So a lot has happened recently and I'd like to summarize here for the record:
We have disassociated the discord from the forums
Initially, the idea of having an official chat sounded great for re-engaging the community. However, in practice, it became problematic for a variety of reasons. I suspect it actually reduced participation in the forums. The culture of the chat shifted drastically from the forums, so much so that it hosted a dedicated politics channel that often fostered bigotry and antisemitism. To compound that issue there was a disagreement within the mod staff about how to handle it - if at all. Moderating a chat would be a daunting responsibility due to the constantly flowing nature of the discussion, even if we didn't have disagreement within the mod staff. It became clear that having an official chat was a failed experiment for pixelation. It has become quite an active community in its own right, and I wish it the best of luck in the future, but it isn't what pixelation is. If we can't moderate our chat in the same spirit as pixelation, then we shouldn't be hosting one.
We need to review our rules/guidelines on the forum
In light of the above, It's clear that sometimes leaving things to interpretation can lead to misalignment in the leadership. Rallying behind a point as ambiguous as "Don't be an ass" can have different meanings to different people. We need to review our rules and guidelines and develop new ones that are more proactive and specific to the behavior that fosters a good and inclusive learning environment for artists.
Helm and Ptoing have rejoined as Moderators (at least temporarily)
The concerns brought up by Helm and Ptoing were part of the reason these changes are happening. While we are working through these new changes, I've brought them back on board to help shape the future of pixelation. Having had such pivotal influence in the development of pixelation in the past, they are always welcome here. Due to life and other responsibilities, their long-term participation might be limited, but they'll be helping for the time being.
New moderators
As you're already aware, resulting from these changes some moderators have decided to step down including Crow and Cyangmou. Both have been extremely valuable assets to pixelation in the past and I am sad to see them go amidst this drama. I was hoping to minimize the amount of drama the community was exposed to, but oh well. I wish them the best. To fill the gaps, Kiana and Elm have joined to bring fresh eyes to pixelation's moderating staff.
The long-term future of pixelation
Setting aside all of this, Pixelation has a much larger problem. It's dying. It has been for quite a while actually. My efforts some time ago to revitalize the forum with a renewed focus on activities, board restructuring, and the new theme has largely failed. Pixelation used to be one of the few major hubs of the pixel art world. But the truth is that while pixelation has dwindled over time, the pixel art community in large has been exploding elsewhere.
There has been a lot of discussion about why this might be the case. A big part of it, I believe, is the format. The format of an online forum such as this is antiquated for today's standards. Things have been trending towards social platforms providing more immediate feedback such as Tumblr and Twitter, which is why it's no coincidence the pixel art community has been thriving on these platforms.
We are currently exploring new software for the future of Pixelation, currently heavily investigating Mastodon. Mastodon uses the format of Twitter but is entirely decentralized allowing us to run a dedicated instance that we can customize to our liking.
Switching to a new format would be a BIG change for pixelation, and might even fragment the community, but if we're thinking long-term, that might be the best move. How to transition to the new format is a whole discussion itself; should we archive the forums? Run them side-by-side? Just make a hard switch? We need to think more about these things and I invite discussion about it.