on the feeding of trolls...

[Atelier]

Icey, it might be a good idea to enter the next MAGS. That way you can make a small game to show everybody you can do things other than FF rip-offs. The guidelines will also help to focus creativity.

[Guybrush Nosehair]

I'm sorry, but I used the adjective well to describe the noun (English, specifically that of Mati) as being "satisfactory or good" (definition 7). I don't exactly see the problem there. Even if others did contest me, I would still defend it as being accurate spoken grammar within the laws of common Amerikaan English.

I apologize. I meant nothing more than a simple joke, and I should have realized that anyone (including yourself) could have easily misperceived it. I really meant nothing more than that.

Also, having looked at your definition, I admit that your usage does appear to be correct, though I was taught to use "good" in that situation. I guess I'm guilty as charged.

Regardless of who is the troll or not. You don't have to constantly pick on me. If you don't like what I post then you don't have to respond with a negative attitude.

I remember a very similar thread you created a long time ago. In it, you asked why everyone makes fun of you. In the end, we revealed that one of the main reasons is that you don't take the time to proofread your posts. If you don't submit correctly-spelled, somewhat grammatically correct (I admit that I can be guilty of the latter) posts, no one is going to take you seriously. It tells everyone that you don't care about the community.

[Icey]

That's the problem. most of you judge people on certain things. If I fix my grammar then every one will be happy? Ok but just cause- You know what, what's the point. Fine I will check extra hard as to how I spell things. I will look at other things more that way I have a wider view at making a game other then my infamous PMQ series.

I remember a very similar thread you created a long time ago. In it, you asked why everyone makes fun of you.

Yeah And with in that thread some of you started talking about ice cream & sweats.

Icey, it might be a good idea to enter the next MAGS. That way you can make a small game to show everybody you can do things other than FF rip-offs. The guidelines will also help to focus creativity.

I might enter it. I only have 9 days left but it's possible for me to do make something.

[Scarab]

Whilst I disagree with Darth's most recent comment,

...I didn't call anybody a troll...

I don't see how people can disagree with his/Monkey's overall point.

Even if he hadn't referred to actions in particular and spoke only about trolls in general, I find it hard to believe that anyone would have had any trouble figuring out who this applies to in the AGS Community.

There was a brief period last year where Icey started posting in less frequently and in a mature manner; proving he can do it, then he regressed.

How long does it take to learn the appropriate way to interact with people in a given medium, when one is frequently informed whether they are doing the right or wrong thing? People were saying he'd "grow out of it soon" over a year ago, yet we are still faced with someone who doesn't proof read/ spell check their posts and rarely (if ever) takes the suggestions and advice of others on board, even when he specifically asks for them.

Even though a word is in my vocab if I don't use the word a lot I end up forget how it's supposed to be spelled. For example: When I was young I knew both the words because & picture. However when I learned how to spell Picture I forgot how to because, Then it became the other way around. But when I made it to a higher grade I soon remembered them both.

Seriously? I find it hard to describe this as anything other that rediculous. I understand that some people have words that they struggle with, but your poor grammar/spelling is not consistent. Certainly not to the extent that you can identify the specific word that you learned to unlearn another.
Besides, spell check. It's not that hard.

Keep in mind that I am 16 & I only been here 3 years.

the amount of slang I heard up until now effects me talk/text

my laptop mouse pad is leveled in a way that when I go for a letter I might move the mouse/tap it at the same time thus moving me around in my typing

if I don't press hard enough on the keys on my laptop then it wont put the letter.

Would you like to make any more excuses? Are you standing by the idea that all of these are true? Or that some of them were lies. Regardless... spellcheck will inform you of your mistakes!

I'm not usually one to post in Icey's threads, and haven't since my last attempt to be constructive in the "why does everyone Icey's problem with me" thread, but I just don't see how someone who disregards the rules/forum etiquette so often can
a) Have no warnings/ formal notice that he is in the wrong.
b) Have any kind of support from the general public regarding these actions.

Ok, hows about this. You tell me what exactly you wan't me to change & I will see what I can do? If you still don't like the change then screw it. This is the second time I am asking "why do people have problems with me". Fell free to say to state your opinion in any way.

A few things off the top of my head:
  Spell check.
  Re-read posts before you hit the 'post' button.
  Read the manual (if you have... no harm in reading it again).
  Make a normal game or two before you try to make another square-ripoff / online / DLC bullshit that you're not skilled enough to make.
  Heed the advice of those patient enough to help you in the technical forum, rather than just playing dumb/pestering them until they give you the code such that you can copy it without understanding it at all.
  Title your games in English. They are poorly translated, so the Japanese text is of no use to anyone.

