In this community we've had many fiascos, we've had huge flamewars, and people have left, people who are valuable, people we couldnt afford to loose. People have been discouraged from contributing, and people have been mentally tortured and bullied via this lobby.
90% of this can be attributed to a group of forum trollers who post everyday, in most threads, who contribute nothing, they dont model, they dont code, they dont playtest, they dont produce any media, they simply post, they offer no constructive advice, and they ahve large postcounts.
These people have been acting unhindered for years. They have not been reprimanded for their actions because of the 'free speech' attitude this forum entails. These people search the forums and look for things to pick apart and attack to start arguements and flamewars, and create unrest.
They find people who're susceptible and drive them mad, making them blow up then blaming everything on them.
This is unnacceptable. These people have been here too long, some of them have become so accustomed that they've become 1 person trollers who specifically target one person almost exclusively, I myself have such a troller who wakes up every few months to spout a post full of poison then vanishes only to appear a month or two later in a similair outpour of vitriol.
I'm tired of all this. the vast majority of problems in this community are caused by these people. The community sort of knows who they are and likes not to mention the subject, as if it's taboo, and dont do anything about them. New moderation rules arent enforced on them and moderators arent seen to do anything about these people either.
I know these people are very likely to post in this thread flaming me, saying nothings wrong, and that I am such a person and asking that I be thrown out of the community. To these posters I will simply label them as trollers in a reply and not address any of their issues. I would advise other people do the same or join the group.
Moderation and a blatant 3 year hole
Moderator: Moderators
>.>
Hypocrisy!!! Purge the infidel!
In all seriousness I don't think the problem is that bad. We don't have a severe trolling problem, but there are those who cross the line occasionally (not mentioning any names) of what is appropriate outside of the off-topic forum. However, I have not been here long enough to know of past issues and then I'm not a developer, I'm just a user who occasionally submits a bug report when I encounter one.
Hypocrisy!!! Purge the infidel!
In all seriousness I don't think the problem is that bad. We don't have a severe trolling problem, but there are those who cross the line occasionally (not mentioning any names) of what is appropriate outside of the off-topic forum. However, I have not been here long enough to know of past issues and then I'm not a developer, I'm just a user who occasionally submits a bug report when I encounter one.
AF, I don't really know you, but I know some of your work and I respect you a lot for that. I believe that the Spring community needs competent and willing people like you to be productive and fun.
However, you seem to have a very, very thin skin. If there are certain posters you don't like, and whose views you don't agree with, and maybe even who don't like you and actively show that: why not just ignore them?
This is the internet, after all. Any person from any place can post (almost) anything they like, and since they don't know you, they have no incentive to respect your feelings. This means that you have to not care about them.
You can never make everybody happy. Some people are bound to dislike you. If you think they have a reason to, you should maybe change yourself. If you know they don't have a reason to, then why even take them seriously? Why let their posts really affect your wellbeing?
An internet forum will never be like a circle of friends. That's just not how it works. You can't expect that, and be disapointed when it doesn't happen. You have to take it for what it is, and take the posts of people you respect seriously, scoff at the others. That's what everyone else does, and that's what you will have to learn too.
However, you seem to have a very, very thin skin. If there are certain posters you don't like, and whose views you don't agree with, and maybe even who don't like you and actively show that: why not just ignore them?
This is the internet, after all. Any person from any place can post (almost) anything they like, and since they don't know you, they have no incentive to respect your feelings. This means that you have to not care about them.
You can never make everybody happy. Some people are bound to dislike you. If you think they have a reason to, you should maybe change yourself. If you know they don't have a reason to, then why even take them seriously? Why let their posts really affect your wellbeing?
An internet forum will never be like a circle of friends. That's just not how it works. You can't expect that, and be disapointed when it doesn't happen. You have to take it for what it is, and take the posts of people you respect seriously, scoff at the others. That's what everyone else does, and that's what you will have to learn too.
