Reflection: Attitude and Behavior

I've noticed, as I'm sure many of you have, a severe drop in the attitude of many posters here. It sickens me to read some of the stuff posted in the past few days. Maybe I'm just reading the wrong threads. I can understand people being less than happy about certain issues. That, however, is never an excuse to do nothing but flame.

Ever heard the expression "if you don't have anything useful to say, then don't say anything at all?" There are a few variations of that expression, but this one is best suited for forums. I'm not saying everyone should agree always, that'd just be lame and boring, but when you do disagree you will have a lot more creditability/respect if you post in a manner that isn't degrading to the OP and to yourself.

When you disagree, give your reasons why. Back them up with your personal experiences, or depending on the subject (i.e. security for PC's) get facts about what you are talking about. DO NOT try and ridicule the OP and belittle them. If they are wrong, its fine to point it out but show them WHY they are wrong. Trying to discredit someone, doesn't help your case nor theirs so why do it?

Lastly, when certain people ask for help. Certain people who have given a lot of time to the community. Regardless of whether its "their job" or not, be courteous. You may not agree they deserve help, but just go back to that expression. Does it benefit anyone to post "We get screwed, so you should too!"? If you don't want to help thats fine, click the link at the top that takes you back to Riverside, or whatever subforum you're in and click on another thread. No need to lash out, nobody respects you for it.

Maybe we could all do with a refresher Forum Guidelines. Namely I know most of you are decent in your posts, and everyone has a bad day (hell, even I have bad days ) but just reflect a bit on what you write before hitting that "submit" button.

yes its another thread whining about others whining
im just saying if you search past discussions you will see this SAME topic many times over and over and i know because i made the same topic myself

Well going through a few pages of riverside I don't see any that are immediately obvious. Plus I like my title better

It is my hope people will actually think before posting instead of flaming on instinct. I know its hoping for too much but if even one person learns to reflect then its worth it.

EDIT: I'll also point out that I think only my first paragraph is really whining. The rest are actual suggestions for improvements!

Long ago, in the times of Usenet, a general advice was, before making first post in a group, you would follow the conversations for a few weeks, to get the general feel for the types of conversation, and the topics discussed.

Many topics here are rehashes of rehashes of things discussed daily. Every day there's a thread about same old stuff. People get annoyed.

Suggestions for new ideas are repeated daily, frequently weekly by same person making the very same post.

Old ideas such as damage statistics or other things that were dismissed long ago with plenty of arguments get repeated. So do hundreds of other ideas.

People just get annoyed. Once you argument the reason for doing/not doing something, it gets tedious. And there's simply too many posters who do not search or even try to look up whether something has been posted before - in clear violation of rules - which obviously starts to annoy.

There isn't much to be said about GW, there are basically no new suggestions to be made. Everything that was ever thought about has been posted long ago. A small portion of that has made it into game, the rest won't. Why not has been discussed in depth.

This is due to the same attitude displayed in game. Have you ever seen that:
#1: WHERE DO I GET HAT
#1: WHERE DO I GET HAT
#2: wer do i get hat
#3: wen is the event
#4: were do i get hat
#1: WHERE DO I GET HAT
#5: When does the event start
#1: WHERE DO I GET HAT
#6: FFS look on guildwiki

It's the same here.

I agree with everything Phaern said. Almost every thread in this section has at least one "You're stupid! What a dumb idea!" response to it.

I'm amazed that anybody posts anything helpful anymore. No matter what gets posted somebody will be around shortly to flame you.

Like Phaern pointed out, the rules here say "no flaming", but is anyone ever banned for it? I see the same posters over and over again trashing threads.

Ouch.

I don't know why people can be such arse-holes on the forums. It almost makes me wish I could ban myself from here.

The only thing I can conclude is that people feel 'safe' at their computers. "It's only someone on the internet, all they can do is yell back at me". Not really logical, but it's all I've got.

My attacks are never personal. its all professional.

:P

lol

in all seriousness.

you cant expect to put so many highly emotionally charged people in one place and not expect some chaos.

I think the problem is too big to tackle. It stems from society & family up brining. Suggestions can be made, but people may not be willing to listen. Back in my day, if you talked back or were rude, you'd get a good beating or lecturing. These days, parents are too busy to even lecture/teach their children on morals, ethics, and good behaviour. It's almost expected that the government be responsible for the morals/actions of children, which is sort of ludicous.

The double-standards with some mods need to change too.

Preferential treatment is given to certain users who have been here for longer and a lot more leeway is shown with them when they're being offensive (especially when being elitist and offensive) ...
In absolutely any bicker-fest between an oldbie and a newbie, its always the newer member who will suffer the wrath of the moderator exclusively... while the older members are essentially taught that they can almost get away with murder

Where is the justice there?

