Forums not what they used to be

[Darth Mandarb]

Thanks for all the kind words

What would have been wrong with sending the author a PM thanking him for trying to liven up the forum and that you would let it run for a few days before moving it,  maybe even encourage  him to edit out the explanation so that people would fall for it?

I suppose it wouldn't have been a bad thing to let it go awhile.  However, I worry that if one person does it, others would follow suit.  Personally I don't like seeing a game with promise, getting my hopes up, and then finding out it's a farce!  This would, in my opinion, lessen the effectiveness of the GiP board.  Granted, if it had been posted in the Talk and Chat (where I have since moved it) it would be suspect right away 'cause why wasn't it posted in the GiP?

I would like to clarify that (in most cases) when I lock a thread I send a PM to the author explaining the situation.  They are almost always appreciative and work with me to set their thread straight.  I have cases where I've bounced 5 or 6 PMs back 'n forth helping them out.  I've even wrote/edited some of their threads for them!

I may be a Sith ... but there's a heart in there somewhere with all the evil!!!

[Shane 'ProgZmax' Stevens]

However, I worry that if one person does it, others would follow suit.

This is what I have seen happen with similar jokey threads in the CL, and is why I follow the policy of this forum rule written by Andail:

What should you Not post in this forum?
* Your latest joke about Dutchmen

I find myself in consistent agreement with Andail when it comes to moderation, and have very little to add to his comments aside from this:

I have a sense of humor and even contributed once to a humorous CL thread (Matts Berglinn's ma santa shoes), but I rapidly saw it devolve into a vulgar display of who could be the most shocking.  It didn't help matters that Matts was actually offended by many of the paintovers, and this is exactly the sort of thing I want to avoid. 

Darth does a mostly thankless job as do most moderators, really.  There are always people eager to criticize when a person jumps up to take the reins, but then they aren't the ones dealing with what is essentially an unpaid job and the daily annoyances involved in doing it (people who just want to test a moderator/forum's patience, people who absolutely will not read and observe basic forum rules).

[Radiant]

I think that whatever problems we have with being unfriendly to new people occur mostly in the beginner's tech forum, not in GIP.

[Andail]

I find myself in consistent agreement with Andail when it comes to moderation, and have very little to add to his comments aside from this:

I have a sense of humor and even contributed once to a humorous CL thread (Matts Berglinn's ma santa shoes), but I rapidly saw it devolve into a vulgar display of who could be the most shocking.  It didn't help matters that Matts was actually offended by many of the paintovers, and this is exactly the sort of thing I want to avoid. 

I learnt early on that I had to separate my moderating self from my "real" self. I remember finding that Santa's shoes thread extremely humorous (at least in the beginning) just as I have always seen the hilarity in DG's and Helm's posts, in all their mockery and bile, but despite my affection for these members I've often found myself having to tell them off and prune their threads. 

I think I've managed to refrain from coming across as too bad-ass, especially since I receive pm's from inquisitive newcomers on a regular basis, asking for various advice. As long as these friendly messages outweigh the vengeful spam that follows a certain percentage of all moderation done, I'm a happy christmas elf.

[JimmyShelter]

I want to add that my post about the thread that got looked in GiP, was in no way meant as a way to disrespect the work Darth Mandarb does!

I'm very happy I'm no moderator. I have been on some forums in the past, and it's a unthankful position to have.

So, basically: thanks for the job you do.

[Pumaman]

I have a sense of humor and even contributed once to a humorous CL thread (Matts Berglinn's ma santa shoes), but I rapidly saw it devolve into a vulgar display of who could be the most shocking.  It didn't help matters that Matts was actually offended by many of the paintovers, and this is exactly the sort of thing I want to avoid. 

Vulgar? Shocking? Having just read through the thread, I can't see any images that are either of those things, it just looked like people having fun. Anyway, that's in the past now.

For the future, I suggest that we all try to lighten up, try not to get offended at the smallest remark, and that all of us moderators remember what it was like to be new to the forums, and perhaps cut people a bit more slack 

[Neil Dnuma]

If any forum needs strong moderation, it's the GiP forum. 9 out of 10 projects are never realized. It's all exitement and glorious hope for a while, ultimately just betrayal. It's like religion.

[Sparky]

Overall I'm quite happy with the atmosphere of the forums. I feel the quality of opinion expressed is higher than average, and there's a refreshing lack of egotism here.

