Community

[george moromisato]

A community is a tricky thing. We all want to belong to a community that shares our passion for the game. And we all want to belong to a community that respects each one of us.

But the tricky thing is that everyone is a little different and everyone wants to participate in the community in a different way. It would be simple if everyone were identical, like bees in a bee colony, and everyone had the exact same idea of what the community should be and how everyone should behave.

But we don't live in that world. Instead, our community is diverse: some are very young and some are old enough to be the fathers of the very young. Some like omnidirectional weapons and some like missiles. Some like to create mods within existing rules and some like to change the base rules of the game.

There have recently been several posts in which one person or another asks someone to behave differently. I'm not sure these posts are very productive. I suspect that they are the least effective way for getting people to change behavior.

The goal of a community should be to satisfy the desires of its members. If there are activities that some of us want to conduct that are currently being frustrated (for whatever reason) then let's figure out some way to solve that problem.

For example, maybe the setup of the forum should be changed to properly channel discussions. The posts that Betel made listing all functions really belongs in a kind of Reference section. Similarly, maybe we can create some forums that are restricted to serious design discussions.

I am open to suggestions.

[Betelgeuse]

We where talking on IRC and here are our ideas (mostly me and oddbobs)

If two discussions about completely different things going on at once in a thread a user should be able to request for the thread to be split.

Bugs and brainstorms should be made into a serious forum.
A "serious forum" being one where is is displayed somewhere clearly a request to be serious and refrain from frivolous posts. Frivolous posts will be moved into the offtopic forum.

Make a modding showcase forum for people to post there mods without them being buried under questions and various tutorials.

[OddBob]

I am often a bit skeptical about having rules and such in a forum environment.

On one hand, it is occasionally good to have guidance in the discussion. Eagerly awaiting a reply to your painstaking phrased argument and finding some inane statement is frustrating, as is waiting for a page to load and then finding that it really doesn't contain anything new (imagine walking to the post office and opening a paper letter to find a few scribbled smiley faces and a single random statement). It is made even worse by the fact that such comments hamper legitimate discussion - is it less likely someone will reply to your painstakingly phrased argument after there have been five or ten random posts,

On the other I have been in many forums where the place is ruled with an iron fist - any discussion that strays from what is in the thread title is locked and posts are split up without cause. I don't feel splitting is necessary often - certainly not if the side discussion ends quickly as many do. I don't feel locking is hardly ever necesssary - even in situations like a poll which is no longer useful why not let discussion continue until the thread dies on it's own.
When I am suggesting that "frivolous" posts be moved, I don't believe every single little thing that doesn't relate should be moved (also thus creating a random stump in off topic that may or may not ever be active). If it gets in the way, move it, otherwise it's fine to leave it.

My final point is that I value the freedom to post what I want and I would not like to take that from others - I would rather have a chaotic forum, frustrating, one word posts and all, then an overabundance of "guidance" and rules telling me how to discuss things.

On a side note I would like to suggest the abolition of post count displays. I am not saying that is the motive behind all fluff posting but there are some who might be influenced by it and it serves no purpose anyway.

Another thing - is it possible to give users the ability to split threads that they have posted?

[Charon Mass of Goo]

First at OddBob: I agree, I'd much rather have a Chaotic forum than such a strict one, it prevents us from doing much. On the other hand, I don't want it to be such that people go into a topic, and just barge into the conversation without actually knowing what it is about.

My Idea:

[Idea]Two versions of each Sub-Forum. One for those hardcore, no BS, guys such as Betelgeuse (You just seem that way, no offense intended.), who don't stray from the topic at hand (very much) and would just like serious modders in their topic.
The other Sub-Forum would be for the same topics, but for those who don't always keep on subject, like me.

At the top of each forum would be a sticky, stating the minimum requirements, such as "Please refrain from flaming your fellow Transcendentites in this forum without their permission." and "This forum is Totally serious. Please do not post any random crap in your replies."

The exception would be the Commonwealth and Off-Topic sub-forums.[/Idea]

[Betelgeuse]

I think bugs always should be serious.