Is this all part of some master plan to eradicate all newer members and retain a single, tight social circle?


Just remember... Arena-Net generally get their money from new players; not old ones, given that there are no monthly fees. Drive away the newer members and you're driving away A-Nets main source of income...... thus driving down further support for the game in future.

A small appeal to moderators: FFS pay more attention to the crimes of the older members. They shouldn't be immune to the rules.
[And rude behaviour by moderators themselves doesn't help either.]

Its not that people here are rude, its the fact that people dont use search and post dumb stuff.

That is a good point and explains a lot, but even so you'd think people could just point out the old thread and leave them to read over it before flaming them. A good deal of those posts come from people who are new to the forums. They don't necessarily know how to work the search, or the fact that they are asking about "old news". But I still remember some of the old ebay and wow vs gw threads... those can get nasty.

I still believe though it can for the most part be avoided just by thinking before posting. If the topic is old just point them to the old one, or to the search engine. I know some people, moderators and others, do so. Perhaps a sticky at the top explaining "searching" to new comers, or even redirect them to a page explaining it when they first create an account... just some thoughts.

Heh, I've read plenty about it, but I grew up in a small Catholic town so didn't have fortune to miss out on all the beatings But I know I'm better for it and I certainly deserved them. I guess when you are bought up a certain way, and taught to show respect, its hard to see why others don't. A downside to that small town upbringing, you don't experience much diversity. Its mostly the way I was brought up is the only way I know.

I've noticed it a bit myself, but I'm not trying to point fingers just get people to think before posting. Especially since I don't expect the moderators to catch everything. I think they figure that if the member has been here that long they must of been following the rules the whole time, so they must still be following the rules. Perhaps flawed logic, perhaps preferential treatment, maybe they just miss it altogether.

I agree with alot of what alot of people here have said, and actually I take the above quote to heart in-game, and have made it a founding tenant in the guild I run. If someone needs help, we help. If someone needs help, we help if we can. Outright rudeness is not tolerated.

Throughout the Canthan New Year, I must have handed out 400g to people who wanted to unlock storage accounts. I also sat in the districts and took the time to directly answer people's questions about the festival, certain quests, and even items. Between two rounds of prize drops, I helped a Paragon who wanted to get caught up on some of his quests.

While myself and my guild can't help everyone, we do our part in remembering that is a game and we're basically all here to have fun. I believe that a lot of people have forgotten that, or in some cases, just don't care. However, I also believe that there are a lot of people out there who do care about others, but just like how bad news gets more ratings than good news, we hear the negatives more than the positives.

Simply put, people flame because the internet is anonymous.

I will tell you why so many things are negative, because their term "Trolling" is such a grey area, and the people who monitor the site have zero tolorence to what they feel is in there opinion Trolling or Flaming.

Some players including myself felt strongly about a subject and made several comments on that subject that were not negative, but were cridical comments. In the end we were banned for Flaming ot Trolling. So most people just say a few comments, keep it general, or make one or two strong opinions and leave it at that, but add them up and it makes everything look negative.

Sorry it just seems to me that stateing even facts about subjects and opinions can get you banned very easily, best advice is to keep it simply and to the point of the ops subject.

Unfortunately the Mods just lock, so people feel free to post whatever garbage they want and there's no apparent repercussions for trolling. It's a shame, truly.

This topic has to be the worst case of internet stereotyping I've ever seen...

I presume that this topic is in reference to the "Worst. Thread. Ever." in which the OP was a participant. Well, since you are so by-the-book, Phaern, you should know that reopening a locked topic is against the rules. So this thread is a poetic irony.

So you automatically accuse the moderators of problems, yet you don't think that you may be the problem. In the aforementioned thread, I noticed that most of the people who were flaming were relatively unknown in these forums.

Even though I disagree with them often, the moderators of GWG are not stupid.

Great. Welcome to 2007. Times change. Our generation has become rather hoarse. You can't change it, just accept it.

I'm 16, a straight A student, and I've never been laid. Is that relevant to any of my posts? No!

I don't think you understand what "trolling" is. Trolling would be a topic with the title "PvP sucks!" Trolling is not "PvP sucks because Avatar of Grenth is broken." That's critism, not trolling.

I suggest that the posters in this topic who disagree with the moderators' policy re-evaluate themselves.

Believe me, I'm well aware of what trolling is. Trolling is not restricted to thread-making, either.

It'd be nice if the moderator's had some consistency. What some mods leave open and keep an eye on, another mod will come and close it asap. No consistency means that people won't have a set guideline of what is clearly acceptable and what is clearly un-acceptable.