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FoeOfTheBee
- Posts: 557
- Joined: 12 May 2005, 18:26
Marcus Aurelius wrote:When thou art offended with any man's shameless conduct, immediately ask thyself, Is it possible, then, that shameless men should not be in the world? It is not possible. Do not, then, require what is impossible. For this man also is one of those shameless men who must of necessity be in the world. Let the same considerations be present to thy mind in the case of the knave, and the faithless man, and of every man who does wrong in any way. For at the same time that thou dost remind thyself that it is impossible that such kind of men should not exist, thou wilt become more kindly disposed towards every one individually. It is useful to perceive this, too, immediately when the occasion arises, what virtue nature has given to man to oppose to every wrongful act. For she has given to man, as an antidote against the stupid man, mildness, and against another kind of man some other power. And in all cases it is possible for thee to correct by teaching the man who is gone astray; for every man who errs misses his object and is gone astray. Besides wherein hast thou been injured? For thou wilt find that no one among those against whom thou art irritated has done anything by which thy mind could be made worse; but that which is evil to thee and harmful has its foundation only in the mind. And what harm is done or what is there strange, if the man who has not been instructed does the acts of an uninstructed man? Consider whether thou shouldst not rather blame thyself, because thou didst not expect such a man to err in such a way. For thou hadst means given thee by thy reason to suppose that it was likely that he would commit this error, and yet thou hast forgotten and art amazed that he has erred.
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LathanStanley
- Posts: 1429
- Joined: 20 Jun 2005, 05:16
I concur AF, lately, I've been pushed to screaming a few times, even to screaming at good friends of mine.... 
frankly, urgh, its a saving face with the other members that myself, and most others, yell, rant, and scream at these trolls...
they get a thrill from it, and frankly, need to be shot.
When we can get a moderator to back us on this, I suggest we start reporting names to him of those that troll our threads, and anyone elses for that matter.
Hopefully, the moderators can do the job they have signed up to do and can clear this hassle from the forum. by whatever means they deem nessicary.
thats my .02$
frankly, urgh, its a saving face with the other members that myself, and most others, yell, rant, and scream at these trolls...
they get a thrill from it, and frankly, need to be shot.
When we can get a moderator to back us on this, I suggest we start reporting names to him of those that troll our threads, and anyone elses for that matter.
Hopefully, the moderators can do the job they have signed up to do and can clear this hassle from the forum. by whatever means they deem nessicary.
thats my .02$
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LathanStanley
- Posts: 1429
- Joined: 20 Jun 2005, 05:16
aye, but when they can get one of my friends to concur on their tolling, and make me look worse for something that wasn't "bad".... it pisses me off, and I warrant a rason to blatently make them look like a bigot.LordMatt wrote:Trolls, of course, feed on the reactions you give them. It is your job to starve them, not anyone else's.
i would class you AF as being in the bracket you yourself specified, not that you contribute nothing, on the contrary you do alot, however you always have something negative to say about every topic in this forum.
there├â┬ó├óÔÇÜ┬¼├óÔÇ×┬ós always a reason why not to do something, or why its crap, or why it won├â┬ó├óÔÇÜ┬¼├óÔÇ×┬ót work, you don├â┬ó├óÔÇÜ┬¼├óÔÇ×┬ót like criticism, you often demand things that are unreasonable......
then you quit the community, then came back? you cant be that unhappy with the community
in most cases you find the tinyest problems with stuff, and most people (including me) consider that nit picking and find it annoying after the 5th time, for instance when i made that upload progress animation you expanded it to 3000 times its normal size and told me there was a glitch in it.
instead you could have gone : Wow thats really nice.
dont expect praise back if you never give it out.
there├â┬ó├óÔÇÜ┬¼├óÔÇ×┬ós always a reason why not to do something, or why its crap, or why it won├â┬ó├óÔÇÜ┬¼├óÔÇ×┬ót work, you don├â┬ó├óÔÇÜ┬¼├óÔÇ×┬ót like criticism, you often demand things that are unreasonable......
then you quit the community, then came back? you cant be that unhappy with the community
in most cases you find the tinyest problems with stuff, and most people (including me) consider that nit picking and find it annoying after the 5th time, for instance when i made that upload progress animation you expanded it to 3000 times its normal size and told me there was a glitch in it.
instead you could have gone : Wow thats really nice.
dont expect praise back if you never give it out.
Last edited by iamacup on 28 Apr 2007, 19:47, edited 2 times in total.
Let`s rock & Trol :)A rare insightful post from cuppy (unlike the drivel he normally posts).iamacup wrote:i would class you AF as being in the bracket you yourself specified, not that you contribute nothing, on the contrary you do alot, however you always have something negative to say about every topic in this forum.
there├â┬ó├óÔÇÜ┬¼├óÔÇ×┬ós always a reason why not to do something, or why its crap, or why it won├â┬ó├óÔÇÜ┬¼├óÔÇ×┬ót work, you don├â┬ó├óÔÇÜ┬¼├óÔÇ×┬ót like criticism, you often demand things that are unreasonable......
then you quit the community, then came back? you cant be that unhappy with the community
in most cases you find the tinyest problems with stuff, and most people (including me) consider that nit picking and find it annoying after the 5th time, for instance when i made that upload progress animation you expanded it to 3000 times its normal size and told me there was a glitch in it.
instead you could have gone : Wow thats really nice.
dont expect praise back if you never give it out.
