Opeth forum will close down?

[4speedmetal]

Well this is a bummer. Like most here, I too enjoyed the information and thoughtful discussion. And, it was a place for me to go when I was unemployed and depressed. I always stopped in whenever I could to see what was going on. Also got to liking the personalities that came through with some funny and poignant posts.

Too bad a few turkeys have to ruin it all for everyone. It seems that the Opeth part of Ultimate Metal was one of the largest. Maybe it can continue in some form or another.

In a way this is the story of my life. I make a good friend and he or she dies. Or you lose contact. It feels like that right now. Saying goodbye to a good friend.

Thanks to all who made my day when you didn't even know. And thanks to Mikeal for being a great guy putting up with so much BS for so long. Hope it was enjoyable for the most part.

Long live Opeth!

[neuroticandroid]

ahhh humility...
first of all, since the forum is closing down, i'd like to say thank you to mikael and the various members of opeth for being far more accessible than any other band. no other "big" band or musician would participate n chats with their fans as in depth as mikael has. i don't know of other "rock stars" (for lack of a better term [mikael has the attitude of a fan who got lucky and made it big, rather than pretentious bastard who felt they deserved it]) who would share opinions on the music they enjoy making and listening to.

secondly, i and all of us members of this forum owe a tremendous debt of gratitude toward mr. samsara for taking on the job of mod when anyone with a keyboard and an opinion can make that sort of job hell just because of their "god given right to free speech". if anyone like me has seen unmoderated forums where "anything goes" (such as the in flames forum on ultimatemetal.com)you'd see personal attacks gone wild. you'd see people who aren't even fans of the band insult those fans and the band at will. opinions are fine, but to have an opinion, you need to respect others' rights to have opinions that may conflict with your own.

lastly, i'd like to apologize to samsara and any members i may have offended with a crude remark or disrespectful post. these things are out of character for me, but i am an opionated passionate person and in the moment of finding a post that i clearly disagree with, sometimes i'd get carried away in the spirit of conflict. so for that, i am truly sorry.

[bigg_dog]

nice one metalages or sam or whoever the fuck banned me. the forums closing down, of course there'll be finger pointing and blame games and it just so happens im of the opinion the mod is at fault. trolls are gonna appear on pretty much every single forum on the internet but you dont see these forums all closing because the owners cant bear it. theyre modded out through sensible, responsible moderation. samsara, ive been here a long time and id say that for a majority of that time your silent mod approach worked. but honestly, when you get boys like bang and skulk coming back again and again, insulting pretty much whoever they can, dont you think they needed to be banned again and again? eventually its too much of a pain in the ass to re-register or go through a proxy so they wont bother. this probably sounds like im being a couch general but to most of us, it seems like commonsense.

on another note, to mike, cheers for 4 or 5 years of funny, insightful, intelligent posts. its obv your decision to close the place, so be it. i probably didnt contribute as well as i could have in the past yr or so but i had a lot of good times here early on, so thanks for that. hope to see you in melbourne, take you out for a few drinks, some fine food, a hotel room etc... xx

[mrbean667]

Well, I don't use this particular forum much but must say that it seems a rather rash decision...
Bye anyway.
Opeth still rules!

[badabiing]

Originally Posted by mrbean667

Well, I don't use this particular forum much but must say that it seems a rather rash decision...
Bye anyway.
Opeth still rules!

I dont use this forum much either, but I dont think its a rash decision. After all the shit they have put up with in recent years, I think the latest Talisman issue was just the tip of the iceberg. Opeth is getting older, and some of the fans more immature - or putting themselves above the band. Fucking ridiculuous.

Thanks to the band for contributing atleast!

[opeth8]

Well this sucks. I've been visiting this forum daily for several years.
I'll always remain an Opeth fan, but the lack of this forum hurts nonetheless.
This forum has always had it's ups & downs.
Hopefully someone will carry the torch to a new location.
I've always enjoyed Mikes posts. Hopefully he'll choose to participate in a responsible forum in the future.
Cheers to all of the great fans that are out there. See you at the next Opeth show !

