Supposedly they turned off limits until they can figure it out better but I think limiting groups (and this entire push to make groups replace Cults) is utterly absurd.

Somewhere on this thread Keith said that group pings are broken because groups are unlimited, but that is total bull because they worked fine until they changed the forums. The new forums are what is broken - evidenced by multiple posts and the damn posts not functioning right half the time.

I honestly regret the amount of money I've spent on here in the last week alone, nevermind over all of my time here, because if everything is getting a limit then my time here will be part of that too. I liked that we had so much freedom to alter things here, but honestly, being told I have to pick a small number of groups to belong to and then hope that I don't miss anything relevant is crap. Same with telling me I can't actually use the WL function. Or the shops. Great, we can have X amount of shops, doesn't that create more strain than paginating the shops we currently have and limiting us to one shop and one gallery (or 2 shops and 2 galleries)? I mean seriously.

[Quote=Reaper]I honestly regret the amount of money I've spent on here in the last week alone, nevermind over all of my time here, because if everything is getting a limit then my time here will be part of that too.[/quote] Ditto. I've spent an embarrassing amount of money here in the past two years, I'd really hate to just leave it all behind but if staff is intent on making the site unusable then I might not have a choice.

thanks for jf ping i agree with you 100% about this hurting the cw sales/shops especially :/ .... i know just recently i tried to join 2 new shops that were just opening and can't do it and i'm sure them being new will hardly get any 'followers' in their grp. .. because most older players (most likely that's in lots of grps) and some big spenders aren't going to be buying their stuff simply because they will never hear about the new item because they are already in too many groups! say you! and will never see the post/ping .. sooo you are basically telling us how we can and can't talk/connect with one another as a singular or whole now?? .. and i totally don't understand the correlation between a cult and a forum group, they are two different things all together !?!?!?

I don't really even have an opinion on the forum group limit, other than it's probably gonna go down like a ton of bricks unless the limit's high enough - I'm more stuck on the idea of forum groups replacing cults (please someone correct me if I've interpreted that wrong). so again, correct me if I'm wrong, but token shop rsing ping group? we're cult buddies now. random art group whose owner/members I've probably never spoken to? also cult buddies now. wat. maybe I just don't like the idea because I don't understand it very well? idk. bottom line is, ping groups were 100% fine the way they were, and very few of these changes seem to be doing anything to improve forum functionality/appeal.

Thanks for the ping, and totally agreed. This is an asinine decision to say the least. Imposing forum group limits is probably about the fastest way to alienate CW shop owners and stymie the ability to sell CWs, and like it or not the CW community really is what keeps this site afloat financially for the most part. I'm in way more groups than fifteen and do actually check the pings and use them to check things like the token shop, hustler, subQ, etc. That doesn't even begin to touch on the CW groups I'm in, and there are dozens that I use/check very frequently. Hell, some of the groups you can't even ping as a CW shop owner unless you're a member.

If the limits are not lifted (or at least greatly increased) for all users, not just those of us who are fortunate enough to purchase gold accounts but literally all users, I'll likely consider closing my CW shop altogether and selling off a number of my CWs. It's pointless to run a CW shop when the site it's run on seems intent to kill it with a rule like this, and I definitely will regret having spent real money on Subeta if that's the way this ends up going down. I hope that Keith heeds the feedback of the community (which he's been pretty good at doing a lot of the time, so I'm hopeful) and lifts these restrictions. Could go either way I suppose, but it seems like way too many users who play a significant role funding the site are too pissed off about this for it to be ignored.

(OH also a quick note although that was the official information, they did not lift the limit, they just upped it to 100 if you have a GA / if you don't, the limit is still 10 how does someone live within 10 groups I cant even)

I already posted and said this was a stupid idea but I have been chuckling to myself off and on today when I think about this subject.

Remember back when the Forums didn't have group pings? Way way back in Novemeber 2009 the group ping feature became a thing here and I thought it was the stupidest idea ever. I thought it would be abused and annoying and why would I ever need to ping a bunch of people to anything? Turns out I was (gladly!) wrong and group pings are amazingly useful. But still, at one time guys we didn't even have them at all!

