A thread to complain about the small issues of the escapist forums.

[Yopaz]

This is also why I don't want the thumbs up system since that is bait for people who just want to say something they think is funny which wont add anything of use to the thread.

This is happening already. *cough* And even if it escalated from here, people would probably quickly get annoyed enough to ignore blatant thumb whoring.

And low content is low content regardless of whether it warrants a warning or not. Adding a few words might circumvent mod wrath, but it's still not saying anything more than "I agree" or whatnot.

WHAT DO YOU MEAN WE'RE ANGRY ALL THE TIME!!!11!!!1 NO WE'RE NOT!!1!!!! YOU'RE JUST TOO SENSITIVE!!!!1!!

[small]My bad :'([/small]

Oh, and had there been a 'thumbs up' button, I would've thumbed the few posts above mentioning issues with moderation.

Yes, as I have said myself, it happens already, what I said that introducing thumbs up will make threads derail more. With this post you also explained why introducing it is stupid. People will get annoyed by it then ignore it then the entire point is gone.

I also said that the idea behind a forum is to discuss and exchange ideas. Warnings and penalties given for low content posts give us a motivation to think through what we're saying in order to actually contribute. Thumbs up and "I agree" don't do this. No thought is required to press like, thumbs up or write a short form of agreement and then what's the point in entering the forum at all?

 

[Mr. Omega]

Almost everything I can think of is a problem in just about every other gaming site on the internet: overwhelming hate and negativity, generalizing, and elitism (but that's particularly bad here...).

That being said, there is one thing I only see here... so with that, I give a note to every single person here on the escapist:

Sarcasm and passive-aggressive responses do not automatically make your answer witty or any more correct. Snide remarks and implying insult (with absolutely no subtlety) do not make you any less of a jerk. I know that it's mostly just to avoid mod wrath, but it just makes you look like an arrogant jackass.

Edit because this was posted while i was, and it's so goddamn true:

Remember mods - intent matters, not just the content.

This needs to be in the rules...

 

[Lyri]

Not really more lax, it's actually become a bit harsher on the lesser-known members in my eyes. But yeah, I have no idea why turning a thread into a quote-bonanza with little in conversations about avatars and shit doesn't count as derailing. We have PM's, groups and you can always add people on Skype/Facebook/Whatever if you want to talk with them, there's no need to go on so much in an unrelated thread.

I haven't noticed if any punishment has been given out for it, so I'll take your word for it on that.

It does need to stop though when nearly every topic some people enter gets derailed for some stupid conversation unrelated to the OP.
We used to have standards and not applaud this, now we perpetuate it and the celebrity status of the post count.

We should just remove it, to be honest.

 

[Twilight_guy]

All these damn threads about drowning and saving people this is getting redicul- huh, its already over? Ugh... I hate... threada bout... cats? No wait that's stupid, ugh... *flee*

I don't really have a problem with anything people post. I do dislike the fact that the latest commented thread list draws from all forums instead of a selectable forum but that's about it.

 

[ToastiestZombie]

Not really more lax, it's actually become a bit harsher on the lesser-known members in my eyes. But yeah, I have no idea why turning a thread into a quote-bonanza with little in conversations about avatars and shit doesn't count as derailing. We have PM's, groups and you can always add people on Skype/Facebook/Whatever if you want to talk with them, there's no need to go on so much in an unrelated thread.

I haven't noticed if any punishment has been given out for it, so I'll take your word for it on that.

It does need to stop though when nearly every topic some people enter gets derailed for some stupid conversation unrelated to the OP.
We used to have standards and not applaud this, now we perpetuate it and the celebrity status of the post count.

We should just remove it, to be honest.

Yep, I really do think most of the community's problems would be gone if the post count bit was simply removed and/or there was a word count added.

OT: Another one I really hate, is that I can't call out people for being massive arses to the more hated people on the site because I will most likely get mod wrath for it. It just annoys me that someone can immediately dismiss a EternalNothingness, Zeel or Kataroaociwoi (still don't know how to spell it) with a snarky, passive aggressive remark without adding anything useful gets by whilst someone who says "You know what, you're being a dick" to the guy would most likely get warned. Again, not a problem with the mods but with the community at large. People are going to report people who defend the "hated" users instead of the people who are simply being arseholes because of that user's reputation.

 

[Alexi089]

At the moment: Gratuitous humblebragging. The two culprits today (in off-topic), for me were: ''Pretty' people' and another to do with people complaining about too much romantic attention. I'm considering posting my likely unpopular opinion in both, but I doubt arguing with the most narcissistic sides of 20 or so people is worth the hassle for something this inconsequential.

