Spring RTS Engine

Is there use to discuss all those tiny details/strawmen like how "everyone who responded" and misunderstood was only one person, malric, and that the moderators were making all their "The forum move was requested by the developers of XTA" posts AFTER they should have been known better by the report?
Or what the "submoderator privileges abuse" really was or how "Relocating the XTA repository" is not about the forum but about google.code SVN.

There is so much, but is kindergarten.

The original problem with moderation was the failure to keep/make spring forum a good enviroment.
Too much offtopic, too many clueless posts, too insulting language, too many lazy questions.
Yesterday a developer left forum: viewtopic.php?f=64&p=571273#p571273

Seeing as the OP wants to end his presence on the forum I'm locking this thread.

Do you never wonder why?
Unsustainable.

To me it seemed your words pointed to a move, not an extra forum. But it seemed obvious you didn't want to move but felt pushed into it by your interactions with the moderators. You should have been more publically explicit about what you wanted.

The way BOTH parties handled the situation didn't let it die down. On one hand there's too much negativity and recurrent attempts to revive sensitive issues and on the other there are moderators' overzealous actions and patronizing tone.

There's some politeness, but then someone escalates and it falls apart, again and again and again.

About problems with the spring forum peoples' behaviour I agree with insulting language...maybe...somewhat... But clueless posts and lazy questions? Does that really matter? Point to the wiki or to a FAQ and let the thread be. "Insulting language" may be someone harassing others because someone else made "clueless posts" and "lazy questions".

and yes, there's backseat moderation in my post, warn me.

raaar wrote:To me it seemed your words pointed to a move, not an extra forum.

At least I am not the only one.

This forum is a community that brings together some people. The community works by some rules/customs. It is supported (financially and technically) by a smaller group of people.

Wishing/wanting it worked by "better/different" rules that you know, will not work. Either you are able to convince the correct small group of people that control it (site owners, forum moderators, etc) that your rules/actions are better or, if not, you will be perceived as "annoying" even if occasionally you are correct. This is called politics and it is present in all type of human relations, and to be honest is not even that bad.

One advantage of the Internet is that it is rather easy to start another community and govern it according to your rules, so everybody is free to experiment and build up.

The forum might be a bit too harsh sometimes, but I see no difference to real life. Just ignore the people if you think they are harsh without a reason. Or click on "Add foe" (it is a bit hidden but still there). About your example, in my opinion the "left developer" seemed to be extremely sensitive, if he left for the messages in the linked thread.

I also ignored a long time all these (stupid in my opinion) discussions, but:

• based on the previous comments that knorke did (over the years), I think you mean well to the community and I was agreeing to some of the points you were making. Just don't try to "force" on others. Thought it is good moment to have a non admin telling that the whole situation did not look entirely as you see it. As raaar said both parties made mistakes, still my impression (might be wrong) is that you think you were ok always.
• I think you should be involved in a community otherwise it might go in a bad direction. This could include for example even the current moderators (as good as bad as they are) feeling not welcomed - which in my opinion would be bad as I also think they try their best.

The old forum is still here: that makes clear that there are now two XTA forums.
To me not ideal solution, I do not like how spring is splittering and hate to see XTA as tiny part of that, but good to have backup plan.
Imo no need to be more explicit.


@ raaar
To me "clueless posts and lazy questions does matter" because it defines forum quality.
Of course can ignore some things like thread with "lazy questions" (zero own attempt at a solution) - roll eyes and scroll on.
"Clueless posts" I find more problematic:
Who likes to put effort into an detailed answer and then someone else posts a thoughtless objection?
Why bother with links to wiki or engine if nobody seems to read it and still questions?
What do you suggest to do if thread already has a wrong reply in it? I tried different things: explaing it, completly ignoring it, a compromise of posting my own reply and in passing address indirectly etc,...none really worked.
This is ofc not about meandering discussions but about topics with defined problem & solution.

malric wrote:Just ignore the people if you think they are harsh without a reason. Or click on "Add foe" (it is a bit hidden but still there). About your example, in my opinion the "left developer" seemed to be extremely sensitive, if he left for the messages in the linked thread.

Message was different before edit. It was random example that seemed relevant and had happend recently. (one day ago)
It also showed: Even if I could maybe ignore things for quite long time, others will leave earlier.

malric wrote:As raaar said both parties made mistakes, still my impression (might be wrong) is that you think you were ok always.

Oh, certainly not.
Thanks for sharing your view, now I am actually somewhat curious.
(However for the last 1-2 years or subforum-events I see parallels to desync errors: what happens in endgame is "whatever.")

8611z wrote:Who likes to put effort into an detailed answer and then someone else posts a thoughtless objection?
Why bother with links to wiki or engine if nobody seems to read it and still questions?
What do you suggest to do if thread already has a wrong reply in it? I tried different things: explaing it, completly ignoring it, a compromise of posting my own reply and in passing address indirectly etc,...none really worked.

I completely understand the feeling as I had the same problem over and over with some people (worked for some time in education). Personally I could not find one solution, tried to "fight" each case in particular. Overtime I have seen that smart (new) people understood rather fast "whom" is to be trusted and whom is to be ignored so I realized that my energy is the best invested on focus on the people that cared about what I said, rather than fighting all the stupid ones.

8611z wrote: It also showed: Even if I could maybe ignore things for quite long time, others will leave earlier.

Hard trade-offs. Some of the "abusing" people seem to stick for quite some time and manage to do stuff (and this is not restricted to spring. Look at Linus Torvalds - not the most polite "manners" but he gets things done). The community might have been better of on long term with less abusive people, but this is not my or your decision to enforce this as we are not with enough "power" (being that influence, financing the project, founding the project or whatever). What ZK did (splitting the forum and not using this one) does allow them to set their own policies and succeed or fail based on their decisions...

How about *asking* the people that know something instead of trying to analyse forums? We in xta of course always knew this but could not clarify to players until our bans expired. Simple, don't make a post stating some information if you are not sure.

Actually, to gajop and silentwings: stick to moderating the other forums, there are still plenty of forums for you to moderate, and let someone else handle the moderation of the xta forum. That's the only way I can think of making this work.

Also to set things straight: I absolutely deny that I have abused any moderator privileges: that's what gajop says but it's his version and I don't think it's an accurate representation of the events.

You do not determine who moderates what.

I as a neutral unconcerned party, advised by my lawyer not to post in this thread and its ongoing investigation into the past, present and future grievances on all sides, can only post this:

Even drama needs stuff to happen, else the layers become so meta, that everyone just wishes for the godot. Organize some games, create something, have at least something that works as a anchor for the power-game. And Metamoderation is discuss-thing.

This opinion does not in any kind reflect the view or the viewpoints of the Person, hereafter called picasso. It is to be held as a statement in the ironic iconic kind of way, that means it can be true if you want it and that artists get away with anything.

These bastards.

Get on with it.

picasso for admin