I've acknowledged the fact that the community has made improvements to the initial concept.

Why are you still prejudicial towards the idea. given the community involvement? The community has good ideas and I think most of us have been able to reach a compromise--as opposed to the few users who have come in here and bashed the idea on the principle of it being my idea.

If you go back and read what I said, I think the community's reaction to the initial proposition has been extremely positive and has produced great discussion and that everyone has been able to take my immediate concept and introduce ideas that are more beneficial to the community.

I'm not mandating that we stick to the program outlined--even if I had the authority to do so. I introduced the idea at its root to gauge community reception and to get valid input--which we have received.

I realize that you are probably extremely prejudiced and judgmental to this idea (and its subsequent revisions) because of your distaste for me--but just try to put that aside for a minute and introduce constructive dialogue as opposed to hatemongering.

From this point on, I'm going to ask (and as TLB has mandated) that people limit their discussion to the merit of the idea--their suggestions for improving the idea--or why they feel this is negative. I think the argument of "It's Eric's idea, its bad!" has been iterated ad nauseum and can at this point be duly noted and no longer repeated.

Oh, hey guys. How are you all? Good? That's good.

I've been gone for the past month or so. Call it a business trip. When I came back, I decided to take a quick glance at the forums.

The garbage this forum managed to accumulate in one month astounded me. The forum is truly stagnant, and if nothing is done, nothing will change. Have you ever heard the expression "nothing ventured, nothing gained"? I'm sure someone's brought it up in this thread, but I have to bring it up again, and I don't want to look through the whole thread.

Eric, ProjekTHOR, has presented a perfectly valid suggestion for an improvement in the clarity and overall image of this forum. He's presenting a logical solution to a problem I've tried to solve since I got here. God knows I've failed, so why not try something else for once? Every strategy everyone has used has failed, and Eric has brought up something genuinely innovative.

We don't have to be mean about it, and we don't have to stop offering help. We are simply asking users to take the time to check over their message. Now, expecting users who aren't native speakers (such as Grenade, who actually does a great job) to speak perfect English isn't fair. However, there's no reason someone can't come in and do a legitimate job of checking what they're typing. Eliminating the two dozen smilies, fifteen exclamation points, and making sure you're being clear without expounding, and not falling short on helpful information is all that's required.

One hardly needs to wax eloquent on their RAM and processor to tell us their technical information and what error occurs on their particular installation. But, this cleanup should apply to more than the support forum. Post quality should be stressed in every major speaking forum, especially General and Support, but also in comments on Mods.

It seems that one of the largest objections to this plan is its origin. Why? Would you deny a cure for cancer if it were made by Hitler? The crimes of the past should not be forgotten, but what if they've already been atoned for? Eric was the first person, even before WizardJames, to host a Datarealms Wiki. Also, together with Daman, another forum ne'er-do-well, he's brought the Mod Database from a blank PHP form to a fully usable hosting service. An idea should not be considered in light of its creator; it should be thought of in terms of what it actually is.

In addition, you (the forum at large) seem fond of thinking that our inaction will not affect any change on forum members. That's a perfectly valid point. There's probably a few who will stop posting on the forum. However, if we are truly exemplary in helping users who are clear and legible in stating their problems, the rest will almost certainly see what's happening and fix their own posts. If they don't, it's their loss; you cannot make a product with 100% customer satisfacion.

In before one of you forum wits snaps by with a tl;dr:
If you actually care what I have to say, you'll already have read it. If you don't care, nothing I say is going to change that. And with that, I bid you good day, Datarealms. See you in another month.

I'm not against it because you're proposing it. I am against it because of what it says.

It just so happens that what you say is also why I don't like you.



I have already said that I agree with some of the directions that other people have suggested. The ones that aren't as insulting to our community.

EDIT:
I agree exactly with what Grif is saying, but that isn't what THOR wants, if you read the original post. What Grif is asking is what I agree with. Politely helping the new members. Not insulting them.

You're being bullheaded. You might not like my original concept--fine.

But if you read the discussion, everyone here has been able to take it and expound upon its virtues and eliminate its negatives. Stop focusing on the original post and focus on the discussion it has started. We've moved on from the original idea of EXILE THE BAD POSTERS to ATTEMPT TO ASSIMILATE THEM, to put it broadly.

Move on with the discussion like everyone else has, Tim.

Seems like a sound solution to the problem, now whether it actually works will be fun to watch.

Yo bro, deez forums be dope.

If you took the time to read everything, you would realize that I said "I don't think that what I said is the be-all, end-all solution to the problem." I've said multiple times taht I just used the barebones idea to present to the community that something needs to be enacted.

The community has done this. Like I said, Tim: Move on from the original post, we all have. I have updated the OP to reflect this, accordingly.

