What is wrong with this forum?

(sock) #1

This is something which has been bothering me for some time. I’ve had various people tell me this forum is very hostile and unfriendly. Quote: It has no lovin! … well its time for change.

The constant abuse by some people towards others has certainly driven away people. Marko was a classic which comes to mind with the constant abuse from certain members of the french mapping modteam.

So I’m fed up with the constant foul language, slanging matches and generally snide comments directed at SD for lack of documentation, feedback or coffee making services. So I plan to lay down some rules of conduct for this forum. If you have any issues with this, then this thread is your chance to air those views.

  • No foul language. The english language has plenty of words to describe your current mood or situation without resorting to foul language. If I find any, it will be deleted. Yes you can use *** but just keep it to a minimum.

  • No abusive comments towards other people on this forum. Pure and simple, if you have an issue with something, Personal Message them (PM). I’m fed up with people being driven away because of forum trolls behaviour.

  • If someone asks an obvious question which can be answered by a sticky thread, politely direct them at the thread. If you cannot do this, don’t answer the thread. Ignore it. (I was bad at this one initially.)

  • No spam. If you are planning on a creating a new MOD team. Use the sticky thread, Help wanted. That is why it exists.

  • Please use descriptive thread titles and not simple “Help, I’m stuck”. Say what you are stuck with in summary form. Then give as much information as possible to why you are stuck.

  • Not everyone here speaks english as their primary language, so give people some slack. Don’t automatically assume english is the primary language.

  • No topics on Nazi symbols or the SS. If you want to discuss this stuff use the general forum. Everytime these subjects are brought up, it becomes a flame war. Everyone has different views on this so just accept it, move on, deal with it.

Any comments/views ??

Sock
:moo:

(Drakir) #2

Perhaps some more “Moderators” would help clean out the bad stuff!

When i ran a forum some time ago i just “edited the foul post” and deleted all they have written and addded “This post have been edited by the Forum Moderator due to…bla bla”

(Shallow) #3

sock, you know from ICQ conversations that my feelings in this matter coincide with yours. This is one of the most flamey and angry editing forums I’ve ever come across. And I don’t see why any editing forum should be like this. We’re all here to help ourselves and others create, which is a very positive thing, so I cannot understand why there is so much negativity.

I’ve come here many times and found a thread where I could easily have jumped in and imparted some useful piece of technical knowledge I’ve picked up in the years I’ve been tinkering with the Q3 engine, but more often than not someone is posting in that thread with a major attitude, like they have some sort of axe to grind or need to prove they’re the smartest, and I just don’t feel like getting involved.

When you get a thread going like that where people start biting, people who would normally be sensible get attacked and bite back, and before you know it there’s nothing happening in that thread that’s of any use to anyone.

In short, letting yourself be nasty to people is genuinely detrimental to the usefulness of this forum.

So yeah, c’mon guys, lets all chill out, huh? Group hug :drink:

(blushing_bride) #4

i think of this forum as being a friendly helpful place. Im quite suprised at this post as this place is brimming with positivity compared to some places ive been too. Anyway i could not have finished a map without the help of peole on this forum so im very happy with the help it has provided to me. Im sorry that some people have not had the same positive experience that i have had, i hope that will change in the future.

(Ifurita) #5

i’d agree with BB. Mapping-wise, I’m as green as they come and I’ve probably asked more than my fair share of stupid questions … but i’ve never felt like i was getting put down, flamed, or made to feel not welcome. On the contrary, lots of people have taken time to provide thoughtful, complete, and ultimately helpful answers

(Computertech) #6

I like Sock’s idea. There is alot of bashing, though some of it is more of “ruff play”. AA did a similar thing by adding a “newbie” forum for new ppl to ask new questions. And that included asking the same question over, and over. Anyone flamed in the new person forum got banned.

(MadMaximus) #7

I’m not shure why some people respond abusivly to questions that get posted here, but overall i find this to be a very ‘welcome’ forum with many helpful people who visit regularly. The responses that some people give to questions people ask that don’t have a solid grasp on the english language does bother me though, I mean a person post’s a question because they want help and because they are not fluent in the english language, someone for whatever reason feel’s the need to respond in an abusive way which is not right.

