Xzalion's case is not an exception to the rule (while being more harsh than usual) but rather the basic thing that happens to anyone heading towards the developer zone of the community with just little or even without any experience and who maybe just stumbled over Spring for the first time after using Google. So there in my opinion is quite some truth to what Argh said as there have been quite some cases where exactly this "hostile" behaviour occured. I find it hard to think of the real reasons or a solution though. I have the impression that just one person has to answer in a sort of an aggressive tone and immediately people tend to hop on that train and the entire topic has run into a dead-end at this point in terms of being constructive in any way...
We really are driving people off here. Even if it sounds sort of reasonable like in the case of xzalion the problem is the mere existance of topics like that really make the community look nasty for others. We now could discuss how far this makes people leave in the first place or not but I think the first thing to think of is "Do we want to appear like that?". Even if it had no influence whatsoever on people joining the community we still should think about this going the way we want or not. I have to say I don't like this and I'd be happy to see a change here...
That says it well enough for me.
Enough logic-chopping, people. Yes, now that you've gone through this guy's whole Internet history, etc., you can celebrate how you've "not wasted time on a nub".
But that's fatuous and intellectually dishonest. What the hell are you doing, wasting
your time on such investigations, if your intent
wasn't to further attack, belittle and troll this guy?
Nobody here can give me a good answer to that, because there is none.
You guys should have done exactly as I did, and said
absolutely nothing that wasn't nice, unless you wanted to point him at Smoth's post to let him know what he should expect (which probably would have deflated him, but who knows?).
Your collective behavior was horrible, and while it is amusing that you want to defend your behavior in light of all your man-hours spent finding further troll materials,
that doesn't make it right.
Secondly, the fact that the guy has been "on other forums" looking for an engine doesn't make him worthy of disrespect or bad treatment. I go look at other engines (and often register on the forums) on a regular basis. When a person with motivation is looking around, that's a natural part of their activity- and whether a community is welcoming, or at least un-hostile, is an important factor.
Lastly... I am sick and tired of the, "it's like this everywhere" argument. That's bullshit.
I am building a major mod elsewhere atm, which I am hoping I will get done soon (I needed to take a break from Spring and recharge). It is a forum that was formed around a game built by
two people.
They do not have a giant moderation staff. It's smaller than here. And they do not have the kinds of behavior problems, especially concerning newbies, that we have here.
Why?
1. If people behaved like certain folks did here... they'd have been banned, permanently, for being assholes. They take a very dim view of the, "I was only trying to find out the truth" defense of trolls everywhere.
2. Newbies who can't be bothered to read the stickies and ask enough stupid questions are warned, then temp-banned, and told to do the same.
In short, newbies aren't just left in a vacuum to fend for themselves. There is a support structure, and assholes aren't there to stay, so they aren't a major problem anyhow.
And it works. The game has a lower support structure than Spring, but a
much larger community and a much larger number of major mods, a large content-sharing cooperative for free projects, etc., etc., etc.- it's like night and day, and if the engine wasn't closed-source, I'd have made it home, the last time I was searching for an engine.
I will go into this in more detail when I am ready to release my mod- I intend to make a compare-and-contrast study about the engine
and the culture, because I think it's so important. Good cultures grow and thrive. Bad ones stagnate, at best.
Based on the number of new and completed projects we have here over the last year... I can tell you what category we're in...