Overly Positive

Now, I’m not above a little bit of whoring when it comes to giving back some love for a backlink. Sure, that makes me sound like Overly Positive is that person in commercials that “totally endorses” products like male enhancement pills despite the potentially embarrassing side effects (a what lasting over 4 hours??), but it’s more like recognizing what’s cool if people are cool to me.

Such as it is with resident Destructoid forum master Technophile, who was kind enough in his monthly “Forums: We Have Them” post to link back to some tiny little backwater optimist’s blog in a brief mention. What Technophile doesn’t probably know, is that I’ve been a resident lurker in D-Toid’s forums for quite some time – for months, really, and that I stick around said community because I enjoy it. Here’s why.

As a person who has managed all kinds of forums – from the Darwinistic “community polices themselves” kind to special interest forums like for anime conventions, to my most recent, stricter stint as Assistant Site Manager for Warhammer Alliance, I find Destructoid’s to be well-balanced and fun to read. There’s a sort of edgier, more plain-spoken tone to Destructoid in general, and the forums, as they do with many sites, reflect that. The community at Destructoid is sarcastic, discerning, and snarky – close to what my actual personality, for those that know me personally, actually is.

But that doesn’t mean that there aren’t rules. Any community forum manager will tell you that moderating a forum is a constant balance of enforcing your very objective ruleset and understanding the occasional subjectivity of threads that require that enforcement. Is that thread a troll thread, or is it a cry for something else besides attention? Is a thread that violates rule #4 about exploits or cheating deserve closure, or will more damage be done doing it? You can have a strict community, or one that is more laissez-faire – it can work either way. But I like Destructoid’s approach – creative presentation of objective rules (“Thou shalt not suck”) while making clear the idea is that subjectivity does exist, that this is their house, and that common sense rules violations will simply be dealt with.

What does that lead to? A community that feels unrestricted enough in posting but which understands the rules in a way that they end up helping to defend them, not resist them. The result is a bunch of threads like Go Ahead – Call Attention to Yourself, creatively disturbing threads in the Podtoid forums that have resulted in male hosts having breasts (poor Samit), and the topicless The Bar thread, where almost anything within the rules can be discussed. In short, it’s the kind of twisted little humor that I appreciate daily.

Destructoid isn’t for everyone – its little green vBulletin implementation (another plus in my book, vB is amazing) can scare some people away, as can the idea that you are literally Fresh Meat for your first few posts. But it’s one that I plan on reading for the forseeable future, and perhaps even posting in, because it’s a community that works. I like the communities I’ve read, managed, and participated in, and Destructoid’s is no different. I’d get over there before you get sick of my optimistic ass-kissery of them. Of course, if you were sick of optimism, you wouldn’t be here…