Author SkeezoydPosted on

spaceghetto: Inside Edition – Open Letter (click through to read)

June 7, 2011 12:52 am GMT -5

Some history for those not in the know:
 

As some of you may have noticed, the past few days have been awfully eventful for the entirety of the SG society. There’s several reasons for this, but the important and central point I’m going to focus on is the dramatic change in management. Obviously, there are always going to be conflicting idea about what SG is or should be, and that’s no different in the case of the two people who have been closest to SG for the past couple of years. Nigamajiga and myself took it upon ourselves in 2009 to drastically change the layout and scope of the site. He had lined up several interested parties to host us as we simply couldn’t operate on shared hosting any longer due to the nature of our site. One of those options available to us was too good to pass up as it was an SG user by the name of Alexfoo who was offering us a free URL and hosting which at the time were out of our limits due to them being tied to terminated accounts. 

Some history for those not in the know:
 

As some of you may have noticed, the past few days have been awfully eventful for the entirety of the SG society. There’s several reasons for this, but the important and central point I’m going to focus on is the dramatic change in management. Obviously, there are always going to be conflicting idea about what SG is or should be, and that’s no different in the case of the two people who have been closest to SG for the past couple of years. Nigamajiga and myself took it upon ourselves in 2009 to drastically change the layout and scope of the site. He had lined up several interested parties to host us as we simply couldn’t operate on shared hosting any longer due to the nature of our site. One of those options available to us was too good to pass up as it was an SG user by the name of Alexfoo who was offering us a free URL and hosting which at the time were out of our limits due to them being tied to terminated accounts. 

 
Fast Forward; Nigamajiga puts me in charge of all development of SG (and it subsidiaries) in it’s entirety. It’s at this point his involvement in the site drops to what he at one point called, “Public Relations.” He is now generally considered the face and creator of spaceghetto. Things are going smoothly for a period of time and a lot of work is done which brings the quality of spaceghetto up and allows a boom of popularity in which we grow over 10 times in terms of pageviews and registered users. We have a new content management system and a picture host of our own. Feeling good about the stability and the direction the site is taking, I begin to plan for the future of SG in which we would not have to be reliant on free hosting of a good samaritan. This is the point when I begin the groundwork of making our own online store to funnel profits generated by SG merchandise into a business account for any and all future funding needed by the site. 
 
However, Nigz has concerns about the profitability of the online store and desires a user subscription system instead, in which a certain percentage of profits could be shared amongst mods and admins, despite general displeasure at the idea. None of the mods or admins agree to taking any profit from the users. The complicated SG+ system is born anyway which causes general confusion and negative feedback which causes traffic to suffer drastically and the site begins to stagnate. Tempers flare and in-fighting begins amongst some members which is met with undeniable hostility by nigamajiga which can only be described as user abuse. Alleviation efforts on my part to stimulate some interest in the site (Free SG Weekends, etc.) are implemented fairly easily and without much hassle. 
 
Due to the nature of Alexfoo’s job at the time, he was sometimes not able to address server issues for quite some time which sometimes left us with periods of downtime and improper site functionality such as the email system or laggy page calls. We were simply too big of a site for one busy man to address every few hours. It’s because of this that I suggested we become a customer to Alexfoo’s company, or to move to a new server and thank him graciously for keeping SG alive when absolutely no one else could. In response to this, Alexfoo builds us a new, beefier server and things are going swimmingly once again. 
 
Despite all of this, I continued to work with nigamajiga and develop the site. A lot of my work is continually undone by nigz to save “server resources” and many of my ideas never see the light of day. New user registration is shut down favoring a manual “Donate X amount of dollars to get an account” through an IRC channel operated by nigamajiga. Frustration with him charging users to post and using the site as a paycheck begins to set in. I attempt to voice my opinions and was continually met with half hearted attempts to appeal to my sense of community and the betterment of SG as a whole. I always told myself, “Well, he knows the place and the people better than I do.” despite many, many users telling me otherwise. Over time, I eventually became aware that I was the buffer between his irrational thinking and acts and the site itself. He had placed himself in a position above and outside the circle of SG and that left me holding the keys to the future of the community.
 
Dissension was always my last intention but in the end Nigamajiga and I simply had two very different ideas as to what SG should be. At one point he had the same perspective, but I’m sure you’ll all agree that it has changed over the years. All of this lead to a separation of SG management. I try to be humble, but I think my track record with this place speaks for itself, and sometimes you have to acknowledge that. That’s especially apparent when you have full support from the community you helped to build and give a place to call it’s own, because when it all comes down to it, the reason SG exists is not because of Nigz, myself, Alexfoo or any of the previous admins of the site. You guys, the users, are the sole reason for the existence of SG and I’m simply here to make it happen. I have always vowed to make this place the best it could be and a place I would want to visit. Hopefully, most of you share the same vision. 
 
