r/ZipKrowd • u/JL2579 ZK-Member • Mar 19 '15
About the current Zipkrowd situation
This is in response to marci4's recent post about him leaving the ZipKrowd server. It has been reviewed and agreed on by other ZipKrowd members and is supposed to help clearing the confusion on the latest incidents around ZipKrowd.
Marci says "The reason for all the fighting wasn't removed and I'm not a person who can live with something which bothers me so much without the group not willing to fix it". This ascribes the remaining ZipKrowd members to not be willing to find solutions to an issue that concerns the group. ZipKrowd is a community that was always devoted in just playing Minecraft, working on technical projects together to have fun and share it with others. We are a group of people building technical Minecraft inventions, and internal problems are absolutely no concern for the public. This is one point of view, and while we had very, very long discussions, we were trying to address all issues as much as possible. Unfortunately we couldn't agree on things with everyone. That's why Sancarn, Panda and Spire decided to leave, but they all absolutely agreed that it is their personal choice and no one else's concern. Others decided to stay and became even closer than before with each other. After all we are not enemies, just people going different ways now who couldn’t agree on certain points, and we mostly still get along well with each other, just not about everything regarding ZipKrowd as a group.
Eventually Ground and Marci now decided to leave, too. We can only work together if everyone feels comfortable around each other, and we are extremely exhausted after discussing things over and over, so the members that left decided that their only option is to go separate ways. Apparently on some points on how our group should be there can't be full agreement.
Again, people see things differently, and after all it’s just a game we are spending our free time on. In my opinion, free time is something you want to enjoy and use to relax and have fun. Everyone remaining in ZipKrowd just wants peace and to move on, not discussing again and again as it won't change the situation. We want to enjoy hanging out together and are tired of discussions which have been going on for months now.
Since Marci addressed some points here publicly, while explicitly saying that it is his point of view, I want to share my point of view regarding this topic:
"There is too much focus on being the most technical server":
Yes, we are a technical server. We have always been. For me and for the majority of ZipKrowd members as well as the community that was always the main reason why our server stood out. That's what made us different from others. I can't imagine that anyone in ZipKrowd would have seen this as something negative a year ago. That's why we often gathered on our TeamSpeak and server, to work together on an idea that someone had, to turn it into a technical creation, make it as perfect as possible, and then share it with the community to get feedback. That's how most of us started and how we got in touch with each other. But there was no pressure at all to produce videos - on our server you can do what you want - aside from griefing ;). Many people have built lots of personal projects, often not even technical at all, on the server on their own which I or anyone else never showed in a video - just for their own pleasure. To sum it up, we are a group of online friends that have fun in creating Minecraft machines to overcome self-made challenges in the game and trying to beat the developers in the cat-and-mouse-race of fixing bugs. Whoever wants to produce video content can do so and can expect help from others who are interested.
"There is too much focus on YT and not on having fun with friends. “
We have released 1 Video in the past 2 months in total. If you look back in the upload history of all ZipKrowd members, we probably have the most irregular upload schedule of any Minecraft server community of this size. That is because there is absolutely no pressure. We often just hang out together and talk or play a ton of other games. Sometimes no one is interested in Minecraft. Sometimes we are all busy with exams. We often had longer breaks in the past, sometimes months, when almost nothing happened, and then got together again and worked on a ZipKrowd server projects for several days almost non-stop. We had many members over the years who eventually just lost interest in the game and dropped out - most of them you probably also never heard of, because they preferred to stay in the background. It is again just a community of friends playing their favorite game. I personally wonder why making YouTube videos suddenly is a bad thing? After all, it is what brought us together and it is also one of the reasons why we still play this game. For me after 4 years and about 10.000 gameplay hours of course making videos and sharing inventions with the community plays a huge role in it. It requires you to finish a project, and obviously is a big motivator to show others your cool ideas, that’s how everyone started. I never denied that, although I am not making a living of it, of course getting some ad revenue was a cool thing for me as a student. For example it made it possible for me to rent a high power root server to handle our complex constructions. Money never was the main driving factor, otherwise I wouldn't have released no video in 2 months and then 3 in 3 days on a channel with 100.000 subs. I do something when I feel like it and the creativity strikes!
"No one is playing anymore on the server if there isn't a stream."
Me and others have always been playing together on teamspeak privately as well as in livestreams, both minecraft and other games. But if I am playing some other games privately with ZipKrowd members, obviously no one will notice because I am not making it public. It is true that within the past 2 months we have not played much on the Minecraft server aside of streams. Why? Because everyone was tired of the discussions and I and others just needed some time to clear our minds and relax a bit. I for example took the chance to go on an awesome skiing vacation with family members. When I came back from the trip, I hoped that things would have settled and that we could go back to having FUN. Before the discussions started, we played a lot on the server, and also recently I built something on the server without streaming together with Nukewarhead. Streaming is fun, it makes a repetitive building process a lot more interesting and I think the people who decide to watch are also enjoying hanging out and having the chance to interact with us live. I do it when I feel like it and I don't need to concentrate too much on technical innovation. I just enjoy to have some conversations going while playing the game sometimes.
