Introduction
Yes, failed. Just to clarify, this is my own theory as to why the community has stopped growing.
Before I continue, I would like to clarify that this is a critique of the community value and how they're understood, enforced, and integrated. This is not an attack on the staff if you chose to disregard the message of my post and rather decide to jump to defend yourself, then this more than likely applies to you and you should re-evaluate how you do your job, and the administration should see that and re-evaluate your job performance as well, as far too many times posts with a good message go unheard due to staff members misinterpreting it as hate and choosing to censor the post. If the administration decides that this post has no inherent bias then I would ask that this post be pinned as I think this is a conversation I think this community has been needing to have for years now. I also ask that members keep some level of maturity in the comments and be civil with your disagreements, if it however doesn't go that way then I ask that the comments of this post be locked. Thank you.


Community values
I personally do not believe it is an issue with the values as I believe a majority of Damen's values are inherently good ideals to have and if executed right should provide the community with a safe environment. However, I believe that the values are deeply misunderstood as some of them can appear vague which leads to people misinterpreting them. We need a total revision of the community values and I think a shared common understanding with a refreshed set of values. (Refreshed is likely not the best word, but the values won't change entirely rather they receive some slight tweaks to rid the confusion/stigma around them) in summary, I believe the best way to go about this is to have Damen and Chelsey put together a cabinet of people they feel speak for certain demographics in the community. I ask that if they go about this they be careful with who they pick and that they try and pick people who think differently whilst also being open-minded. I trust Chelsey as I know her personally and believe she's really good with people and more actively involved socially with the rest of the community whereas Damen is good with structure and organization, I believe that they can do a good job with this as they really are both good at very different things, however, at the end of the day, they work better together when they are EQUALLY in charge, that way one doesn't override the other.


Staff
Simply changing the values won't help, we also need to revaluate current staff members. How well are they under pressure, whats the setting like when they're on duty, how well do they manage situations? I'm all for progressive change, (wouldn't have written this essay if I wasn't.) however moderators need to be held accountable for their mistakes. Just recently I saw a screenshot from a moderator who shall remain nameless. I won't state any details as I'm gonna let this, for a lack of a better word, fool justify sexual misconduct among the community. This isn't Damen's fault however, I am not here to blame anyone actually rather I am here to offer a solution that if done properly, will ultimately benefit the community in a very positive way across the board. Damen should of course be forgiving of simple mistakes in which no harm was done to others as moderators are human and do make mistakes. However, when Damen's forgiveness is exploited by selfish people trying to keep a named color it greatly affects the community. The best way I can put it is this, staff and members are both equally deserving of respect, however, staff members and members need to be disciplined differently as a member making a mistake and a staff member making mistake affects the tone of the community more so than if I were to do something dumb.



Summary
For a while, we've all blamed the communities stunt in growth on kids not wanting to play club penguin, or ipads, or something, we need to look at the other factors that are in our control. We can start by repairing user/staff relations and upgrading our current values and the stigmas around them. I promise you if some positive change comes about in the community, more and more people will return and more people will begin to join back. Please don't let this post be a waste of time.

(apologies for any spelling or grammar, my Grammarly app is acting up because I re-read this after putting it in and some things don't sound right but I think I got my point accross lololol)

@ian You deserve a medal for this.

I honestly agree with many of the things you've pointed out here and I do believe that some of the values should be adjusted.
I also agree with your point of a group being formed of people who want to speak up on issues in the community. Sadly, though, another admin would have to take over leadership of that seeing as Chelsey resigned a bit ago.
Overall nice post. Really well-worded.

Its important I state the facts here and help people understand what really influences the numbers.

EEVERYBODY who came here came for either OldCP or Penguin3D.

All CPPS communities (yes, DSGHQ is still mainly a CPPS community and >95% of its players came from OldCP) are losing hits and have been for five+ years because Flash is obsolete and is unsupported on most platforms and its target audience don't know what CP is and its original audience are growing up.

Why did Disney's CP shut down? That exact reason. They can't compete with the more modern interests of their target audience who are all very happy playing Fortnite, Roblox, Minecraft etc.

P3D is growing and thats because its had influencers on YouTube playing it. But even so, only ~1% of the promotional audience actually make an account and play the game.

