important please read

do you agree with the changes the sda staff made?

Also i believe the staff members should't vote at all and let members decide....

i dont agree as i said to the chatroom

It's not too late. The votes can be reset.
I have not voted and will not vote.

I haven't voted, and i don't want to vote. I really want to know what the other member think.

I'm fine with it. The academy looks tidier now.

PROTIP: Banners and the organisation of sections are changes.

i came here after the changes so idgf

GADGET PRO wrote:

i came here after the changes so idgf

Have you ever been in an Academy before? If yes,we had the same 3-dorm system with most academies.

no this is my first but iv heard abt the dorms

3-dorm system = oooooooold ;)

i've been in an academy before and i like this version a lot better than the dorm system

Here's what I think: being unique is fine. I agree with what gem said at the sda awards topic, at first when I joined you guys just copied and pasted everything from other academies, and had a somewhat inactive staff of only vem and ive, but you have grown to become something much more than that. You now have a much more active staff team, some of the best duelists I know in kc (I'd like to think dga helped with that :P), better graphics and layout, and a brand new and original ranking system that doesn't divide the members by rank. I'm not sad that dga has a dorm system, but sometimes it can hide people's potential and separate them from other duelists just because of one match. Which is better? I haven't a clue, they're both great, the reason I'm still here is that all the academies I'm in (dga sda and tda) have a different and equally fun rank system. the point is IT DOESN'T MATTER. Academies are all about having fun talking about yugioh and other things with people you didn't know before, and just dueling and enjoying the game. I can sympathize with aris and blaze that the staff didn't ask before they changed everything, but the academy IS made by the staff, and I think we've found the staff willing to hear what the members want. Could the point system use work and make it a bit easier to rank up? I believe so, and I also believe that the staff will change it if enough people agree. also I would have liked it if credits carried over SOMEhow... I mean, for a while I was in the top posters and in the top rank, and it was slightly disappointing to have nothing all of a sudden. My vote goes to "it depends". Also I would appreciate it if those who don't agree with the changes would post what it is thy they don't approve of

First of all, I'd like to say :

The Staff Members are still Members of the community, and the changes they do derive from their perspective too as a member of that community. I don't see why the staff can't vote. There are staff members who dislike/disagree with the changes, but we work with a majority system. That means that there are staff members who will vote Disagree. If we didn't count as members then we shouldn't be able to post and take part in events either.

However, if you don't care about what I said or don't agree with it, just count -1 vote in the I Agree option from the poll. I am confident that no other staff member has voted.

I'd also like to note, for whoever thinks the Credits from duels are not enough, that duelling in the arena IS NOT the only way to rank up. There are TONS of things you can do to get Credits fast, assuming you are willing to be active. And yes, this system was also made to increase the forum's activity, since the member needs to spend some time in the forum to rank up. The dorm system was really active-unfriendly since there were times people just took their test, and they either left immediately after or if they got into a low dorm then they would abbandon the forum because they think it wasn't fair and/or they have a too big idea of themselves.

I also had some complaints that I'm not suit as an admin since I don't care for the forum?

If I didn't care for the forum I wouldn't be here in the first place. Period.

Also, Harper, you made a good point, and I really appreciated that you stated the REASONS you Like/Dislike the changes. If you want the staff to take your complaint/suggestion seriously, you must AT LEAST post the reasons you want something to change. And when I say reasons, I mean valid reasons, not "because I don't like it" or "because it's easier" or "because everybody says so".

Also, Harper, remove that SDA Brionac Blue from your sig please xD
The userbar SOMEONE made for SDA kinda sucks and gives a bad image for the forum so you could take that out too until we make a new one ;)

Ok then you want the reasonswhy we don't like the changes so here they are(obviously i didn't like the changes xD)

First of all all our hard work being to Top Dorm and earning credits just vanished to thin air and he have to start all over. You ll say that's a new beggining but still we older members don't deserve to be ranked higher than the newly arrived members? I mean some of the mebers(like me and Terraplant) are here from the begging of SDA since the GD closed. Now all our hard work being dropped to 0 is a little unfair.
Next some of us had shops to earn credits. Now our shops are gone and even if we re-open them nobody will have enough credits to buy since they are hard to get especially if you are not a good duelist.
Furthermore, I personally was a Tester but now that the Dorm system is gone i lost that position. I don't really care that much but still i liked to see people skills and place them in their dorms respectivly and i believe it helped me improve as well.
Finally, The fact that you rank up only with Credits is unfair as well. Someone that's active and posts in topics every day should be raising in rank in my opinion. And since you removed spam topics this should be fair enough since they are no topics to spam and every post someone makes will be to express his opinion and/or ask for someone else's opinion

@Redgar

That's better, until now noone gave us any reasons. How can we know what you don't like if you don't tell us?

Ok then :

There was NO hard work to get to the Top Dorm, just a duel for the test, so that doesn't count for me at least.

What we did with the credits was indeed unfair. Like Terra said we should'va taken the SC you had and turn them into Credits with a fair analogy (Like 2:1 or 3:1, or something like that). I apologize for that as the SDA Staff, we rushed things a little bit too much in that period.

Shops don't exist right now, and if we reimplement a shop system it most probably won't involve Credit transaction, so that's a bit hard to do. You can't reopen shops because we still don't allow Credit transaction between members. It probably will change, but right now it's not allowed.

You didn't LOSE your position as a Tester since that position no longer exists. You can still judge people's skill by duelling them for Duel Arena. Also, in the Team system we may add, it may include an admission system for teams that will require a tester, and therefore you will be able to get a similiar position again.