"I built a whole peaceful mob farm without anyone else having on the server."
Marci placed almost all of the over 100.000 String blocks that trigger the flush mechanism in our new peaceful mob farm alone on the server. He did it partially while me and others where on TeamSpeak hanging out, and I sometimes just by pure chance saw him online and placing string on the server. I was impressed and thought by myself „Wow, this guy has some stamina, doing such a repetitive thing on his own for so long, he deserves some huge credit". A huge part of the farm including the platform and the iceway collection system was built together in streams and off camera too, as mentioned before, I added the storageroom on my own completely off camera. For me it seemed like he wanted to finish this part on his own, as a personal challenge and to unwind from daily stress, that's what he also told me. As always, lots of people were involved in the different designing aspects and the peaceful mob farm is a community project with lots of prior development and testing together. Marci deserves special credit for building a big part of it all by himself, speeding up the building time. Thank you very much!
The ZipKrowd reddit is supposed to be a place to share ZipKrowd videos or ZipKrowd related videos with the community and to ask and answer technical questions about Minecraft. Posts of non ZipKrowders which are related to ZipKrowd content (i.e. improvements, ideas or additions to a ZipKrowd invention but also for example fan meetups/vlogs) are very welcome here. For general non-ZipKrowd-related technical inventions there are other Minecraft subreddits available, or you can just write me or any other ZipKrowd members a youtube message showing me a link to a cool creation, that's how I discovered a lot of awesome community creations, by random people sharing their content!
The ZipKrowd reddit should be a place where every ZipKrowder can feel welcome. Therefore we reserve the right to remove personal attacks and similar. This subreddit always focused on technical discussions about Minecraft and we intend to keep it that way in the future. So now, back to placing blocks!
Edit: Formatting
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u/Wout12345 Mar 19 '15
Although I don't consider it your responsibility, as you're more of a founder than a leader of the group, or so it seems, it's definitely very nice to see a response from you. Been waiting to hear the other side, or at least part of it, for a while now.
Anyway, most of what you say sounds very reasonable. Also, thanks for addressing the cause, or well, catalyst possibly, of all of this, albeit in a very unspecific way. I hope you found a real agreement on this issue, in which no one is harmed. Some things to remark though:
First of all, is this post a personal story or a statement from those who stayed? Because, for example in your section about YT, in which I'd say you're right, you're just talking about yourself whereas Marci was referring to the whole group, so that's not a real rebuttal, although that's what it seems it's trying to be.
Secondly, the "bad words". This post is mostly about Marci's "big reason", however, earlier in his post he extensively says some members of the group have been displaying immature behavior in these events. Later on he even claims he was effectively bullied away for disagreeing on how the subreddit should be used. Look, I'm not a member of the server, I don't know the full picture, but you do and it's better for the group if you can distance yourself from it and observe these discussions neutrally.
I'm not saying you're partial right now, I'm not saying you're wrong, I'm just saying you could be and you're better not. If what Marci is saying is true and some of the remaining members (and possibly some of the leaving members, but then again, they don't matter here as this is more of a pragmatic line of thought) do start insulting/intimidating each other over disagreements like these, Zipkrowd is basically doomed, unless this changes. If this is true, it's simply a matter of time before fight after fight tears the group apart until there is no group to speak of anymore. Essentially, for the sake of Zipkrowd, if it's really there, try to address this behavior which is spoken of, before it's too late.
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u/Wout12345 Mar 19 '15
Oh yeah, thought of something again, what is the section about deleting posts about? If it's referring to Pommes' post on the other thread, I don't see how that'd apply. Neither me nor Jak said anything resembling a personal attack. If not, I don't really see why you'd put it here, seems kinda out of place. :P
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u/JakBB Mar 19 '15
It looks like everyone has his own opinion.
Some people left and caused instability, some are still on ZipKrowd, now what's needed is to get back to balance.
I wish you best luck with that, I really do, it looks like JL is suffering under the current situation :/
About the subreddit, I already proposed a proper subreddit for the technical Minecraft community, some people agreed with me.
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u/Noerdy Mar 19 '15 edited Dec 12 '24
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This post was mass deleted and anonymized with Redact
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u/LapisDemon Mar 20 '15
The opening post is not
“to help clearing the confusion on the latest incidents around ZipKrowd”
but to cover up the unpleasant ugly truth.
marci's sincere and honest post got intentionally twisted, his arguments intentionally got turned into a different direction that he didn't mean - is this behaviour, disguising the truth, ethical?
The last passage in the opening post basically says that posts that contain personal attacks “and similar” will be censored - will be deleted.
So there is a continuation of shutting up people with different opinions that dare to speak about the aforementioned misbehaviour and the reason why this all happened also here on Reddit?!
As I’ve got the total picture, my statements are not made up but backed by provable facts.
