Authors CurseForge

One of the main reason for threads to be locked around here is lack of civility in the discourse.

While I do not have issues with strongly held believes and disagreements that arise from them. I do have every issue with people being nasty and aggressive about it. I do not have problems with explicatives either, as long as they are not being used to degrade or demean others.

Unfortunately a few prominent members around here do believe that it's OK to assault someone's integrity or opinion head on with demeaning statements. And only occasionally do mods step in. In fact some of these members are either closely tied to or are in the mod staff.

I would like to ask for a civil discourse and I would also like to ask for a different moderation policy.

Currently nastiness actually has found a second function. If you want a topic not discussed, people post hostile responses and get the topic locked through drama policy. However this stiffles some discussion. Can we move to delete or otherwise moderate offensive posts and posters and leave topics of discussions open so that people who are not hostile can continue to debate an issue? After all it wasn't the topic that called for the locking but the behavior of the poster. Thanks.

For me WowAce is a wonderful place except for the latent hostility that can be found promoted by some around here.

I don't like where this is going, so I'm going to attack your integrity with a finely crafted string of expletives. Also I question your sexuality and would like to bring to light your mother's obesity.

Yea, I'm sorry, that sounds fucking retarded :P So you have issue with Arrow, yea we know, he's not nice to anyone. Maybe he shouldn't be a mod, but that's not my decision to make.

I actually don't have issue with arrow, I think he has done great things and has a rough patch. I think I said quite clearly what my concern is and my suggestions are. Some things can be improved without worrying about one or a few individuals. Though if a few folks came to their senses and just acted more friendly there wouldn't be any need to worry about this in the first place.

ive noticed this around here as well .but over looked it

I've also been quite put off by the tone used in these forums quite a few times, but i have, in the past, overlooked it and forgiven. However over the last days I've actually been seriously considering moving my activities away from this place to somewhere else, where the tone is more positive and assertive, instead of negative and accusing. Especially this recent thread really has put me on the edge: http://forums.wowace.com/showthread.php?p=267437.

It appears to be (b)locked now, but the last post in it was:

"I don't do polite to useless twats."

The post previous to that by the same poster said something along the lines: "post the damn error message". Both replies were responses to posts by me.

If someone got that amount of anger in them, i believe they should refrain from posting at all. At least don't attack people who try to bring a bug to the attention of the developers of a library, taking time to write a ticket with full steps to reproduce. I don't even have a need for having the bug fixed (because i fixed it locally), but i was asked to make a ticket about it (because i mentioned the issue in a different context), and get this reaction, which I think is completely unfair.

Can we not make this a "it's all arrow's fault" thread please? Nothing good will come out of that. Keep it to a discussion on where our civility has gone, but please for the sake of people getting upset - refrain from using direct names :)

For the record, I moved the thread to the admin section because I felt it served no point and could only instill more name-calling/insulting.

I'm gonna be frank here (wait I always am, and that's why people bitch that I'm "not nice").

Arrow is not nice. I don't have issue with this. Arrow can take it too far, I do have issue with this.

"Post the damn error message" I have no issue with this. Now, it is not "nice" or "friendly", but there was nothing wrong with it. Nothing can really be done if you don't post an error message, so really the post it was in response to was an equally "useless" post. In the end, your bitch really boils down to the fact that he used the word "damn", I don't think a fit would have been thrown over "Post the error message".

However, your reply, 'Have you tried: "Can you please post the error message". Or is it too hard to be just the slightest bit of polite?' really boils down to flamebait. Yes, it's "polite" flamebait, but it was an unnecessary post that only eggs on unneeded conflict.

And the reply, "I don't do polite to useless twats.", was where things just went too far. That behavior is uncalled for, he should have just stepped out of the conversation.

So, in short, what I'm trying to say here is... welcome to the real world, people are not always polite, deal with it. If people want to be nice and fluffy with you, fine; if they want to get right to the point even if it may offend, fine; and if they curse like a fucking oil hand, fine. There is a big difference between not being nice and taking shit too far, and the latter is the issue that needs resolution here.