You DO get Credits for posting and can gain some Credits with Competitions. As I stated in a previous post, SDA is still stabilizing, so we can't add all the ideas we want to at the same time. We will most probably make some events that won't involve dueling. Also, I'd like you to note that if you could rank up easily only by posting then that would be unfair to people who duel and win tournaments for it. Although I believe it's not, I'm 99% sure that it will to them. People who really like the forum and are active will earn their way up in the ranks. The ranks show some kind of skill level, so of course the more the things you do involve YGO, the more Credits you will get. I find that absolutely logical.

@Steff: You asked my opinion i gave it to you replying to it offres nothing...

Spoiler:

Winduct is absolutely right about what he is saying. It's like building a ship and make a poll to see if the passengers like it and you that created it vote for it :/

How can you tell that we did nothing ? If you think it is easy to make some things, go ahead and try ( and you still don't say what we said to you we would do and haven't done it ) . You don't give reasonings or just a simple example, and the way you tell those things hurts me a lot, because the staff has put a lot of work into that forum.

And i am gonna repeat again : If you don't like something, there is no need to spend your time on it.

Um propably didnt get what i wanted to say judging from your tone -.-
Plz read what steff wrotte 2 posts above and then sit down think of it a bit and post again

I read what stef wrote above and it isn't connected to the question i asked you. I am asking what we didn't do. You keep not answering my question.. Also

I know that members who were in SDA from the beggining wouldn't like to start from 0. But we decided it would be fair for everyone to start from that point. Of course it may was a bad decision, but not all the decisions we make are correct. For something to grow , we have to make sacrifices. You, being an old member and old staff of the forum , should have been willing to make some sacrifices in order to get this place work better.

also sorry for my english, they kinda s*ck in this post dunno why lol

Well since you are either blind or dum (sry no offence but it's in front of you) i ll explain

1) He apologizes for the cradits but you dont do anything to help by giving us some ammoount like the anlogy he said

2) "It probably will chang" he said about the deck shops and that's a NO you wont open shops we both know it >.<

3)"it may include an admission system for teams that will require a tester, and therefore you will be able to get a similiar position again." I doubt it will

I hope i am wrong and everything i say turns out to be 100% inaccurate for the best of our academy but i dont see that happening

1) We don't do that because imagine how that will look to new members of the academy. We wanted to make a completely new start but if you guys insist that you want to rankup that badly we can find a solution. And with that i mean that you can think of ideas and post them too.

2) I don't like the idea of opening shops because we don't have a currency that can be spent. We find it not necesarry, but if you can comeup with a better idea on how shops can work we will be happy to hear it.

3) If you want us to copy something unoriginal and do it in 1 day like we did in the past ( and got no activity ) then it is ok. Thinking about an innotative system needs discussion and progressing it and making it fit for the forum and it's current possibilities is something that requires time. Plus most of us have school. We can't offer all of our free time to SDA. You can't say that we don't do something when the idea of it just came up ;/

1) Then why he apologises? (hypocrit :O ?)
2)You dont like it but members may do like it. The currency? Make synchro credits easier to gain like before. Give SC to ppl who post or sth like that
3)Um what copying? Every academy has inter teams but many have actibvity?What more do they have? We have skilled duelists very skillful indeed, good artists good writters we could make teams not only for dueling but for competing in card creation sttory writting and other interesting stuff and become original. And every team needs a leader to control and keep balancew in the team

Then go be a pessimist in a corner.

1) We do not have a list of how many SC every old member had, so we cannot do that. Otherwise, I wouldn't be apologizing in the first place, I would've already done it.

2) I told you 100000 times that the forum is stabilizing and we're not implementing new systems, and then you tell me I'm just repeating myself. It's because you don't seem to be getting it. We closed the shops because the Credit system is under testing in some way. We want to see how easy it is for members to get Credits, and then add more features that involve Credits, and the amount of Credits you can spend/earn from those events will be based on how easy/hard it is to get Credits from other things, like dueling and competitions. By saying that what I said is translated into a "no" is not called realism, it's called pessimism. You didn't give me AGAIN any reason for why this is not going to happen, you just said it won't.

3) Same thing with 2, you just said you doubt there will be without giving me any reason that created those doubts. How do you think members will enter a team? They'll just say "I want to be in your team" and be approved as an official member? No, you will have some requirements for someone to enter your team. Those requirements may be a taking a test from the team tester to see if the member meets your requirements.

Also, about the boat example:

I am building a boat, but I'm not just giving it to you. In this case, I'm building it AND riding it.

That means that my opinion counts too. Why would the opinion of the person who rides the boat with me count more than mine? I'm riding this boat too and I have the right to express my likes/dislikes.

I may not like some things in the forum that you may like. Why would your opinion count more than mine? I'm saying that both our opinions should count the same, since we're both using the services of the forum, regardless of my position.

If I was making a forum EXCLUSIVELY for the members, and not for me, then what you said would make sense. But in this case, I'm taking part of the forum community too.

I also want you to note that I stated in my post that I voted and I also said what I voted, and if they want to they can assume the poll has -1 vote on the choice I voted for.

EDIT:

1) I'm not a hypocrite, we really rushed in that period and made some choices we should've discussed about more. If you still think I'm a hypocrite, it's your right to do so.

2) Didn't you read my posts? I said we DO give credits to people who post.

3) What Vem means is that just dueling will eventually get boring and has no originality in it. Innovation is the key to success on the internet, where people have a huge variety of choices. We just want to have some innovative activities involving teams to spice things up a little bit.