I can understand the question asked, so im shure the person responding to the question can understand it also, but instead of being helpful, that person responds in a way to degrading. If someone posts a q’ and you understand it and can offer ( and are willing to do so ) some help, then just offer the help and be glad that you did something nice for someone you don’t know or never met, because that is a real good feeling to carry around.

If on the other hand someone feel’s the need to be abusive and make fun of someone in need of help, then that person should not respond at all and do us all a favor.

Now that doesnt happen very often, but if it happens even once that’s to many.

But overall, this is a great forum to be part of, I find the most helpful people here and would still be waiting and hour for a map to compile instead of the 3 minutes it takes now without such help

:smiley:

(hummer) #8

Various or many? I don’t think this forum is anymore unfriendly / hostile thatn any other forums I visit… in fact, this is probably one of the nicer ones overall.

For example, if someone asks a question that’s been answered before, people tend to link the poster to the proper thread. In other forums, almost always someone says something like “OMG USE TEH SERCH BUTTUN,” and usually won’t provide a link.

Sure, there will always be a few people with egos or people who come off a bit abrasive, but that’s the nature of the beast. The Internet is a big place.

(G0-Gerbil) #9

Well, it’s friendly and it’s not.
Sometimes people ‘deserve’ to be flamed (hello, Sin anyone?), but mostly it’s fine.
I’ve only seen / been involved in slagging when map reviews come up. People get very defensive about their creations, regardless of how good or bad they are, and it ends up being hard to be objective about it - you won’t change this I think.

SD has already veto’ed the idea of a newbie forum here, so that’s not going to happen. My main problem with this forum is simply there’s no obvious sticky tutorial link - so people coming here (often loathe to use search) simply repost questions. I myself have had little success when searching the forums for tutorials and as such have posted (and most likely reposted) queries, which can often lead to people being a bit snide (although oddly enough not in my case - surely SOMEONE wants to slag me off? :frowning: ).

So I’d say the forum needs to be organised a bit better if you are going to introduce new rules - IE it has to be more useful before you can tell people off for not being helping.

Having said that, bar a few particular cases, I think the forum is friendly.
IMO from forums I’ve modded I’ve only ever had complaints from people about them being unfriendly from newbies who haven’t bothered to do their homework - so possibly here the problem is as above - it’s actually hard to find info here without posting for it.

[EDIT] To prove my point of tutorials not being obvious - note that the tutorial sticky link here is called:

IMPORTANT INFORMATION - README FIRST

Which looks rather like just forum announcements etc - certainly no-one looking for tutorials would go here. Also, try going into search and typing tutorials - the above sticky thread doesn’t even appear on the first page, so it’s not exactly obvious.[/EDIT]

Just rename the darned thread to at least include the words ‘tutorials’ or something!

(Erik-Ftn) #10

I was completely new here in July and have been helped by so many people. I can see now that maybe some of the answers I got when I was new was partly a laugh at my expense, but so what? I was a supernewbie and the ppl answering me was sometimes the best mappers in ET, and I was helped as well.

I get the feeling that many, many ppl are helped and replies here are posted quickly, by many people, much more actively than in other forums. I also get the feeling that if you actively i) try to be polite ii) keep your claims modest/ within your area of expertice iii) recognize an experienced mapper as just that, no one will flame you.

Occasionally there are completely new posters who start out with breaking most of the rules you mention, but generally, even these people are responded to. I guess that if you waltz in here and claim to be the best mapper ET ever saw and you are clearly not, you might draw some remarks.

Also, some of the remarks against SD is IMO obviously off-track and is usually totally ignored in the thread. Others are more part of a discussion about how to practically deal with the fact that documentation is sparse at places and how to solve problems arising from this. The lack of SD presence is a part of those discussions and any frustration should IMO not be mistaken for a genuine anti-SD sentiment. :slight_smile: amen :slight_smile:

Most of the ppl I come to think of which have indeed broken those, really not very controversial rules, are totally new to the forum. There will also always be ppl who regard communties or organisations as if they were a wronged consumer and the community McDonalds.