/reminiscing

Well that's shitty, because this is what Keith said about it on page 5:

He was supposed to remove it entirely for now, not just up it for GA people.

Thanks for the ping (that worked, shocked!). I've been reading the whole thread for the last couple of hours (lots to read!) and I find myself in utter shock about this whole thing.

Like many have already said, what is the point of conjoining ping groups into cult features? Instead of fixing the current cult feature and adding pings, you instead totally muck up the existing use of pings and add on cult features? That makes no sense at all. Plus, as has already been pointed out, what about privacy? What about pinging for different cult events- so different ping groups are for different purposes for those pings? When I owned a cult, we had multiple ping groups and I didn't own all of them because I couldn't, but there were other admins that owned them. If only the owner of the ping group can ping the thread, that means that the cult system will not have anyone helping. There will be say, 5 people running a cult, but only one person controls the pinging? What if that person gets sick or goes on vacation? So, the rest of the admins have to wait for that person to get back online? What if they're very sick or something awful happens to them? (Aside from the fact that that would be beyond tragic (and such things as cult pings are meaningless in retrospect to that sort of thing))- but if to inform the cult of the 'owner' being gone or hospitalized, or something- they can't because they don't own the thread. Seems stupid in the limit like that. Right now, the way pings work, as is evident to this thread, pinged people to this thread using her own ping group. With the new system, she could not have done that and that would be stupid and useless.

One thing I do understand is the need for upgrading. When Firefox and Chrome change things, it is needed for a site to upgrade to keep up. The one reason why these browsers change is because our technology keeps changing. We have tablets and smart phones that do not use the same layouts that a full computer does and so sites need to be able to be compatible with these devices, so the site needs to upgrade its functionality to work across all devices. I get that. I've seen other sites need to do the same thing- but the difference is that they have a separately written code for 'table and phone' viewing that is not the same code as the actual site. So it can function on computers and also on phones w/out being wrecked entirely. The problem is, you didn't fully make sure that the upgrade was working properly before you implemented it because you wanted to make sure it worked right now in the upgraded browsers, but instead it's still totally broken.

The idea of removing the ping feature as it is now is entirely stupid and thus far with the "Anyways..." statement already given by - it's showing that it's not that you don't care, it's that you think we just don't know anything and so you must 'teach' us and do it anyways because in the end "It'll be good" for us. No, no it won't. "For the greater good" is a horrible communist way of thinking, just so you know.

I understand limiting things for the purpose of easing the servers. But the problem does not lie in ping groups. perhaps it is how they currently function that is the load problem. Maybe there are several ping groups that are inactive that need to be cleared after some time? I've had to periodically go into my ping groups and clear out iced users. Perhaps that should be automatic?

Limiting WLs also makes no sense. Why would you limit the lists people make to keep track of things they want? The plus side, is especially during holidays (or user giveaways)- random users can go look at your WL and send you a gift. If we have limits, we'll miss out on things we want because keeping track of these things offsite doesn't benefit anyone but yourself. The point is to make them public so other users can be giving and spend more money on your site to be generous.

There are a lot of things that have already been said that I don't want to bother reiderating, but at this point, I feel as though our 'great leader' has put his metaphorical foot down and isn't going to change a thing, except to make things far more unappealing and annoying.

I haven't spent much time on this site lately because I recently gave birth to my first child, so he takes up most of my time. But I've been able to devote a few hours a day over the last few months because he's older now and goes to bed more regularly.... but if the site is just going to be making asinine changes that make no sense except for the excuse of 'our servers are bogged down with all these pings' than I along with others will probably hop the bus to the exit and you will soon be working at Taco Bell. I hope you like tortillas.

Next you'll be limiting pet TCs, and like has said, limits on friends; limits on exploring; limits on shops; events; friends; achievements; sP; quests (you've already done 5 different quest places today, come back tomorrow!); ect. Come on now.

Like someone said, instead of conforming, try to be more creative and find better solutions. So far, it's just more problems and STILL things are broken. More things are broken every day!

Ugh, I have nothing more to say....

You explain so much better than me ❤️

Also - for anyone who didn't notice - direct pings to this thread do not fall under Forum Mentions in the sidebar, it has it's entire own section now called Groups.

