Forum attitude adjustment and new moderation policies

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Alena Rybik
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Forum attitude adjustment and new moderation policies

Post by Alena Rybik »

I have noticed lately, along with many others, that the forum has turned into a very infected and unpleasant place, due to the number of people who persist on insulting Expansive Worlds at every opportunity, not to mention the other forum members who disagree with their point of view. I am very well aware, as are the development and management teams, that there have been problems with the game lately, including unwanted downtime and bugs. I am in no way trying to sweep those issues under the carpet or absolve Expansive Worlds of responsibility, but in too many cases the complaining has stopped being constructive and turned into bashing for the sake of bashing.

The biggest issue is not the problems people are raising (which are often very valid, no one is disputing this) but instead the often sarcastic and disrespectful way in which those concerns are communicated, which turns others away from the forum. The atmosphere has become too poisonous and infected and I am genuinely concerned for the future of the community. A couple of very helpful people who act as ambassadors for the game and contribute a lot to this community, have come to me and said that they no longer feel like frequenting the forum. This concerns me greatly.

Everyone can have a bad day in life. The forum moderators are completely empathetic towards bad days, and moderate accordingly when users whom we know conduct themselves appropriately 95% of the time have an off-day and post something that breaks the code of conduct. The difference between normal people who have bad days but continue to exhibit acceptable behavior and recover within a reasonable period of time, and the users who instead opt to stew in their anger, frustration and other emotions, are vast and unsolvable for us as a community. Users like this have issues that extend far beyond the scope of this community and whilst this in no way means they are not welcome on our forum, it does mean that for the sake of the majority of community members and in the interests of maintaining an enjoyable community environment, it is the responsibility of the moderators to deal with such behavior in a prompt manner.

If over 80% of your recent contributions to the forum have been angry, sarcastic or negative posts about Expansive Worlds or the people who disagree with your point of view, then this is not a good match. As I have said before, I want this community to be the place where people participate in constructive discussions, help each other, share their experiences and find useful information about how to play the game. Topics where people exercise in eloquence while looking for an underlying agenda or hidden evil design behind every single action that Expansive Worlds takes or every official post communicated, are not the ones which make this community vibrant and healthy. Maintaining a vibrant and healthy community in which people show mutual respect for one another, is what I strive for.

If you have already made dozens of posts disagreeing with company policy, company decisions, commercial decisions, company strategies or anything else relating to actions taken by the company which do not meet with your expectations, then you have made your point. From now on we are going to be moderating such posts and users very strictly with zero tolerance.

Finally, one other thing which has been worrying me lately is the attitude towards the "newbies" on the forum. I have read posts in which quite a few older forum members mock or ridicule new forum members, or simply answer ironically to questions they raise because they seem obvious. We all were beginners once and have be more tolerant and understanding with regards new players and new forum member.

The whole point of a forum is to learn, so for that very reason there is no such thing as a dumb question, no matter how obvious the answer may seem. Please be kind and patient. Repeating the wise words of our lead moderator Tod1d, "You can give a man a fish, you can teach a man to fish, or you can publicly humiliate him because he doesn't know how to fish". The examples of the latter are unacceptable on this forum and will no longer be tolerated.

If you have any questions or comments about the new rules, I am interested to hear them, but please be constructive.
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\m/
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Re: Forum attitude adjustment and new moderation policies

Post by \m/ »

Smoking a oriental waterpipe with blackberry taste together with listening to my favorite music and im relaxed. A few forum members should try this sometimes :P
Now offline. Forever.
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JamesMc
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Re: Forum attitude adjustment and new moderation policies

Post by JamesMc »

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Akemaru
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Re: Forum attitude adjustment and new moderation policies

Post by Akemaru »

@ Alena
Nice, enlightening post. Hopefully people will think a bit harder now before they type out their feelings!
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Jack.Grave
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Re: Forum attitude adjustment and new moderation policies

Post by Jack.Grave »

My tupence on OP post:
-- Unfortunately since autumn last year this forums turns into poisonous sewer or in other words in to tall ship on the edge of mutiny. What causes this, thats question. Ofc there is folks who complaints for sake of complaining, on the other hand there was overhyped expectations from comunity side in some cases badly comunicated (e.g. theHunter:Primal deal before Christmass).

-- Calling someone fanboy and other names is not welcomed behaviour in any mature comunity

-- no problem with that

-- ditto

-- ditto

-- for last 2 paragraphs sometimes users are too lazy use Search function and then making forums too messy to found something in it.

A paraphrase for user \m/ post: smoking a pipe filled with good tobacco and drinking glass of fine spirit while lisening some good music helps stayed in relaxed pace.
Jack
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Cogsy666
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Re: Forum attitude adjustment and new moderation policies

Post by Cogsy666 »

All sounds good to me hopefully the forums will now change for the better :)
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Knut
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Re: Forum attitude adjustment and new moderation policies

Post by Knut »

Excellent posting! Very well written and brought to the point. I fully agree that this forum should be a fun place to visit and great to see that you want to keep it that way in a reasonable manner.

But I'd like to issue a few words of caution: Frustration always has a source. While on a single case basis this frustration might be of manifold origin, if the atmosphere in the forums in general tips towards what you describe, then there have to be reasons within the forum itself. Those can be group dynamic issues which moderation should counteract, but it's likely that some of the reasons originate from the game and company politics themselves. So it would be advisable to recognise those through the confusing mist of frustration and sarcasm, and consider, reflect and eventually act on them.
Everything else is fighting symptoms only.
“Anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that 'my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.'" ― Isaac Asimov
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ronMctube
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Re: Forum attitude adjustment and new moderation policies

Post by ronMctube »

by enlarge this forum is pretty decent only a very small percentage seem to have a very real issue with EW.

i think some of the things that maybe have drawn out some negativity has been because of some bugs and communication. which probably could of been handled better.you do a great job alena so don't worry ;)

also some unfortunate circumstances with launches and bad timing with server issues haven't helped.

we are quite a small community and many here invest quite alot of time into this game. with anything you give effort to, you do feel attached. so maybe some people just are over passionate :D

nothing wrong with that.i would rather see honest posts myself than yes sir ! just the very small few who do rant every day in out need to just think. if you hate so much why even play ? its not good for you community or anything.

you wont change anything ranting only by showing some form of logical debate with some kind of genuine purpose.

so it should be a good move just hopefully it isn't used to stifle any kind of honesty.
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fape19988
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Re: Forum attitude adjustment and new moderation policies

Post by fape19988 »

This is an important step! I stopped reading most of the forum for a long time. Before the multiplayer started I was writing and reading in all parts of the forum nearly every day but since the release of the multiplayer and the Steam release, the forum became worse and worse in some parts.
Visit me on Youtube if you want: https://www.youtube.com/user/FapesTheHunterLPs
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EndPin
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Re: Forum attitude adjustment and new moderation policies

Post by EndPin »

fape19988 wrote:This is an important step! I stopped reading most of the forum for a long time. Before the multiplayer started I was writing and reading in all parts of the forum nearly every day but since the release of the multiplayer and the Steam release, the forum became worse and worse in some parts.
I agree, my ignore list keeps getting longer and longer. Also, when reading in general chat, I only read topics that look like they have information I can use in them. Other posts, you can tell are made to rant and rave about something. These I just skip. It will be nice to have those type of posts eliminated.

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