MoonWitch, fuck that, the issue came about because of Arrow's comments, I'm not gonna pussyfoot around the issue here and make it into "everyone's being mean". Arrow took it too far, if he or anyone else does that crap, something needs to come of it.

My reply quoted and was in response to the ticket comment made that was along the lines of "No I'm not going to post an error message. I already posted the steps to reproduce it and if you can't figure it out from that then you're the useless one."

My name isn't even listed on the project page for the library in question or either of the two addons mentioned in the ticket. I just wanted a useful bug report so I could take a look at it and see if I could fix it, since that's what I do around here. But apparently we are all expected to still play WoW, have active WoW accounts, and be able to reproduce rare bugs on our own without having the single most important thing in any bug report available to us, the debugstack from the error in question.

But it seems I'm not welcome around here anymore so now that I don't play WoW anymore maybe I should find something else todo besides Lua coding too.

Just scale back the dickery, that's all. You took shit too far, and you've had a habit of it lately. No one has said you're not welcome here, just stop being a complete prick and step out of threads like that one.

I'm not even asking you to BE NICE.

No I still stand by my comment. I fight back when attacked.

To back out of this community immediately is what you call "fighting back when attacked"? Hmmm...

No one ever said you are not welcome here anymore. And you were not the only one who has adopted the wrong tone here recently, so this thread is not just about YOU. Think about it...

Bottom line, there has been too much douchebaggery about lately. I'm starting to get very irritated.

I've overlooked a lot of it because I value the contributions certain people have made to the community. If I didn't think they were good people I'd have kicked them out long ago.

In fact I think some of the people being bitched about are actually great people who have a rough exterior but a lot of potential. Also, when it comes down to it I think a certain amount of flames is a good thing, and I hope people don't take that the wrong way.

Bottom line to those of you who've gone too far, and you know who you are. Stop it. I'm not sure what to do about it, I don't want you to leave the community. I think you have a lot to offer, and that as a whole we're enriched by your continued involvement.

What I will ask of you is simple. Don't lash out. don't turn things into personal attacks or vendettas. Do realize that people sometimes don't know you as well as others and can't take as much. Do be constructive when giving feedback.

To those who feel like they've been wronged. Please try to forgive and overlook. I know it's hard and not something many people really want to do. I apologize for my lack of involvement lately and the fact that things have gotten this far.

To everyone involved. Back off and take a deep breath. Let's try to see if we can fix this sanely before I have to go in and start being heavy handed. I'm hoping we can figure this out guys. We're a great community in many ways. We have, and have always had, our rough spots, but we've made it this far.

I agree to this. I posted the initial post to not point fingers at anybody and make them the bad guys. That is and never should be the point. In fact that's the very thing I want to go away.

I have learned a lot of great things from people I in term have also criticized. But for me it's never about the person it's about what happened. We all have our preferences, styles, attitudes etc and that's just fine. There is nothing wrong with not being a mince-word type. And there is nothing wrong with being sensitive about one or the other thing. Bottom line for me is though that everybody, that is Arrow and xbeeps deserves respect and the buck should stop where the person itself gets attacked.

I actually see noone here who wants to attack Arrow, we just ask for a change in behavior because we see that above line is being crossed a few times. And yes I do think that others cross the line at times too so this really shouldn't be about Arrow. Noone says that he or others are not welcome here, rather that everybody should be welcome here who can respect others.

I did want to go back to xbeeps report though that can be found here:

http://www.wowace.com/projects/libsink-2-0/tickets/1-library-upgrade-from-71376-to-90057-causes-errors-in/

This is isn't an aweful ticket. It produces clearly the issues and it also offers a tested! solution to the issue. This is better than the average bug report I get in fact.

