Appreciation for the community

[Insinuator]

I'd just like to say that I have a newfound respect and appreciation for the overall caliber of individuals posting on this forum. Additionally, I would like to thank the moderators for doing a careful job of keeping it that way. I recently posted a negative review of a new game on an unmoderated, far larger forum. This was met with such intense hatred, vitriol, and lack of common decency that I was taken aback. Anyways, marked difference.

[nuorc]

Pretty civilized & friendly around here, lots of capable people, too.

Mods not overdoing it / mods not being overly provoked probably goes hand in hand.

I definitely think this appealing/functioning community is a strong-point of BfW.

[TheScribe]

I have to agree, and would like to emphasize the thanks to the moderators. (not to decrease the value of the rest of this in any way though)

[8680]

I concur entirely, excepting “newfound”. When I see someone opine to the effect that the prevalence of “hatred, vitriol, and [a] lack of common decency” is an integral and immutable property of the Internet, I think of this forum, and know that, though such opinions may hold true in some sectors of the Internet, they certainly do not in all.

[Midnight_Carnival]

While I do agree that the mods do a good job (mods on other forums can get really in their own ass sometimes), I don't like attributing everything entierly to them. Even on the internet, there is such a thing as individual responsiblity, and if we atribute how well things are going entierly to the not inconsiderable efforts of the moderators, we run the risk of overlooking our duty to fellow forum members to moderate ourselves. Basically ask yourself what type of forum you want to share questions, insights and info with other Wesnoth players/developers - for the purposes of apreciating and improving the game, I think most would agree that turning the forums into a 4Chan /b clone would not be in anyone's intersts.

Apreciate the community, apreciate the mods (even if it looks like sucking up some times ) but more importantly, apreciate your own part in it: apreciate that you are one of the reasons it is the way it is and stop poking people in the eye when you see things you don't like, because if you find yourself in a place you don't want to be, you are one of the people who let it slip.
I don't advocate putting on a cowboy hat and martial star with "gonna clean this town up" attituted to forums, and definatley not vitriol and hatred mentioned earlier, but you can see, I'm sure, that you set an example for new forum members in the way you post and the way you respond. Moderators are friends, not your mom.

That's my maturity quota for the day, now I'm going to troll someone's forum with highly unsavory images and post needless character assasination and spiritual abuse

[Dunno]

I agree with Midnight Carnival, WE are the ones mostly partially responsible for this unique atmosphere the conclusion is obvious: if you play/develop wesnoth, you are awesome

Now that I think of it, it's surprising how much we value peaceful and high-standard discussions and, at the same time, how we love trolling other people on the net. Because, let's face it, I doubt there are many people around here who can truthfully say they have never ever trolled anyone. My hypothesis would be that the more we feel anonymous, the more childish we act. And here, we all have a reputation of a player or a developer and we all care about our image because we want to be invited to tournaments or ladder games and we want our scenarios to be played.

@Midnight_Carnival:

That's my maturity quota for the day, now I'm going to troll someone's forum with highly unsavory images and post needless character assasination and spiritual abuse

Or just say "Windows suck" and watch the world burn.

[Dugi]

Yes, these forums are on a great level. I was recently banned from certain gaming forums (don't wanna advertise which ones), that were formerly kept on quite a high level too thanks to a group of caring admins, but there was much more deviants, and it was much harder to enforce the rules (and twice as many members wander these forums; but there, things like topic auto-locks after some time, URL filtering or disabling editing own posts were needed), but in a certain point, the main admin became the worst of all, and is screwing the whole place, and he banned me when I tried to tell him off and gain support from others. Now I am using other accounts via proxies and other stuff, trolling him all the time.
I believe that the unique atmosphere here is thanks to the fact that a lot of people that post regularly either develop the game, its extensions or help developing the extensions. These people are maintaining their projects, and therefore don't want to risk losing their accounts because of the pride tied to their nicknames. Everyone also knows that he may make a split of the game if he chooses so, and it motivates him to agree with others only because nobody would probably play his fork. Everyone who disagrees can also make his own era, campaign, scenario or mod.

