OT: Hostility in Forums
 

No, it´s not in the shrapnelforums... But in another one...

I registered in a forum about a game i like to play, with the objective of asking some members there about modding the game a little...

My question was very simple, i asked if it was possible to mod the single-player campaign of the game to add more missions... i had already read several posts in the forum and saw some people modding the missions themselves and was curious if it was possible to add more missions to the campaign...

To my surprise one of the Admins of the forum replied to my post saying: "It's probably safe to say it's out of your league, so just forget about it"...

I ignored the post (i don´t see the point in flame wars), but other member of the forum asked the admin why he was so hostile, and the admin replied that "I can tell by his post that he doesn't have what it takes."

Happily other forum members, while unable to answer if my modding objective was possible or not, indicated ways and files i should try to read and edit, even offering to help me if i could discover something in the way of what i wanted...

Now i question, if someone is an admin of a forum, should it not be he/her responsible to create an amiable ambient to the forum? I continue to ignore the flame war that was initiated in my behalf, as i already got the answer and help i asked for, but i find very sad that an admin that don´t know me (it was my first post), in answer to a perfect valid question starts by trying to offend myself...

I just hope that the said admin didn´t ban myself from the forum because of the flame war that was initiated... as i said i´m ignoring it and focusing in the technical question i asked, but i´m afraid that an admin that insults people without any reason could also ban forum members without any reason too...

Sorry about the rant people, i just wanted to share this experience, that i found very sad and puzzling...

Re: OT: Hostility in Forums
 

Oh well i guess the admin was pretty stupid. People with an attitude like that should NOT become admins. Someone did broke #1 rule.

Re: OT: Hostility in Forums
 

He wasn't reacting to you, Makinus. The Admin was stuck in his own head and reacting to whatever was going on in there. He "knew" the model he imagined of you was a certain way, but he didn't realize his model for you was way off. His problem, and yes you're right it'd be totally messed up if all admins did that all the time.

PvK

Re: OT: Hostility in Forums
 

Welcom 2 teh internets!

Sadly, far too many forums are flamy and hostile.

Re: OT: Hostility in Forums
 

IMO, the best response to something like that would be:

"Your cities will burn with vengful fire!"

Re: OT: Hostility in Forums
 

Well obviously he knew far more about all matters pertaining to the game than you. I mean, he was a forum admin! They don't just let anyone be a forum admin, you know. One must have played the game in question since beta at least, if not earlier, spend a majority of their time playing the game exploring every single facet of the game to gain an incomparable understanding of every possible way of doing everything in the game. A forum admin must have done everything there is to do in a game in every possible way, so that when they tell you the best way of doing something, you know it really is the very best, and only, way to do it.

A forum admin is also required to have a Masters degree in Psychology at least, so he can determine your exact psychological and mental capabilities by simply reading a few sentences, though a PhD to go along with his PhDs in Computer Science, Economics, Politics and Theology is preferable. A membership in Mensa is obviously a requirement, as well as a nymphomanic supermodel wife (who incidentally will also be a member of Mensa with several PhDs to her name, despite never leaving the bedroom for longer than it takes to eat and bathe).

Truly, forum admins are gods amongst men, and you should feel eternally grateful that one of these demi-gods was willing to sully himself by lowering himself to your level long enough to dignify your question with a response.



Throwing in a /sarcasm, just in case.

Re: OT: Hostility in Forums
 

Why, sarcasm? I never would have guessed!

* That was sarcasm.

Re: OT: Hostility in Forums
 

I made a mod once. I asked for advice and was told that for what I wanted it would take a lot of work but no one out and out told me it would be too hard for me. Of course enthusiastic to get it done I didn't realise how hard it was going to end up but I eventually got a working version done. It needed some polishing but by that stage I'd done enough. I've had enough of modding since then, what with having to allocate every part of the earth to nations, then creating characters, units, and events.

Re: OT: Hostility in Forums
 

from his/its response to you, I would theorize that just possibly.. he didn't know the answer http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...es/biggrin.gif Some admins in some forums, have the brain power of a pea, but to their own mind their mind is the size of Anartica.. so you see, one should not take their incoherent babble to heart. Since they are more then likely lower then road kill left overs to begin with. his/its answer to your inquiry just confirmed what everyone else on that forum already knew. That his knowledge of whatever game you were talking about, was beyond his/its own scope of brain activity. Its just elementary my dear watson. (he's probably a member of the game company anyway http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/shock.gif

Re: OT: Hostility in Forums
 

That's too funny! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...es/biggrin.gif

Re: OT: Hostility in Forums
 

AgentZero, can you tell me why your sarcasm is so realistic that it's almost not funny? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/laugh.gif

Unfortunatly, not all admins are equal. This board enjoys some of the best that I've ever dealt with. AND to their credit I salute the time and effort they put forth toward making this a website that you'll want to continue to come to... [img]/threads/images/Graemlins/icon47.gif[/img]

Re: OT: Hostility in Forums
 

Xrati, you, and I, for that matter, can thank my Irish mother for that. She gifted me with a very Irish sense of humour (which is essentially a British sense of humour with more cursing), so my definition of sarcasm is a bit different to the North American norm.

