So this is a weird thread that'll potentially blindside and make a lot of people upset, but it's something that needed to happen for a lot of us who were here from the beginning. All posts and threads before October 1st, 2016 have been purged from the forum permanently, which is right around the time Karasu became admin. This is the alternative to nuking the entire site as a whole due to my own personal reasons. It's been a good 9 or so years since this Forum's hay day, and looking at it now it's just kind of a relic lost in time. It's great to see that the community thrives still with the use of Discord servers and the likes, but in general this place is gathering dust, and the sole reason it's here is as a reminder. Unfortunately that reminder isn't as happy to some as it might be to others. While for many, the reminder is of what great animations there were, and how far the community had come from when a lot of us were absolutely garbage to what a lot of people have made themselves out to be to this day. To others, however, is a reminder of who they used to be, and how uncomfortable they might be with that information just available in the form of a museum. I know it's a greedy reason, and I don't expect everyone to be understanding, but due to this reason I wanted to nuke the forum and cleanse it from my mind. I personally used to be a piece of shit, and that reflected a lot on what the community became. Toxic, elitist, and generally unwelcome to people just wanting to learn and make a few friends. Obviously you can say "Well that's who you used to be, not who you are now" and while I too generally think like that, it still itches constantly on the back of my brain, all the cringey stuff from the past. Everyone gets like that sometimes. I won't ramble on anymore, and I do hope as many of you can understand my decision to do this, and I do apologize for not talking it out with the current admins more before jumping the gun on this decision, as we'd been in talks to come to an agreement beforehand. That reflects on me as immature and that's something I'll have to work on. I apologize sincerely to those who this might inconvenience with the potential of lost history. I know a lot of resources and animations will potentially be buried by this, and my only hope is that as a community you guys will rebuild what used to be as far as resources goes at the very least. From this point, I will be passing the full domain over to Karasu, and will relinquish the entirety of my access to it to ease any weary thoughts of "Yo what if Tate goes ballistic and nukes the whole thing?" The site is still payed for up until the ripe juicy year of 2026, and whatever happens after that is totally up to whatever admins are running it at the time! I love y'all, even those I might not know personally. I do hope you guys will leave this thread up for at least a little while to let people who might return later know what's up. If you'll have me I'll definitely stick around the channels and watch the community from there, and I hope not too any of you see this as some weird drama. At the end of the day, it's just a dude wanting to soothe his anxieties and conscious.
This is really for the best, I feel. MM's previous toxic reputation's kindof spoken for itself and hasn't really quelled until a dip in population. I've spoken out about this before and was effectively brushed off for suggesting the notion that we should self-reflect on our behavior as a community in the earlier years and after facing outspoken rejection of that, I've negatively internalized it ever since. Condoning toxic behavior only encourages it to spread and infect others and I'm ashamed to say that I became prone to it as well, which is why I deleted a previous account out of a sense of shame. Tate I know you haven't been here in a while but I'm really glad that you took initiative to take action on this; this is also something that's been weighing on my conscience and I think it's for the better that we try to rebuild a better atmosphere regarding the community from here on out.
Aw man...I really had fond memories in there :( Regardless, I understand and respect your decision Tate. It's like what I've been preaching for years: just because this community started bloody doesn't mean we have to continue the worst of those traditions. This is also an appropriate time for me to express my take on a chief complaint involving a handful of outspoken toxic individuals. Since the year Trow staffed me (2014), I've met some of the most inspiring animators and supportive online friends on MM. Yea, there were a few bad apples I had to swing a hammer at, but I shit you not, I wouldn't be in the film industry working on major studio blockbuster campaigns right now if it weren't the technical, creative, and social skills I gained from this forum. So despite the drama that naturally comes with being on the Internet, there are good things that come out of being an active member of MM, many of which indirectly translate into other creative skills, hobbies, friends, and even career paths. Moving forward, we just gotta do something right with this clean slate. We are admittedly a niche community influenced by a game that's been gradually losing popularity over the years. It's up to us to welcome new creatives and realize the full potential of the new gen. Congrats on the recent collabs guys. I still believe (Y)
Well, this is a rather unfortunate situation that y'all came up to but if it's for the best, I don't mind it at all. Maplemation will always have a special place within my memory ranging from 2009 to now, May those post rest in peace. BlessRNG
I don't really like this to be honest :/ I mean it's not really my place to say but a lot was lost as you said and for no other real reason than you distance the actions of older members to their actions from the past. I get in the culture of digging through peoples social media and so on to find outrage it definitely helps you, it just sad to see such a massive archive of work just got obliterated. Many threads had broken links and whatnot so i mean no biggie there, i lost a lot of sprites that i should have saved, many of which were posted after karasu took over if not all actually so thats just gone now, in fact, i have one post now on this website and its the Instagram thread lmfao At the end of the day you paid for this place and incorporated it, but it really sucks to see so much of the website is lost, i wish you just posted a warning days before because at this point nuking the whole site might have been better. It is no secret that the concept of a forum is dieing, not just this one, it was nice to come back here and again to see what was happening and look through the works of our older peers. I could go on and on about how this upsets me but its already done, I had a distaste for a lot of people on here, but i also learned a lot and made many friends. To stop my non focused rant, I hope you, Vash, Jaws, Derek, and whoever else was worried about the older counterparts resurfacing have your minds at ease now, this to me is the final nail in the coffin for this place, we can rebuild maybe, but I don't think this website will ever be close to what it was again
I guess this is basically passing torch of this site to the new folks, new people are incredibly good and had such polish animations now, can do make this site better than it was before...maybe. It does truly sadden me, I did check some old posts just for the nostalgia even the cringe ones. We were an incredibly close community, but it's true, just came back not so long ago and barely use this, most of the folks are new and don't even know the gems stored in this forum. Guess it'll be fragments now in path of time. As long as you are in peace with it Tate, to another set of years of awesomeness folks. Cheers.
One one hand, I understand the reasoning, but on the other, it is still a massive loss of history. Call me an oldfag but finding old posts, old relics in the maple forum community are getting increasingly harder to find. Especially since BSBackgrounds, Sleepywood, and BannedStory and its forums are effectively wiped from existence.
Now it smells like bleach and formaldehyde with a hint of fecal matter around here. I'm glad you did that. There are some instances of my cringe that I wanted to be rid of as well, but couldn't bother with sifting through years of stored SQL data just to purge my info in particular. Besides, that would've left a lot of context posts in limbo. I am not the same person I was years ago.