So the reason has very little to do with staff or values.

Damen wrote on 2nd November 2020, 02:22 PM:

Its important I state the facts here and help people understand what really influences the numbers.
EEVERYBODY who came here came for either OldCP or Penguin3D.
All CPPS communities (yes, DSGHQ is still mainly a CPPS community and >95% of its players came from OldCP) are losing hits and have been for five+ years because Flash is obsolete and is unsupported on most platforms and its target audience don't know what CP is and its original audience are growing up.
Why did Disney's CP shut down? That exact reason. They can't compete with the more modern interests of their target audience who are all very happy playing Fortnite, Roblox, Minecraft etc.
P3D is growing and thats because its had influencers on YouTube playing it. But even so, only ~1% of the promotional audience actually make an account and play the game.
So the reason has very little to do with staff or values.

Values and staff actually have a great effect on maintaining a peaceful community. However, you brought up a good point in regards to the importance of realizing this isn't a single solution kind of fix and that multiple factors play into a games activity. Thank you for influencing my final conclusion on this Damen. We can reflect and try and rebuild the communities infastructure so p3d can success, but for now we need to worry about spreading the word and growing the user base. Thank you Damen, I now see why the community isn't entirely dead at all yet it is recovering to prepare for another boom in activity, perhaps?

weend2014 wrote on 2nd November 2020, 11:38 PM:

Quote:

Damen wrote on 2nd November 2020, 02:22 PM:
Its important I state the facts here and help people understand what really influences the numbers.
EEVERYBODY who came here came for either OldCP or Penguin3D.
All CPPS communities (yes, DSGHQ is still mainly a CPPS community and >95% of its players came from OldCP) are losing hits and have been for five+ years because Flash is obsolete and is unsupported on most platforms and its target audience don't know what CP is and its original audience are growing up.
Why did Disney's CP shut down? That exact reason. They can't compete with the more modern interests of their target audience who are all very happy playing Fortnite, Roblox, Minecraft etc.
P3D is growing and thats because its had influencers on YouTube playing it. But even so, only ~1% of the promotional audience actually make an account and play the game.
So the reason has very little to do with staff or values.

Values and staff actually have a great effect on maintaining a peaceful community. However, you brought up a good point in regards to the importance of realizing this isn't a single solution kind of fix and that multiple factors play into a games activity. Thank you for influencing my final conclusion on this Damen. We can reflect and try and rebuild the communities infastructure so p3d can success, but for now we need to worry about spreading the word and growing the user base. Thank you Damen, I now see why the community isn't entirely dead at all yet it is recovering to prepare for another boom in activity, perhaps?

Lockdowns are good for us hopefully we get another one lol
P3D is getting better and better all the time and I love the players on it

I'm not reading all that but I will like this and pretend I read it anyway.

Tired of seeing these posts. I dont blame anything for the decline of this community besides the people leaving. People got so into the fake world Damen created they forgot it's a game. It's funny to see people blame one guy for all of their problems.

the community failed cuz nobody unbanned misty lol

game died cuz people grew up and have social lives

dwiamer1 wrote on 6th November 2020, 10:49 PM:

Tired of seeing these posts. I dont blame anything for the decline of this community besides the people leaving. People got so into the fake world Damen created they forgot it's a game. It's funny to see people blame one guy for all of their problems.

i didn't blame damen for all of my problems jamal

Damen wrote on 2nd November 2020, 02:22 PM:

Its important I state the facts here and help people understand what really influences the numbers.
EEVERYBODY who came here came for either OldCP or Penguin3D.
All CPPS communities (yes, DSGHQ is still mainly a CPPS community and >95% of its players came from OldCP) are losing hits and have been for five+ years because Flash is obsolete and is unsupported on most platforms and its target audience don't know what CP is and its original audience are growing up.
Why did Disney's CP shut down? That exact reason. They can't compete with the more modern interests of their target audience who are all very happy playing Fortnite, Roblox, Minecraft etc.
P3D is growing and thats because its had influencers on YouTube playing it. But even so, only ~1% of the promotional audience actually make an account and play the game.
So the reason has very little to do with staff or values.

You should make P3D a roblox game. That outta get some people