That has absolutely no relevancy to his comment. The internet being anonymous means people don't have to fear consequences for their actions in a place such as this. If someone comes flooding threads with racist comments, not a single person here knows who he is or can do anything to teach him to stop. That's what he meant. It has nothing to do with age, intelligence, or sexual activity.


In fact, reading through your whole post again, your responses to the comments you quoted are largely irrelevant. In none of the quotes did anyone say the mods were "stupid". GJ trolling this thread.

I was in fact making no reference to any topics. I may have alluded to a few. But I didn't point fingers, nor did I mention or link any threads. I merely pointed out that as of late there has been a lot more of it going on and that its been nastier than usual. So no I did not reopen locked topics. This discussion was in no way intended to get people to bring up those subjects, it is and still is intended to get people to think and/or reflect on their nasty posts and ask if it will really benefit anyone to post them. And I'm happy with the discussion its generated.

Not true at all, its that attitude that makes you incapable of change. To just accept things because "its how it is", is not a smart choice. To accept things that are wrong because "its how it is", is immoral and unethical. Need I make reference to Germany during WWII? They just went along with things, and we all know how that ended up. People can change, it's a question of whether you are willing to put forth the effort to try and change them.

All Phaern is really saying is that people should be nice to each other and think before they post. Do you disagree with this idea?

That has to be the worst analogy ever.

People accepted Germany in WWII because if anyone opposed the Nazi regime, they died. That's a pretty good motive not to improve society.

You should be comparing it to the efforts of the American Muckrakers in the 1900s-1920s. But even then it would be hyperbolic. The muckrakers exposed corruption in American politics and tried to give women the right to vote. You just want people to be nice.

Well, we have smart mods in the year 2007, and he's 16, a straight A student, and sexually inactive. Apparently that's a recipe for "yes", judging by his previous post.

Fact is, you say "just accept it, you can't change it", yet look what happens when enough people try to change it? Good answer.

oops, forgot I just posted xD

Bad analogy or not it still stands I'm not going to derail this topic on history, but you are right I want people to just be nice. I want them to be respectful, simply because it brings out a better discussion. Look at this thread itself, nobody has been blatantly flaming (some might say Grasping did but meh), and look we have a fairly decent discussion. Nobody being overly offended, nobody going off ranting like crazy, nice no? Thats all I was trying to get to happen, now if it just spreads on to other threads

I've been with GWG a long time and have seen many people come and go.

There has always been flaming and trolling, and there always will be. I dont like it, and I agree that it would be nice if people acted more mature. Unfortunately thats just not gonna happen, so the best thing to do is accept things the way they are and either deal with it, or move on.

We have so many people here with the same common interest of playing the beloved game of Guild Wars, yet we all come from different walks of life and vary greatly in age and maturity levels that its impossible to achieve your hopes of peace and harmony.

I think you'll be alot happier once you come to grips with the fact that you cant change other people, you can only change yourself. You seem like a good person, so continue on that path, just try and look past the things you cant change.

I've noticed this a lot, I think it really has to do with this generation, who in real life is rude and doesn't care. Generally, I blame it on the parents (not all parents are bad, I know very good parents who raise good kids and also very good parents who can't raise good kids because the kid simply won't be good no matter how much you try), who don't teach their children to be courteous and kind to other people. This also happens to be the generation where the internet is basically another home, therefore, the same behavior come here.

Zinger, the analogy you gave just contradicted what you were saying

I agree, this isn't a bad discussion, why can't all (or at least most) threads be like this?

I love to argue. I love debate and confrontation. Its a great release of energy and emotion.

Some people can go off in a very intense, emotionally charged arguement and still not intend it to be personally offensive. I like to think of myself in that boat.

Ive flamed a lot of posts for being stupid. But ive only flamed the actual posters a handful of times (hi zinger, dreamhunk).

I think its not a matter of being nice. Its a matter of understanding and respect. Being nice never solved anything.

We SHOULD disagree, we should argue. Only then will powerful ideas churn from the melding of interchanges between parties. Criticism is good.

But we must never forget that in the end, its all just arguement and should never be given or taken at a personal level. Its really the condescending attitude and cynicism of posters that must be toned down.

"Your post sucks, but i still respect you as a human being."

likewise

1234

Complaints about complaining are pointless. Complaints about complaints about complaining are even more pointless.

Disagreeing vehemently with someone and flaming are two different things. If someone is attacking you and not your post, contact a moderator. If someone is disagreeing with your post and you don't like that, the forums are probably not for you.

You don't see permanently banned people because their posts are removed and they no longer show up on the members list. If by preferential treatment you mean we track those posters who like to flame, then yes, we do that to older users.

Closed for pointlessness and pseudomoderation - it is not a regular poster's job to tell others about the forum rules, or to tell moderators how to moderate.