The forums: ah ... the good old days

[zenga]

The forum used to be something I checked before logging in to nodiatis. Click new posts, check the topics that looked interesting. Have a laugh with a funny comment or a pic, post a reply when I could help someone out, ... long story short, it was fun.

Nowadays, the amount of 'new posts' is excessive. It's no longer fun. Why? I see a few reasons:

- the everlasting complaining, whining, ... about things that don't make sense
- a bunch of new people joined and there is no relation with there ingame name, hard to figure out who is who
- certain trends: ravenskar used to reply on topics with a fun, smart, double layered pic. many started to copy that behavior, but they miss the sophistication, .... instead of posting a good pic in the internet pics thread, certain people just post everything they can find, 90% coming from the same site , ... the offensive behavior towards others, if they don't share there opinion they just post a stfu pic/reply and the whole (often promising) discussion comes to a halt
- there is hardly any discussion, argumentation going on, it used to be different, the pro's and the con's were stated, now u are a pussycat, licker, w/e if you disagree
- a bunch of people who consider themselves civil & highly educated find every other person that does not match their standards inferior and a Neanderthal, while doing this they do exactly what they hate

and 3 recent forum changes have contributed to this imo:
- the uncivil/civil rules
- the whole reputation concept
- introduction of mods and jeff his mike & nikita alts and punishments

I do realize that the game grows and that this results in more forum content. Which needs more regulation. But that doesn't mean I have to like it. More common sense & self regulation would be cooler instead of regulating each and everyone.

ah, those good old nodiatis times

[flipynifty]

I agree 100% zenga, forums went down the ****ter a while ago. Your reasons are pretty spot on aside from the fact that a lot of players that used to post useful or funny posts don't really do it anymore. It's turned into a retarded free-for-all.

...

i'm, uh...contributing to the problem, aren't i?

*cough*

[Tridius]

# 3 certain trends...

that was directed at Sherman

and yes i agree

Originally Posted by Tridius

# 3 certain trends...

that was directed at Sherman

and yes i agree

Tridius he intentionally left certain people's names out.

What you did, seems to be one of the things he was referring to. Also, your comment is based on past perceptions of me, please update your database to allow for more information based on current trends.

I do agree as well Zenga.

Edit:

The forums are being regulated harshly now for the certain reasons you posted above Zenga.

The forum Moderators are catching many of the troublemakers in an attempt to set them straight. As you have pointed out, the forums have gone to Hell, and are a mess at the moment.

The new Mods are cleaning up the forums quite nicely.

I think it is necessary to show the players that they have been breaking the rules for a long time, but have been overlooked, until now. Hopefully, after another day or two of this strictness, the Mods will relax a bit.

I am assuming that after the forums have been cleaned up a bit more, the restrictions will be relaxed a bit.

I agree with the intentions of the Mods, however I feel they could have gone about a better way.

If you want to get nitpicky, everyone in these forums, just about, has broken the rules at least once. The Mods could have done a search for every post that has profanity in it and ban the person who did it, for every time that word came up.

Could have been worse, but it sure could have been done better.

[zenga]

For the record, I did not blame any of the mods nor jeff. It's just an evolution and some things I've noticed over the past weeks. I'd say forum was more or less ok till half june. The main change should come from the players, i don't really see how any moderation can bring it back to how it used to be. What they can do however is clean up everything and keep every thread tight. Not sure if that is as fun as back in the old days.

Originally Posted by zenga

For the record, I did not blame any of the mods nor jeff. It's just an evolution and some things I've noticed over the past weeks. I'd say forum was more or less ok till half june. The main change should come from the players, i don't really see how any moderation can bring it back to how it used to be. What they can do however is clean up everything and keep every thread tight. Not sure if that is as fun as back in the old days.

Hopefully the Mods can scare some people back into behaving so we won't have such restrictions.

we're in uncivil, you know...you can stop pretending you respect the rules.

I do respect the rules for the most part.

The problem comes in when I decide to ignore the rules

I am not always rude, hateful, flaming, etc.