I think this gets to the root of your problem AF. Here's a little story to illustrate what cup is saying: Lets say there are a bunch of guys who are in coming freshman at university (lets call it the internet). No one really knows anything about anyone to begin with, and everyone just wants to make friends, have a good time, and meet some hot girls. That evening someone says, I heard this upperclassman is having a party lets go. So they all go to the party, and most have a good time, but this one dude just doesn't seem to be having any fun. He complains that the party is lame, he doesn't like what they have to drink, he doesn't like the people at the party, doesn't like playing spin the bottle or beer pong, or (insert your favorite regionally popular drinking game here). Most of the time he stands off to the side, but whenever he gets the chance to talk to someone he tells them what a lame party he thinks this is. After a couple of parties that go like this, the rest of the guys start avoiding this guy, as he just can't seem to have any fun. He's a bummer, who brings everyone else down, and no one wants to hang out with a negative bummer. Now this bummer, it doesn't really matter if he gets great grades, is a star athlete, is otherwise productive in college, starts feeling wounded that no one ever invites him to go to the parties, go down to the bar for a drink, and he can't seem to get a date. He blames everyone else: Why don't they invite me? What do they have against me? What did I do? And he becomes bitter and starts lashing out even more at the others. Eventually he ragequits.
The point is, on the internet (or in life) no one starts out knowing anything about anyone, and has no biases towards others (unless they are racist or something like that), and generally everyone just wants to get along and have fun. If you are a bummer, and always negative towards others, pretty soon those around you will treat you negatively, and try to avoid interacting with you. If you find yourself in this situation, YOU ARE TO BLAME, NOT EVERYONE ELSE. Just as the killjoy in the story above.
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Forboding Angel
- Evolution RTS Developer
- Posts: 14673
- Joined: 17 Nov 2005, 02:43
I agree with AF and Lathan, but honestly, I know damn well nothing will be done about it, which is why I flame back, hard.
Argh has a bad habit of (imo unintentionally) trolling. He just says things in a way that irritate others.
zwzsg does the same thing, except for when he trolls it's slightly more blatant.
Meh, I have nothing against the above two, I simply wish that they would take the time to actually read what I'm saying instead of just skimming and getting the wrong idea.
IMO a lot of this is throwback from TA universe, the people over there can be complete dicks to one another and no one does anything normally because they have friends that are the mods.
Deci has no problem editing my posts if I get out of hand, and while sometimes it's irritating I don't hold it against him, it was my fault he had to do it, not his.
TBH, if you want a completely peaceful and harmonious community, make deci and smoth the main mods. This place would be a utopia among internet forums in less than 3 days.
HOWEVER, as that isn't going to happen, and the true admins here seem to be 90% blind, get ready for the same old same old.
Argh has a bad habit of (imo unintentionally) trolling. He just says things in a way that irritate others.
zwzsg does the same thing, except for when he trolls it's slightly more blatant.
Meh, I have nothing against the above two, I simply wish that they would take the time to actually read what I'm saying instead of just skimming and getting the wrong idea.
IMO a lot of this is throwback from TA universe, the people over there can be complete dicks to one another and no one does anything normally because they have friends that are the mods.
Deci has no problem editing my posts if I get out of hand, and while sometimes it's irritating I don't hold it against him, it was my fault he had to do it, not his.
TBH, if you want a completely peaceful and harmonious community, make deci and smoth the main mods. This place would be a utopia among internet forums in less than 3 days.
HOWEVER, as that isn't going to happen, and the true admins here seem to be 90% blind, get ready for the same old same old.
Jesus no.Forboding Angel wrote: TBH, if you want a completely peaceful and harmonious community, make deci and smoth the main mods. This place would be a utopia among internet forums in less than 3 days.
Everybody here seems to quick to call troll. Criticise somebody's work? "Moderator this is clearly a troll please delete his post" State a dissenting viewpoint? "Ugh, you're trying to start a flamewar please close this thread mods". Just don't take things so seriously and calm down. There are very few people here who are purely malicious.