Some facts:
  • There is absolutely no animosity from me towards nigamajiga. I acknowledge and respect his dedication to SG and hope we can one day be a united force again.
  • His new site is http://spaceghetto.net/sg/ previously known as the Beta SG. Please give him some of your time and check out his efforts. 
  • There will be absolutely no lines drawn in the sand here saying you must choose one site or another. As far as I’m concerned, we’re still the same place.
  • All funds previously accepted by me personally are going towards the invoice of this server and any other projects that may come down the road. That money has not been lost, stolen or misappropriated.
  • I vow to always have transparency into the management of this site, all you have to do is ask if you have a question.
  • All accounts of events stated here are solely from my perspective alone.
Thanks goes to EVERYONE involved in SG, no matter their level of involvement. Special thanks to my moderators who always have great opinions and advice (especially those with opposing views, I value that the most). Extra special thanks to Nigamajiga for actually getting me involved in SG when I wasn’t even sure I wanted to. 
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331 thoughts on “spaceghetto: Inside Edition – Open Letter (click through to read)”

  3. very well said, thank you for your dedication and for these words of explanation
    I’m also in favor of a free SG, and the selling of merch

  4. Appreciate the words.  I was vaguely aware of some of this, but not all of it.  I did notice the shift from a general place of awesome to something that was here to generate money.  Being a Burner makes you very sensitive to stuff like that.  It’s not bad to make money, but when making money is prioritized before growing or maintaining the community that’s bringing that money in, you have a problem.

    Once again, thank you for making my bored time much less boring.

  5. Im not sure if you need any more mods, Roy took mine away because he didn’t like my boyfriend at the time. I didn’t want it back under him once i moved back to the northeast, but I would love to help you out if you need it. 

  7. You know I love you Skeez, and if you don’t know, I love you Skeez.  You’re a hard working, good person who’s honest, so I have no doubt in what you’re saying here, not just because I trust you, but because I could tell that something was going on for that last while – holes in stories, ppl missing, etc.  I’m glad to see things starting to work themselves out. 

  10. I can’t believe someone with such anti-establishment ideologies as nig would argue so strongly for taxing his users. What a bizarre situation.

  11. Skeezoyd I applaud your dedication to the “spirit” of space ghetto and regardless of who the creator is, space ghetto would be nothing without its community. I’ve seen lots of folks excluded (including myself and those close to me) and it really only holds the site back in terms of recognition and popularity. There are a lot of people who strongly identify with the community and want to exert a lot of control over what it becomes. The keys were put in your hands because you have the most knowledge, and I’m glad that you chose to cater to the community rather than the one desperate to gain the most credit, fame and profit from the community. I’ve been around SG since the LiveJournal days and I was always pushing for the site to tkae on a life of its own, which it has. Unfortunately I have to tread lightly around here due to circumstances I really don’t understand… Apparently folks with more sway than me don’t want me around and I’m honestly not sure I’m welcome here to even write this. With my SG future uncertain I would just like to say that I’ve loved the community for over 5 years and proudly wear one of my multiple SG t-shirts pretty often, but I won’t be surprised if I see my IP banned next time I visit. Space ghetto will go on with or without me, people will fight and ban one another, some folks will meet and fuck while others develop strong online friendships, and many many dicks will be posted. It’s all good.

  18. Hey admin, how can i contact you in private way? I have some proposition about bulletproof hosting in russia from my friends, it will be cheap and secure and may be powerfull enougt to hold SG.

    As example – i hosted superputin.ru on and server holded 6 000 000 views per week almost without freezes.

  21. I can see why he might be a bit butthurt, I’m sympathetic up to a point but OTH he (Nigs) sometimes came across like a psycho fucking tyrant. Perhaps he wanted to “Be” the ghetto,,,,probably not a healthy proposition.

  23. I like this ghetto and I am staying with this ghetto as long as I can post on it, I don’t need 2 ghettoes… thank you so much skeez, I hope you two can work out your differences and we can all have just one ghetto… 🙂

  33. Lol, seriously.  Roy (and Mrs. Roy)’s version basically boiled down to “Yeah, we made it together, BUT IT’S MINE AND HE STOLED IT AND I’M GONNA TELL MY MOMMY AND I’M NOT GONNA PLAY WITH HIM NO MORE CUZ HE’S A BIG FAT BOOGERHEAD!”

    Or something like that.

  36. I don’t think you should live in fear of being banned. Everyone here is free to voice their opinion as long as they do it in a calm respectful manner. Hell you could voice your opinion as a complete and udder twat and still be okay. Breathe easy. The days of being afraid are over.

