Shacknews LoL

Hey Portax, love the site and have been here for over a decade!

I didn't post in the big thread about point 1, so I'll let that be. The past two days, I've noticed a lot of similarities between what happened on Something Awful years ago and here. SA's traffic has gone steadily downhill and a lot of the old posters no longer go there. I was active in their NFL subforum but the moderation started to not like our posting style and started banning what they felt weren't "Quality Posts." We had regular topics about each division and the moderator banned anyone who did "division talk" and said only serious articles about the sport and issues affecting the sport would be permitted. When the community banter grinded to a halt in favor of discussions over health/race/sex in the NFL, many users migrated over to /r/nfl. The moderation there prevented hate speech, but without trying to inject their personal aesthetics and ideologies into the community. We were talked down to a lot less than on SA. What I noticed was:

1) Moderators mentioning how they do it for free, and nebulous replies of "You don't want to know what we put up with"
* This happened nearly verbatim on SA. Granted the moderators here are better people and have been convicted of far less felonies. It's just an unfair position to take where the community is damned if they don't acknowledge the self-sacrifice of the volunteer moderator. It's a thread terminated reply and shouldn't be used in public. I appreciate what you guys do but it's difficult to respond to a topic when it swerves in that direction.

2) Mentioning "private complaints" but not giving details.
* This again feels like an attack on the community. On SA's NFL, we were told numerous complaints were received by the moderation staff but were never given the details. They said we had to curb derailing conversation and low quality posts. A huge amount of users spoke up saying that's why we liked the site but were replied to that they've received "numerous complaints" and disacknowledged anyone who spoke up in contrast to the moderators.

3) Mentioning that the internet has grown and we need to as well.
* We enjoyed that subforum for years because it was fun and a place to talk about specific topics without getting bogged down with other things. If you want to grow the site's community I don't think you'll hear many complaints. But being told that we need to change our ways because it's juvenile or that another community has taken the great leap forward and we should to is patronizing. I for one enjoy Dadshack where we complain about our lives, post funny crap, and have a very casual conversation about games without being too hardcore. None of this should be viewed as hostile to new audiences or specific demographics just because of it's inclusiveness. If you want to bring in other communities that's cool, but it's off-putting when we're told that we're the problem. I'm not pointing out a specific moderator or poster who said those verbatim, it's just the vibe that I've gotten lately.

Anyway I hope you are able to resolve the issue regarding point 1 without too much backlash. I enjoy the community too much for it to be splintered over one issue. Thanks!

Listen sugarbitch. If you're going to walk around with your panties showing people are going to a) look, and b) say things about it. The same is true of your tits and if you're going to pull some bullshit "what a pig this person is! It's none of their business how I dress!" well you'll be right but it also means you're dumber than the last sorority cunt who showed up to class without a bra and complained about the old guys looking at her nips poking trough the shirt. So just buy some goddamn clothes that fit well enough to cover your panties and you won't have to listen to judgmental pricks and we won't have to listen to whiny vaginas. Everybody wins.

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It's time for me to post a long overdue livejournal-style post on Cortex.<br /> <br />Read more: <a href="https://www.shacknews.com/cortex/article/471/2020-almost-broke-me" target="_blank">2020 almost broke me</a>

Today marks four years since I became CEO of Shacknews. Each year I like to look back at how we are doing and highlight areas where we clearly differentiated our company from the increasingly competitive games media landscape.

Millions of people have visited Shacknews.com this year. Year-to-date, our monthly unique visitors are up 55% compared to the same time period last year. We set all-time monthly unique visitor records all summer, and are poised for our best Holiday season ever.

YTD pageviews are up 59% year-over-year, while Chatty pageviews declined 17.66% in the same time period. Chatty is still the most viewed page on Shacknews.com at the time of this thread, but we have many guides with a ridiculous amount of views this year.

Our most viewed article of 2018 so far is:

Cooking Ingredients and Recipes in Pokemon Quest
https://www.shacknews.com/article/105180/cooking-ingredients-and-recipes-in-pokemon-quest

We introduced Shacknews Electronic Sports to the world at E3 2018 with our first ever Shacknews World Championship. We conducted developer interviews on live stream stages at PAX East and E3. We also held our first annual The Great Quakeholio Tournament at QuakeCon 2018. Our presence at live events will be expanded next year.

