Citizens!

[commander keen]

This makes a lot of sense.

I reckon the mods don't need telling about abuse, because they are the main posters, and will probably come across it.

I can see I'm one of those ignorant n00bs. I started making Taming of The Wild, and I'm still lost in WML and trying to program some utilities to help myself.

Possibly people are just getting too busy to care about niceties. I think the thing is, If someone is insulting, just don't pay them any attention and they'll give up being insulting and will have to polite to get answers to their questions.

On the other hand, though, do we really want n00bs like me ( and worse ) all over the place instead of well educated people who know everything inevitably. But then there would be only people leaving, and no new people to replace them. Not to mention that Hillbillies and uncouth thugs do want (and deserve?) to be allowed in in the name of free speech.

[khamul]

One difference I've seen in the forums of late is much less of the patient intervention of Irrevenant, and much more of the somewhat... firmer... hand of Dubh. No offense, Maeglin.

Anyway, I don't know whether this is a symptom, a cause, or utterly unrelated, but I realised that I hadn't expressed my admiration of the fair and balanced way that irrevenant brought peace and harmony to several turbulent threads some months back, and this seemed a good place to mention it.

[Cuyo Quiz]

Wasn't irrevenant "Dead by Apprentice Event" (oh gawd did i laugh at that one)?.

Anyway, Dubh seems to be more focused on the inanity threads, while irrevenant was more onto trimming awful posting or closing threads that would take nowhere.

Dubh also does this, the difference is he does it with Force Lightning.

Force Lightning is the important part here.

We have good netizens, the thing is that by now, those netizens feel a little more comfortable trying to go the paddling way than with the 1 to 20 posts of soft diatribe that can take to explain the amtter to a poster.

But mods are the one with the paddle.

I also think/fear i may have used too much metaphors.

[Maeglin Dubh]

Dubh does have a tendency to focus on inaninty threads, it is true. Dubh has a great dislike of what he likes to call "Spurious Emissions." A dictionary might help you with that one.

Irrevenant is, sadly, not able to be as active as usual on the forums. Yes, we do have a very different approach to things, and without him to balance it, it's probably true that the Wrath of Dubh is a bit more active than usual. Irrevenant also used to "soft-lock", trusting people to leave a topic alone when it had run its course, which I typically go along with. But some things, to me at least, just need to go away.

(Not to mention the fact that I'va also been dealing with some personal problems including, but not limited to, a person threatening suicide in an attempt to make me break up with my girlfriend. If I'm in a bad mood at times, perhaps you can understand why now.)

Moderating is, typically, a very thankless job. The only time your contributions are recognized are when somebody objects to your methods, style, or decisions. There are exceptions, but they are rare. And Irrevenant is very good at what he does. Perhaps when he gets back, he'll be appreciated a little more.

But really, even if it has seemed more hostile lately, I think that's mainly a problem due to a bit of xenophobia, and not any outright aggression from any forum members. Really, this is one of the nicest, most civil forums I've seen in my travels, and certainly the nicest I've ever moderated. (I once was a moderator of a Runescape Clan website. Some of the fouler, rowdier members started posting multiple pictures containing various profanities [primarily f**k you, f**k yourself, etc...] in whatever threads they could get at. All because I changed their use of that same word to something more civil, since we had children in the clan.)

If you ever feel you're being mistreated here, take a wander through cyberspace and see how other forums treat their newcomers and malcontents. We can probably improve, but we could also be a lot worse.

[Darth Fool]

I think that Maeglin has done a fine job as moderator. It is true that Irrevenant did a great job as well. His style was a little different, but overall I am quite grateful to both of them for making my wesnothing life easier.

[Jetrel]

(Not to mention the fact that I've also been dealing with some personal problems including, but not limited to, a person threatening suicide in an attempt to make me break up with my girlfriend. If I'm in a bad mood at times, perhaps you can understand why now.)

Moderating is, typically, a very thankless job. The only time your contributions are recognized are when somebody objects to your methods, style, or decisions. There are exceptions, but they are rare. And Irrevenant is very good at what he does. Perhaps when he gets back, he'll be appreciated a little more.