The object of sarcasm, to me, is to ridicule, and it is all the more enjoyable for all involved when the subject is unaware that they are being ridiculed. I'm reminded of the worn-out old joke that appears nearly every pre-teen high school sitcom, where some adult asks our antidisestablishmentarianist protagonist if they know what sarcasm means, to which our peppy teen rolls his/her eyes and replies, "NOOOooooooo."

This is not sarcasm. I'm not sure what it is. Mild douchebaggery, perhaps? The above example may draw a few laughs from younger viewers as the poor adult somehow misses the "sarcasm" and sets about explaining it, but when someone replies in a slightly curious tone, "Actually, no, I'm not familiar with the term. What is it exactly?" the entertainment value of watching someone unwittingly explaining sarcasm to the owner of a PhD in English is unparalleled.

Re: OT: Hostility in Forums
 

British humor is the best. Best comedy shows I've seen? British.

Worse comedy shows I've seen? US.

Re: OT: Hostility in Forums
 

In my experience, worst comedies? US remakes of British comedies.

A key factor I think is that British comedies have an idea what they want to write. Sort of "I have a few great ideas for episodes" and they condense it down into 6 great episodes a year. In the US they seem to have an idea and when they get made the writers have to wrack their brains to develop 26 epsiodes a year.

There's a great show called "Top Gear". It's about cars. Now that's normally an area I have zero interest in but it's entertaining because the presenters make jokes about stuff and have fun. If the car they're testing is a piece of junk they will call it a piece of junk. I read lately that Jay Leno thinks the idea of a US version is doomed as the presenters can't criticise anything in case the sponsors take offence.

There's a US remake of an Australian comedy in development. You can't help but read about here as it the original seems to be widely considered the epitome of Aussie humour. Me personally, I can't stand the piece of
!@#$%. I fully expect the remake to burst into flames 5 minutes before it first airs. What do I know though, there's another panel quiz show I thought would be cancelled after one epsiode, whcih kept going. It was vaguely entertaining though. Actually now I come to think of it it hasn't been on for awhile. I guess it did get axed.

Addendum: Not that I mean to go on a rant, but on a related note, I recently saw the remake of Solaris. Now I've never seen the original, although since it's Soviet Union Sci-fi and I had the misfortune of seeing one of those once I doubt it was any better, but after roughly two minutes I thought "This is the most abominably boring sci-fi film I have ever seen". It's like the 5 minutes at the end of 2001 where Dave is living the rest of his life in the one room, only it goes for 2 hours. I've never understood exactly what was happening in 2001, but there is a difference between being confused and being bored out of your skull.

I heard it has a nice twist with one guy being replaced but I couldn't bring myself to torture myself waiting to see it. Yes, yes I know I didn't watch the whole thing, but boring me within 2 minutes is not conducive to making me care about the rest.

Re: OT: Hostility in Forums
 

Well then AgentZero, you just keep that sarcasm coming. I like it! It is ALMOST the truth!

Cheers... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif
Beers... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image.../beerglass.gif
and Comedy [img]/threads/images/Graemlins/icon23.gif[/img]

Re: OT: Hostility in Forums
 

...Isn't the BBC government sponsered? That would tend to change what the sponsers won't allow.

Re: OT: Hostility in Forums
 

Yes. With the BBC I guess it's a situation of "How can we entertain the people with some quality programming?". With commerical TV it'd be "What can we do to get people to keep watching?, and while we're at it lets string it out for half the year to increase revenue"

There's also the difference in culture I guess. Fawlty towers is a classic but I still saw a John Larroquette vehicle once that was a copy. Not that I remember the original having an episode where two people got their piercings stuck together http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...s/rolleyes.gif. The Bean counters seemingly want to jump on a bandwagon and grab some of the revenue while missing the reason something might have been popular. It also happens a lot with Hollywood copying foreign films. Terry Pretchett is dissilusioned with Hollywood because they wanted to make Reaper Man but thought they should lose the whole Death thing because it was so morbid, and there are plans to make a live version of Akira but you know with Leonardo Di Caprio, and in New Manhattan instead of New Tokyo.

Ever heard of, or seen, the movie Enemy Mine? The original book has nothing to do with a mine, it's a posessive. Some exec didn't get it though and stuck one in so the audience wouldn't be confused http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...s/rolleyes.gif

Re: OT: Hostility in Forums
 

My $0.02 worth:

Caution, Long Rambling Rant

There is a sincere lack of etiquette when it comes to manors of people who use game forums. Cyber Nations forums are no exception either. The forum moderators are, for lack of a better term, fanatics and the members who post there are without, for the most part, kindness.

When the normal rules that govern our social behavior are removed, such as they are in forums, peoples natural tendency toward being socially polite and willing to discuss rationally, topics of interest, are put aside. The rationality of ones own limits are removed and well your free to say anything you want any way you want. That kind of aphrodisiac is far too powerful for most people to deal with thus all rules of adulthood go out the window and in this behavioral vacuum comes the thrill of freedom of unrestrained speech. You can say what you feel often times without having to worry about the consequences of your statements. Some people in life are to weak in the knees and are unable to express themselves in the real life work and find that when they are secure behind the anonymity of their monitor and key board, they can say what they really think, no matter how rude or twisted that message might be.

