Redefining WDA

I know. I just pointed that out cause you were heading in a wrong direction. We're not saying you disappear from WDA too often, we're saying you do nothing to keep the events up and running.
If this forum only existed to chat and post random stuff (wich is what you're reffering to when you say you're stepping up), then events shouldn't be necessary, and this wouldn't be a yu gi oh comunity, just a random (boring) chat website.

DigiDigi wrote:

I haven't been the best person lately, or the best leader, the best administrator, the best friend

No, that's me, don't worry.

I might remind you guys we already had one instance of mutiny in that little coup that tried to place Joker on the WDA throne. We all had to threaten resignation to stop it because you guys were too bored about the lack of events at that point because the majority of staff members were studying for exams. That kinda thing is what Rjuto is saying.

At the end of the dramatic violin solo-esque post, the real message is that your dueling is your hobby and it shouldn't really be 100% up to the staff to provoke you to pursue it; We're happy to carry you a few steps of the way but you have to walk with us when we do it.

Now, let's everybody calm down, have a cup of tea, order a chinese and take part in Fish's Bordament! (Colour Fishing).
:3

ok i get what you're saying, i know we barley duel and almost everyone knows that events usually go down to hell, but i will remind you of what the academy was not now but a while ago, around the time of winter break and the beginning of the school year we were all dueling quite a bit and hosting skrimishes and lives more than once a day, now lets look at how it is now, no one is dueling..hmm why? basically because we are busy too, i know that you have stuff in real life but you're forgetting we do too and even if we have time to chat a bit that doesn't mean we have time to duel, the problem here with the prom is it's a huge unorganized event with no restrictions in a time where people barley have time or the will to waste what they have of their time on dueling, if you made it a specific tournament it probably would have been better than no duels at all. also there is the fact that since we decided to expand WDA people got other things to discuss and come here for and some people don't even duel at all, and some very active ones, for e.g. mau5,ew,nour,danna, and the forum is pretty damn active for it's own even if it's not about ygo. we have our times of high activity and we have times where we can't get things done, we're not that big of a community and we aren't always available to do everything either.
so yea, we're not perfect either y'know. now you'll probably take this offensively but i'll try saying don't
digi don't guilt people into dueling with this and your begging, tbh it might work but it would be stupid to duel out of guilt and wanting to help out. and don't say we don't do anything, we do a lot of things it's just not the things you want, you were the ones who decided to expand the academy. yea you took our opinion on it but the idea came from you and we just nodded, now you expanded it and think of things that are not ygo as not important or relevant or it seems like it. also if you knew you would be busy you shouldn't have made the prom. i don't see how you forcing people into actually dueling is something worth doing. it's supposed to be for enjoyment so don't force it on us too much
i don't see people here complaining about lack of duels or anything, most people are satisfied with what they have, i get you don't like seeing your work go inactive and be useless and we are to blame but you probably already know who you're dealing with
this whole topic seems like a project to guilt people into dueling, i mean look at the title ...look at the irrelevancy in many things you mentioned.
this place is doing fine, people like it and no one is complaining but you guys, you make events and they go to hell that doesn't mean we're at rock bottom and we can't get anything done. yea it's a dueling academy but we do other stuff, dueling more than everything else we do, we discuss stuff we play other games together and we do basically what we want or can, we have events for those who want to duel even if at some points those people aren't too many and we're not dead or letting this place fall
i do actually do my job, and my job did not include dueling, i help keep this place up and running and dueling=/=up and running we could be dead even if we actually got duels done
the forum is for the people, it isn't all about dueling.
now stop begging and looking for inspiration from people who can't find it in themselves, and stop forcing and guilting people into dueling as much, don't stop making events but don't expect us all to jump in when you make one
and for the personal stuff, digi not 1 single person in this academy would hate or blame you and you don't always have to take responsibility of everything, the problem is you just try to

and now i will wait as people read this and i become the most hated person in the academy.

also sorry if anything in here offended anyone mainly digi

edit: also just in case some members come suddenly "agreeing with digi" i will say this
when was the last time you dueled before reading this topic? nah forget that, when was the last time you put effort into trying to duel here? or just come here with the intention of dueling? did you feel wda was lacking or needed fixing? did you hate people not dueling? did you think actual dueling was that relevant here? did you not like wda because of the lack of duels?

well yea that just for the hypocrites

Last night I didn't want to post here because I knew it would be a bother. I woke up this morning to read a lot of posts that are exactly what I expected then ended with Alibaba who proved he has much insight. You've earned my respect.