  46. fuck that shit, bring it back.  Freedom is freedom, even if its the freedom to ignore the fuck out of posters who suck and continually only post the exact same thing over and over and over and over again.

  49. thats cool man, and i dont want to stop you from enjoying them.  I don’t want to limit your freedom to enjoy them in any way.  But i also dont care to see them either, as its repetitive and uninteresting.  I loved the ignore feature because it made space ghetto more relevant to my interests while not infringing upon yours or anyone elses.

    If you dont like the idea of the ignore feature, dont use it.  god damn, this is like debating abortion.

  51. I hope the ignore button never comes back and 20x more content that you dislike gets posted so you’ll get the fuck off SpaceGhetto.

    Shitty posters will get banned, the rest you can scroll past, but fuck no you shouldn’t ignore anybody. 

  55. yeah shut the fuck up man. I’ve seen more shit on spaceghetto in the past 6-7 years than you ever will. 

    I will do whatever i GOD DAMN WELL WANT.   Who the fuck are you to say what i should or shouldn’t do?  You are probably pro-life and think everyone should be a christian.   You sir/maam, are a fascist.  Take your 24 weeks on this website, and shove it up your stupid fucking ass.  
    (This response is what Space Ghetto is all about.) 

  57. Like I said last time this came up…

    if the ignore button is going to come back, I would really like to see two lists associated with it.

    1. List of people who have been ignored the most.
    2. List of people who have used ignore the most.

    Is the back end for S_G SQL?

  58. click on his username, there should be a contact link, i think, yes?  that’s how i did it

    also, skeez, man it wants me to be notified of replies and i don’t want that.  it seems not to remember that pref.

  60. man, you have no sense of adventure.

    the day that we get a true crossover posting by edzell_blue and cunty, man, that is something right there.  bonus if it involves agminerals and swollen_goods somehow

  67. I only ignored one person and I felt bad for doing it but he actually was that fucking annoying,,,,where is Trolland Man anyway,,,did die perhaps?!?!

  68. i somewhat see your point, but i not so sure i agree “this is what spaceghetto is about”…it’s more like this place and this shit are here.  look at it.  enjoy it.  hate it.  stare at it.  scroll past it.  whatever.  you cannot control it.  all you can do is post your own shit to make the ghetto “yours”.

  74. “this is what spaceghetto is about” was kind of a joke because people are always trying to define it, when its defintion-less.  SG is what it is to whoever that views it. for some people its a receptacle to dump shocking images. to others, its a source of inspiration for art.  Others see it as a place to find other demented people and fuck them.  And still others have their own reasons.

    Simply, that line was a joke.  I just start to take exception when someone else wants to define how other people act, behave, or should do things because of their arbitrary definition.  In this case, they think we should all be forced to view every single image, like this is Clockwork Orange.  That adding an ignore feature (that they’d never use, because OH THEYRE TOO GOOD FOR IT) would by some way cause SG to lose some value to them, even though they are sifting through every picture and every post, and not missing one iota of content.  
    It’s sort of like a man telling a woman not to breast-feed her child. How does her breastfeeding affect him?  It doesn’t. so shut the fuck up!  

  87. My main concern was that everyone wouldn’t agree with me and all my efforts would turn out only to alienate me from SG. It’s very refreshing to see we’re all on the same page 🙂

  88. You’re too kind :3

    My stress level was through the roof as all of this was coming together and it’s so relieving to know that I’ve been doing the right thing all along. Sometimes you just lose perspective on the way things should be.

  93. A lot of people have said the words, “Sometimes an idea becomes bigger than the man who has it” and I think it’s true in this case. I never once thought that anything he did was malicious or anything, just misguided. 

  94. I’m using this opportunity as a clean slate. If everyone else would like to do the same, then I see no reason for not cohabitating.

  102. I can’t say for certain, nor would I speculate, what his intentions were but I didn’t think it was going to be the best thing for SG. :c

  109. The unofficial stance on the ignore button is that quite a few people WANT it but they will all suck for using it. That being said, I plan on bringing it back eventually but I’m not in any rush.

  125. So this is you? After you said you’d never post your face? (something to do with work or something… I can’t remember….) 😉

  130. ag_minerals and cunty…..you just get to see the caves where those rocks are harvested….add in Swollen Goods, they are harvested by cute (but annoying) rodents.

  133. This is great to hear. I hope now that you hold the reigns of this place that you will continue this level of decorum, transparency, and maturity that almost any leader should be obligated to follow. I always appreciated and saw you as the worker bee of SG anyway, and this is definitely not an exception. Thanks for keeping the Ghetto what it should be, and not accepting anything but our praise for it.

  138. I ignore people, and then become adventurous and show posts whenever I see the post was blocked. I usually use it for dick pictures. Nothing wrong with a dick pic now and then, it just kills my dead bodies and cool art boner.

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