Like - this is a FORUM TOPIC. The person who pinged me, MENTIONED ME ON A FORUM TOPIC. It's not a group ping, so it doesn't fall under the Forum Group Mention, it just has its own new thing called Groups. WHY? You say you want to cut down because of all of the extra work on the site...pretty sure creating an entire new category and coding to direct an entire new set of ping system rules to send it to the Groups section and not the Forum Mentions or Forum Group Mentions section is more not less.

So they're combining two differently functioning features into one feature, and then limiting it? e_e I am not very social on this site but I like getting forum pings, I'm in 20+ (and it's saying I have a max of 10 right now since I'm sans gold account), like the very one in Keith's signature, but how is that at all the same thing as cults? I am not interested in joining chat groups and adding lots of people to my friends list who I don't care about, or being on anyone else's friend list, I just want notification pings. Not to mention the privacy issues others brought up for those who actually use and want functioning cults. Which I guess we're giving up on?

Not to mention

1. you didn't use an announcement thread in the announcement forums made for announcements like this
2. you're implementing limits before any of the theoretical new features exist

This is very unprofessional. (insert passive aggressive smiley face here)

QFT. Keith, the fact that you think group pings can be a replacement for cults means to me that not only is a REAL CULT REVAMP NEVER COMING, but you also really seem to be confused as to what people even use group pings for! MOST forum groups are to alert people to buy/sell items - mostly CWs, in fact this is actually how they are usually sold! imagine that. sometimes you can't even buy the cw if you aren't in the group! but also for the token shop and the hustler and subq. Many different people are members of these groups, and most of us don't know each other. Definitely not close personal friends, those groups are cults! Or they would be, if cults worked at all.. then people wouldnt have to use off-site forums. And doesn't staff also use off-site forums/communications?! I know there are on-site forums, but there's no way you're using them on a regular basis and they are still fucked up and broken. I refuse to believe that.

I honestly wish that you would have focused on the items aspect of what's clogging the site to begin with.. because we DO need limits on things, particularly the hoards. And it doesnt have to be awful! We can have item drives, I've never gotten to participate in one, it's been that long. And it's something we could maybe see a result with. The forums are now really hard to use, they don't work right and haven't since the revamp and as a direct result like half of the best cw artists are gone or don't want to bother doing them anymore. And you keep insisting this is how it's gonna be so.. idk.

A reasonable limit on forum groups is at least 100. And limits on wishlists? Is that seriously going to be a thing, because that is terrible. Wouldn't it be better to encourage people to use the category feature, and accomplish wishes (leading to easier loading and eventual item removal) with achievements or something?

And like everyone else, I'm pretty pissed this was expected to go unnoticed with no announcement. A ping to siteupdate at least would have been nice, but it really deserves a news post. It's kind of a big deal, the changing cults into freaking forum groups thing.. I'm not surprised that you don't get that though.

At first, I was like "group ping thingy what now?" then looked and noticed that the direct ping to me showed up under an event marked as "Groups". I am not subscribed to this thread, I did not get pinged via mass ping- it was an individual ping and previously, I was glad they separated individual pings from ping groups. Now they're going to combine them back together so I have to sift through hundreds of pings to find where I'm pinged personally? Headache! I'm glad they separated them, but this separation makes no sense.

I too do not regularly have a GA. I mostly get csc from my cw sales. Sometimes I spend $5 usd once and awhile- but rarely because I don't like putting real cash into a site for fake stuff. But I'll get a GA once and awhile so I can get some of its features. But making certain functions completely debilitating compared to a GA will make the average user never want to set foot in here again.

See, before I joined a cult, I didn't use this site much. I tried rping some, but that didn't work much. This was before ping groups too. It was fun and I started getting active. Then pings happened and group pings and I loved the idea. It was great! They worked better than the way the hashtags on the rest of the net work, cuz they were individualized and you could make them so anyone could join, or you could make it exlusively invites- but how it sounds now is that it's going to limit so much more and that people that might be wanting to become more active in the site will find the limits confining and no fun.