Just for the record, thank you. Some of us greatly appreciate what you do.


In my opinion, the community here is relatively amazing; in that it's polite, and generally intelligent. On some ends of the internet, I wonder how those people know how to breathe, let alone type.

[turin]

Yeah. Maeglin Dubh is teh awesome.


I agree with Jetryl - this community is rather amazing, considering what other stuff there is out ther. It's kind of sad that I have to actively avoid correspondence with some of my friends online because they can't seem to find the shift key...

[commander keen]

The Mods do an almost impossible job, and they should all be hailed as heroes.

Three cheers and many thanks to the mods!

This forum is better than most, as I have been on a great many, and most of them end up discussing all sorts of things instead of the purpose the forum was there for. It is unfortunate that of late such people like Scott and Irrevenant cannot devote as much time to Wesnoth anymore.

But I know that Wesnoth will carry on, and like all things open source and freely availible, it will continue to improve for eternity. Thats what I like about OSS.

Mods are often some of the people more involved in Wesnoth's future, and that makes it even harder for them to moderate the forums at the same time. I don't know how you guys do it, because if I was a mod I'd be tearing my hair out at the roots by now.

It's a bit like being a policeman. The guilty parties don't like you for upholding the law and the lawful people, who don't realise how hard your job is, think you're doing a half-baked job when it's really a heroic effort.

[Oreb]

Maeglin does do a good job, and I hope for his hardships to end swiftly, for I know what you mean.

Anyway, currently it seems the forums is returning to its old debating self, where off-topic is returning to being about debating on intellectual subjects.

[chameleon_effect]

Let us not become crotchety old men. Instead, let us commingle on the server after we have spent ourselves in revelries, and resolve our days (re(de)cline) into UD vs UD slapdashery.

[Gafgarion]

(sometimes it is strange not to have scott, gafgarion, miyo, or even Nicolas, around).

Aww, I'm feeling the love!

As communities grow you'll invariably get some people that don't mesh well with the community. There's also the possibility that some previously helpful members can get bitter.

My original reason for leaving the community was merely that my ISP could not connect to the Wesnoth forum servers and I was told that the it was due to an unfixable technical error.
Once I became less busy (and subsequently found that my ISP suddenly had the capability to connect to the Wesnoth forums), I had some community shock. Although I had, and am still in contact with some former and current members of the Wesnoth community, things had changed so much that I couldn't get myself into the daily routine of posting again.
Lots of good people were gone, many more seemed curt and frustrated. I saw pages of junk posts, and many newbies that seemed highly aggressive. Clans were starting to form (which, imho, are the worst thing to happen to a community (especially for an OSS game), unless the game is designed from the ground-up to support them), and there was some obvious bad blood between members. Not to say the community was bad (it isn't, I was guilty of focusing on some of the changes I felt were bad), but things were so much different after my hiatus that it was just weird.

Props to you guys for trying to take the bull by the horns and making trying to make the community more friendly. The community is what makes Wesnoth. Literally.

I really have wanted to get back into the community, but I just feel so out of place now. I'm not up on any of the latest issues regarding the game, I'm not familiar with many of the regular posters and there have been some major dynamic shifts within the community. Sadly, I'm sure that I'm not the only former regular suffering from this.

[Cuyo Quiz]

The lasts two posts have involved legs, llamas, and good vibes.

Guys, we're getting better.

[Sapient]

Gafgarion, welcome back. Oh, and if you're referring to the N3T clan please remember we don't take ourselves too seriously.

[TheLost1]

y'know, on the debatpolitics forum, they have a "dungeon" any thread that goes bad is instantly moved there. it seems to work quite well for them.

Banning is only really a good thing when the person does it on purpose.

[jg]

I think banning somebody because he is spamming the forum is not the right way. This just adds to the bad blood. IMO.
But when somebody insults somebody else on personal level, measures should be taken. This is what makes the atmosphere of the forum worse (which nobody of us wants). Those kind of posts should be deleten (in most cases) IMO...

jg