*_* At least cabbage made me laugh.
Lordmatt, I dont knwo what your whole idea of this came from but you seem to think this thread is about everybody trolling and sniping at me and me complaining.
On the contrary, I have had fewer trollers up at me in the last month than ever before. I never officially left the community either, that was timeout.
I am not the main target of the people I was talking about, and in the past I have gotten attention from them but others have garnered vastly larger amounts of negative attention from them.
And lordmatt, iamacup, if I make a comment its not always negative, I remember the flash applet thing, I opened it in Opera trying to devise the correct tags to display it after you said your tags weren't 100% perfect and requested a fix, only Opera blew it up to fill the screen and I noticed how it worked and said so.
Ideally I should have put "lolol" at the end of that post, and instead you interpreted it as "evil website designer, change this miniscule error nobody will notice or I'lls end in my army of nazi crabs to kick your ass!!!!"
Its hard for me to continue without actually naming names, but a lot of this community sees them post something and go "oh harmless banter again" I'll just ignore it *a day later* "hmm wonder why that thread got locked".
Locking doesnt work, and the vast majority of threads that degenerate into flamewars and get locked do so because of this group of people who have been doing it for years now.
If I were in charge I would be putting up threads for the discussion of these people titled "xyz justify why we shouldnt ban you from posting", with the main aim being of awareness in the community that it isnt tolerated, rather than the banning of the person. But I'm not in charge and probably never will be, and I doubt I'd actually do that save in extremely precarious situations.
But the facts are, 90% of all moderation issues, all grudges within the community, flamewars, social issues, are the result of 5-15 longrunning posters, who acts as 'picadors' 'trollers' 'flame baiters', and when its all blown up, its the flamer, not the flame baiter who get the blame for starting everything. These people need stern warnings and need handling properly proactively.
Lordmatt, I dont knwo what your whole idea of this came from but you seem to think this thread is about everybody trolling and sniping at me and me complaining.
On the contrary, I have had fewer trollers up at me in the last month than ever before. I never officially left the community either, that was timeout.
I am not the main target of the people I was talking about, and in the past I have gotten attention from them but others have garnered vastly larger amounts of negative attention from them.
And lordmatt, iamacup, if I make a comment its not always negative, I remember the flash applet thing, I opened it in Opera trying to devise the correct tags to display it after you said your tags weren't 100% perfect and requested a fix, only Opera blew it up to fill the screen and I noticed how it worked and said so.
Ideally I should have put "lolol" at the end of that post, and instead you interpreted it as "evil website designer, change this miniscule error nobody will notice or I'lls end in my army of nazi crabs to kick your ass!!!!"
Its hard for me to continue without actually naming names, but a lot of this community sees them post something and go "oh harmless banter again" I'll just ignore it *a day later* "hmm wonder why that thread got locked".
Locking doesnt work, and the vast majority of threads that degenerate into flamewars and get locked do so because of this group of people who have been doing it for years now.
If I were in charge I would be putting up threads for the discussion of these people titled "xyz justify why we shouldnt ban you from posting", with the main aim being of awareness in the community that it isnt tolerated, rather than the banning of the person. But I'm not in charge and probably never will be, and I doubt I'd actually do that save in extremely precarious situations.
But the facts are, 90% of all moderation issues, all grudges within the community, flamewars, social issues, are the result of 5-15 longrunning posters, who acts as 'picadors' 'trollers' 'flame baiters', and when its all blown up, its the flamer, not the flame baiter who get the blame for starting everything. These people need stern warnings and need handling properly proactively.
It's all in the eye of the beholder. I think most of the people in the forum are here for fun and luls, it's just the insecure types that go around complaining all the time of trolling (and then do it themselves at the first chance they get).Decimator wrote:Forb, this place is probably the most benign forum I've ever been a part of.
The only truely malicious person on this forum is IaMaCuP. You can see his avatar is a direct attack on me and I find this enormously offensive. While this blatant attack on my reputation has been going on I have been unable to sleep, real life has suffered, and I have been forced to see my psychiatrist twice as often. I demand he's is immediately banned or I'm going to ragequite this community. In addition, I demand that his post count be added to mine as compensation.
Thankfully you're not. As if doing something like this would lead to a reduction of flamewars.AF wrote:If I were in charge I would be putting up threads for the discussion of these people titled "xyz justify why we shouldnt ban you from posting"
I think any community where this sort of thing went on would die very quickly. Matters of who should be banned and for what should be handled privately.