They get a rise out of pushing peoples buttons, calling people names, spouting off hate, and generally carrying on as if they are spoiled rotten little retards with no concept of proper decorum.

Often more than not, these people are childish adults who have one or more Psychiatric issues that limit their ability to function as normal social adults in real life. So these mentally challenged people find a new home, and often a new identity, on the internet, chat rooms, and forums where they harass people, push buttons, and generally carry on their anti-social behaviors.

They attack over every issue, spend countless hours on the internet looking for obscure web sites to back up their ridiculous points of view and are never willing to show the rational behavior of compromise when it has been proven that their point of view is, how shall I say this, misguided.

They are irrational, ill spoken, mean, of center, anti-social, mental morons who lack any semblance of normalcy. In most cases they are fringe hangers, zealots, and or socially challenged individuals who believe that they are sane while the rest of the world is insane. They hold true to warped ideals and beliefs and no amount of common sense or reason will ever be enough to enlighten their dark and twisted way of thinking. No matter what you do or say, they are die hardly committed to their own self deprecating way of thinking and they have nothing but disdain for any who challenge their way of thinking. In fact, they thrive upon attacking those who are not like minded to their confused and often bankrupted points of view.

The best method for dealing with such looser's is simply to ignore them, placate them, or if your up to it, challenge them and aggressively denounce everything they say and do as an act of ignorance, as in most cases it is.

When it comes to these kind of people, you can say the sky is blue and they will argue that it is not. You can show irrefutable proof that it is indeed blue, and they will not accept it, and will bury you in links to trivial, seldom visited web sites that support their ignorant views. Dispute their links and web sites, and they will flame you, attack you, and threaten you. Ultimately they will register 200 accounts and use them all to denounce you and your evidence.

They will spend every waking minute of their ground hog days dedicated to the singular goal of proving their point of view and will stop at nothing to either force you to accept it, or punish you for not accepting it. They are the worst of the worse when it comes to the internet and they all subscribers to their own self importance.

Give a fool attention, and that fool will do everything he can to keep getting your attention.

Re: OT: Hostility in Forums
 

See now this is something I don't understand. I hope it can be agreed that I'm a long term member of the SE community and I have a lot of knowledge I can pass on, but I'm simply not interested in being placed in a position of responsibility. I have no desire to go on power trips and so don't consider the extra effort worth the bother.

In some SE games I've on occasion been resentful of another empire riding roughshot over me and secretly vowed revenge, but this doesn't last longer than it takes me to get half way through my next turn. I simply can't see the point in expending additional effort in being petty or vindictive.

Apart from the conflict it causes getting into arguments with people, I fail to understand what the attraction is in bothering to make an issue of something. Yes I occasioanlly voice my opinions on matters but really it's not worth casting dispersions personally at someone just because you disagree with them. I'd rather just give up and forget it. In the grand scheme of things it makes no difference if you're right or not, and it just causes bad humours, you could say, to get obsessed. This is why I consider myself a Stoic (as well as a cynic, a nihilist, an appollonian, and half a dozen other half baked philosophies I once read about in a book http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif). There's nothing you can do about it so why bother.

Not that I'm criticising that you are making a point, just that I fail to see why people go on power trips.

Re: OT: Hostility in Forums
 

Debating is fun, arguing is not.

Re: OT: Hostility in Forums
 

A great debate is one in which both people learn.

Pride (That is, thinking oneself more capable than one is) does indeed goeth before the fall.

Re: OT: Hostility in Forums
 

Not only that, but the show has to last four seasons/100 episodes to be considered viable for syndication, which is almost pure profits.That's something that could work on PBS (Public Broadcasting Service; AFAIK, the only nonprofit TV network in the US). PBS is where the original versions of "Brit-coms" get aired. (Also on BBC America, but that's a cable channel so I've never seen it.)

[/quote]

Re: OT: Hostility in Forums
 

All Internet forums, actually, not just gaming forums. I usually don't even look at the comments section on news sites, because they're just too painful to read.

Re: OT: Hostility in Forums
 

Come on capnq, some of them are pretty funny! I guess until you realize that these people are serious... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/fear.gif

AT is right about alot of things in his 'long' version of his 2 cents. One more thought about that is, those people should never lead or be in power as you need an open mind to be able navigate through lifes twists and turns... [img]/threads/images/Graemlins/icon12.gif[/img]

Re: OT: Hostility in Forums
 

It's amazing how much can be blamed on marketing.

Re: OT: Hostility in Forums
 

Don't forget the media!!! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/Sick.gif

Re: OT: Hostility in Forums
 

I think the above attachment does a pretty good job of summing up AT's rant. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...ies/tongue.gif

I'm rather hungover and sleepy, so I don't have much energy to coat this thread with another layer of sarcasm, but if someone happened to mention something like, oh say, people who think video games should qualify as sports, well then I think I could come up with something suitably vitriolic.