The case of xzalion.
Posted: 28 May 2010, 03:28
I have recorded a speech for this. This event was extremely upsetting; once again, through poor community management, we have lost a potential contributor.
So, listen.
I feel that, given my frustration with the issue, a spoken speech is more appropriate than the usual wall-of-text. This has been an ongoing problem here of the first order, and requires solutions.
Transcript, for non-English speakers:
Administrators, moderators and other members of the Spring Community. Hi, my name is Greg Wolfe. Just like xzalion, I'm a real human being. I have real emotions, and I am really affected by how people treat me online.
Now, based on the statements I will make during the course of this speech, some of you will make the excuse of trolls and other hateful people on the Internet, which is to say, "well, I'm affected by nothing that other people do".
Look, that may be you, but that's not most people- and, in fact, most of us can't really go through the dehumanizing process of treating others as un-people whose opinions and expressions we should not actually pay attention to.
Most of us are actually affected, quite harshly, by the things that you say, casually, or, as you put it, quite bluntly, for "lulz".
Look, I'm going to be really, really blunt. This shit has got to stop. It's gotta stop right now. We need a change in policy, effective immediately, so that this kind of stuff does not recur on a regular basis.
Now, for the record, I've always, always, always stressed that we've got to be gentle, kind, gracious and understanding about the newbies who come in here.
These people don't know anything about the complexity of the Spring engine, they know nothing about what we're all about, they know nothing about our past conflicts, all of our interests, and the various levels of talent that we have here.
They're clueless, OK? They really are clueless. And they're going to have to go through a long process of learning in order to master the materials that they need to be a successful maker of games here.
When these people show up, and they're polite, and they're forthright, and they're saying, y'know, "hey, I've got this idea I want to pursue, and I'm thinking about making this game" and all this stuff, there's only one polite response to that.
It is not "What are you going to do with your game?", "What's your game design all about?", "Do you know anything about graphics programming?, "Do you know anything about programming at all? You must be clueless."
See, that, folks, is precisely what we do not need to see here. That is the kind of response that immediately turns people off, and makes them feel that they could not possibly be of value to this community.
Now, with the newbie, we have no clue what their real skills are. We have no clue what their aptitudes are. We have no clue what their lifetime background is.
They may have all sorts of skills to impart. They may not have any skills at all... but a great deal of enthusiasm.
We need to assume that they probably have some intelligence, and some skills. And, as part of that assumption, we need to be very careful to be very polite and kind to these people.
And if we wish to inform them that, "hey, you might be heading towards a really steep learning curve", the best way to do it is the simplest way to do it, which is that, if you see one of these posts, and you're thinking to yourself, "gosh, what a clueless idiot, he has no idea what he's getting into with this engine"... refer him to Smoth's post on this topic.
Smoth's post is an almost perfect synopsis of everything that a real newbie needs to know, to decide whether he or she wants to spend time with this engine. It politely goes through all the things that a newbie needs to know, in terms of "hey, what kind of skillset am I going to need?", "what kind of help can I expect from other people?", "what kind of timeframe are we talking about?".
All these things are valuable, and important, and people need to need to know these things.
So, that's what you should do.
Not ask a whole bunch of questions, and then put the guy into a position where he frankly just feels he's being put under an Inquisition, which is exactly what happened in xzalion's case.
We cannot allow that behavior. We really can't. And from here on out, this kind of behavior needs to result in bans.
These people who were asking all these questions, and generally poking the guy to death, they were doing it for their own amusement. It's clear just from reading their posts.
These are the same people who have killed newbies over and over and over again here. And this is not something that should happen.
Not with a project that's trying to be a big deal in the world of Open Source game development, like Spring.
We can't allow this kind of behavior to happen.
So, moderators, look I'm going to be really frank and blunt with you.
From now on, do your goddamn jobs. OK? Do your jobs.
Do you know what your jobs are? Apparently you don't.
So let me explain what your jobs are.
You have two. Exactly two.
Despite what all of our rules and regulations say, it really boils down to exactly two things, and here is what they are:
1. You are to keep the peace.
We have a lot of intelligent people here, with too much free time on their hands, and they like to argue about stuff. When they start to argue about stuff, you need to come in and keep the peace.
If that means temp-banning them, if that means just sending them a nasty PM, "hey, stop that right now, because you're behaving badly, and we don't like that". OK? Keep the peace.
The thing is that you guys are actually starting to do a really good job at that.
But you're still doing a really lousy job on the other of your two jobs, which is:
2. Newbies need to come into an environment that feels healthy and supportive.
It's really not that complicated, folks.
An environment that feels healthy and supportive.
Not an environment that feels like it's full of assholes waiting for a chance to jump down their throats.
Not an environment where we constantly have people trolling a brand-new member of the Forum who is just starting to try to figure out what Spring is all about.
That's unacceptable. People like that need to go. We don't need them. We absolutely, positively do not need those people. They don't contribute anything like what they cost us.
