The case of xzalion.

The case of xzalion.

Various things about Spring that do not fit in any of the other forums listed below, including forum rules.

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Argh
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The case of xzalion.

Post by Argh »

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.
Last edited by Argh on 28 May 2010, 07:44, edited 2 times in total.
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1v0ry_k1ng
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Re: The case of xzalion.

Post by 1v0ry_k1ng »

imma nouncin my 10:39 speech
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oksnoop2
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Re: The case of xzalion.

Post by oksnoop2 »

I more or less agree, it really does suck coming into this community. I felt/feel like i've been/going through some kind of hazing at times. Engine is pretty cool though...
EDIT
After reading it i realized i left out that there are actually a fair amount of nice and helpful people.
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Gota
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Re: The case of xzalion.

Post by Gota »

I find it funny that people get so angry that they record a speech but I agree 100% with what ARGH is saying.
+over 9000

Problem is there is not enough moderators and only a fe wof the existing ones are actually active.

Allow more moderators and allow moderators to also be suspended and eventually kicked easily by head moderator for not doing anything for a long period or doing improper things.
Remove ex-moderator status.
The whole "we ask people and if they agree they become moderators" is bad and inefficient since you are already taking people that have no actual desire to do moderation.
Get new people if they don't function kick em..easy pizzy..all you need is a head moderator that is known to be a quality moderator.

ARGH support this offer.
Last edited by Gota on 28 May 2010, 07:10, edited 1 time in total.
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Hobo Joe
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Re: The case of xzalion.

Post by Hobo Joe »

that's a good idea but do not make argh the head guy. that would be bad.
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Argh
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Re: The case of xzalion.

Post by Argh »

It is not good policy to make game developers moderators (I would include engine developers in this category but they run the servers and pay the bills, heh) because we have conflicts of interest.

I simply want to see assholes punished when they behave this way, so that eventually we have fewer assholes, or they are convinced to be civil.

Lastly, Beherith simply arrived too late to do anything but lock threads, so I do not blame him in any way. But at least four or five people with those powers logged in (and, in at least two cases, contributed to the problems instead of doing their duty).
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Gota
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Re: The case of xzalion.

Post by Gota »

So support more active moderation...that is the real issue.not enough moderators not enough discussion and not enough moderator moderation.

Stop getting angry each time moderation fails to moderate something cause of lack of resources or will and attempt to change the real issue..
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Argh
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Re: The case of xzalion.

Post by Argh »

I've been in support of more active moderation since 2005, and we're not there yet.

Seriously, I do mean what I said about "job no. 1"- they've been doing good at keeping the Ancient Feuds down, etc., which I appreciate. It hasn't been all bad, by any means.

But this stuff with newbies is a major problem, since everybody on the senior end is supposed to be at least trying to help the community grow and prosper.

They don't know our rules of conduct, which are considerably fiercer than anywhere else I've been (OK, besides the "suck my cock, bitch" behaviors on FPS servers). Really, I've never been on a forum where people are this rude, constantly, or deliberately follow people's posts to needle them on a regular basis, etc.- everywhere else I've been, such behavior is a ban offense, it just destroys enthusiasm and confuses the hell out of newbies.
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Hobo Joe
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Re: The case of xzalion.

Post by Hobo Joe »

Argh wrote:I've been in support of more active moderation since 2005, and we're not there yet.

Seriously, I do mean what I said about "job no. 1"- they've been doing good at keeping the Ancient Feuds down, etc., which I appreciate. It hasn't been all bad, by any means.

But this stuff with newbies is a major problem, since everybody on the senior end is supposed to be at least trying to help the community grow and prosper.

They don't know our rules of conduct, which are considerably fiercer than anywhere else I've been (OK, besides the "suck my cock, bitch" behaviors on FPS servers). Really, I've never been on a forum where people are this rude, constantly, or deliberately follow people's posts to needle them on a regular basis, etc.- everywhere else I've been, such behavior is a ban offense, it just destroys enthusiasm and confuses the hell out of newbies.
Wow have you ever gone on the internet before? You just described 90% of all forums.
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Wombat
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Re: The case of xzalion.

Post by Wombat »

'we have lost a potential contributor.'

POTENTIAL - he showed nothing, and as far as i know, he is on all possible forums, spamming threads about his games and... well thats all

'From now on, do your goddamn jobs. OK? Do your jobs.'

mods job should be to pm him with 'SHUT THE HELL UP AND STOP SPAMMING USELESS THREADS, we dont care u work on some gui with ur friends, WHO GIVES A CRAP'

-------------

look for his comment, rofl

http://www.doolwind.com/blog/game-devel ... -designer/
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Hobo Joe
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Re: The case of xzalion.

Post by Hobo Joe »

Ok since we're all making long winded posts I might as well chip in.


First of all I do actually agree with the sentiment of Arghs rant, we should be supporting and helpful to new members of the community, make them feel welcome to make this a bigger happier place.


HOWEVER, Mr. xzalion did nothing to deserve respect, quite the opposite in fact.

He comes in and says he has game ideas, ok no big deal, we get that a lot without fruition but whatever, maybe this will be different. People welcome him somewhat, ask him some questions, like how concrete his ideas are and what experience he has, perfectly valid questions. Then we learn he hasn't even played spring. Ding ding warning. Soon enough he's asking people to make his stuff for him for money, without providing anything, not even a design doc or concept art. I don't care who you are or where you're asking, you can NOT ask total strangers to do things for you without any kind of roadmap or solid goal, this is not just a angsty spring community thing, this is universal.

