Something I noticed in the fan base of Paradox, before and now

[circlecrystal]

Years before, there are not as many fans as nowadays of Paradox. However, people here are mostly polite and gentle.

It all seems like with many more new gamers come and become new fans (which is a good thing), stuffs complicate themselves.

Just like what have happened at Blizzard forum, with the community number grew up, some people started to choose aggressive words/terms.

There are quite many emotional sentences flying around, some lacking emotional control, some lacking reasonable sense, others simply started to become trolls, or worse.

I`m afraid some old fan who saw the wonderfulness of that age in the community, now have to live through a much more complex feeling of the new atmosphere.

People used to appreciate each other. They discussed new things, brand new ideas, or supportive suggestions in a polite or humorous tone.

Now people start to attack each other (or even developers in some cases) with aggressive, unforgiving words. (And regretfully, I had to admit once before I was influenced and being aggressive after being enraged.)

Most disputes now started from single word in a sentence or misunderstanding, with an unforgiving attitude.

This is actually quite sad. Since I still remember those very old posts in Paradox forum, the way people discussed at that time - It all made you feel like you are becoming better than yourself, by going into a really great community with gentlemen.

 

[Centurion1973]

Larger crowd will always contain more trolls and idiots.

 

[Mav12]

+1 to OP and Centurion

 

[Castellon]

We tend to also look back and only remember the good times.
I still think we have a pretty great community here, and people are generally very well behaved.
If you see issues similar to what you describe you should pm a moderator with a link to the bad post so they can take a look.
We have little tolerance for trolls.
But do note that someone disagreeing with you does not make them a troll.

Also a word to the wise is do not rise to the trolls bait.

I coined a phrase for the forum staff.

"Take a Trolls bait and share their fate."

Report the troll do not emulate them.

And as always I am open to any suggestions anyone has on how we can improve.

 

[circlecrystal]

http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum...f-death-for-family-of-human-controlled-rulers

"As far as I can remember"? Is that something a dev should say?

And you don't document what you put in the game?

This is quite offensive, imho.

 

[Castellon]

Maybe insensitive and demonstrates a lack of common sense about Human memory and multi-year long complex and evolving tasks.
But to me it says more about the person that would make such remarks than the person they are aimed at.

I also do not want to get into discussion where I am litigating remarks in public.
In fact our rules prohibit just such actions.

As discussed the proper procedure is to report them to the listed moderator(s) of the forum in questions.
If you cannot get a satisfactory answer from them then you can contact me by PM.

 

[Capt. Kiwi]

For some of the older users:

Nothing new under the sun, nostalgia isn't as good as it used to be, etc.

 

[Wagonlitz]

OP we are still civilized in OT and the WW forum.

We tend to also look back and only remember the good times.
I still think we have a pretty great community here, and people are generally very well behaved.
If you see issues similar to what you describe you should pm a moderator with a link to the bad post so they can take a look.
We have little tolerance for trolls.
But do note that someone disagreeing with you does not make them a troll.

Also a word to the wise is do not rise to the trolls bait.

I coined a phrase for the forum staff.

"Take a Trolls bait and share their fate."

Report the troll do not emulate them.

And as always I am open to any suggestions anyone has on how we can improve.

I must agree with the OP that the game forums have become more hostile. For instance the EU4 forum is far more hostile than the EU3 one was; in the EU3 people would use the raaaaage thread to make funny comics about their rage. In the EU4 forum people just compain---and often agressively. I have been attacked for stating my opinion civilized---something which never happened in the EU3 forum. I have experienced people doctoring statistics when we discussed whether or not the dumbing down of the demand/supply system was good and whether or not the dumbing down of the terrain system was good.
And the EU4 forum was really civilized from its creation until sometime after the launch of EU4. It also feels like people are more willing to feed trolls these days, but that may be nostalgia. The civilized posts still are there, but they are getting drowned in not so civilized posts. I think it is because the forum grew so fast, because this development already started when really CKII took off. There simply was a too high influx of new people to be properly assimilated.

Since you are asking for improvement suggestions then perhaps make a report button. I always PM the staff when I want to report something, but I have the feeling most people don't know that is the procedure; I have at least often seen people saying they would like to report X, but cannot find the button.
Though a report button can also easily get abused---especially if it automatically censors a post should enough forumites report it. So I am on the fence on whether or not a report button actually is for the good; if you make one then make sure that the reporters identity is known to you and that the system doesn't automatically censor, hide or even delete posts with many reports.

 

[yutaka_1]

EDIT: Resolved. I've found a reasonable solution.

 

[loup99]

Since you are asking for improvement suggestions then perhaps make a report button. I always PM the staff when I want to report something, but I have the feeling most people don't know that is the procedure; I have at least often seen people saying they would like to report X, but cannot find the button.
Though a report button can also easily get abused---especially if it automatically censors a post should enough forumites report it. So I am on the fence on whether or not a report button actually is for the good; if you make one then make sure that the reporters identity is known to you and that the system doesn't automatically censor, hide or even delete posts with many reports.