[The Porcelain Eater]

I downloaded the entire Photoshopeth thread.
If anyone else wants it, send an email to janpieterr at gmail dot com and I'll send you the download link.

[A. Iverson]

wow i havent posted here in yeeeeears

[prowlergrig]

dude you should write a testimonial about how leaving the official opeth forum changed your life for the better

[Xarthaz]

I think a number of posters here are dreaming and romanticizing a situation that is impossible.

The fact is, a single person, moderator or not, cant know whats best for the sum of individuals participating in a forum. Only each individual knows for himself his share of what is good. That is why the centralised system is bound to be inadequate.

With a hard handed approach, it stifles creativity and innovation amongst posters, and the intellectual value dissappears, even though maintaining it was the original objective of moderation. It disappears again because the value comes from breaking norms and standards, stepping outside a consensus.

The soft handed approach fails because a lack of punishment and idiots running loose.

SO the solution? Reputation, decentralised self management, the natural order. Reputation points traded between members like currency, which means idiots dont get any of it and can be selected to be filtered out to not show their posts.

Unfortunately this system hasnt been implemented to a larger extent on modern forum engines, but nevertheless, it can be the only solution to ensure quality, because quality is in the eyes of the individual.

[CladInDarkness]

Originally Posted by Xarthaz

I think a number of posters here are dreaming and romanticizing a situation that is impossible.

The fact is, a single person, moderator or not, cant know whats best for the sum of individuals participating in a forum. Only each individual knows for himself his share of what is good. That is why the centralised system is bound to be inadequate.

With a hard handed approach, it stifles creativity and innovation amongst posters, and the intellectual value dissappears, even though maintaining it was the original objective of moderation. It disappears again because the value comes from breaking norms and standards, stepping outside a consensus.

The soft handed approach fails because a lack of punishment and idiots running loose.

SO the solution? Reputation, decentralised self management, the natural order. Reputation points traded between members like currency, which means idiots dont get any of it and can be selected to be filtered out to not show their posts.

Unfortunately this system hasnt been implemented to a larger extent on modern forum engines, but nevertheless, it can be the only solution to ensure quality, because quality is in the eyes of the individual.

UM used to have a rep points feature, but that was ages ago.

[Zephyros]

Thanks to Mike for his input on various threads.
Thanks to Mr.Samsara for doing an excellent job.
And thanks to Gr1ev0r and everyone else who helped make the "photoshopeth" thread so hilarious.

R.I.P Opeth Forum, you will be missed.

[opeth_353]

Originally Posted by CladInDarkness

UM used to have a rep points feature, but that was ages ago.

Also.. Isn't there an 'ignore' function?

[MetalAges]

^ Yes, vastly under utilized by users unfortunately.

[hexwind]

Metalages, now officially you will close down this board?? no second chance?

[pyr0rrzzz]

I still hope this forum might just become unofficial

[beast from the east]

Originally Posted by neuroticandroid

ahhh humility...
first of all, since the forum is closing down, i'd like to say thank you to mikael and the various members of opeth for being far more accessible than any other band. no other "big" band or musician would participate n chats with their fans as in depth as mikael has. i don't know of other "rock stars" (for lack of a better term [mikael has the attitude of a fan who got lucky and made it big, rather than pretentious bastard who felt they deserved it]) who would share opinions on the music they enjoy making and listening to.

Check out the Novembers Doom forum - the guys from the band post there all the time - same with several other forums here...

Anyway, I pretty much gave up on the Opeth forum a while ago - I just got tired of the douchebags. This forum is like a flame, and the idiot moths gather here...

There are lots of other places to get Opeth news, and Mike posts on MySpace often - this is the right thing to do, SHUT 'ER DOWN!!!!! Thanks to all the people who weren't pricks for some interesting topics and conversation...

