My farewell message to the people of avatar-forums

[Eltu]

After a long time of consideration I decided to leave avatar-forums with a final goodbye letter. I will post it here as well, since its contents very much touches both forums.

Feel free to reply in the AF thread here if you think you have anything to contribute there:
http://www.avatar-forums.com/general...tml#post231602

Or if you want, feel free to do the same in this thread here.



Kaltxi frapo.

I will begin this message by saying that I really did not hope it would come to this. It was not my intent to quit the forums, neither was it my intent to write this message.
However, I have now decided to do so after seeing some of the latest conflicts, and especially seeing this thread:
What the hell!! Break-away Avatar-forums site!

Avatar-forums have meant extremely much to me. In fact, they literally changed my life. No joke. When I first came here, I was overwhelmed by the sense of community and friendship that was not present on any other forum I knew. It is with utter sadness I have seen these forums breaking down the last few weeks. The reasons for this happening are mostly ridiculous, but it has happened.

I cannot clearly tell the full reasons for this to happen, but it has made me really down lately, as these forums has been to a great aid to me. My point is - you might say that the reasons for the forums splitting up are ridiculous - and this is true, they are. But nevertheless, the forums are breaking apart, no matter the reasons, this is happening.

Onto my second part of this letter, the new Avatar community discussed in the thread I linked to above. I will not mention the forums by name, that would be unnecessary, so I will refer to them as simply "ToS".

I was among the first group of members who created these new forums, and I am an administrator there as well.

The reason I stood behind the creation of ToS was not because I wanted to divide the forums in two camps or create separation among the members. All I want is our community back. Become the friendly place it used to be. Please understand here that I am not blaming anyone. I am NOT saying the mods have done a bad job, because they have not. I know that they have worked really hard to try and keep this community remain what it once was.

Personally, I think that it is possible to return these forums to what they once were. But not here. Why? Because it has come to a point where there is too much tension among the members - much fewer people trust each other and conflicts arise all the time.

The thread I linked to above is a great example of this. Without really knowing what ToS is, people get worked up because of it and start spewing hateful comments.

So to clear things up - the reason I and many of the others standing behind this created ToS, was because we believe it to be a way to bring the community back to what it was before. I do not force anyone to join the forums, and I am not trying to convince anyone that ToS is better than AF.

But what I am saying - see ToS for what it is. A way for the members who want it to be a part of a close community. Not a place to abandon avatar-forums for - that is up to anyone to decide for themselves.

So to all members of avatar-forums: thank you for the great time we have had together, and thank you for always standing by my side. I will never forget what you did for me during the whole CNN incident. I hope that you understand that I do not have any wishes to see the community break apart.

Until we maybe meet again,
Kiyevame frapo. Oel ngati Kameie.