A such button, avoiding the necessity of PM would be great, even for just reporting spam post/ads. I do however see what the problems with it could be.

 

[Centurion1973]

A such button, avoiding the necessity of PM would be great, even for just reporting spam post/ads. I do however see what the problems with it could be.

I agree - I rarely report posts, because its I have to first spend a few minutes searching for relevant mod who is online - way too much work to report minor rule violations.

 

[Wagonlitz]

I agree - I rarely report posts, because its I have to first spend a few minutes searching for relevant mod who is online - way too much work to report minor rule violations.

Just take all the mods for that forum and PM them in the same PM. Then the first one who sees it will act. And it is really rare that mod action must be taken immediately.

 

[Castellon]

We are looking at alternatives with the new software.

 

[Andre Bolkonsky]

We are looking at alternatives with the new software.

Personally, I've been awarded points by mods for good reasons, and for total misunderstandings. But I'm not complaining, having watched the ebb and flow of individuals on this forum, the mods and the admins have a tough job. Personally, I think they do a magnificent job, all things being relative. In the few years I've been actively posting here, I've noticed a few rather, aggressive, individuals who won't listen to reason. And sooner or later, they learn to play by the rules and get along with others, or they simply disappear. The system works, its really the posters choice how they wish to comport themselves.

 

[Wagonlitz]

Personally, I've been awarded points by mods for good reasons, and for total misunderstandings. But I'm not complaining, having watched the ebb and flow of individuals on this forum, the mods and the admins have a tough job. Personally, I think they do a magnificent job, all things being relative. In the few years I've been actively posting here, I've noticed a few rather, aggressive, individuals who won't listen to reason. And sooner or later, they learn to play by the rules and get along with others, or they simply disappear. The system works, its really the posters choice how they wish to comport themselves.

Yeah the life of the mods and the admins sure isn't easy and they do a great job; which is also why a report button automatically censoring/deleting posts would be sad.

Though one thing I think could be improved is with regard to spam bots. Luckily we aren't seeing them much at the moment, but once in a while they show their ugly face here. And sometimes there have been spam bot posts on the front page of the general forum for ever 7 hours before a mod showed up to delete them; and that even though I reported those posts for faster removal.
It is just was advertisements then that while still being bad isn't the end of the world. The real problem is that many of those posts contains pretty much only links; links which in the best case will take you to somewhere you can pirate movies/games/etc. or in the worst case just take you to an attack site. Those posts might give these forums a bad reputation. I am talking about the kind of posts which have titles claiming you can get newly released movies/games/etc. inside; even sometimes movies which still only are available in the cinemas.
So I propose that long time members get the opportunity to have such obvious spam bot posts relocated to some list where the mods then can deal with them later. So the long time members wouldn't be able to censor or delete those posts, but they would be able to hide them from everybody but the mods.
It should of course be clear to the mods who did the hiding to root out people abusing that system. How long you need to have been registered I don't know; personally I think I have been a member long enough to be able to do that, but I have only been here a little less than 5 years so I am still rather new.

 

[Pellaken]

Without discussing current, past, or future moderator action
Quantity does matter.
IMO we need to double the number of mods with a focus on people who are online frequently.

 

[Centurion1973]

Just take all the mods for that forum and PM them in the same PM. Then the first one who sees it will act. And it is really rare that mod action must be taken immediately.

Last time I reported personal attack, I PMed 3-4 mods and got a response like 2 or 3 days later.....

no wonder that there are so many banned topics - someone would have to constantly watch those threads.

 

[Centurion1973]

Without discussing current, past, or future moderator action
Quantity does matter.
IMO we need to double the number of mods with a focus on people who are online frequently.

True,

But, easy way to report violation would help significantly - on forum that I am moderating, big majority of rule violations (and almost all serious cases) are actually reported by users - so we dont have to read that bazzilion posts to check if everyone behaves OK (for which we dont have manpower).

 

[Pellaken]

True,

But, easy way to report violation would help significantly - on forum that I am moderating, big majority of rule violations (and almost all serious cases) are actually reported by users - so we dont have to read that bazzilion posts to check if everyone behaves OK (for which we dont have manpower).

I disagree.
Some rules don't get reported because they are broken so frequently. I know myself that if I were to report one particular rule every time it is violated I'd be sending 2 or 3 PMs a day.

 

[Wagonlitz]

Last time I reported personal attack, I PMed 3-4 mods and got a response like 2 or 3 days later.....

no wonder that there are so many banned topics - someone would have to constantly watch those threads.

Strange. When I report things I normally get a reply within hours; granted it most often is spambots of the really dubious kind (i.e. link to pirate site in best case; to attack site in worst), but when I have reported personal attacks or similar violations I haven't seen the mods being slower to respond than with spam bots.