The best answer? It's complicated. 

As far as the site going down forever in the case of those random blackouts, just know that we are nowhere close to that. 

I've been a long time lurker.  I remember coming here around 2006 and there was this guy named Bunkum that would give out vgchartz's sales #'s a few days before the owner put them up.  And there was some saucy girl here that had a mario di.ldo as her avatar way back then.  She thought that bunkum was awesome b/c everybody thought he worked at the NPD group which publishes the market research that vgchartz used for mabey a decade or so.  

I still feel like a big strength of this place is in the sales data in that this is something that few other sites give, so it's a unique strength of vgchartz. Perhaps we could get a writer that has a broad interest in the gaming industry and could give some analysis for the forum. This could be a big help to get people into the sales data again which just isn't something that interests people now. I think that y'all should consider calling up jacob mazel and telling him that you want him back on the team. Just an idea   Pitch him the idea of doing that as a side hustle and he'll be the super nerd that leads the thinking on here.

I feel bad always coming in here with new suggestions lol (I love this site, just always have new ideas), but I feel like the option to add/change one's pfp should be a bit less "hidden"/convoluted. I remember for my first 8 months on this site, I was w/o pfp b/c I couldn't figure out how to set it up.

On almost all social media, you can edit your pfp with a simple button press on your picture...would there be any opposition to translating such practice to this site? A thought I've considered is if somebody is looking to add/edit their pfp, they should be able to go through the following steps: (1.) Click on their pfp in top right of website display (you will be brought to your account page, just as it is currently); (2) Click on your pfp, and be redirected to "Avatar Settings" page. From there, it is straight-forward on what is needed to change your pfp.

(guess who’s back in the “Discuss the state of the forums and find solutions” thread lol.) An idea has come to me! Instead of perma-banning all users who violate site rules, they should instead be shadow-banned by anybody with less than 5,000pts on this site; i.e., any user with over 5,000 of those VGChartz points (wtvr they’re called) will not see these users comments.

Why require 5,000pts? B/c the shadow-banned user could quickly check if they’ve been shadow-banned via logging out, and looking for their comment otherwise. If they see they’re shadow-banned, they’ll just create a new account. Allowing some users to see their post would also still enable activity for their comment, so as to potentially muffle the fact that they’ve been shadow-banned.

I posted on Xbox OT and Ryuu threadbanned me.
I tried to visit him to see why, but he just erased my comment and won't seem to respond.

~Responded in the Appropriate Area -Ryuu96

Ryuu has deleted my comments at least three times, if not more.
For example, like this one.

Oh, and what is the history of Xbox Trolls?
I'm not saying it doesn't exist, but I would like to know what it is as it relates to this threadban.
Or maybe it is something that can receive a free pass for others.
I do not want to be banned from a decision that lacks transparency.
I assume you know this since you state that you were trolling on my previous account.

Without any specific explanation
Just all my comments were erased.

Mod Note

• 17 minutes ago I responded directly on your own wall.
• 12 minutes ago you posted once again on my wall.
• 8 minutes ago I told you to read the post on your wall.
• 6 minutes ago I made another comment in reply to your comment.
• We are now here, with you still moaning about me not responding.

You are now being thread banned from here too ~Ryuu96.

There should be an option to sort comments (on articles) by “Newest First.” And to give users the option to make the “[X] people agree” not visible, similar to how it’s done with the +- on comments in articles.

edit: wait a minute…i just found the “Newest First” option. Has that been there the entire time? If so…oops lol.

i do think maybe we should revisit some of these ideas. i am not trying to cause trouble at all, i just would like to see the site be better.

i do agree that the charm of the site was the characters. I remember people always had funny ideas for threads, and then there were classic rivalries that you could always count on to deliver. 

maybe it's that we were all younger back then and well.. things are just different now and there is nothing we can do about it. these days people have a lot more selection for a forum to participate in. also console wars have all but died completely, that always provided good fodder for activity. it might be fun if somebody made a thread that was just maybe a tad antagonistic toward say playstation or something (haha). that person would certainly not be me though. unfortunately I feel like my thread-making days are over. i would prefer not to risk it. 

Do you remember Soriku's virginity thread? It was hilarious. I'm gonna go find it.

Alright, I just spent 10 minutes searching through his threads and couldn't find it QQ

Another user mentioned that news/sales/article posts on the front page should have an auto thread created for them instead of a comment section. That would drive more people to the forums. Why don't we do that? Is it a website infrastructure thing?