[Hügelgräber]

Originally Posted by Xarthaz

With a hard handed approach, it stifles creativity and innovation amongst posters, and the intellectual value dissappears, even though maintaining it was the original objective of moderation. It disappears again because the value comes from breaking norms and standards, stepping outside a consensus.

What do you mean ? If someone trolls around, it may be in some way creative, but you don't "stifle creativity and innovation" when you delete them. We are talkng about manners here, not innovative forms of communication. If you brake standards of behaviour, you "step outside a consensus" that is simply not acceptable.

SO the solution? Reputation, decentralised self management, the natural order. Reputation points traded between members like currency, which means idiots dont get any of it and can be selected to be filtered out to not show their posts.

What does this mean exactly ? If a user got a negative reputation, lets say -10, nobody sees their posts ? Interesting solution, sounds good to me, but i have no idea if it would work.

[MetalAges]

One thing I should add for folks, regardless of how it all turns out.

<------ see that icon over there under the avatar with the exclamation mark? You do realize that it takes one simple click to report trolls correct? Admins get notified instantly and we can jump on things, yet, I only see an occasional one from this forum. I'm curious to know why I see a lot of complaints about trolls, yet rarely anyone uses that button to report them?

[Carta's]

Here I am, posting for the first time after my self-imposed exile about an year ago. Thought I'd show up before the apocalypse, and thought I'd tell as millions of others have said, that this place has long lost his interest as a music forum. I blame it on the few topics we could talk about here, being Opeth and non-Opeth music. Stop. That's it. Topics eventually dried out, so when the next gen newbie came here asking "Hai thar, wats ur favorit opth song? Mine's Porcelein <3!!!" people just threw their wangs at him. Can't blame them, since they already read the same posts over and over, but neither can I blame the newbie who didn't read any such thing.

It's high time for a change, and I'm not your average Obama-man, but this place really had lost it's interest, the only thing keeping it togheter were Mike's posts, that became less and less with Opeth's renown growing by the day. With the closed forum, we'll still be able to read Mike's opinions bout stuff on his blog, with no lame attempts at irony and whatnot sorrounding them.

My loss of interest in this place I think is due also to the fact that Opeth, while still being my favourite band, aren't nearly in the godhood league I used to place them in. We all live our phases in music as in everything else, and so people will lose interest in the board as well as in the music: when people are fed up with it, they just start trolling, no matter how hard the ban hammer strikes. That's the way of the forums, peeps.

Gotta thank this place though, without it I wouldn't have discovered most of the music I know right now... but I really can't say I miss it. Good riddance, I say,

[wwallinga]

Originally Posted by MetalAges

One thing I should add for folks, regardless of how it all turns out.

<------ see that icon over there under the avatar with the exclamation mark? You do realize that it takes one simple click to report trolls correct? Admins get notified instantly and we can jump on things, yet, I only see an occasional one from this forum. I'm curious to know why I see a lot of complaints about trolls, yet rarely anyone uses that button to report them?

I never knew such a thing existed. But, hey - there it is in the Forum Guidelines. Oh well...

[gatedropper]

Let's try this again. I have twice tried to post here my feelings on Mike's idea to shut this thing down. Both have been deleted.
I am agreeing with the boss here. Shut this thing down now!

[metalfrog]

I only come here once in a while and don't post often. So I don't have a clue of what's going on with trolls and "stupid posts", but shutting down a forum for that seems to be an extreme -and easy- solution.
It's like "ok we give up, the trolls win".

[wut wut]

Originally Posted by Xarthaz

Unfortunately this system hasnt been implemented to a larger extent on modern forum engines, but nevertheless, it can be the only solution to ensure quality, because quality is in the eyes of the individual.

And unfortunately, some people like Nicholas Wolfwood actually support and encourage the trolls. I think that's one of the major defects of this forum: too many people like the trolls here.

[Kamel]

The problem is we don't have enough well-trained Troll Hunters