Every time we lose an xzalion type, we have potentially lost a high-class, motivated individual, who could have contributed great things to Spring.
But we will never know, will we?
Yeah, for the sake of fun, for the sake of some people acting like twelve-year-olds kicking some kid for milk money, we lost our chance to ever find out whether this xzalion character, or the countless other people that this has happened to, could have been a major factor in Spring.
Who knows? Maybe this guy turned out to be an organizational genius, and he could construct giant game-design documents and work together with a team of coders and artists to produce something amazing.
But we will never know, will we? We will never know.
And that's because, while this was happening, the Moderators just sat there with their thumbs up their ass.
Look, this is unacceptable. We need a policy change immediately, to prevent this from ever happening again.
I was really angry about this issue, whenever it came up with certain other people who are gone now.
But the people who remain have apparently not gotten the memo, which is that whenever I see this behavior, it makes my blood boil, because it is one more potential person who might bring their genius and talent and creativity and love to Spring.
And we've lost them. We've lost them right there, in one early encounter.
I mean, this guy got riled up and kicked out in less than six hours.
Do you see how completely unacceptable this has got to be? This is terrible.
There is no good reason for this. There is no defense for this kind of behavior.
There is no, "oh well, these guys have their free speech rights, and they were asking legitimate questions".
No. Look, it does not require a doctorate in philosophy to recognize that they were being assholes, and they were having fun at the expense of this poor newbie.
It does not require an ounce of intelligence to recognize when people are behaving badly.
It does not require that English is even your first language to recognize when people are deliberately being douche-bags.
And for all the people who were involved in this situation, and are probably sitting there thinking defensive thoughts, "well, I was just asking some questions".
Yeah... you didn't need to ask those questions, guys.
I mean, it's totally not cool for people to start behaving like some sort of Spring Inquisition: "well, you don't have this skill, you don't have that skill, you're obviously just totally unqualified to do anything".
Look. We don't know these things. And we're never going to know them by taking such a confrontational attitude towards these people when they come in.
So, we've got to have a change in policy. We've got to have it now.
Because, I tell you, the next time this happens, if I see the Moderation staff sit on their ass and not do their jobs, then there will be hell to pay.
I will figure out something that will make life horrible for everybody. I swear to God. Because it seems like with these issues I have to threaten something terrible before anything actually gets done.
<heavy sigh> Which I don't appreciate, to be perfectly blunt.
These things should just be taken care of. You guys are supposed to know what your jobs are, and you're supposed to do them. So just do them, so that I don't have to do this shit, and get so angry.
So, listen.
I feel that, given my frustration with the issue, a spoken speech is more appropriate than the usual wall-of-text. This has been an ongoing problem here of the first order, and requires solutions.
Transcript, for non-English speakers:
Administrators, moderators and other members of the Spring Community. Hi, my name is Greg Wolfe. Just like xzalion, I'm a real human being. I have real emotions, and I am really affected by how people treat me online.
Now, based on the statements I will make during the course of this speech, some of you will make the excuse of trolls and other hateful people on the Internet, which is to say, "well, I'm affected by nothing that other people do".
Look, that may be you, but that's not most people- and, in fact, most of us can't really go through the dehumanizing process of treating others as un-people whose opinions and expressions we should not actually pay attention to.
Most of us are actually affected, quite harshly, by the things that you say, casually, or, as you put it, quite bluntly, for "lulz".
Look, I'm going to be really, really blunt. This shit has got to stop. It's gotta stop right now. We need a change in policy, effective immediately, so that this kind of stuff does not recur on a regular basis.
Now, for the record, I've always, always, always stressed that we've got to be gentle, kind, gracious and understanding about the newbies who come in here.
These people don't know anything about the complexity of the Spring engine, they know nothing about what we're all about, they know nothing about our past conflicts, all of our interests, and the various levels of talent that we have here.
They're clueless, OK? They really are clueless. And they're going to have to go through a long process of learning in order to master the materials that they need to be a successful maker of games here.
When these people show up, and they're polite, and they're forthright, and they're saying, y'know, "hey, I've got this idea I want to pursue, and I'm thinking about making this game" and all this stuff, there's only one polite response to that.
It is not "What are you going to do with your game?", "What's your game design all about?", "Do you know anything about graphics programming?, "Do you know anything about programming at all? You must be clueless."
See, that, folks, is precisely what we do not need to see here. That is the kind of response that immediately turns people off, and makes them feel that they could not possibly be of value to this community.
Now, with the newbie, we have no clue what their real skills are. We have no clue what their aptitudes are. We have no clue what their lifetime background is.
They may have all sorts of skills to impart. They may not have any skills at all... but a great deal of enthusiasm.
We need to assume that they probably have some intelligence, and some skills. And, as part of that assumption, we need to be very careful to be very polite and kind to these people.
