Important: Following Forum Rules

[I_cant_Swim_]

Folks, in two days we go officially live. Until then, we are trying to get all the important stuff settled that we will need to make this an attractive place to be. In this regard, following forum rules is key, and non-negotiable.

As our moderators get up to speed, we will be sifting through the threads as is our task. Be aware that Forum Rule Violations will hereafter be met with warning points, which translates into various sanctions such as time-limited inability to post or bans.

There is absolutely no need to violate bans. Imagine this: toxic talk and in complaints about WG, for instance, are totally beside the point here, as WG is not interested in our forums. They closed them down, remember? So what we do here, is for us, the community, and for our enjoyment, and to welcome new members here and into the game. Toxic behavior will not be tolerated.

Please be active in the forums, in a constructive, positive manner.

I_cant_Swim_

 

 

[Wolfswetpaws]

 

[Admiral_Karasu]

1 hour ago, I_cant_Swim_ said:

Folks, in two days we go officially live. Until then, we are trying to get all the important stuff settled that we will need to make this an attractive place to be. In this regard, following forum rules is key, and non-negotiable.

As our moderators get up to speed, we will be sifting through the threads as is our task. Be aware that Forum Rule Violations will hereafter be met with warning points, which translates into various sanctions such as time-limited inability to post or bans.

There is absolutely no need to violate bans. Imagine this: toxic talk and complaints about WG, for instance, are totally beside the point here, as WG is not interested in our forums. They closed them down, remember? So what we do here, is for us, the community, and for our enjoyment, and to welcome new members here and into the game. Toxic behavior will not be tolerated.

Please be active in the forums, in a constructive, positive manner.

I_cant_Swim_

 

 

 

Toxic talk I think I understand, but could you clarify what does 'complaints about WG' cover? There's going to be precious little to praise them for if their past form is anything to judge by.

[Aragathor]

4 minutes ago, Admiral_Karasu said:

 

Toxic talk I think I understand, but could you clarify what does 'complaints about WG' cover? There's going to be precious little to praise them for if their past form is anything to judge by.

Fair question, if this is going to be a place where no criticism is allowed, then what's the point?

If that's classified as toxic, then sorry, but both discord and reddit are better places to talk about the game.

[I_cant_Swim_]

my bad i guess. what I mean is "toxic talk in complaints about WG". We can of course criticize the company where it is due. But even more clear, perhaps: No toxic talk AT ALL.

@Aragathor Criticism is not at all classified as toxic. But criticism can be destructive, if it is not qualified - because it eventually sours a whole forum and stops folks coming here who genuinely want to enjoy the game.

Here is a clear example of criticism that is destructive and might be penalized:

"XX closed our forums so they can go xxxxx " you may imagine the rest.

Here is an example of better criticism:

"XX closed our forums. How could they? That was really bad for us and has forced us make a forum ourselves." You know, there are all sorts of positive criticm. Can I make it clearer?

Because, you know, we also want people who come here to then think: hmm, there are some issues, here, but these folks are coping! Not moping!

[Admiral_Karasu]

@I_cant_Swim_ Thank you, that is a very good clarification. In other words, criticism that stays on the point is the way to go, and bin everything toxic. There's also I think some differences where we come from, because EU tended to slip on the side of... let's call it 'banter' a lot of times. The EU also had the flaw of having endless debates that never went anywhere. The circumstances that led to that I think were more due to WG unresponsiveness to feedback than to anything else.

Incidentally, I notice you have planned out the forum subsections already pretty well, but how broadly or narrowly is what is intended to go under 'General discussion' defined? Is the intention to have all gameplay and game related discussions there which do not fall under any of the other sections? I don't know how it was on NA, but by modern times on EU, a great many people were using the General chat pretty much for everything because it was the best way of making sure you reached as many people on the forum as possible, including virtually any subject up to technical difficulties and even off-topic at times.

[I_cant_Swim_]

1 minute ago, Admiral_Karasu said:

many people were using the General chat pretty much for everything

You hit the nail on the head there, mate. This issue, though, exceeds my design specs 😮 . This will be up to board meetings, with member feedback, to decide. Moving threads at a later date is easy, so we can assimilate ideas for a while, first.   

[Aragathor]

If the point of the first post is to remind everyone to be civil, then what triggered the need for it?

Especially with the second paragraph already using threatening language towards users?

