This is an objectivley terrible idea. (DBO)

by Ragashingo , Official DBO Cryptarch, Monday, January 22, 2018, 18:32 (2500 days ago) @ cheapLEY

Let me put it this way.

On November 26th, I spent $100 of my own money to supply the No Longer Neglected project with some awesome prizes. As of yesterday I was planning on simply walking away. I had not even written my own entry to my own contest despite having a great idea.

In late December / early Jan, I told my normal Raid team I did not want to be included on any more Raids. I had three main reasons, one of them was because the way the Destiny community in general and DBO community specifically was trending I did not feel 2018 would be a better year than 2017 and that had me so down that I did not feel like engaging any longer.

Yesterday I had strongly considered officially ending both the No Longer Neglected contest and Bite-Sized Backstory, two things I love doing.

No only that, but over the past years I’ve watched a fair number of great community members slip away expressly because of the slowly growing trend of constant, unrelenting negativity and criticism. We’ve lost some awesome artists and storytellers and movers and shakers, each of which has said directly it was because DBO had changed enough that it put them off from wanting to come here any longer.

So, I guess that’s all to say toxicity, like most things, is in the eye of the beholder. And for some of this, maybe this place wasn’t actually literally toxic, but it was far too toxic for us to stay around.

With these moves by the admin team today, I once again have a little Hope for the Future. This whole category is probably not the perfect solution. It may not last long or maybe something better will take its place. But any move to counter the Darkness that has been growing here has me excited. That’s why I am continuing No Longer Neglected (and just wrote and posted my story), that’s why I restarted research for Bite-sized Backstory. It’s why I’m thinking of additional prizes and contests to help fill the void that moving Feedback posts to their own category is going to leave.

It’s also why I’m planning a series of weekly feedback topics. Some have rightly pointed out that having a specified Criticism area might be seen by some as a place to dispose of “bad” posts or posters. I’m going to do my part to not let that happen by reengaging on that front and encouraging others to do so as well.

It will take a lot to rebuild our community to the place I think it should be at, and I certainly can’t do it alone, but I am going to put forth effort and try and lead by example. And I hope it’s clear that doing so means something to me when yesterday I was debating whether it was better to just fade away or to announce that I was leaving...