And if we wish to inform them that, "hey, you might be heading towards a really steep learning curve", the best way to do it is the simplest way to do it, which is that, if you see one of these posts, and you're thinking to yourself, "gosh, what a clueless idiot, he has no idea what he's getting into with this engine"... refer him to Smoth's post on this topic.
Smoth's post is an almost perfect synopsis of everything that a real newbie needs to know, to decide whether he or she wants to spend time with this engine. It politely goes through all the things that a newbie needs to know, in terms of "hey, what kind of skillset am I going to need?", "what kind of help can I expect from other people?", "what kind of timeframe are we talking about?".
All these things are valuable, and important, and people need to need to know these things.
So, that's what you should do.
Not ask a whole bunch of questions, and then put the guy into a position where he frankly just feels he's being put under an Inquisition, which is exactly what happened in xzalion's case.
We cannot allow that behavior. We really can't. And from here on out, this kind of behavior needs to result in bans.
These people who were asking all these questions, and generally poking the guy to death, they were doing it for their own amusement. It's clear just from reading their posts.
These are the same people who have killed newbies over and over and over again here. And this is not something that should happen.
Not with a project that's trying to be a big deal in the world of Open Source game development, like Spring.
We can't allow this kind of behavior to happen.
So, moderators, look I'm going to be really frank and blunt with you.
From now on, do your goddamn jobs. OK? Do your jobs.
Do you know what your jobs are? Apparently you don't.
So let me explain what your jobs are.
You have two. Exactly two.
Despite what all of our rules and regulations say, it really boils down to exactly two things, and here is what they are:
1. You are to keep the peace.
We have a lot of intelligent people here, with too much free time on their hands, and they like to argue about stuff. When they start to argue about stuff, you need to come in and keep the peace.
If that means temp-banning them, if that means just sending them a nasty PM, "hey, stop that right now, because you're behaving badly, and we don't like that". OK? Keep the peace.
The thing is that you guys are actually starting to do a really good job at that.
But you're still doing a really lousy job on the other of your two jobs, which is:
2. Newbies need to come into an environment that feels healthy and supportive.
It's really not that complicated, folks.
An environment that feels healthy and supportive.
Not an environment that feels like it's full of assholes waiting for a chance to jump down their throats.
Not an environment where we constantly have people trolling a brand-new member of the Forum who is just starting to try to figure out what Spring is all about.
That's unacceptable. People like that need to go. We don't need them. We absolutely, positively do not need those people. They don't contribute anything like what they cost us.
Every time we lose an xzalion type, we have potentially lost a high-class, motivated individual, who could have contributed great things to Spring.
But we will never know, will we?
Yeah, for the sake of fun, for the sake of some people acting like twelve-year-olds kicking some kid for milk money, we lost our chance to ever find out whether this xzalion character, or the countless other people that this has happened to, could have been a major factor in Spring.
Who knows? Maybe this guy turned out to be an organizational genius, and he could construct giant game-design documents and work together with a team of coders and artists to produce something amazing.
But we will never know, will we? We will never know.
And that's because, while this was happening, the Moderators just sat there with their thumbs up their ass.
Look, this is unacceptable. We need a policy change immediately, to prevent this from ever happening again.
I was really angry about this issue, whenever it came up with certain other people who are gone now.
But the people who remain have apparently not gotten the memo, which is that whenever I see this behavior, it makes my blood boil, because it is one more potential person who might bring their genius and talent and creativity and love to Spring.
And we've lost them. We've lost them right there, in one early encounter.
I mean, this guy got riled up and kicked out in less than six hours.
Do you see how completely unacceptable this has got to be? This is terrible.
There is no good reason for this. There is no defense for this kind of behavior.
There is no, "oh well, these guys have their free speech rights, and they were asking legitimate questions".
No. Look, it does not require a doctorate in philosophy to recognize that they were being assholes, and they were having fun at the expense of this poor newbie.
It does not require an ounce of intelligence to recognize when people are behaving badly.
It does not require that English is even your first language to recognize when people are deliberately being douche-bags.
And for all the people who were involved in this situation, and are probably sitting there thinking defensive thoughts, "well, I was just asking some questions".
Yeah... you didn't need to ask those questions, guys.
I mean, it's totally not cool for people to start behaving like some sort of Spring Inquisition: "well, you don't have this skill, you don't have that skill, you're obviously just totally unqualified to do anything".
Look. We don't know these things. And we're never going to know them by taking such a confrontational attitude towards these people when they come in.
So, we've got to have a change in policy. We've got to have it now.
Because, I tell you, the next time this happens, if I see the Moderation staff sit on their ass and not do their jobs, then there will be hell to pay.
I will figure out something that will make life horrible for everybody. I swear to God. Because it seems like with these issues I have to threaten something terrible before anything actually gets done.
<heavy sigh> Which I don't appreciate, to be perfectly blunt.
These things should just be taken care of. You guys are supposed to know what your jobs are, and you're supposed to do them. So just do them, so that I don't have to do this shit, and get so angry.