I don't know about making two suggestions forums doesn't everyone think their suggestion is good and worthy of discussion? Plus it would split up the community between serious suggestion people and non serious suggestion people.

maybe for the mods forum the opening post can request a serious thread but I don't think there are enough serious threads in the modding forum to be given its own forum. (I don't think a request system would work in the suggestions forum)

oddbob what do you suggest be done when a frivolous post is posted? They often consist of a few words or a smiley but are not really suitable to form a thread of its own.

[OddBob]

[Idea]Two versions of each Sub-Forum. One for those hardcore, no BS, guys such as Betelgeuse (You just seem that way, no offense intended.), who don't stray from the topic at hand (very much) and would just like serious modders in their topic.
The other Sub-Forum would be for the same topics, but for those who don't always keep on subject, like me.

Judging from this and some of your other comments I think you are missing the point. I am not sure how to explain it but it is NOT about "keeping on subject" or staying on topic. It is most certainly not about restricting discussion to the subject that is in the thread title and it is for damn sure not about telling people that they are off topic and that their ideas are not worth posting, which is what you seem to think this is all about.

Actual discussion is always encouraged and it's perfectly fine to have two conversations going on in a thread. I could care less about that and it is not the issue at hand - if you feel that one of the conversations is getting drowned out you can request a split.

It is mostly concerning those type of little posts which don't add anything - and it is not very ambiguous in the cases I am talking about.

It's when people constantly make a post which consist of only a smiley.

It's when people reply TWICE to a thread at different times with the same single sentence reply because apparently they put so little thought into it the first time they completely forgot about it.

It's when someone goes down the threads and replies to every single post on the page - I guarantee you this person had to sit at some of them and think "hmm what should I post in this one". By all means if you have something to say or add do so, but if you read the entire thread and when you get to the end you don't have anything to add, it's okay just to leave it. You don't have to think up something inane to say.
Don't get me wrong on this one I am not talking about thinking to further flesh out your ideas or anything but sometimes it's obvious that someone could care less about the discussion but they just posted anyway with some random thing: like in a discussion about whether or not shields reflect or absorb radar energy they just say "I like the mammoth shields". Completely not relevant. In fact I would say less relevant that brining up the issue of reflection/absorption in a thread about what is your favorite shield.

It's when people post completely unrelated things like, in a discussion about whether particle weapons are too strong someone fill a whole post with 100 repetitions of the word "particles" or says that your mother enjoys particle weapons or somesuch. *

Are those the sort of things that most would agree on?

These are I think the egregious examples, although based on my experience trying to fight this sort of thing before those prone to fluff posts will no doubt misinterpret everything I just said, generally by highlighting a single statement and taking it too literally (like thinking that the last paragraph warns against replying to every thread). That is part of the problem with this kind of thing as the whole deal results from differing thought processes.

*Here we come to a problem that I have never been able to solve. While the two examples I gave are deliberately stupid, I do not mean there is never a place for a joke or something like that in the serious thread. Of course not - The problem is that if you allow for it, someone will do it all the time (and poorly to boot). Then you have to say something silly like "one joke per month" or something in order to accommodate those who need every situation spelled out in a rule. And THAT is going to prevent a well respected member with 1000 thoughtful, serious contributions from making two silly posts, in addition to being ridiculous in it's own right. It all come down to intent, really. I have seen eight paragraph posts which contained nothing - basically a long winded rephrasing of the question and I have seen posts with a single sentence that very very insightful.

Here is my personal opinion: Would you hand write what you are about to post, stick it in an envelope, and mail it? If it's not worth that, it's probably not worth the time people will spend to read it (remember that a lot of people will read it so their time will always be much greater than yours).

EDIT:

oddbob what do you suggest be done when a frivolous post is posted? They often consist of a few words or a smiley but are not really suitable to form a thread of its own.

I am reluctant to ever delete posts on principle but if it is getting in the way of the discussion and not worthy to be it's own thread then it can

A. have it's contents copied into a PM to be sent to the owner along with reason for deletion and deleted

B. be moved into a general, all purpose "spam thread"

[Periculi]

I like the idea of a forum for mod releases, so that it is easier to find the mods people have thrown out there and not put up on xelerus, beside which the threads for mods do get buried rather quickly.