That drops him way down on the general respect scale, meanwhile he's spamming pointless threads. Then he follows that up by starting to insult people and their work, generally putting other people down while putting himself on a pedestal based on a few unconfirmed claims about previous experience. At this point he deserves no respect whatsoever and should probably be banned.


There are general rules of the spring community, then universal rules that apply to basically everyone. He went way past the line on both of them, and here you are making a big 10 minute rant about how we need to be nicer to people like him? Give me a break.

We should be nice and inviting to new members until they act in such a way that revokes their right to get that respect.
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Wombat
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Re: The case of xzalion.

Post by Wombat »

he just came to advertise his unexisting game, how would be useful for spring ? he made around 6 topis, and he didnt mention anything about developing spring
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Jazcash
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Re: The case of xzalion.

Post by Jazcash »

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."
They're clueless, OK? They really are clueless.
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Wombat
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Re: The case of xzalion.

Post by Wombat »

Hobo Joe wrote:Soon enough he's asking people to make his stuff for him for money, without providing anything, not even a design doc or concept art.
some dude on deviantart made zulu warrior pic, and Dewaldt Steenkamp made comment that he can pay him for this pic and asked him if he doesnt want to be his designer x)
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zwzsg
Kernel Panic Co-Developer
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Re: The case of xzalion.

Post by zwzsg »

Argh wrote:Every time we lose an xzalion type, we have potentially lost a high-class, motivated individual, who could have contributed great things to Spring.
I disagree with you here. What we lost was a disruptive (he kept spamming inane threads), lying (he kept saying he had been a game designer for 20 years yet the only game he designed was eaten by a trojan before release), threatning (translate his response to FLOZi), condescending (refering to Spring dev as "kids"), low-class (cannot mod, does not even want to learn), delusional (said he would made a great RTS that would stand the test of times), unmotivated (he already left) individual.


Argh wrote:But we will never know, will we?
Actually, we can know. Just search "xzalion" in google. You'll see that he made the same kind of entrance in many modding or open source engine forums. And I have yet to see on of his thread ending in a positive or productive way.
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Wombat
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Re: The case of xzalion.

Post by Wombat »

hahahaahahhahahahaha http://forums.sagamedev.com/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=2353 love google
(btw check his other topics and dates :D)
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Jazcash
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Re: The case of xzalion.

Post by Jazcash »

I mean, I can tolerate bad English and not fully understanding but when he speaks like he's 10 years old or so (Probably is), it really doesn't make me want to like him. Because that's how most 10 year old kids are, easily angered, self-centred and just generally think they know things when they "haven't a clue".

If he's not a young kid, then he must have ADD, Down Syndrome or some mentality stricken problem to think the way he thinks. If he has got a mental disorder, then I'd be willing to show a lot more respect and would be more understanding. But until I know that, then I'm forced to believe he's just being stupid.

Call me harsh, but somebody who isn't willing to even share his ideas or samples of work in fear of whatever he chucks out being copied is obviously asking for it. I could understand somebody not releasing the source-code for their highly developed retail game but when we're only asking for a few small samples of his skills and he declines, it gets silly.

How are people supposed to help him if he doesn't want to help us, even in the slightest?

If you wish to call him a potential developer, fair enough, but then you must also call everybody who's ever heard of Spring a potential developer because they aren't much different to this guy apart from having a more matured attitude.

If you want to waste your energy on this kid then so be it but don't rant off at other contributors who are just being baited in by his seemingly troll like personalities.
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Beherith
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Re: The case of xzalion.

Post by Beherith »

oksnoop2 wrote:I more or less agree, it really does suck coming into this community. I felt/feel like i've been/going through some kind of hazing at times.Engine is pretty cool though...
This is too true, I felt like that was happening when you arrived as well. I'm glad you stuck around though :D

So here is my stance on this issue:
Even if the person seems like a kid/mentally challenged/idiot you do not have the right to insult him.

If you think the person is a troll, then don't feed him.

If you have nothing to add to a thread other than insults or e penis measurement, then don't add.
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zwzsg
Kernel Panic Co-Developer
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Re: The case of xzalion.

Post by zwzsg »

Wombat wrote:
Woah, he spammed so many threads is such a short span of a time in that sagame forum! Makes me almost glad we drive him out before he could do the same to our Spring board.

His excuses are amazing too! ("I had a bike accident!" "My voice actor died!" "I am very busy removing a single word from the title of my non-existent game!")
Wombat wrote:POTENTIAL - he showed nothing
That's ok, or rather, that would be okay if he wasn't trying to impress us with boasts of long experience in game design.
Jazcash wrote:like he's 10 years old or so (Probably is)
I'm pretty sure he's a middle-aged adult, he wouldn't have had 10-20 years of experience playing games if he was a kid. He just believes so much in his dream he can't understand why we don't play along.
Jazcash wrote:Call me harsh, but somebody who isn't willing to even share his ideas or samples of work in fear of whatever he chucks out being copied is obviously asking for it.
No, we cannot ask free sample out of everyone. However, when you demand respect on the ground of being an experienced game developper, it's only fair to name a few googlable games when people get curious.
Jazcash wrote:How are people supposed to help him if he doesn't want to help us, even in the slightest?
No true. Myself, as well as the overwhelming majority of modders/devs/coders/artists, would happily help newbie modders for nothing. Note: By "help", I don't mean building a whole game overnight, but providing technical explanation, clues, code snippets, exemples. But the newbie must show the right attitude, that is of someone genuinly trying to mod.
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Beherith
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Re: The case of xzalion.

Post by Beherith »

I put in a large amount of effort to attempt to keep his threads clean, but my approach was wrong. I have learned from it though.
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