One thing I've noticed is that while there are many experienced and talented people in the community, the majority of posters are from the less experienced end of the spectrum. It seems that confident, talented people tend to be fairly quiet because they are almost always working on a project. On the other hand we have lots of enthusiastic posters who are still learning the ropes of their field(s) of choice. I think it would be nice to find ways of encouraging our more experienced forum members to participate regularly.

More community resources aimed at 'serious' developers would help. Interviews with community members and non-AGS developers would be a draw for me. I would also welcome more chances to talk with other people who are deep in production, and rarely see the light of day. Perhaps we could facilitate "open house" events, where a community member interviews a development team, and they describe what they are working on, the status of the project, descriptions of their workflow, and release a batch of media.

Another suggestion I'd like to make to Chris and other administrators is that the Games in Progress forum, while functional, could stand to be supplemented with a nice graphical links page somewhere on the main site. Many teams have their own website. Let's capitalize on that. What I'm imagining is a nifty looking grid of banners and logos for the various games in progress, each linking to the developer's site. Next to each logo there could be a small amount of information- perhaps a title, estimated progress, and the date of the last update. The first set of links would be to the sites of healthy, thriving projects. The second page would be an archive of links to sites that haven't been recently updated. This would allow people to quickly check the status of high profile games without wading through multiple pages of forum threads.

Anyway, I hope that was helpful. I already love these forums, and if anything can be done to further improve them I'd be all for it.

[Stupot]

If any forum needs strong moderation, it's the GiP forum. 9 out of 10 projects are never realized. It's all exitement and glorious hope for a while, ultimately just betrayal. It's like religion.

I agree.  And I'm one of the guilty ones.  My project has been on hold for so long that I've seriously lost interest in it.  If and when I begin a new project I will wait a while before announce it in GiP, and make sure I'm actually going to see it through... My previous entry didn't even have official screenshots, they were just backgrounds, which I later remembered breaks the rules... sorry bout that.

[Tuomas]

Not a thread I found interesting before, but now I see what you were talking about. I mean the "I wish" thread here under. I don't like ranting about these things, but as far as I know the common policy has been not to fill the forums with threads aren't useful, basically ones that you have no need/wish to read through from beginning. And I waited for several days for this thread to be closed because in my conservative overcynical opinion I'd rather talk about something that leads to something more than just a huge post count, and I thought this was the policy here. Hence why I spent more time here than on any other forum.

Take progarchives.com for instance, they have this "just for fun" section in the forums which is something I never even take a look at because it's really not even worth the pass of time. The very same forum has members with over 50 000 posts, none that are useful to anyone. and I think this is just waste of bandwidth... Though apparently it's just me. Has the forums gone all purile here as well?

[miguel]

I guess you are right there.
I spent many years not posting here because I believed most of the issues were not serious enough or even interesting.
Also, newbies are sometimes put apart by some people here. If you keep a distance, you'll see they just want to be accepted.
That is normal for every internet forum. It's like life, the stronger ARE stronger.
But then, when I started posting again I find myself enjoying the art threads and the competitions.
I work for about 2 hours a day on my game, 1 hour I spend here and sometimes I find threads like the "I wish..." to be just fun and relaxing, nothing serious.
I guess we should not take ourselves too serious.
I know I do it sometimes.
cheers to all

[Tuomas]

I guess I take things too seriously, things like these can be like anal sex, great fun but in the end completely useless. And I dunno, I've begun to require some kind of essential meaning to everything I do, wherther I enjoy it or not

[miguel]

I know what you mean. That is why I get into arguments, when I want my opinion to prevail. Life  just doesn't get any easier that way.

[Ishmael]

I'm with Tuomas here. If you want to have fun go make or play AGS games, take part in the fun competitions, or something. Don't clutter the forum with useless stuff. What if we didn't have all this useless posting going on, might we maybe get the member search function back or something?

[miguel]

Ok, I'll never post on the "wish" thread again!

[Andail]

I'm generally against time-wasting nonsense threads that people write in in lack of better things to do.
However, the forum strictness has fluctuated a lot during its history, and it's certainly not suffering from a long-term deterioration.

Back in 2001, the community was much more "lawless" than it is now, and there were no global moderators that dealt with or discussed trouble-makers, trends or rules. Also, the forums were fewer and less specialised, so there was more crap crammed into less space.

Gen-gen, as Helm coined it, has always been the trash-can board of AGS, but when it was first implemented it wasn't really monitored at all; every other thread was utter nonsense and if arguments broke out nobody really cared if they ran out of hand.
Both CL and GiP were installed to relieve gen-gen from some pressure but in return they demand constant and close moderation.

I think the forum are quite nicely balanced right now, although people still need to think twice before hitting that "post"-button.

[TwinMoon]

as far as I know the common policy has been not to fill the forums with threads aren't useful, basically ones that you have no need/wish to read through from beginning.

Aren't you the one who started "The PHUN thread"?

[Nikolas]

I somehow get a feeling that you have not been around in many other internet places! Honestly!

Do you compare AGS forums with any crap around? 90% is awful!

I'm not as Internet old as other members in here, but I just see that the forums are just right! What if someone went with the wish thread? I mean Kinoko was having "the best actor" thread, 2 years ago, is this any better?

This is the best place in the world! Only because we understand each other, we don't ban anyone pretty much, and in the end of the line we produce 300 games per year! Come on! What else do you want?

Anyonw (like Helm) who feels unwanted, or unchallenged, or insulted, or whatever can really delete his posts (or not, but skitzo did it recently, in an urge to feel better I imagine), and move on with life!

We are confusing two seperate things:
A. the AGS engine, which is free for all and brilliant!
B. the community!

Those two are not actually as close connected as we might want to think! Times grow, people educate themselves. If you search the AGS forums you'll notice ads about cgempire, about cds, about movies, about samples, about art, about anything really! And the gen-gen is the best forum of them all really!

I understand completely that the somewhat strict moderation is what keeps the place in hand, but I'm enjoying that, since I was educated in this very forum! I came accross other forums where the mentioning of my website is considered advertising (!!!) I mean!

The gen-gen is designed for silly talk in general. Either it is a new laptop (and it seems that Kinoko and me think alike, cause we both asked the same question pretty much), or something that we like, or anything simmilar! I rarely see anything that is out of hand in all honesty! The community is just great! It is SO obvious to what the community is about, that it's brilliant and works almost on it's own! If I may ask: How many threads have you locked or deleted recently? Apart from the common error (Hi! I do graphics and would like to..." thread that get's locked away with a link and the occasional silly post "Hi it's been 3 years that you posted but this games looks great, when will you finish it???" (reply: NEVER!), there's nothing else to bother me.

Sure traffic and threads and fun come and goes as it should, but it's a community and some core members do remain the same, only they grow up further. You can't expect a 20 year old Andail to be the same as a 26 year old, or Petteri (who I don't really know), or Eric, or anything really. Some move on (helm, Kinoko), some never appear really (berny), some over post (*ahem* me, Emerald), some are the sanity inside here (Vince XII), and so on. Forgive me for the example, they are mere examples and nothing more!

What's the reason in complaining about a thread? There are other places to look, you don't have to read it! I tried to have fun with the wish thread, but just couldn't make it! It didn't feel right! This doesn't mean we should kill the thread and move on!

[Emerald]

Yeah, I've been in a lot of forums/communities too.

I've been on totally lawless, chaotic forums where the moderators themselves verbally abuse people for little more than their own amusement. That was pretty fun. But mainly 'cause the regulars on those kind of forums tend to be idiots, and they're easy to screw with and/or outsmart.

I've also been on super-strict forums where anything funny is immediately snuffed by the nazi regime unless its purpose was 100% airtight. Posts would actually be edited to fix grammar and spelling and delete unnecessary humour. And there were about 50 sub-forums, each with a very specific purpose. For example, there was a "Game suggestions" forum, a "Game Creator" forum, a "Seeking Game Creator" forum and a "Seeking Game Players" forum. And newbies are expected to know the difference or their posts will be unceremoniously deleted and they'll be 'cautioned'.
That was pretty fun, too, but mostly because these people had no lives outside their moderating jobs, and literally had no sense of humour...

Imagine if AGS was like that.

All in all, I think we've struck a happy medium.

[Huw Dawson]

The solution is obvious!

(Hey again by the way, I need to check into my favorite forum more  )

A NEW AGS TEAM CONTEST! Or something like that. Send an e-mail to all the vaguely active people and try and grab them back into using AGS with a contest, or some way of putting more games together.

Pretty much all we've been doing for the last 4 months is waiting for the next Ben Jordan game. My policy is MORE GAMES! MORE GAMES!

- Huw