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« on: October 31, 2007, 11:11:18 PM »
I don't come around here much anymore for various reasons, and I tend to be on the fence with any message board lately, not just TAFL. I stop by to see if anything interesting is going on, but I don't post much because I don't have much to say, and my senior year of college is more important. To address a few things....
1) I don't mind not linking TFL fanlistings here. I'll be happy to link an adoption thread on the TFL boards in an adoption post here, but unless the fanlisting is for a manga/anime version of a video game, why bother? This doesn't seem like a big deal.
2) The code thing bothers me because I'm lazy, but it makes sense, so I don't have anything negative to say about it. My laziness is not any reason to change anything. ^_^
3) Staffers work hard. I may not agree with all of them, and I've been relatively verbal about this in the past, but TAFL is essentially an unpaid job. Once I removed the stick from my bum (because I just stopped caring about drama and internet things, for the most part), it became much easier to suck it up and deal. I think "suck it up and deal" has become my mantra over the past year (or so)... e.e
4) Seriously, the upcoming/pending is fine. No need to mess with it. It keeps me in check, and though I take good care of my fanlistings and (generally) build them in a timely manner (because, honestly, RL does sometimes get in the way of 'teh intarweb'), I have classes to attend, schoolwork to finish and a job to do. Fanlistings take priority after that, and that's how it should be (at least for me, I can't speak for anyone else).
5) Not everything will be a democracy. The internet is not a democracy, nor are message boards. Back to my previous mantra, I think that "suck it up and deal" is the way to go (for me, at least). I'm not so concerned about a message board or the internet as a whole being a democracy when certain countries that are "supposed" to be a democracy don't seem to have a very good handle on that. But politics are a different story, and I'd rather not discuss it. So.... let's not make TAFL be about politics, ok? Politics never make for pleasant bedfellows, and TAFL should be like a nice, snuggly duvet in the middle of winter, right?
6) As for bias, I'm going to put a different spin on this. Let's say that you go for a job interview, and you do your best. You think you did fantastic. You clearly think you're the right person for the job. But... there are other applicants. Maybe a few, maybe a lot. It's the HR manager's job to find the best person for the job. This may or may not be you. Did you not get the job because the HR person thinks "you suck" or "doesn't like you"? No. It's because there was someone better for the job, and the HR manager did his/her job by selecting that person. It's nothing personal, and I'd like to think that staffers wouldn't stoop low enough to reject someone for a fanlisting because of something personal. I'm sure that would never happen.
And, in conclusion, maybe I'm the last person anyone would think would be defending TAFL, because I'm pretty vocal when something bothers me. It's ok to be disappointed to not get a fanlisting, or upset that you think your fanlisting has gone on troubles unfairly, but a little maturity goes a long way. I'm not saying anything negative about anyone here (staffer or not), but the world doesn't end if you can't run a fanlisting. Make a shrine, join the approved one, make tons of codes and donate them to the approved one... find something else to make you happy. I've donated codes to several fanlistings that I desperately wanted, and it made me feel a lot better. There are always good alternatives if you take the time to look for them.
All in all, this just seems pretty trivial to me. I'm not going to trivialize anyone's concerns (because I feel that's rude, and any concerns have a right to be addressed in some way), but I felt this would be a good time to speak my mind. Let's leave the politics to the politicians, and keep TAFL as friendly of an environment as possible. I believe that everyone will be happier in the long run.