The point is: A new poster will maybe not read the rules if he is heading to break them all in first post anyway. A big red flashing arrow pointing at “newbie forum” may be the only thing that helps in such a case.

btw, to much tolerance or pampering isn’t love, it’s letting people who’s off track keep their delusions, for the benefit of others.

Erik-Ftn,
still a newb in all areas but scripting and entities :slight_smile:

(G0-Gerbil) #11

As for Marko, well, personally he’s blacklisted permenantly as far as I’m concerned. He brought out rubbish maps for RTCW that screwed up installs, and then he brought out rubbish maps for ET that screwed up installs. The man hasn’t learnt from his mistakes and apparently never will as far as I can see. My only hope is that now the rush to get the first wave of ET maps out, regardless of quality, is over, people spend a bit more time making sure things don’t go wrong.

As far as the quality of playability in his maps go, I’m more than happy to leave that up to individuals, but I will continue to use his maps as technical examples of what not to do - it’s often easier to give an example than spell something out. People are more than capable of using my maps for the same, and I’m fine with that - it shows me what not to do next time - IE I view all criticism as constructive, unless it’s personal, in which case it’s very easily ignored.

(G0-Gerbil) #12

Oh and part of the SD bashing I’m sure comes from the fact that some people seem to regard this forum as their direct personal support from SD.
How often do threads come up with ‘SOCK / DJBOB / SD* PLEASE RESPOND ABOUT XYZ’?

*Delete as applicable. If using djbob, be sure to get the capitalisation wrong :slight_smile:

The fact that you sometimes reply doesn’t help :wink:

There’s still issues I’m not happy about with ET (issue eg = gibbing corpses cos their hitbox was wrong, or bugs eg = mines not working in certain maps), but that’s life really - no game is bug-free. I just have a quick rant and then forget about it really. I’ve yet to see sustained SD bashing threads, but then again maybe that’s because I’m picky about which threads I read on here - dunno…

(Machine for to kill) #13

I don’t agree with many of the restrictions. One of the reasons I like this forum is because the moderators are so tolerant of everything. As we all know I am the person who gets flamed the most in this forum and I still say that i don’t have negative feelings towards it. Every other forum i go has so many ridiculous restrictions, and the moderators are constantly on your case about everything. Please keep things the way they are because I really like it. And PLEASE don’t do what drakir sugested and edit peoples posts with [TOS] comments.

I do agree that too many of the posts here have very vague titles like “newbie question” or “please help with this” and somthing needs to be done about those.

I also like how most of the time the topics here stay on track and threads don’t get hijacked too much.

I think the forum has itself improved since the majority of the people here have been here for a long time and have kind of developed a realtionship (you hate me and I hate you :drink: ).
As far as a newbie forum is conserned I don’t think it’s a good idea. Sometime people ask questions here that could’ve been answered if they just read the first paragraph of the manual. If you have any skill at searching then this forum has pretty much most of the answers to all questions that can be asked about mapping. I can’t remember when the last time I posted a question was because I’ve always been able to find answers by searching.

P.S.
Will these rules affect the general discussion as well. I hope not because I got to trash talk somewhere…you suck SD …especially you sock… :wink: aahhh much better.

(redfella) #14

hmmm… I like these forums. I’ve never seen any “crap” going on around here. Except for that Sin fling.

Anyways… This is a non-issue in my mind.

(sock) #15

Well I always wanted to run a tight ship and keep the forum clean of spam. This is really my first moderator experience and I was told that you need to moderate a forum from a distance and not delete/chop/re-arrange stuff. So I generally try and keep out of the way and only get involved if something winds me up. I simply want to agree on some basic rules of conduct on this forum.

A couple of friends have all said the same thing about the hostile nature of the forum. It certainly has got alot more friendly since the beginning of the forum, maybe because of the regular’s, I think!