[Crendgrim]

I think there are several factors which make this place unique. First (and probably most importantly) is what already has been named multiple times now: That everyone who is active here share their love to the game, and all of them have a role: Either as a player looking for help, a player wanting to give feedback, someone wanting to help in the translation, artists who want to improve the game visually, developers who want to improve the game itself, content (UMC) authors who feel inspired by the powerful engine, or just people wanting to hang out in a location on the Internet with a nice atmosphere. And this is also another point: During the years, a strong and nice community has emerged. This peacefulness stops people from becoming trolls, as there seldom is reason for it. This especially expresses itself in the fact that someone who asks for help most of the time gets answers in a time span which can be measured in minutes. Of course, now and then there is someone who tries to (or accidentally does) disturb the peace; but such people are luckily a minority. Then, there is the layout of the forums: There is little place for off topic threads, and only a few forum games. This makes the forums stay on a higher-quality level, as most of the threads are on-topic and require some knowledge. Again, this keeps away trolls and flame wars.
Lastly, when you guys are saying we moderators are doing a good job, I'd like to add that the administration of shadowmaster is to be praised as well, thanks to which all this has been grown.

[Pentarctagon]

One of the main reasons I even stayed around now that I only rarely actually play Wesnoth anymore (outside of my music player, if that counts ) was because these forums were great. The one thing I liked most though, was that the forum staff didn't put up with stupid/self-entitled people like a lot of places do. Some of the responses made my day.

Lastly, when you guys are saying we moderators are doing a good job, I'd like to add that the administration of shadowmaster is to be praised as well, thanks to which all this has been grown.

Indeed.
All Hail shadowmaster!

[TheScribe]

Ah yes, Shadowmaster does his job wonderfully.

All Hail shadowmaster!

Hail! Hail!

[Iris]

Moderators are friends, not your mom.

This. And most importantly, they are community members like you or me.

Lastly, when you guys are saying we moderators are doing a good job, I'd like to add that the administration of shadowmaster is to be praised as well, thanks to which all this has been grown.

Well, my administration is really just the continuation of a trend started by a very dedicated member of our community who strove to increase the community’s overall awesomeness during his stay. The forums were in (non-evident) disarray following his untimely departure; since I had been working very closely with him on the technical aspect of management before his untimely departure, I saw it fitting to continue his unfinished work. But most of the time there isn’t much to do (besides minor housekeeping) since the community is mostly self-managing by design. Conflicts occur only occasionally, and the people involved in them are usually reasonable enough to stick around and learn and continue contributing.

Because, really, pretty much everyone is contributing in some way, even if they don’t get special badges for their efforts for logistic reasons. Wesnoth’s greatest strength is its vast extensibility for making new user-made content. The bulk of mainline code development since 1.0 has been focused on allowing content authors to do more with the game engine, but all of that would be pointless if there wasn’t an awesome community continually developing new and exciting add-ons. And for that community to thrive, there must be people helping around and making it a worthwhile experience for newcomers. Those people contribute by attending to support requests when there are no relevant mainline developers available to help, sharing gameplay tips, pointing people at useful documentation, criticizing their code, art, or prose; playtesting new content, suggesting improvements, or merely discussing common interests in forums such as Users’ and Off-Topic. And overall, just knowing that there are people playing and enjoying the game is tremendously uplifting.

I forgot the point I was supposed to make.

[TheScribe]

Did I mention humility in shadowmaster's qualities?

Wesnoth’s greatest strength is its vast extensibility for making new user-made content.

Very true. That's most of the reason I like love BfW.

I forgot the point I was supposed to make.

I suppose I should add forgetfullness to said list of "qualities".

[Gambit]

I'd like to add that the administration of shadowmaster is to be praised as well, thanks to which all this has been grown.

The Church of Shadowmaster concurs.

[Hulavuta]

I think you're all terrible.



...anyway, I agree with what Crendgrim said, which is that almost everyone here has a role, and almost every forum serves a constructive or productive role. This really cuts down on a lot of the pointless posts. Although, I hope I'm not alone when I say that getting some obnoxious, silly, and/or ignorant wes-complainer once in a while can be great fun.

As far as moderators go, Sangel was the best in my opinion. RIP wherever you are.

[TheScribe]

Although, I hope I'm not alone when I say that getting some obnoxious, silly, and/or ignorant wes-complainer once in a while can be great fun.

Ah yes, you are not alone. I too take great enjoyment in watching the mod team deal with them.

I'm pretty sure I've read all the locked topics that haven't been deleted. (I went through the forums an looked for them, and it was totally worth the time)

"What is our purpose in life but to create folly for others, and laugh at them in our turn?"