In that sense I disagree with tek that it was OK to demand an error report in a harsh tone. Let me explain that from a different vantage point. We all are volunteers (well most of us :P) we try to help as we can. xbeeps certainly did provide helpful information on the issue. Yes the error itself would have been useful, but it is not his duty to fix this. If anything he has already done more than others on it. Now it also isn't Rabbit's duty to fix it. He can if he wants.

Certainly a "the error message would be tremendously helpful" would be way more productive to ask for input than explicatives and a demanding tone. Demands from volunteers do not work and are already disrepectful.

Ever wondered why people reacted with indignation to demands that everybody needed to be on IRC to use the SVN in the old svn days? This is exactly why.

So I disagree that xbeeps was flamebaiting. He did respond with indignation here to not very kindly worded demands. Yes he could have responded with the error and added "I don't appreciate your tone" or "sorry I don't have time right now to recover the error and I don't appreciate your tone". But I have no issues whatsoever with the substance of his decisions and his reactions. To not be responsive to an impolite demanding tone isn't flame-baiting at all.

I had no big issue with how arrow wrote his first response because we know his personality and in the scheme of things that was one of the nicer posts he has made recently. What was not OK was his response to the indignation which was an all out assault at the integrity of the other person. To say that isn't an attack on Arrow because that's just a basic standard for everybody.

I do hope arrow does stick around because we do want him here but I also hope that we get a base civility that make it safe, fun and happy to hang around here for everybody to contribute as they can.

I have to agree with Kaelten also.

And Tek, you can say welcome to the real world, but come on. It's your jobs as moderators to keep the forums peaceful. This doesn't have to be the elitist jerks site, but there are times around here when comments could have best been just kept to whoever posted them.

People don't have to be sickeningly sweet, but how is being polite really that much to ask?

Why the heck is this a public note. This should be discussed in a moderator forum.

I do hope it is.

I really would like to get away from pointing fingers are Arrow. I actually agree that this never should have been discussed here and it was not my intention to do so. A mod actually brought this here and I think it'd been better placed with a mod forum indeed. I do think it's fine for people to speak up when they see something going southpole or not working though, which is in part this thread.

Asking for civility isn't a mod only issue though. I think it's something for everybody to consider and add their 2c.

That does bring me back to a concern I have raised in the initial post re moderating by locking vs other mechanisms. I don't think that locking (mostly per drama policy) has worked as intended and maybe there are better mechanisms to consider aside from locking topics. Perfectly viable discussion topics have been short-changed just because one or two people went off the handle.

For me starting this thead was about sensible moderation and having this be a good place to be and not about pointing out individuals. I hope we can get back to talking about constructive stuff, like how to do things better and stop quibbling about how X or Y did something not ideally.

To make a constructive recommendation, how about splitting off derailing parts of threads if the thread otherwise is healthy, and only lock the offending part?

Quote from nomad_wanderer

Why the heck is this a public note. This should be discussed in a moderator forum.

Moderation affects everyone. Besides, I believe Elsia is just a user, not a mod.

It's a fine line between thread locking and post deleting. Both have their issues. Locking kills the discussion and isn't great if a single person or duo cause most of the flames but are off topic. Deletion brings up the mod-with-a-grudge complaint. Inevitably someone claims X mod is deleting / editing their posts because they don't like them. The latter is easily resolved by administration so long as hard deleting is disabled (it isn't by default though for smods) and editing is logged, but none of that is public. Most sites use both tools depending on situation, often a lot is up to moderator discretion.

There's always been a few "rough" people around here. I do believe vB has an ignore function, so barring all else there's always that :).

We've never had a lot of private moderation, and things are being discussed in private as well.

I don't like deleting posts. Currently we don't delete things except in the case of advertisement. The locking thread policy is the best way to handle situations where the whole discussion gets sidetracked into drama.

At that note, I don't want the drama policy being used to stop healthy debate. In general I think it's worked pretty well. But yes sometimes there are times when good discussion was sacrified.