Point taken, my choice of wording was certainly wrong. I thought if people saw something in caps and it said “important” they would look. So any suggestions on the organisation of the place are always welcome.

The lack of SD presence is unlikely to change. I can’t speak for the rest of the SD team but personally I don’t always have the time to check the forums on a regular basis. Originally in the beginning I poured alot of time and effort into the forums to get them off the ground. I was hoping with time that regular’s would hold the torch and help the new people who turn up. This has worked very well I think.

Initially I thought it was you on some personal crusade to bash SD and me, but then I realised, you do like to rant and rave. Probably because I spent such a large amount time creating SD content I have a habit of taking it personally. For example the documentation. I know its not perfect and it has more holes than swiss cheese but its a postive step in the right direction. I certainly want to keep improving it but it will take time and alot of effort.

Hehe, no this topic is purely about the mapping forum. The general forum will stay like it is … troll bashing, mud slinging, pointless ranting and general help.

Sock
:moo:

(G0-Gerbil) #16

Well, it’s certainly not clear, but to be fair, even if it was renamed to ‘TUTORIALS and HELP THREADS’ you’d still get people ignoring it. We have this kinda thread on rtcw.co.uk and one of them most common responces used to be a link to the darned thing.

Initially I thought it was you on some personal crusade to bash SD and me, but then I realised, you do like to rant and rave. Probably because I spent such a large amount time creating SD content I have a habit of taking it personally.

It is indeed hard to be objective about one’s personal creations (hence why map criticism is so often taken personally here). I do come on strong because I really don’t see the point in mincing words. When I want to make a point, I try to make it as obviously as possible. Words are only words here, and I never mean for people to take it personally (a few exceptions, Sin being a fun one), and I never take personally what people write about me or my maps - but then again I suppose I’ve been around long enough to know that none of this really amounts to much on a personal level. Thing is, it’s hard to explain to n00bs that you should have a thick skin - I know how ‘into it’ I used to be at the start (going back maybe 8 or 9 years now).
Also you got to bear in mind that I can’t necessarily react how I’d like to on other forums where I mod or mailing lists I run. Here I’m just Joe public like anyone else, and can say (within reason) what I want, which is a bit more fun :smiley:
Rule #1 when reading my posts - always assume I’m either saying it tongue-in-cheek, or having a mild dig - I never type in anger or with intention to maim - nothing written on here ever affects me enough to be angry about it.

For example the documentation. I know its not perfect and it has more holes than swiss cheese but its a postive step in the right direction. I certainly want to keep improving it but it will take time and alot of effort.

Yeah and fair play to you for continuing it. We all know realistically that SD as a company won’t be supporting ET much more (maybe another patch and that’s it if we are lucky) on a ‘work-hours’ effort, so time given by people like yourself is invaluable. Also I think the mapping competition will definately extend it’s shelf life :slight_smile:
I think many people feel ET / SD is a kind of ‘OI SUPPORT IT MORE YOU GITS’ versus ‘THANK YOU FOR THE FREE GAME WE WUBS YOU’. Trouble is, gratitude is notoriously thin on the ground on places like this - few people seek out a forum to say ‘cheers mate!’. However, the lengths people will go to to flame is sometimes unbelievable.
There IS a whole lotta love out there, it’s just we are shy when it comes to showing it :wink:

BTW this forum still wins for the outright coolest smiley: :moo:

(rgoer) #17

Cheers, Sock
You Rock (My Clock) In A Wok

And thanks for thinking of the little guy–updating the LDR = gold.

(hhhmmmmm) #18

I dont think i seen many flames, but i admit i do tend swear abit , but thats the way i talk in real life, i’ll keep this thread in mind and try to watch my words :banana:
And the fact that you guys answer is amazing!! :clap: :clap:
I dunno it nice to see , like sometimes if you a make thread you guys answer/comment on the subject.
But maybe u should’nt to threads directed at ya :???: ( unless it’s an uber hard unaswerable question ) :wink: