We Need to be Better as a Community

I posted this in response to another thread, but I think the message is important so I am making it a main thread also, was written in response to a new player who made a bit of a mistake about what he was saying then got a lot of negativity about it :

Having read a lot now of what has been posted in reply to your post, I have the following comments.

It is really not right all the toxicity you have had to endure, and I totally do not accept it. You made a mistake by thinking <whatever not really important>. You said on your post that you were just a casual player. All of the <> you are getting is not right. Just another example of toxicity on this forum. You made a mistake, so what? No excuse for nastiness from those who know better. And we have all been beginners/casual level at one point.

Cant we be better than this, as a community ?

How do you think the OP is going to feel, next time he wants to post something?

Maybe he is going to think twice about it now. Is that REALLY what we want? For voices to be silenced because of all the toxicity that gets thrown around? Because that is for sure what is happening. People need a VERY thick skin to stick around this forum. I know many CMDRs who just wont post here for that very reason, they are fed up with <> that gets thrown their way just for voicing opinion.

Now I am not going to call anyone out, I dont want to embarrass or provoke anyone, and I dont want to get yet another warning for "flaming" aka defending myself when toxicity gets thrown my way.

OP has been put into the "Victim's Dilemma", yet again. Harsh responses elicit both you and toxic poster get a warning and banned from posting to the thread for 3 days + posts removed. Do nothing and mods will just ignore those toxic comments. Happens a lot in life and I call it the "Victim's Dilemma". Someone does something to you and its not serious enough for authority to care but you do something back then you become the criminal and suddenly whole thing is taken seriously. It is a lose-lose scenario.

So what is the solution to all of this, in the context of the Elite: Dangerous official forum ?

The mods have no will to solve it. One can see on the very first page of this thread comments that are clearly disparaging to the OP and his post, and the next a post in response to this thread by a Mod. The moderation team read this comment yet chose to do nothing. Frontier knows these forums have a bad reputation for toxicity yet choose to do nothing.

It is up to us, THE COMMUNITY, to do what we can to solve this problem of chronic toxicity, and what I propose is this :

1. SPEAK UP. If you see someone being denigrated, tone policed, baited, insulted or any of the other words that just mean using words to hurt another person then : SAY SOMETHING. Say it is not right and that you do not agree with it. There is a massive difference between disagreeing with someone thence attacking the premise or logic of their arguments and attacking THAT PERSON as a person. They are alike, yet not alike. Confuse them not.

2. NO NAMING AND SHAMING. This does absolutely no good and just causes fights/flame wars. Dont do it. People might also have a good motive and just made a mistake in their wording, you dont know. Dont call people out, it is just repeating the whole cycle we are trying to break.

3. GIVE THE REASONS WHY TOXICITY ON THESE FORUMS IS A BAD THING
3.1 It is discouraging people from having a voice. Many people are thin skinned and end up banned or just leave these forums because of this. Every voice adds value.
3.2 It is giving these forums a bad reputation. People prefer to post on reddit or face book rather than here and who can blame them? We should be an example to other communities. Compare and contrast to Kerbal Space Program official forums.
3.3 It is causing a lot of anger and bad feeling. Many people who aught be fast friends because of strong shared interest and passion are falling out or getting enmity.
3.4 It makes the forums a generally nasty place, one must always wonder when posting how someone is going to attack, knowing any defence of oneself is likely to elicit a warning
3.5 I know most people dont give a dam about anyone but themselves. But for the odd few who are the exception, knowing the toxicity is upsetting people and making others unhappy aught be reason enough to want to clean these forums up.
3.6 And probably many, many other reasons, I leave it to the ingenium of the individual to work out, state of affairs is good for no-one.

And I know many people will say it cant be done, the will is not there, we wont get everyone on board, etc, etc. It only takes a few respected CMDRs to consistently lend voice when they notice toxicity for things to change for the better. As it was rightly said "One carat of diamond is worth several tons of sand; we dont need the majority". We should be an example in space sim community, not a toxic cess pit.

CMDR Gavin786
 
Sad how things have become.

I know forums and discords that have been so difficult to maintain for mods that they are extremely suspicious to anyone new entering their channel.