I also would prefer to see the post count reduced as a merit of itself. This is a phpBB, and I bet there is a mod that counts your words rather than your posts- as well as keeping track of your spelling score.. that would be funny, lol

[Charon Mass of Goo]

A. have it's contents copied into a PM to be sent to the owner along with reason for deletion and deleted.

The problem is, you can only delete your most recent post in a thread. So if the person posts another one, BEFORE they recieve a PM and a deletion request, they will only be able to edit it to a blank, space hogger.

(remember that a lot of people will read it so their time will always be much greater than yours).

What do you mean by, "Their time will always be much greater than yours"? I can't make heads or tails of this. Can you reword that please?

I like the idea of a forum for mod releases

I believe that is on the UTF. And if you are too lazy to click on "Links" and then on the "Unofficial Transcendence Forums" link, then you have a problem.

the threads for mods do get buried rather quickly

That's probably because no one bothers to point out bugs, or give any suggestions, on other peoples mods in Mod Threads anyways.

I also would prefer to see the post count reduced as a merit of itself. This is a phpBB, and I bet there is a mod that counts your words rather than your posts- as well as keeping track of your spelling score.. that would be funny, lol

What the hell are you talking about? "A mod that counts your words", you can't "Mod" websites, you have to manually change the structure of the Website Code itself.
And what do you mean by "I also would prefer to see the post count reduced as a merit of itself."?


There is another thing, not everyone has the brain of a nuclear physicist, and therefore not everybody can understand EVERYTHING in your* post. If you* just say "I think I made sense there" and leave it at that, it doesn't help. You* could at least TRY to reword your post to make it more understandable, and if you* can't think of how to do that, just say "I'm sorry, but I can't think of a way to make it more clear."

*"You" means "The person who made the post in question." and not anyone in particular.

[Petrus]

The best forums that I've participated in are ones whose posters adhere to the following rules:

1) Don't spam. Don't post just for the sake of posting; post when you have something constructive to add to the discussion.

2) Respect others. No one is perfect, but we're all here because we enjoy this game and want to talk to others who also enjoy it. Even if someone annoys you, it's best for the community and ultimately for yourself if you just let it go.

3) Don't take threads off-topic. If someone starts a topic, don't change the subject or engage in idle speculation in that topic. This relates back to respecting others and not spamming.

4) Keep things positive. Remember why you came here in the first place and enjoy your time with the community instead of concentrating on the negative parts.

Just my two cents.

[digdug]

I agree with Petrus' rules, in short they are common sense and positive social behaviour.

As I always say "connect your brain to your fingers before you start typing"

[Betelgeuse]

the problem comes from what happens when someone breaks one those "common sense" rules.They could feel that they where completely within the rules and if they get punished it would seem out of nowhere even if it is an obvious case. This would cause bad feelings and people leaving.

Take for example I left the UTF because I felt I was being punished for violating unwritten rules.

If you take it to the other way and never enforce the rules you might as well not write any rules at all.

I feel the most important thing here is consistency of enforcement (it doesn't matter if a person has made tons of great posts in the past or is even good friends with George) and clarity on what is expected.

[Periculi]

Charon, as to what I am talking about- Mods exist in many forms for many versions of forum software. I have installed and managed dozens of forums over the years, and a word count per post mod exists in several versions for phpBB brand forums software. Try google it.

I modify websites all the time, sometimes I even get paid for it.

"post count reduced as a merit of itself" is simply another way of saying that I would like to see the post count award (ship graphic and title) removed. It encourages people to post comments simply to gain a higher rank. If we had the options of other ranking systems it might reduce the amount of post count raising spam comments.

Here is a link to the phpBB MOD database: http://www.phpbb.com/mods/db/
You can find out all about modding phpBB forum software there, Charon.

And here is a link to a User Word Count mod: http://www.phpbb.com/community/viewtopi ... 4&t=218470

[OddBob]

The problem is, you can only delete your most recent post in a thread. So if the person posts another one, BEFORE they receive a PM and a deletion request, they will only be able to edit it to a blank, space hogger.

That is not what I said.
I said that a moderator would delete the post, sending a reason for deletion and a copy of the post to the poster.