[I_cant_Swim_]

Is it not evident? the trigger is that we are going live, officially, our mods are going to be more active, and we want folks to be aware of this, with plenty of time to spare.

The second paragraph does not threaten users at all. It states clearly what we should all know when we register here, because of course we have all read the Forum Rules.

We can all make mistakes in our posts, and sometimes even the best of us may forget to behave themselves. But posts last longer than a bad mood. And they leave a longer mark. So the second paragraph is to encourage members to post, and to post constructively even when they criticize, and to understand why we need to uphold Forum Rules.

 

[Admiral_Karasu]

10 minutes ago, I_cant_Swim_ said:

Is it not evident? the trigger is that we are going live, officially, our mods are going to be more active, and we want folks to be aware of this, with plenty of time to spare.

The second paragraph does not threaten users at all. It states clearly what we should all know when we register here, because of course we have all read the Forum Rules.

We can all make mistakes in our posts, and sometimes even the best of us may forget to behave themselves. But posts last longer than a bad mood. And they leave a longer mark. So the second paragraph is to encourage members to post, and to post constructively even when they criticize, and to understand why we need to uphold Forum Rules.

 

I've seen some fairly 'harsh' language used at times, but does that count as 'toxic' or not I'm not always sure. It's kind of difficult sometimes to know how 'gingerly' you have to respond to people when you disagree with the strongly about some issue, and people tend to have disagreements not everyone is going to be beaming sunlight and happiness under all situations. What I mostly don't want to see is outright hostility, direct insults or vindictive personal attacks or even worse verbalism occurring. Now, I don't recall seeing anything quite that bad on the official forums, but there are places on the net where that happens, and it is outrageous. The difficulty here is where you draw the boundaries, and how consistently the moderators will be interpreting the rules.

[I_cant_Swim_]

2 minutes ago, Admiral_Karasu said:

difficulty here is where you draw the boundaries, and how consistently the moderators will be interpreting the rules.

Yeah, that's the second nail's head. the devil is always in the detail. Hence, in my view, a softer approach when things could be interpreted both ways. Delete with no penalty is one option, because a post that is valuable can be rephrased after that and there is no harm done.

[Admiral_Karasu]

Just now, I_cant_Swim_ said:

Yeah, that's the second nail's head. the devil is always in the detail. Hence, in my view, a softer approach when things could be interpreted both ways. Delete with no penalty is one option, because a post that is valuable can be rephrased after that and there is no harm done.

Yes, the moderators can easily edit out what they don't want to see in any post, or delete the post if it has no merit whatsoever and is in violation of the rules. The moderators could also step in if the argument gets too heated and defuse the situation as much as they can. Wilfull, repeated and flagrant violation of the rules is something completely different than just heated arguments or expressions of frustration.

[I_cant_Swim_]

Yah. I saw one forum where mods would step in and lock a thread because the arguments were repetitive (hence he/she stated something like "the topic has been locked because everything has been said that can be said, and no more is needed". Heavily paraphrased, here, but content-approximate.

 

[I_cant_Swim_]

it is also important to convey the message, that moderators are normal folks too, and they have to make a call in ambiguous cases sometimes. the no-penalty option does the least damage, then.

[Wolfswetpaws]

5 hours ago, I_cant_Swim_ said:

these folks are coping! Not moping!

This.   ^^^^^

[SunkCostFallacy]

I think there's a factor which we need to make allowances for:

This is NOT a WG forum.

Some of my posts on the NA forum were pretty acerbic. Especially after the CM I won't name manage to tick me off quite directly in Direct Messages.

There, my posts were often commentary about how WG were running the game. But WG aren't here ... so while I might, occasionally, express disbelief at what strikes me as a boneheaded decision by WG ... on the whole my purpose in being here is very different. Here I want to keep in contact with the community and seek the advice of that community.

So there's not really much cause for agro-posting here, I think. YMMV.

 

Sunk

[Crokodone]

On 8/16/2023 at 11:11 AM, I_cant_Swim_ said:

WG is not interested in our forums. They closed them down, remember?

More like moved them somewhere else. Maybe one day, our orderly conduct of communication and ideas may compel WG to listen, and read our thoughts and history... Again.

[Admiral_Karasu]

1 hour ago, Crokodone said:

More like moved them somewhere else. Maybe one day, our orderly conduct of communication and ideas may compel WG to listen, and read our thoughts and history... Again.

You assume people in general learn from their mistakes then? An optimist, I see, very commendable.