People are worn out. Everything gets on their nerves. It is very sad, because in the end, the only voices they will hear are their own and those who are silently conforming to the new harder social climate.

Just chill down. Let people make mistakes for a couple of weeks and see if it improves. Do not throw away new friends or business associates just because you have 'a bad feeling' or think it is too annoying to keep moderating the 'new guy'.

Let them back in for a second try and you will find they are ok.
 
Too long; didn't read. Can you summarize that post for those of us forum goers who don't feel like being patronized? If you are going to slap The Community on their collective wrists you don't have to spend so long doing it. Here, allow me:

Tl;dr:

Hey guy CMDR S. Justice here messaging u all from my Anaconda the HMS White Knight. I think we need to be betterer and less toxicity thabks bye. PS: I think we need a Code of Conduction in Open.
 
Well, I'd like to say I agree with you and if I see what I believe to be a genuine newbie misunderstanding I'll try to give it a reasonable response - possibly with a side-order of snark or silliness.

However...

When somebody asks for advice and then either ignores the advice they're given, tells anybody who responds that they're wrong or makes wild accusations then I don't think it's fair, or reasonable to suggest an entire community is "toxic".

Personally, I find the ED community to be about the best I've ever encountered online.
If there's a problem, I'd suggest the biggest one is when kids who're more used to playing Fortnite or CS:GO show up, ask complicated questions and then, when they don't like the complicated answers, they think it's okay to resort to banal responses.

Do that and you're probably going to make people hostile.

Basically, if you call me names and then I respond in kind, you don't get to then moan that I'm "toxic".
 
Eh...
I don't agree with your assessment of the situation in regards to the thread you're referring to.
There was nothing toxic in replies to OP and you are exaggerating.
Sure, post "you don't know what you're talking about" might be considered harsh and in the end not contributing whole lot to resolving OP doubts, but it's hardly toxic.

I said doubts - but the problem was he had no doubts and accused everyone of everything.
 
This should be a sticky.

(eta no idea which thread is being used as an example).
 
Yeah, no. Toxicity on the internet in general is rampant. This forum is no better or worse (well actually, it's a bit better, but that's beside the point and hardly saying anything).
But you chose a really strange thread as an example of this. The op obviously doesn't know the intricacies of the game yet resorts to typing 'hacks' in caps in every other post. Now if you have a genuine question about the workings, just ask. Instead, he just repeated "HACKS!" over and over again.

tl;dr: Antagonistic opening posts provoke likewise answers.
 
Also, while I'm at it, there's something I've got to ask...

DOES NOBODY USE THE BLOODY NEWBIE FORUM ANY MORE????

Seriously, people post some incredibly newbish questions in here.
Does it not occur to people that if they're asking questions - which they must realise are newbish - then the newbie forum is probably the place where they're most likely to find people who're prepared to walk them through it properly?

Guys like Para Handy, aRJay and Chris Simon (among others) are abso-bloody-lutely saintly in their willingness to spend hours making post after post, patiently walking people through the most obvious of issues.
Surely even a newbie should be smart enough to realise they are a newbie and should take advantage of all the assistance they can get?

Also, it probably wouldn't hurt if the mod's were more willing to move suitable threads TO the newbie forum.
 
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I'm sorry OP, I've just read the thread in question, and if anything, the OP there was giving out toxicity far more than it was received. When knowledgeable people try to explain that you are mistaken about something and your only response is
shut up, it's hacks, it's obvious it's hacks
or words to that effect, then really they are opening themselves up for ridicule and have to take some of the burden themselves.
 
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Had too...
 
I posted this in response to another thread, but I think the message is important so I am making it a main thread also, was written in response to a new player who made a bit of a mistake about what he was saying then got a lot of negativity about it :

Having read a lot now of what has been posted in reply to your post, I have the following comments.

It is really not right all the toxicity you have had to endure, and I totally do not accept it. You made a mistake by thinking <whatever not really important>. You said on your post that you were just a casual player. All of the <> you are getting is not right. Just another example of toxicity on this forum. You made a mistake, so what? No excuse for nastiness from those who know better. And we have all been beginners/casual level at one point.