If people would read my posts as just stating facts, instead of hateful, maybe that would cause a lot less confusion.

[Revanche]

peoples perceptions sadly cause more problems than they solve. its a sad state when this level of hand-holding is neccesary. with any luck, this little society will learn something P.S. hey sherm, lovin the sig, thanks!

Originally Posted by sherman

I do respect the rules for the most part.

The problem comes in when I decide to ignore the rules

I am not always rude, hateful, flaming, etc.

If people would read my posts as just stating facts, instead of hateful, maybe that would cause a lot less confusion.

well stop that! a large part of my day involves getting in arguments with you, and if you don't fight back, it's like poking roadkill.

Originally Posted by zenga

For the record, I did not blame any of the mods nor jeff. It's just an evolution and some things I've noticed over the past weeks. I'd say forum was more or less ok till half june. The main change should come from the players, i don't really see how any moderation can bring it back to how it used to be. What they can do however is clean up everything and keep every thread tight. Not sure if that is as fun as back in the old days.

The nosepickers are out of school again for the first time since the game became public Z.

Sheman you are full of crap

Anyway i have to agree with most things Zenga said. Year ago forums were kinda peaceful, funny, helpful (ofc there were few exceptions). Not taking care of what ppl say, made us some more fun than we may had if it was different, but in a long run it led the forums where it is now.

A place where ppl, who obviously have nothing better to do, write their crap out of frustration or other life issues, trying to be funny or smart or trying to prove something, w/e. So now we got ppl with more than 1000 posts of which, 974 are "lame pic(s) + sarcastic comment", 22 are flaming and whining, and 4 worth of reading, aprox. Even when u try pointing on them, ppl reject u and u instantly become Jeffs asskisser or whatever, and possible target of future crap posts.

Anyway my point is, if u dont like what u see on forums simply dont use them.
Trying to argue with some ppl will only feed their nerdy hunger. If u cant get over what some ppl say, dont use them.

At least, i wouldnt.

[God Stomper]

I also agree. Now it's just a bunch of fucktards.

Agree

[flipynifty]

1000th post, had to post somewhere... and yes we are all retards now (including me)

At some point in my regular checking of the forums I broke 500 posts. I wish they had all been as constructive as Zenga's at the start here.

I'd suggest a movement by those of us who think along these lines to lead by example - if I didn't know for a fact that one infectious little virus of a poster (srsly no one in particular, i swear) wouldn't subsequently reproduce by infecting all those without the intelligence/will to resist such insidious behavior.

Perhaps giving certain posters a seal of approval from a group of us players to let others know that this person's postings are usually worth reading?

[zenga]

That is where the rep is coming in ehlmaris. But (at least from my point of view) it has quite the opposite effect.

Originally Posted by zenga

That is where the rep is coming in ehlmaris. But (at least from my point of view) it has quite the opposite effect.

There's just no quality control over this, though. I try to use the rep for such reasons, but often see comments like "HA" or "NO" or "WRONG" in my rep comments next to the negatives... it's more of a "you disagreed with me so i'm gonna derep you" than a "i find your methods of reaching this conclusion to be faulty, and would appreciate it if you would look into a more objective/statistically accurate/logical method of reaching your conclusion... or instead of trying to reach a conclusion you should follow the evidence to the conclusion, not the other way around".

Sorry if that last comment was a bit long. But honestly I think that's what people need here. Why don't we say that kind of ****? Probably because the less-informed, less-mature posters would call us pretentious asshats.

There is no way to judge who is worth our time that currently exists on the forums. We need a limited group of posters analyzing each post to see who is making decent arguments and who is using faulty logic or flat out making **** up. Trouble is finding that many people with nothing better to do who won't be biased or grow elitist/pretentious in their decisions.

Catch-22, anyone?

[Gwendalyn]

Originally Posted by sherman

If people would read my posts as just stating facts, instead of hateful, maybe that would cause a lot less confusion.

but what you consider fact, might in fact be not fact for the ppl opposing your view.