You are exactly right, this post starts off with Digi admitting she has flaws then gradually throws them onto WDA, saying it's the communities fault that things are bad, then asks that you do things because not doing them hurts Digi. Duel or you don't care about Digi.

Digi, you've been on a "WDA needs to duel more" kick for a while. I don't know what made you suddenly think WDA members not dueling enough is a sign of the end of WDA but it's been like that for a long... long time, now. As apposed to old members leaving when they eventually grew out of/got bored of/quit dueling, they ended up sticking around. Kimo, Fish, J.J. et cetera. Not to mention all of the causal duelists that don't play much to begin with. Because of this, WDA long ago became more of a hang out than an academy. We're active even if we don't really do much. We just all come here to bullshit for the most part. While I agree it'd be nice if we had events up and running. That our members wanted to play but that's all it would be. It'd be nice. Atm, they don't so there is no need to force them to do things or expect them to. If it wouldn't be enjoyable and something they want to do then why should they? Duel because it's a dueling academy? It's your job since you're a member?

If members are complaining (which I haven't seen but they could be) then it is their responsibly to inform the staff of "Hey, we would like this." The staff often tries to do events that fall flat because either nobody wants to participate or because at times, people have lives.

People can't be expected to do things they don't want to do and the staff can't be expected to just "know" what members want. However, at this time it seems like the members don't want anything other than to chill and that the staff (Digi) is saying "NO! We must do...SOMETHING!"

Digi, there is no and I mean NO need for the forum members to duel or participate in anything. So, that means the staff should, wait for it...

...do nothing. If members just want to chill then let them chill. This isn't a camp where we're expected to make chubby kids get up and hike. It's a place where people come because they want to. If they come to duel, they come to duel. If they come to chill, then they come to chill. That's the way WDA is, how it's survived, and how it will continue to survive.

Just chill out and take a break. Now if members ARE wanting something then they will speak up or bitch and (at that time) we will say "stop bitching and make suggestions."

Take it from someone that use spend hours on WDA, doing most things on his own. Have a seat, enjoy the weather. WDA will be here when you get back. Before you came along, I did the same thing you're doing but while trying to keep the staff involved instead of the members. If the dog doesn't wanna play then let it laze. Either way it's enjoying itself. Just be ready with a ball and a few chew toys when it's done resting (or not, you'll find that you don't HAVE to do this).

I post in site suggestions to suggest a direction, after addressing an issue. It's an issue brought up in the "Digi's Leave?" topic, but I avoid posting in topics that bring up personal matters in general.

The issue I want to address is the "You should duel." issue. Let's take it from the beginning and explain why we should duel. Back when I joined TWA, in the days of KCVDS, what I was indeed looking for in TWA was dueling. In an academy you could consistently find opponents who were either decent, would not randomly break rules or perhaps most importantly, could be reasoned with (imagine playing random people on kcvds and having a ruling disagreement, where it is just your word against your stranger opponent's and no one to help. Yeah, it was ygo hell, it's a lot worse than even DN's unrated). Additionally, you would have other people you could compare yourself to, there was no such thing as ranking on kcvds, so unless you felt like pointlessly spamming duels, the only way you'd find point in playing was in a community.

From that originated the "need to duel". Duels would become official and sanctioned within the academy, with consistency and rewards. This was the only way for members to have fun dueling, so for the place to maintain itself, people would need to duel. It made perfect sense, over half the reason you were there was dueling, this was the easiest way to do it so it was a common goal.

As most of you have probably realized reading up to here, things are different now. It's not lazyness or that the times are changing. In fact online ygo is more active than ever. The thing is this
https://i.imgur.com/DVPEge5.png
Ignore mr. Kick Buttwosky, the horrible player that wants others to play only with 2002 cards, as if it's common knowledge what those are, and even my unappetizing deck name. Focus on the left.
That's a problem solver. Want decent opponents? Want your opponents to follow the rules of the game? Want to find games fast? Want to be compared to other players by a fair system?
There's your answer to everything.
And even without that, do you perhaps want less risk or less decent duels? By adding a small risk to your opponent not following rules, you can do that in the middle. And even then, it's not like kcvds, the community is constantly active so you can even use the public chat to solve such issues.