But hey... it's not like you'll ever take any of this on board....

[Snarky]

I apologize. I meant nothing more than a simple joke, and I should have realized that anyone (including yourself) could have easily misperceived it. I really meant nothing more than that.

Also, having looked at your definition, I admit that your usage does appear to be correct, though I was taught to use "good" in that situation. I guess I'm guilty as charged.

Not to derail this very important thread, but I don't think it is correct. I think there are constraints on how "well" can be used as an adjective (not captured in the dictionary), which exclude this case. The rule taught in schools that "well" can only be used as an adjective when talking about health and wellbeing is clearly not 100% true ("it's just as well" etc.), but it captures most of the cases.

monkey is probably right that it's something people might say in spoken conversation, but I also think it's something a lot of people would notice as being technically wrong, and an editor would certainly correct.

[Icey]

@Scarab: When ever people give me advice I take however it is also how you say it. Layer(I can't remember how to spell it) was the only one who broke it down as to why I should try and improve my grammar(spell check, add . , stuff like that) And I was able to add . , '

But despite the fact that I am trying some of you say I am not. I look at a lot of my old threads. I can hardly read anything I said. Butt know I notice that I am getting better at it. I use Google translate to translate my stuff to Japaneses. I don't think I will use the Japaneses font any more now that I got my old normal font back.

Also sometimes spell check doesn't work.

[Darth Mandarb]

Since so many of us in here seem to think it's possible to redeem a troll perhaps we could find a way to put this train back on the rails and get back to the original premise of the thread?

I guess not.

If I had wanted to call a [specific] person a troll, I'd have called them a troll straight-up.  I don't beat around the bush (you should all know this by now).  What I wanted was to have a discussion on the topic of trolls.

A person can interpret what I wrote however they want, that's on them.  What that person can not do is speak as if they know my intentions better than I know them myself.

[Icey]

Don't you find it ironic that people keep saying your were talking about me but know mater how you say it doesn't stop them from point out basic details on who you were referring to.

Well I fell that way when you/others say I am a troll but even though I defend my self in many way it still doesn't seem like I did any effort.

[Khris]

I sure believe Darth that he wanted to start a thread about trolls in general and his thoughts on what constitutes feeding them.
Still, it was obvious that the discussion would soon focus on Icey specifically.

That said, I guess Darth's main intention was to remind people how to stop trolling in its tracks with the hope of some actual implementation (as opposed to start a thinly veiled attack on Icey).

[monkey0506]

I agree totally with you Khris. Regardless of whether icey inspired this thread, I feel that its stated purpose was, in fact, genuine.

Very few of you have made direct response to my evaluations of icey's behaviour. In fact, it seems that those who have were pretty well in agreement with me. So regardless of what icey might say about not being a troll, I still hold to my aforementioned opinion. Troll, no; trollish behaviour, yes. Feel free to explain why I'm wrong if you feel you can back it up.

But that's not the point of this thread anyway. The point is that regardless of who it is or why they're doing it, trollish behaviour shouldn't simply be brushed under the rug. I stated before that many (if not all) of us have had troll moments..outbursts of trollish behaviour. The problem becomes when the troll moment comes too frequently, or simply doesn't know when to stop.

This isn't just about icey, it's about all of us in this AGSociety and what we, as a community are or are not willing to accept of other people's behaviour. The fact that this has become a somewhat heated debate just goes to show that we don't have an existing, well-defined consensus on the matter, and indeed that defining one wouldn't be as simple as a single draft forum constitution.

We should come to a reasonable level of agreement regarding acceptable behaviour, and should enforce those rules. Determining intent can be extremely difficult, so we should focus more on frequency of posting, appropriateness of posts for the forum, and the nature of the responses given by the poster in question.

These are my thoughts on the matter. Feel free to accuse me of trolling and begin hate-bashing now.

Also, regarding my usage of "well" as an adjective, I probably wouldn't write it that way normally,!and so I don't really know why I did, but I still feel it was grammatically correct. Either way, no need to derail this topic any further. 8)

[Darth Mandarb]

That said, I guess Darth's main intention was to remind people how to stop trolling in its tracks with the hope of some actual implementation (as opposed to start a thinly veiled attack on Icey).