Example. In 2001 I joined a little site that rhymes with Peonets. Back then, it was smaller and cuter and new. It was pretty cool. Get a couple pets, play games, join a guild- you know, the usual stuff. They got bigger and bigger, but started to attract younger users. So they changed. Instead of keeping their site geared towards their intended audience (bored college students like myself)- they geared it towards kids and put limits on things. Not because it saved the servers, but because it was easier to control their userbase that was growing after a few years larger than they thought it ever would. They created real life merchandise you could buy at 'Children's Place' and other kid stores- like real plushies of pets, notebooks, pens, stickers, ect. I bought me a little notebook, but felt weird doing so cuz I had to go into a kids store to do it, when I didn't have any children. lol. I got well known on the site, cuz I started a comic for their newspaper. But their limits were you couldn't take commissions. They felt that asking for site cash in exchange for art was cheating. (So what do they think they're doing with their art on site and asking for subscriptions?). Someone told me about a site that didn't have restrictions like that, and so I joined here to sell my art. I have created ping groups since then to sell art, cws and the like. I join ping groups to be informed, tho I haven't joined many because I'm not around much and I don't have that much csc to spend and any USD I get goes towards real life bills and such.

So yeah, since coming here, I have supported this site as best I can by remaining here for over 7 years. I have accumulated 33 pets (some of which were bought with csc purchased with USD!)- I have sold art that others have bought with csc (bought with USD) as well as cws done the same. And with these changes, you're telling me and everyone with similar stories like me to just "Deal with it"? Yeah, that sounds like a great way to appreciate the people that keep your site running.

Thanks.

And oh, agreed 100% that implementing such DRASTIC changes unannounced is a jackass move. Are you a professional or aren't you? If you're going to push out changes, announce it and then make sure it freaking works too!

I came along late, mainly because I only found out about this from Tumblr (even though one of the forum groups I'm in, is the site updates one). I still don't understand why there's a limit on the groups. I always thought of myself as a lurker rather than a chatter, and even I'm in 82 different groups, none of which can be resolved by using the "ping friends" ping option (which I will probably never use, as most of my friends on here are all interested in completely different things anyway).

If there is a hard limit introduced, surely that will deter people from using the forums (after all, if you can't join each CW artist's ping group, you then have to trawl through hundred of CW forum threads to find what you're after - not all that likely to happen now).... and more people using the forums was one of the main reasons for the new forum layout & design, wasn't it?

An example. I have joined an artist's ping group. But it's not the artist who pings the group, but the people who are selling commissioned CWs in their own forum thread, which were drawn by that artist. So the ideas mentioned a few pages back, of being able to subscribe to a thread to get the pings, is useless for forum groups like that, as you never knew who will be selling a commissioned CW from that artist

1. Battle
2. Token Shop
3. CustomWear
4. Site Updates
5. Subeautique
6. Official CW Announcements
7. Hustler Cash Shop

So, you're telling me that half of my allowed ones are fairly 'important' ones. Two of which involve updates directly from staff. This is ignoring all of the many art groups I am joined to, and my personal art group. Or some of the groups designed to help other users out that I find to be pretty important. I think staff need to be reminded that one massive pull for this site is the art. Not allowing people to join art ping groups, and there are a lot of them (fairly sure I'm joined to about 20 art ping groups alone), would be a massive drawback for the site. Especially from CW ping groups, which has been a great way for the site to get money. There are MANY users that only join specific CW groups (either simply the artists they prefer, or things like the Backers' group specifying mostly only for background items, to even items that are only black/white/monochrome). By basically saying they can't join said groups, you're directly lessening your chance at gaining more profits. Slow clap for you. I noticed a decrease in CW's being sold while ping groups imploded and wouldn't go through. Do you really want to feed that even further ? Taking out personal FRIENDS ping groups, maybe, sure, since they aren't too important now that we can ping friends/favorite friends (which... is odd). But limiting the amount we can join ? That's not a smart move.

I agree I am already over the new imposed limit of forum groups, I still want to join a few more cw groups, I have even deleted myself from inactive groups I was part of

I agree I am already over the new imposed limit of forum groups, I still want to join a few more cw groups, I have even deleted myself from inactive groups I was part of

well... I am in 119 groups ... and I really do not see the point in limiting the groups ... O_o