Maybe I'm missing something, but I never saw the appeal in exaggerating or even flat-out lying about yourself to miscellaneous strangers on the internet. It doesn't change anything; and it's not like many of them will even remember, anyway. I guess being a 6'4; part-time model, champion UFC fighter/ real-life Tony Stark, tapping an average of 17 different hawt bishes a week on my motherfucking space yacht is enough for me

Also, people rambling on for their own amusement is a tad irksome...

 

[rosac]

When two people ***** and ***** and ***** and ***** and ***** and so on. Often their argument goes off topic and slowly becomes more personal, whilst there's the odd post relating to the OP in the midst of the two arguers. Guys/girls, learn to drop it. It doesn't matter if you think they're wrong, you won't solve anything by whinging at each other for 2 pages.

 

[excalipoor]

Yes, as I have said myself, it happens already, what I said that introducing thumbs up will make threads derail more. With this post you also explained why introducing it is stupid. People will get annoyed by it then ignore it then the entire point is gone.

Well, all I can say is that I know I'd use it.

I also said that the idea behind a forum is to discuss and exchange ideas. Warnings and penalties given for low content posts give us a motivation to think through what we're saying in order to actually contribute. Thumbs up and "I agree" don't do this. No thought is required to press like, thumbs up or write a short form of agreement and then what's the point in entering the forum at all?

The system currently in place does little to prevent this anyhow. Contribution is entirely optional (and frankly, I'm fine with that). As is mentioned above, when it comes to moderation it seems to be the content (or rather its volume in this case) that matters, not the intent.

I think it's safe to say that there's plenty of users browsing these forums who aren't actively posting. Would you say that there's no reason for them to be here?

 

[Yopaz]

Yes, as I have said myself, it happens already, what I said that introducing thumbs up will make threads derail more. With this post you also explained why introducing it is stupid. People will get annoyed by it then ignore it then the entire point is gone.

Well, all I can say is that I know I'd use it.

I also said that the idea behind a forum is to discuss and exchange ideas. Warnings and penalties given for low content posts give us a motivation to think through what we're saying in order to actually contribute. Thumbs up and "I agree" don't do this. No thought is required to press like, thumbs up or write a short form of agreement and then what's the point in entering the forum at all?

The system currently in place does little to prevent this anyhow. Contribution is entirely optional (and frankly, I'm fine with that). As is mentioned above, when it comes to moderation it seems to be the content (or rather its volume in this case) that matters, not the intent.

I think it's safe to say that there's plenty of users browsing these forums who aren't actively posting. Would you say that there's no reason for them to be here?

I'd say the entire point of a forum is to discuss something. If you're not going to actually discuss something, but enjoy reading it, sure, that's OK, but if you're going to express agreement or such without sparing a thought then I don't see the point.

An Internet forum, or message board, is an online discussion site where people can hold conversations in the form of posted messages.

 

[Lyri]

Yep, I really do think most of the community's problems would be gone if the post count bit was simply removed and/or there was a word count added.

OT: Another one I really hate, is that I can't call out people for being massive arses to the more hated people on the site because I will most likely get mod wrath for it. It just annoys me that someone can immediately dismiss a EternalNothingness, Zeel or Kataroaociwoi (still don't know how to spell it) with a snarky, passive aggressive remark without adding anything useful gets by whilst someone who says "You know what, you're being a dick" to the guy would most likely get warned. Again, not a problem with the mods but with the community at large. People are going to report people who defend the "hated" users instead of the people who are simply being arseholes because of that user's reputation.

I would rather they did away with any kind of counter, it just seems counter productive. If you have the highest post count, you win some E-peen for nothing.

 

[Marter]

Also, the moderation needs some work. I've never been a mod, even though I think it would be a good experience and I personally think I might be good as one I know I won't get to be one any time soon. But even I see all the problems of a moderation system mainly based around user-reporting popping up. For example, the "forum celebrities" really don't get reported because they're celebrities, when the Zeels and Karatmoruesks (I have no clue how to spell his goddamn name) are reported and get banned because they have unpopular opinions. I've barely even seen them do anything that could get them banned/suspended. I think we should have a mix, moderators should have more freedom to give people warnings and such, whilst we keep the reporting but seriously look at them in the queue before we give them the wrath. Right now the mods are trusting the community too much to handle itself, which I've never seen be a good thing. I was a mod for about two years on a pretty big Minecraft server, whilst of course not being as big as The Escapist I have dealt with quite a lot of dicks in my time and I've got to say that even in a relatively small community like that server, no-one was liked by everyone.

You would propose, what, exactly?

You realize that we do, in fact, have the power to moderate posts which do not get reported. We rely on the community to report them so we can spend the time sorting through the reports and see which ones are actually breaking the rules, which is a time consuming process. What I gather from your post is that you want that, as well as having each of us search the entirety of the site, looking for posts that might not be reported.