It is not strange that the decline of duel academies came around the time of DN (even though inactivity preceded it, but the elimination of most and their state of today came after DN). Academies lost that purpose. It wasn't a bad thing by any means. If all you wanted was to duel, then now you have a better way and an easier way. If that was all the forum was for, then it should close down as it is not needed anymore. That's all natural and good. If what you wanted from your forum was not the exact same thing DN will offer you, then the forum stays as it still has a purpose, and you stay in it. Everyone is satisfied so long as they look at things with reason.

Like that, some places survived. Some because they had a big memberbase to begin with, so with effort it was possible to maintain them, even if it meant clawing into it. I'd like to thing we survived for a different reason. My ability to gather records has greatly diminished due to some circumstances, but I can tell we were already different at the time, and we had an easier time adapting, perhaps without even acknowledging these circumstances and just naturally to survive.

But even after adapting, as if they were useless wisdom teeth, we kept a need. The need to randomly, generally and consistently do official academy duels. I'll be frank. You can tell people to finish the tournament they signed up for, you can tell people to be active on the event they wanted, you may even tell people to have activity in general, but telling them to randomly and generally have official duels with no reason other than wanting to see duels done, is bullshit. Certainly it is not bullshit the staff just came up with. It was forced on us, at the time, and on them now, by certain people with the arguement "we are a ygo forum, so we have to have inner duels". Why would someone honestly want that to happen generally, you may ask. That would be because one may want to compete with a more enclosed or perhaps familiar competition, for various reasons, ok or not, it's irrelevant. That is all good but it is not a general need among the majority of members (most are satisfied ygo wise with just playing on DN), neither is it required for the forum's survival, so it is not a real need to be imposed on the forum, and there is no reason for members to be forced to do that, unless they view the whole thing as an event for sorts (which some people do, some people may be on the holy crusade to bring duels in the academy in the name of the staff, which is in its own way a role playing event).

(inb4 the below is completely ignored)
Of course we can still have fun with inner dueling. That is what we have tournaments and events for. I may want to win a tournament within the academy, that is shared and can be fun ygo. An event may be interesting (not just duel spammy, interesting), so I'll participate, play ygo in WDA and try to win. That makes sense, and if people are signed up for it, knowing what it is (if I cover what something is and it turns out boring in the end, members have a much smaller responsibility), then as it is by their own will that they joined, they should play. However tournaments and events should only exist when they serve an actual purpose, that being that their are fun and/or interesting (or in other case required from the members, but if they are not fun or interesting and they still require them, whether they should be is a different discussion). Having an event, merely for the sake of dueling, that is not really fun or interesting, is pointless.

As I said, in a discussion earlier today, I fear much more for this academy's activity when boring chores are forced unto people, than when the duel arena isn't spammed. Dueling should be filling a need. Tournaments should exist when they serve a purpose or are fun. Events should exist when they are fun and interesting, and not just for the sake of getting some duels done.

Even though I did not want to join the event due to the theme, when I saw that the nature of the prom was a regular duel league, just with teams, I have to say I was disappointed. When people aren't dueling that much in the first place, the only purpose a duel league serves is trying to hit two birds with one stone, one being getting an event out of the way, the other is getting duels done. Problem is, being fun is in neither of those goals and becomes secondary, since other things are prioritized (mainly, filling our duel quota in).

If people aren't doing something, then they don't want to do it. What comes first is what they want to do, and that doesn't refer to what a couple of people want to force the rest into doing. We are not that many around here. We can tell what each other wants out of this place to a certain extend. And that involves ygo. But that's not random. Make an event and make a tournament people want to join. At the time we have a lot of people complaining about the state of the format (unfortunately) so a special rules tournament that comes from their wants would be an ok idea. And even without that, we can still just make interesting and fun events people would want to join, instead of forcing each other to play ygo.

That's the direction I want to propose. I propose the mindset that says "We need to duel because we are ygo" "We need to duel to be active" "We need to duel to survive as a forum" and all such things which come down to dueling for the sake of dueling, to be dropped. Instead focus on answering the wants of the members, which do include ygo, with the neccessary events etc. That basically translates into, not forcing people to do official duels, but just making sure they have good events they can enter if they want to.

One last thing. I mentioned yesterday a staff member is not to do more than what another member would do in that position, and mentioned joint responsibility. That is a concept of equality. It is the WDA member that also becomes staff and acts like the WDA member that makes decisions. In a sense, for the community to be sustained by its members, that person still needs to be an equal WDA member and act like one would, however at the same time that this member that is staff, due to that equality, needs to do no more than the equal WDA member, it also needs to not ask of others to do what he/she would not do, and not ask of others to have fun with something they would not find fun themselves.
Sorry but doing duels is nobody's work.