A few years back I created some forum software (using coldfusion) and I addressed the issue of trolls as follows:

There's a 'flag' in the member's table called isTroll (datatype: date/time).  When a person is determined to be a troll (admin consensus) that user is flagged as a troll and the date of the flagging is entered into the isTroll column.  From then on, all of the troll's posts/threads after the isTroll date will be invisible to all users except the troll themselves (and top level admins).  In this way no matter what the troll posts, nobody can see it.  So nobody replies to it.  Nobody feeds the troll and it slinks back to live under its bridge.

It works better than banning because banning is obvious to the troll and they can then just come back as a new member and start again.  If they feel the community just doesn't feed them, they aren't compelled to come back.

Works like a charm.

[Icey]

How ever that even if you don't ban a "Troll" why would that stop them from making a new account to get there point across? I would do it however I really wouldn't cause that would prove (Some people) right about me being a troll. Also do you really have that much power? :o

[TomatoesInTheHead]

Some thoughts on why people feed trolls, not in any way claiming to be complete or universally applicable:

- The trolls' topics/posts are usually addressing everyone (no special technical knowledge required) and - explicitly or implicitly - provoke opinionated (not factual) answers. It's easy for everyone to reply to such a topic, easier for example than to make a paintover or to try out some code and look things up in the manual (or other things in other forums). That way, you feel like you have contributed to the community (like "Yayyy, I shared my thoughts on why people feed trolls! Now I helped everyone to widen their horizon!" )
Of course I don't mean every question for opinions to be a troll post, but they often contain something you can strongly disagree with, judge as plain stupid, and things like this.

- Trolls give easy targets if they annoy most people. You know that everyone else is annoyed by them, so you can easily call the trolls out because you know you'll get backed up by the majority of the active community.

- People have experienced bullying (as victims, bystanders, or indirectly through media etc.) and feel uncomfortable seeing everybody turning against one person, at least after a while, so they try to defend the troll.
- Similarly, people are looking for peace and want to mediate between the troll and the troll-haiting community, hence give advices or defend the troll to give some counter-weight.

- Trolls may provoke overreactions by otherwise moderate users, or dumb reactions by not-openly-dumb users, which amuses other people, and some of these other people will defend the trolls, as long as they don't overdo it (in their sympathizers' opinion).

(I may or may not be guilty of, and may or may not endorse some of these behaviours)

[LimpingFish]

By my count, there are 5 or 6 trolls around here, none of which is Icey.

This used to be a nice neighbourhood until that new kid moved in, now all the other kids have suddenly turned into bullies. They never used to bully each other, so we're entirely justified in blaming the new kid for being an easy target.

I don't agree with this at all. Nobody seems to be bullying Icey (or anybody else) because he's "new" or because he's young, or because he likes Square Enix. Fuck, I like Square Enix. Nobody is bullying him for making fan games.

Nobody is bullying him, period. Sorry to dash the assumption the AGS has finally joined the rest of the internet cesspool, but this has never been and never will be the style of this community.

The reason we all thought of Icey (and not, say, that Maniac Mansion dude who consistently posted backgrounds in the CL, but who refused to take actual criticism) when Darth posted a general rant against trolls (all of which seems valid to me), is because his behavior hits just about all of Darth's key points, and because there's almost nobody else who qualifies as a persistent troll. If Icey is honestly behaving this way because he simply loves games and wants to share this with the world, that doesn't mean we can't call him on it if he becomes a nuisance.

The people who go out of their way to make ironic statements and who attempt to meme-ify Icey should share the blame, since they feed Icey's desire to continue more and more outlandish projects. Oceanspirit Dennis has now become part of Icey-World cannon, thanks largely to those games created as a way to poke fun of (to some) the ludicrous nature of Icey's Square fixation. The irony has been nullified. The creators of these games are now intrinsically linked to all this bullshit, seeing as Icey credits anybody who contributed, unwittingly or otherwise, to his lore. Just take a look at his later game entries in the database.

But let's be clear. I (and I'm assuming almost everybody else to be the same) have nothing personal against Icey. He's most likely a regular kid, one who is perfectly agreeable in real life. But his internet persona is unacceptably uncooperative and persistently flaky, whether he intends it to be or not. And while some people try to help him develop his coding/art/design skills, it ends up being lost among his dreams of multimedia dominance. He wants a fan community, ERSB ratings, a booth at the Tokyo Game Show, foil-embossed instruction booklets...everything except the ability to release a playable game. The game is peripheral to his vision.