Because that would definitely be plausible.

So, we technically already have the "mix" of which you speak. If that is "all of the problems of [the] moderation system," then I'm glad we have that covered.

 

[ToastiestZombie]

Snip

No need to be so passive aggressive mate. All I know about how the mods deal their wrath is the reports and the queue, I didn't know that. Forgive me, fair Marter.

Snip

There is:

or attempts to derail a thread will be removed, as will your forum privileges.

 

[Marter]

No need to be so passive aggressive mate. All I know about how the mods deal their wrath is the reports and the queue, I didn't know that. Forgive me, fair Marter.

I was genuinely interested in whether there was a better system, as well as to let you know that you weren't entirely correct, as we don't rely solely on the report system. So, looks like I accomplished my goal.

 

[shrekfan246]

Snip

There is:

or attempts to derail a thread will be removed, as will your forum privileges.

The difference is that the people who are widely known for derailing threads, don't go into a thread with the intention of derailing it. That is the distinction. Just because someone posts an off-topic comment, doesn't mean they're actively attempting to derail the discussion. This right here is an off-topic comment, for instance, but I'm not attempting to derail this thread.

OT: All of the complaining. There is such a highly concentrated amount of complaining on these forums, it really gets grating after a while. It's why I've got more posts in the Brovengers chat in the last five months than I've made on the forums in the year and a half I've been a member.

 

[Lucem712]

Also, I don't like the gif avatars, they're pretty distracting and annoying for the most part. Some are okay. Most are not.

To be fair, you can disable avatars in your settings.

-Looks over at Gif avatar.

The only thing that kind of gets my goat sometimes is when there are multiples threads about the same dang topic. (See: ME3 Ending Controversy) and then they justify it by sayin', "I know, I know, another [insert thread] topic! Buuuuut hear me out." But then I just follow the rules, report and move on. Don't be a dick.[footnote]Most of the time.[/footnote]

 

[Loonyyy]

OT: Also the term "strawman". If you don't throw that in your argument about 50 times then you're debating wrong apparently.

Something that always comes to mind when I see the term "strawman" is that I've never ever seen it used outside these forums. Hell, I didn't even see it in these forums until a year or so ago. Now everyone and their bloody dog goes tossing it around in an attempt to sound intellectual.

It's a big one if you're into skepticism, or logical fallacies. I got annoyed when a bunch of people started really going full out on the logical fallacy calls. It's annoying when people have picked up a small amount of the lingo, without any immersion in the groups that usually use it.

 

[ToastiestZombie]

No need to be so passive aggressive mate. All I know about how the mods deal their wrath is the reports and the queue, I didn't know that. Forgive me, fair Marter.

I was genuinely interested in whether there was a better system, as well as to let you know that you weren't entirely correct, as we don't rely solely on the report system. So, looks like I accomplished my goal.

Well actually, I am perfectly fine with the system. Just the community is what brings it down, not the system itself. A report system is fine if everyone is equal, and everyone sees everyone is equal. But, here we have a LOT of forum celebrities, forum losers and everyone in between. This isn't even a unique thing, quite a lot of forums have this problem. Personally I see a very easy way to solve this problem, or at least make it better. Basically, just make it so that both join date and post count can't be seen in general viewing, only on people's profiles. That basically means that what people say, not how long they've been here or how big their E-peen post count is. Sure, the old celebrities and losers would stay that way. But it will pretty much stop anyone from getting reported/not reported because they're popular/unpopular.

 

[Quicksilver_Phoenix]

Everything nowadays seems to be about how much things suck. This forum seriously needs to lighten up.

Thing is, straight out saying it like that is more likely to annoy those people than have any effect.

OT: These forums seem to have a really high number of smart Alec's who love smugly pointing out little errors and splitting hairs with what you say. For example, anyone who says "Am I the only one who...?" is instantly barraged with "You're never the only one! ", seemingly not understanding what a figure of speech is.

There's also the issue of mods flat out prohibiting certain topics...

 

[Lyri]

Pop jumped the queue, Snap and Crackle had to catch up.

It shouldn't be allowed really when it's every thread, we all know whom the repeat offenders are and whilst I don't mind people being more popular than others, I feel it should be for more of a reason than post count.
It seems inane that the behaviour that has been going around recently has allowed to trend, when once upon a time people would police the forum themselves now we seem to just let it slide.
It's an appalling turn for the worst in all regards.

I'm ok with people having small circles and having a laugh inside other peoples threads but when you just carry on and on and on without any regard for where you are, it becomes a bother.

I don't really agree with your middle road stance, it should just be gone and then we'll lose the celebrity status of the post count.
Any lasting memory of it will only start a new rush for posting glory, it just needs to go away.