what about the future?

[HoneyBadger]

I was replying to Fantomen (which should be pretty clear, as his is the above post), rereferencing, and then inverting, my own quote, to make it clear that it wasn't seriously applicable to Shrapnel Games.

"Fascism" = the mentioned Nazi party.

Appologies for any confusion, but I didn't find it difficult to read or understand, even after rereading it several times.

[Eximius Sus]

Originally Posted by HoneyBadger

I was replying to Fantomen (which should be pretty clear, as his is the above post), rereferencing, and then inverting, my own quote, to make it clear that it wasn't seriously applicable to Shrapnel Games.

"Fascism" = the mentioned Nazi party.

Appologies for any confusion, but I didn't find it difficult to read or understand, even after rereading it several times.

But you brought up the Nazi Party? 10 commas per sentence does not make for clarity. If you wish to be clear use simple sentences. (full stop)

Let me see if I can paraphrase you.

1) Shrapnel has the right to make rules and enforce them on its forum.
2) The intent of the rules is to have order and politeness.
2) Shrapnel is not being fascist in doing this enforcement.

Would that about sum up your argument? I'm still wondering who you think disagrees with these points. It does not appear to be Fantomen.

It looks a lot like what Fantomen was saying is that a number of people are refusing to learn from these episodes. And on both sides.

Equating an internet forum with a corner store is disingenious. The revenue models are completely different. If you want to use a simile, try a dance bar. You make money by selling drinks. More drinks = more money but at some point it's too rough. Then you clamp down. But damn few bars permanently ban the heavy drinkers. Send em home in a cab, or to the drunk tank maybe.

Shrapnel makes money by selling games. Games sell by being in the news and print and word of mouth. Does order and politeness put a game on the map of the internet? I doubt it. Take MachineGunJoe's example. The highest ranking thread on Google from this forum is Crossbows and Longbows. Definitely not a polite ramble about let's just all get along.

[Gandalf Parker]

Dance bar might not be bad.
They want people who walk in to see it as a friendly place to meet people, talk, dance. They might offer alcohol but dont want to be seen as a drunk bar. So rowdiness is quickly squashed and escorted out. Repeated rowdiness is indeed banned. In my experience, in numbers fairly equal to forums.

In both cases there are some important points. The owners get to decide what kind of place it will be, what kind of impression it will give, and how much moderation will be done over the members. Any rules and enforcement will be a give & take as far as numbers. But the most important thing to keep in mind is that if the dance bar is too tame and controlled for someone there is definitely a bar down the street for the wilder crowd. Both bars benefit.

As for the profit scheme, THIS is the forum that people most end up at who have NOT bought the game. Whether or not anyone thinks it will work is one thing but can it really be doubted that if it comes to friendly vs open that the friendly is more sales conducive? Right but rude should definitely exist on the net (somewhere) but I dont think its a "sensible" argument that it should be here.

[TheConway]

As a relative newcomer, I really have to say that I find the attitudes on the forums pretty similar. The only real difference I see is that there seems to be a fairly low tolerance for deliberate misinformation and malicious trolling on dom3mods. This isn't enforced by mods, rather it seems the community of experienced players there feel free to post decisively to deal with such episodes. Having been a moderator on a different forum, I really don't understand how a community like this can function when the only times I see moderators is on the buglist or when somebody gets reported. On the forum I moderated for, moderators were expected to be active, contributing members of the community whom people could respect. From my own searching and lurking, this does not seem to be so much the case here. However, I see no reason to not enjoy whatever fruits both forums may offer.

[Edi]

Originally Posted by TheConway

As a relative newcomer, I really have to say that I find the attitudes on the forums pretty similar. The only real difference I see is that there seems to be a fairly low tolerance for deliberate misinformation and malicious trolling on dom3mods. This isn't enforced by mods, rather it seems the community of experienced players there feel free to post decisively to deal with such episodes. Having been a moderator on a different forum, I really don't understand how a community like this can function when the only times I see moderators is on the buglist or when somebody gets reported. On the forum I moderated for, moderators were expected to be active, contributing members of the community whom people could respect. From my own searching and lurking, this does not seem to be so much the case here. However, I see no reason to not enjoy whatever fruits both forums may offer.

Good post.

This community has functioned pretty well with various levels of moderator posting activity for years. I'm around and I read the forums even if I don't post a whole lot.

I have a posting philosophy of not posting if somebody else already covered what I would have said, since it would not add anything new to the discussion. There was a time when you could hardly find a thread where I wasn't posting when somebody asked a question, but you'd have to dig a while to get there. The same is true of the other mods, all of them have been very active some time in the past, even if that may be in the very distant past since they were already mods back in the day of Dominions 2.

The various moderators also have jobs, families and other interests, which often cuts down on their available posting time, even if they keep an eye on the forum. Keeping an eye on a forum requires far less time than actively posting on said forum.

The community here does a fairly good job of keeping things in hand by itself, it doesn't need a whole lot of moderator action as such. When certain sorts of things do crop up, then we may need to intervene, but I like not needing to intervene. Most of the other mods also prefer that state of things.

Sometimes though there are clashes of strong personalities that don't smooth out on their own, which is usually when the report button gets used and then moderators have to step in.

With regard to moderator activity on the bug reports, that's my primary job description here. It was the reason I was made a moderator in the first place, so I need to pay especially close attention to it.

Hopefully this answers some of your concerns and questions about how this place works.