If he finds people willing to join him on this epic journey of misguided delusion, there's nothing stopping him from having his own forums; somewhere where he won't have to deal with all of this negativity.

But he keeps coming back here. Which either means he's some flavour of simpleton, or he's a troll. All we know for sure is that he's sixteen and loves Square Enix. We haven't ruled out that he may be mentally challenged, but it think it's a little insulting for some people to presume that he is.

Like I said in my first post, I'm ultimately unsure of my feelings towards this situation. Obvious trolls are so much easier to deal with. Icey is like a legless puppy, desperate to impress it's uncaring master by flailing across the living room carpet on it's stumps. You don't know whether you should cry, or end it's suffering.

From then on, all of the troll's posts/threads after the isTroll date will be invisible to all users except the troll themselves (and top level admins).  In this way no matter what the troll posts, nobody can see it.  So nobody replies to it.

I like this.

[Icey]

Ok, I have a favor to ask. One day I plan to make a game about about this situation. However it will not be a rude game that is made to get back at any one. It will be a game that expresses the felling of a person who is thrown into a awful category and dwells over the fact but try's to et take out the head of the system that started it all but gives up in the end as it would prove the systems point. I am really have been putting a lot of thought into this. can someone tell me the 5 or 6 people who are considered as troll?

[Ultra Magnus]

Nobody is bullying him, period.

Must just be my imagination, then. If nobody else thinks that constantly undermining somebody's self-esteem for shits and giggles constitutes bullying, then I guess it's all fine. If nobody else thinks that maybe some replies to Icey's recent posts have been a tad disproportionate, then I guess that's fine too. The important thing is that Icey doesn't feel he's being bullied.

I am being picked on by adults who acted like kids...
If this was school some might call this bullying...

Ah.
But what does Icey know, right? He can't even use proper grammar.

Anyway, bottom line: I think that some people have been going a bit too far recently, especially since it is obvious to a few of us that over the past few months Icey has really been trying to take the advice given to him, and has shown some improvement. I'm not going to name anybody, but now I've said my piece, and I will leave this thread alone.

[LimpingFish]

Nobody is bullying him, period.

Must just be my imagination, then. If nobody else thinks that constantly undermining somebody's self-esteem for shits and giggles constitutes bullying, then I guess it's all fine. If nobody else thinks that maybe some replies to Icey's recent posts have been a tad disproportionate, then I guess that's fine too. The important thing is that Icey doesn't feel he's being bullied.

I am being picked on by adults who acted like kids...
If this was school some might call this bullying...

Ah.
But what does Icey know, right? He can't even use proper grammar.

Why bother explaining anything, when this condescending shite is what you get in return?

Please don't try to turn this into a situation where you get to play the bigger man. If Icey wants to equate this situation to bullying, that's up to him. That's usually the last resort of somebody who doesn't want to address their own behavior, and would rather appear to be victimized. The fact that you are choosing to buy into that doesn't automatically invalidate opposing points or make people into bullies.

While a handful of people have, in the past, said something akin to "Please fuck off!" in response to some of Icey's threads, that doesn't prove that vindictive bullying is indicative of the community's response to Icey in general. Perhaps those people were just tired of having to deal with him.

Look at his last post. He hasn't even realized what we're talking about. It's like screaming at a sack of flour.

[Icey]

I know what you are talking about and I know what the problem is. Ooh ohh here's a great idea! Why don't we all just get on with our lives and just see if I keep progressing our not. Not saying that you have to constantly watch me, just once in a while look at my post. That way you can't say I don't take any advice.

[LimpingFish]

Why don't we all just get on with our lives and just see if I keep progressing our not. Not saying that you have to constantly watch me, just once in a while look at my post. That way you can't say I don't take any advice.

I have a similar idea. Keep making your games, keep improving, but only share them with us when you feel you've got something substantial. Only post when you've already spread the game around your circle of friends and have gotten feedback from them, and only when you have done this with multiple iterations of the same game. Using these forums to beta-test every idea that enters your head will only result in a negative response; as has been proven here.

Like I said earlier, I've don't have a vested interest in haranguing you for the hell of it. I doubt many other people have either. But I'm not surprised at the way things have turned out. People are just exasperated. There's little you can do change their minds, except give the community some space.

[Icey]

Ok, I can do that. I can still ask for help right? Because I have a basic problem and I need to ask it.