I think the problem with the idea is that the kind of moron who makes posts like that will not learn from his mistake or fix his post unless someone, preferably a moderator, says to him 'FIX YO DAYUM POST NOOB!'.

To be honest, harsh moderating has it's advantages. if someone posts like that, warn them, and if someone replies with help and they reply with 'NO U DUZ NOT UNNERSTAND! '

Ban them. End of story.

hey look, grif's back.
in any case, this thread is interesting because it shows quite a few user's personalities in usually unseen light.
tim is being angry at people (which i havnt seen much of), odin/thor/eric is being self-righteous(with acceptable reasoning) but still presenting his feelings, which is admirable. grif is back and being grif, but more supportive, and exalion is supporting a new brand of angry mods. oh, and neoseeker is being honest, if a little rampant, plus the community is being confused on the issue (well, nothing new there).
am i clear with where we stand?

grif's post sum's up my thoughts, though i wouldnt use the term "stagnant", and i wouldnt accept a cure for cancer from hitler right off the bat, though given time i might. still, zombie nazis are tricky to trust. i was a tad mean to grenade though, apologies, and thank you grif for the sidenote.

something needs to be done about spam. by spam i mean uninsightful, unhelpful, poorly worded posts, be it asking for help in a way that is incomprehensible or rude, requesting a fix for a crashing game with 5 smileys per line, or posting a bad mod with a bad OP.
we know this, however for some reason we seem incapable of fixing it.

for those of you that like this proposition, and for those that disagree, please discuss the topic rather than bashing your skulls against each other in hope of getting your thoughts across. as the long-term members of this forum, lets actually try and work together.

as a disclaimer, its ♥♥♥♥ late, so im sorry if this post itself is incomprehensible. i just think we're addressing the issue poorly.

I think that is probably the most important adjustment to the suggestion I have made--and rightly so because everyone has suggested it and I agree with it.

Alternatively, banning the user is probably not the best idea. Even if you ban the most disruptive user (either maliciously or unintentionally disruptive), its likely to bounce back in your face.

^^ Also, another downside of banning every user who missteps is that it could lead to something similar to the Facepunch (AKA Garry's Mod) forums. While I do actually like the Facepunch forums, there's no way in HELL that I would want DRFF to become ANYTHING near what that is. (For those who don't know, I wouldn't be the best person to explain Facepunch, ask someone else.)

yes the mods believe someone who demolishes a forum shouldn't be banned but someone who has a private dispute with a moderator should be banned forever

true story bro

buy the biography



Mods should listen this guy should be made admin.

The IRC is so much worse than the forums now this proposal should take effect there as well. Certain opers should learn to ban the people posting links to PORNOGRAPHY SITES instead of banning by popular vote. The forums aren't even sloppy enough to allow links to pornography. Pretty terrible. Here's some examples.

http://rafb.net/p/yH1kL267.html

I know, it's pretty horrible. Disgusting trash like that in our respectful chatroom. It also encourages socially abnormal and otherwise annoying behavior such as frequently shouting EPIC FIAL XD!! or OVER 9000!!!



Subtle note to mods: Why should anyone bother making a point in a post when you're going to remove them?
Less than subtle note from mod: rafb.net

Refer to my previous post. For a good example: I don't like Daman, I think he's a huge jerk. But he makes good points here. These two facts are entirely unrelated, as I pointed out earlier. I pride myself on having the clarity to realize this.

Heck, one might even argue that those who are intentionally bad posters have a better idea of what a good post is, considering the fact they have to go out of their way to think about how to mess that formula up.

Because Daman is a veteran, and honestly not that annoying compared to most of us veterans. As much as he CAN start a flame war, he usually behaves as a fairly decent forum member.

Offtopic: Honestly, considering Thor's past and Odin's behaviour (It's like fightclub if BOTH personalities were Brad Pitt!) I think he should be re-banned. He jumps into random threads just to say 'what a useless thread' which is spam, and causes massive flame wars.

Ontopic: You guys realise all forums have this problem. I actually don't mind facepunch forums simply because they weed out the morons quickly, although this sadly just leaves the elitest grammar nazis.

The only tool we have to fix this problem is mods and policies, so I'd say ignoring the threads completely and reporting it to a mod is a good start, and then have the mods reply to or edit the post asking for them to clean it up and informing them of the policy (which we can make a sticky somewhere), which they didn't read because they're one of THOSE people. Once the post is fixed, the post will no longer be ignored and us members can try our best to be of assistance.

Side note: If we adopt this system, we could also get the mods to flag any threads (in the thread name) untill it's fixed, so users no EXACTLY what to ignore. make it something like <Dirty Thread>, so the thread goes from

CC NOT WORKING!!!!!! to <Dirty Thread> CC NOT WORKING!!!!!!