This may seem like a trend and I guess it is. But that's for a reason.
 
Let me start off by saying I really love this place. I can't find words that carry enough gravity to properly represent how important my time here has been to me. Comics have been a big part of my life since I was quite young and I have never known anyone in real life or online who shared my interests before I came here. I've made a lot of friends, and not just the wafer-thin kind of friendship you have with the people you follow here or the people on your facebook who you haven't spoken to in 5 years. I mean the real kind, the people you want in your life on a day to day basis. I've had so many amazing moments here, so many shared experiences. It's been a lot of fun and I don't ever want to be without this in my life. But I really can't stay here. 
 
As anyone who knows me can say, my major focus here is creating and participating in battle threads. Specifically, making scenarios. It's like a combination of text-based roleplaying, strategy, comic-book knowledge and using your own tactical ingenuity to overcome problems and enemies. I make them for my own enjoyment but mostly for others. I love to see what people can come up with and I love to see them having a good time with something I've created. Apart from that I also very much enjoy regular battle threads and occasionally rpgs. 
 
I'm leaving because all the time and energy I put into making this place somewhere great and fun to be for other like-minded individuals (and this community is nothing if not a collection of like-minded individuals) is in no way matched by the staff of the site. The fact that there are no battle mods has been an issue for everyone who goes on the battle forums for years. We go there day to day and suffer abuse and trolling without respite. For everyone who gives a sh#t about the state of these forums there is not a single staff member who is willing to spare 5 minutes of their time to address the issue. A one sentence reply 'we're looking into it' or 'this part of the community is important to us' would do just dandy. For everything we have given to this place, the content we have provided or at least the revenue generated from our usage and analytics data, are we not worth that much?
 
It's not good enough. It's insulting. I can't keep supporting people who blatantly have no respect for me. I feel like users are not even remotely important here anymore and let's face it, I'm a user. You're probably a user too. You can cop it on the chin or say 'oh this doesn't apply to me, I don't use the battle forums'. That's fine, but just remember if those forums don't mean anything to them, do you think general or rpgs do? If hundreds of users, on the most active and popular board are worthless to them, then you aren't any different. Don't get me wrong though, I don't hate the Staff or the Mods here. I don't even dislike them. I just wish more than one of them cared at all about the users here.
 
This is my retirement post and I didn't want to write something vague, I want you to know the reasons why I left. I don't feel welcome. This wasn't easy though, I really do care a lot about this website and it's users. I care about my friends here and if I post at all from here on out, it is for them alone. I feel like this is my only choice. 
 
I have only one request: Please don't derail this post or try to discredit my reasons for leaving. It's disrespectful and you have no right to try to tell me my own opinion. If you want to bury your head in the sand that's fine. But be consistent. If you think Mods aren't necessary in the Battle Forums, then they aren't necessary anywhere at all. It is beyond question that that part of the site has the most disagreements, arguments and trolls. If you aren't active there and don't know what has been going on then don't question people who do.
 
We had a good run guys. Take care of yourselves.