From a content standpoint, we have reviewed more games this year than in 2017 and we are producing some of the most spectacular content I have seen since I bought the site. Beneath a Starless Sky is David's latest masterpiece and Greg deserves high praise for his work bringing 24 'Til Launch to life. We have also been streaming with regularity on our Twitch channel. Shacknews has been on the front page of Twitch several times this year and shout out to Chris and Charles for their contributions to our channel.

I have previously described myself as the Inexplicable CEO of Shacknews, but I think after four years in my role here makes more sense. I am keeping Shacknews alive financially every month because that is what I want to do. When I bought this place, it was not built to be self-sustaining anymore. A huge challenge for all websites today is the shift away from display ads to other forms of revenue generation. As our site has hit major unique visitor milestones for our company, my focus shifts to growing our revenues in the next year. I am still acting as editor-in-chief, but I feel that the team I have assembled understands what I expect to the point that I can wear my CEO hat more often than not.

The redesign we pushed in August provided huge functional updates to the front page, and we are currently working on our next development phase. My top priority at this moment is to launch Mercury with a better value proposition for our readers. I have truly pressed the reset button with respects to revenue in the last few quarters, and I look forward to growing our company through a new and easy to use subscription-based model.

Once Mercury has launched, I will turn to the last phase of this current redesign that has been labeled Teal Shack. I will provide Shackers a way to express themselves like never before. I have been deeply involved on all design aspects of the redesign, and this last phase will be one of the biggest things to ever happen to Shacknews. We are still working on some of the bugs we created, and I can't wait to share more with you folks.

Shacknews celebrates its twenty-second year this year. We have set traffic records, but more importantly we have found our voice in the games media. We are going to do cool shit. Period. I have a vision for where we are going, and I am determined to get us there. I want to thank everyone of my Shacknews staffers for being an amazing team. Thanks to everyone here on the Chatty (even you filthy lurkers) for your support. This place needed a Briefcase Man, and I am happy to do it for Shacknews.

https://twitter.com/technosucks/status/1014601365623099397?s=21

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HAPPY 9TH BIRTHDAY SHACK[LOL]

I honestly can't believe it's been nine years. Holy shit. Time flies, etc.

Here's the annual breakdown --

YEAR       LOL         ALL       TAG GROWTH 

===========================================

2007 |    87,272  |    n/a     |           

2008 |   173,173  |   182,104  |   94,832   

2009 |   153,539  |   178,536  |   -3,568  

2010 |   162,412  |   216,850  |   38,314  

2011 |   158,869  |   235,565  |   18,715  

2012 |   236,047  |   365,840  |  130,275  

2013 |   332,429  |   523,610  |  157,770  

2014 |   347,735  |   557,375  |   33,765  

2015 |   386,044  |   617,217  |   59,842  

===========================================

       2,037,520  | 2,964,369 TOTAL TAGS

We had almost double the tags over last year. Crazy.

I'm going to probably have to do something to help the poor database -- it's starting to get too big for its britches. :D

My parents found him. Someone called because of one of the posters we put up.

I'm so happy right now. Will update later.

Did I ever tell you guys how much I love video games? When I am having a bad day (which seems like most days) and I feel like taking my car and driving off a cliff I just think of all the video games I have played, want to play and are going to play and it makes everything feel alright.

Video games saved my life, true story Bro, I owe them my life, without them I’d be dead by now.

So if any one feels like they are in the shit just go play a video game old school or new school, savoir it for what it is a place where everything is all right. Don’t hate on its imperfections enjoy it for what it is and the time you spend with it for it may be your last.

That is all, thank god it is the weekend tomorrow, don’t let the worlds negativity consume you into a deep barren black hole, video games will be there to save you.

For all of you; if you feel depression like this please talk to someone. I know that this is much easier said than done, but it can be done. I spent the last decade of my life dealing with depression and now I'm finally seeing someone about it and, while everything isn't perfect, it's getting better.

As silly as it may sound, you all are like a second family to me. Even if you're not somebody I talk to on Facebook, or play online with all the time, you all are the people I've been interacting with for over a decade of my life and I don't want to lose another one of you. Too many people on this site have ended out like this over the past several years, I don't want to see another one.

I know I'm not the only one who sees the Shack like a second family; let's start treating each other like it. Like any family, we all bicker sometimes, but at the end of the day I know that we are all there for each other. If you are even having thoughts of hurting yourself, know that there are hundreds of people here that genuinely love you and care for you and don't be afraid to reach out. I'm so sorry we lost another one of our own, but I hope this can be the last one.