trying to get a rise out of the staff by just re-posting something, has no effect at all. This thread has been made with good intentions, I only limited it to 1 topic not to be discussed, and still, you're finding your opportunity to get into a discussion about it again. The only people I see complaining about (consistent) moderation, are those who have been warned for breaking the rules. I'm now going to kindly ask you to drop this discussion in this thread. If you want to discuss this further, feel free to send me a PM. Otherwise, if you continue, you'll receive a thread ban.

 

[Liam]

I personally don't think DevBest should move away from Habbo entirely but, to attract different communities, there needs to be something in place first for that to happen. Might be a long process, but worth it in the long run!

I can't say I have any suggestions at the moment, but I will try to have a think as I have been meaning to post on this thread. The only thing I would suggest at the moment (which is probably very minor) is a referral system, if possible. The member with the most referrals at the end of each month could be given a free sub or something.

@Wess, I have seen your latest threads regarding DevBest turning 10 years old, and I think those type of threads is what the forum needs. Anything similar once a blue moon is definitely a good read - at least for me, anyway. Good job, and keep it up!

I'm not as active as I once was, but I can say I do check the forums at least a few times a week - if not, more... there just isn't much that interests me enough to post regularly, which I appreciate the staff team have noticed and are seeking new methods.

 

[Khalil]

Just a thought I had about Discord, currently we moderate on this quite a bit because it is actively taking content away from the forums, into Discord. Besides that, it's causing some safety issues for the users as malicious users sometimes exploit this. Any thoughts on this?

That's a rather easy one to tackle, isn't it? You already have a custom bot that's been granted access to DevBest's database (I presume), all you have to do now is sync it up with the forum, make it so that you can indirectly moderate the server through moderation actions executed on the forums, i.e: infractions in here = results in Discord as well (loss of certain privileges, etc), it goes without saying of course that the server would also need to be made accessible only to verified forum users so you install a buffer zone between any potentially malicious users and the Discord environment.

Two birds, one stone; this would not only allow you further control both environments for half the trouble but it would also eliminate any safety issues, presumably.

RE: The habbo topic; I believe that eliminating Habbo without establishing a successor to DevBest's main driving force first will result in the forum's death, whether I or anyone else likes it or not, Habbo made DevBest, and by extension, Habbo has the ability to kill DevBest, at least as far as things stand right now.

 

[Donkjam]

RE: The habbo topic; I believe that eliminating Habbo without establishing a successor to DevBest's main driving force first will result in the forum's death, whether I or anyone else likes it or not, Habbo made DevBest, and by extension, Habbo has the ability to kill DevBest, at least as far as things stand right now.

Agreed. Just because most of us don’t play habbo anymore or don’t want to see it around, it’s the main thing to bring traffic to devbest. So basically I don’t see it going anytime soon

 

[Macemore]

I think we should hold Josh accountable for what happened to the DevMC server and it's corresponding world. The same world he lead me on to believe he still had, until completely forgetting to give it to me and probably deleting it

 

[LouisJW]

I’m not agreeing nor disagreeing, but I think that removing “Habbo” from the forum completely will not only take a lot of users back, but potentially leave many of the pro-habbo people stuck for help. DevBest is a place where nearly everyone in the community will come to for assistance or any enquires about habbo or habbo retros. A good percentage of the users are here purely because of Habbo and this being a place to go to when they need to to ask for help and what not. You mentioned that most of the rule breaking happens in the habbo section, While I understand this could be true I don’t think you should paint all with the same brush. Reason for this being that there are many different people in the habbo community, differences being ranges of maturity and age not everyone is immature and will decide to break the rules, in fact there are plenty of refreshing, active and very mature developers within the community and without a lot of their help the retros themselves wouldn’t be up the standard or potential that they can gain today. To conclude what I am saying, I personally think removing it completely would be unfair, maybe just minimising it would be a better approach, some may agree, some may not but that’s just my opinion, thanks.