Cant we be better than this, as a community ?

How do you think the OP is going to feel, next time he wants to post something?

Maybe he is going to think twice about it now. Is that REALLY what we want? For voices to be silenced because of all the toxicity that gets thrown around? Because that is for sure what is happening. People need a VERY thick skin to stick around this forum. I know many CMDRs who just wont post here for that very reason, they are fed up with <> that gets thrown their way just for voicing opinion.

Now I am not going to call anyone out, I dont want to embarrass or provoke anyone, and I dont want to get yet another warning for "flaming" aka defending myself when toxicity gets thrown my way.

OP has been put into the "Victim's Dilemma", yet again. Harsh responses elicit both you and toxic poster get a warning and banned from posting to the thread for 3 days + posts removed. Do nothing and mods will just ignore those toxic comments. Happens a lot in life and I call it the "Victim's Dilemma". Someone does something to you and its not serious enough for authority to care but you do something back then you become the criminal and suddenly whole thing is taken seriously. It is a lose-lose scenario.

So what is the solution to all of this, in the context of the Elite: Dangerous official forum ?

The mods have no will to solve it. One can see on the very first page of this thread comments that are clearly disparaging to the OP and his post, and the next a post in response to this thread by a Mod. The moderation team read this comment yet chose to do nothing. Frontier knows these forums have a bad reputation for toxicity yet choose to do nothing.

It is up to us, THE COMMUNITY, to do what we can to solve this problem of chronic toxicity, and what I propose is this :

1. SPEAK UP. If you see someone being denigrated, tone policed, baited, insulted or any of the other words that just mean using words to hurt another person then : SAY SOMETHING. Say it is not right and that you do not agree with it. There is a massive difference between disagreeing with someone thence attacking the premise or logic of their arguments and attacking THAT PERSON as a person. They are alike, yet not alike. Confuse them not.

2. NO NAMING AND SHAMING. This does absolutely no good and just causes fights/flame wars. Dont do it. People might also have a good motive and just made a mistake in their wording, you dont know. Dont call people out, it is just repeating the whole cycle we are trying to break.

3. GIVE THE REASONS WHY TOXICITY ON THESE FORUMS IS A BAD THING
3.1 It is discouraging people from having a voice. Many people are thin skinned and end up banned or just leave these forums because of this. Every voice adds value.
3.2 It is giving these forums a bad reputation. People prefer to post on reddit or face book rather than here and who can blame them? We should be an example to other communities. Compare and contrast to Kerbal Space Program official forums.
3.3 It is causing a lot of anger and bad feeling. Many people who aught be fast friends because of strong shared interest and passion are falling out or getting enmity.
3.4 It makes the forums a generally nasty place, one must always wonder when posting how someone is going to attack, knowing any defence of oneself is likely to elicit a warning
3.5 I know most people dont give a dam about anyone but themselves. But for the odd few who are the exception, knowing the toxicity is upsetting people and making others unhappy aught be reason enough to want to clean these forums up.
3.6 And probably many, many other reasons, I leave it to the ingenium of the individual to work out, state of affairs is good for no-one.

And I know many people will say it cant be done, the will is not there, we wont get everyone on board, etc, etc. It only takes a few respected CMDRs to consistently lend voice when they notice toxicity for things to change for the better. As it was rightly said "One carat of diamond is worth several tons of sand; we dont need the majority". We should be an example in space sim community, not a toxic cess pit.

CMDR Gavin786
I agree generally that people should be kinder and generally more considerate to each other.
If someone is being particularly snotty and taking up a lot of thread space, there is always the ignore button.
 
You know what? That would actually be great. If people thought twice before posting, there would probably be less toxicity.

Toxic regards, babelfisch

Careful Babel, the non-toxic community will immediately label you a white knight if you disagree with an OP!

And yes fully agree, too many post without thought or consequences here which (in my opinion) one of the reasons we rarely hear from Devs anymore. Why would they post when it is just about guaranteed someone will call them a liar or totally mis-interpret or ignore whatever the poor Dev says.
 
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