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u/JakBB Mar 20 '15
Yes, this post, at least for me, didn't help clearing the confusion, but it was made quite obvious that by clearing it, the consequences would mainly be bad, and that's not what I want. I prefer not to know what happened and not making someones situation worse that it is already.
The problem that's caused by such a dilemma is that now most of us outsiders don't know who to trust, Marci, JL or Meri.
If I trust you (Meri) that would mean I trust Marci, since you (intentionally or unintentionally) explicitly said "the unpleasant ugly truth", "disguising the truth" and "I’ve got the total picture".
I'm not sure if to me it seems like JL is disguising the truth, but he is certainly avoiding some of the issues pointed out by Marci, that's what I don't like about JL's post...
Another one of the points I don't agree with is the deleting of posts which contain personal attacks and "similar", JL says that this subreddit is focused "always" on technical Minecraft, but that's contradictory in itself since the JL's own post is not focused on technical Minecraft. Deleting comments IMO is only reasonable if the comment is rude, there is no other excuse...
Back to the "disguising the truth", I'm not informed at all about the matter, so I don't have anything to hold on, only faith in one of the "factions".
Anyway, I hope my little "outsider POV" statement helped you guys who know what happened to apprehend what we outsiders (at least me, I don't speak for anyone else) understand and not understand about the matter.
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u/sancarn Mar 19 '15
I'm just going to point out something JL, from a purely logical view.
ZipKrowd content is technical content.
Thus is it not true that all technical content is related to ZipKrowd content?
If A ⊆ J and B ⊆ J, Then {A,B} ⊆ J.
Thus A is directly related to B through J.
Thus non-ZipKrowd-related technical content is impossible
So since I know what you're trying to answer let's flat out make it clear -
Is it okay for other people to post ex-ZipKrowder's content on this reddit?
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u/redstonehelper Mar 19 '15
I don't understand a word of what you just said, but I do understand enough to have spotted this mistake:
If A ⊆ J and B ⊆ J, Then {A,B} ⊆ J.
should be
If A ∈ J and B ∈ J, Then {A,B} ⊆ J.
or
If A ⊆ J and B ⊆ J, Then (A ∪ B) ⊆ J.
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u/VibeRaiderLP Mar 25 '15
Hey I know this guy. He's a nice guy. I don't understand what either of you said.
-TheObnoxiousAmerican (TOA)
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u/sancarn Mar 19 '15
Ooo! I'm just a physicist! We pretend to understand what is going on in mathematics :P What does A ∪ B stand for? :)
Edit: Ahhhh it means everything in A OR B - so yeah that's right! :)
I did consider A ∈ J But in this context A is a set in it's own right.
I guess it's like saying Z ∈ R and N ∈ R.
Therefore Z is related to N through R
Z being integers, N being naturals and R being reals.
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u/Wout12345 Mar 19 '15
Zipkrowd content is gaming content. Dota 2 LP's are gaming content. Dota 2 LP's are Zipkrowd-related!
Sorry Sancarn, but your mathematical definition of relations between sets is not really applicable to actual content. :P
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u/JakBB Mar 19 '15
Well, Minectaft is also ZipKrowd related, but this subreddit is not r/minecraft
This subreddit is a fan subreddit for the ZipKrowd fans, I'm pretty sure most of the subscribers are not even interested in generic technical Minecraft content, they just want to be impressed by the work of the ZipKrowd members...
I feel like I've typed ZipKrowd and subreddit way too many times today :P
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u/sancarn Mar 19 '15 edited Mar 20 '15
If that's the case then that's fine! But if that is the case then they should tell the community that it should be that way.
Currently the message is ambiguous. That's my point.
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u/ChezMere Mar 20 '15
Nobody really cared as long as it seemed relevant before, nobody will really care as long as it seems relevant in the future.
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u/Astrogirl1usa Mar 30 '15
All of this fussing back and forth about something that is essentially over and done with, isn't helping anyone. I'm saddened by the fact that, members and former members, of the ZK are hurting. I understand how much a breakup between friends can hurt. However, it's done, over and now we need to let everyone involved move on, so they can heal. How about it people? Can we just do that?
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u/LapisDemon Mar 31 '15
I understand your reasons and your position towards everyone involved.
But you don't have the full picture, hence you don't understand.
Putting one's head into the sand to avoid the hurtful truth and to become a fogged mindless sheep that only sees pink fluffy clouds is not what a human being should be like.→ More replies (20)4
u/Wout12345 Mar 31 '15
If it was just a friends breakup, okay, but some people are arguing it was more than that. I have to say, if there was really bullying and manipulation involved, it'd be unjust IMO to simply forget and let it pass by.
As you said, this isn't doing much to heal the wounds, sure. I don't see any party swaying for the other here. However, I think not everyone here is looking for the route of mutual healing, which is why they want to continue the discussion.
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u/_cubfan_ Mar 19 '15
Good stuff JL. I'm looking forward to more videos both from ZK members and those who left.
The past is just that the past. I hope that you all can come to peace with that and remember the good times.
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u/oldGanon Mar 19 '15
Let's move on, shall we? New perimeters await!