What do you mean by, "Their time will always be much greater than yours"? I can't make heads or tails of this. Can you reword that please?

Many people will read your post, and if it is worthless, you have wasted their time. A single worthless post can potentially waste a lot of people's time.

I believe that is on the UTF. And if you are too lazy to click on "Links" and then on the "Unofficial Transcendence Forums" link, then you have a problem.

No. We are trying to improve THIS forum, and that has nothing to do with it.

As for Petrus' rules, the problem I am trying to prevent is misinterpretation of said rules. They are very vague.

What does "stay on topic" mean?. We have had several interpretations in this very thread - I am afraid that it will be interpreted far too literally, because I have seen it many times. I am afraid that we will get people stifling discussion because it does not fall into the exact title of the thread (it has already happened). Why CAN'T we say things that are unrelated and then discuss them if they are interesting? the medium of the forum is infinite, you can never run out of pages or anything. The only reason for this on topic thing is just to make it easier to follow the conversation - if it becomes difficult to follow the conversations, PLEASE PLEASE do not suffocate one of the discussions, request a split.

What about "respect"? This is vague also - it doesn't fall under "common sense" because everyone has a different idea of what that is. Is this rule saying we all have to tiptoe around each other's fragile little feelings and never say anything that could ever hurt someone? That seems silly to me, not least of which because those with the fragile feelings tend to not follow their own rules.

Keep things positive, again, that is barely definable let alone enforceable.

Even "don't spam": This one pains me because while I do hate fluff posting I hate even more someone saying what you can or cannot say. Etiquette demands that we try and be constructive but etiquette by definition must be optional.

I am not, it could be said, in favor of rules at all. Oh, now "no advertising, pronography, racism etc" is fine, but something like "be polite" is tricky.

We'd all love it if we were polite but that does not stop disputes - It is my experience that while a shouting match is bad, a polite shouting match is even worse, and doubly worse is when a problem goes unsolved because no one was allowed to say "Hey, you are being an idiot." Note here that politeness and respect are two different things.
Thus I am not in favor of any rule that prohibits "flaming" or requires "respect".

"Don't spam" is a great guideline and while on the surface I am fine with the outright prohibition of posts consisting of only a smiley or whatever, I don't want to restrict what you have to say, no matter what it is. The problem is made worse by the fact that if you want to make a fluff post you can do it no matter how many rules are in place - I could provide a hundred examples but the easiest way is for you to try it - visit any discussion and compose (but please do not post) a reply which on the surface appears to be legitimate but actually does not further the discussion at all, it is very easy.
So we can remove all those little smileys and such but now there are still lots of fluff posts, and these kind are WORSE because at least the smileys aren't pretending to be real posts - they can be filtered somehow, at least potentially.

Summary:

I am of the opinion that all these rules just hurt discussion, which is where the choice I mentioned earlier comes in.

Moderators should perform tasks we don't have authority for, like splits and moves, and protect us from spammers/etc, not from each other. (Now where have I heard that before....). We have a moderator that is doing a great job of this, what is wrong with that?

[Petrus]

I don't know if those "rules" I posted have ever been written out on the forums I spoke of. They're more of the unwritten type, general social guidelines that if enough people buy into them, the community works a lot better. Most of them probably do the most good just in terms of something to think about before posting something you aren't sure of. I don't think we have any mean-spirited people on this forum. There's just a little friction between points of view, but if everyone tries to have just a little empathy it will probably go a lot smoother.

[Betelgeuse]

I know you feel that there are no mean spirited people on the board but people have bad days. Is it ok if I had a bad day so I flame all the newbies? Or if I have a grudge against someone so I do my best to destroy any topics they post in?

Without clear rules any punishment no matter how fitting would seem arbitrary. All it would do is cause the people who where punished and people who think punishing people without rules is wrong to have bad feelings for the board making the community worse.

One thing I don't think you are taking into account is while we are small now we are growing and we want to grow. With growth there will be problems. Mean spirited people and people who just want to stir up trouble.

While I agree that off topic posts are fine and fuzzy rules are not helpful but I do think there needs to be clear reasons (rules) for moderator action when it is needed.