Poll

Do you agree that we should try to fix these problems?

Sure. We could become a friendly community!
I don't see any problems here.

Author Topic: The problems with our community.  (Read 22789 times)

I think this forum allow for much more freedom than others. It allows for more controversial topics and opinions. Nobody gets banned or their posts deleted for hurting or potentially hurting somebody's feelings.


Maxx, that WAS an alt.
everyone accused him of setro though
see paragraph #2

everyone accused him of setro though
see paragraph #2

It was an obvious alt, and setro was stirring up some trouble at that point, so it was natural for them to assume it was him.

4. How people determine someone is angry.
Recently I have been accused of being extrememly angry. I have decided to check around the forums to find that this happens a lot. http://badspot.us/img/Comic-Anger.png
maybe people should, i don't know, not look make themselves look like mad little babbies then
it's not difficult to make a point without resorting to flaming and swearing and typical "angry" behavior

I feel like a lot of the people who have been here for a long time are actually pretty chill about things.

I feel like a lot of the people who have been here for a long time are actually pretty chill about things.
I suppose that's due in part to the fact that they have been here a long time.
If you really were constantly worked up by everything here you probably wouldn't stick around for too long. Admittedly some users who can regularly get their knickers in a twist do continue to hang around, but they're surely the minority.
And while I'm probably grossly and unfairly generalising/hypothesising, they've probably got something going on a little differently in their heads.


I think one of the bigger things that can make this community (or at least the Forum community) seem negative, is the fact that those who DO make a stink, stand out more than those who don't.
Controversial topics get lots of replies and therefore a lot of arguments (or debates), but there's always loads of smaller completely innocent topics too, where people don't argue and get on with each other.
And we have fairly relaxed moderation. Our rules are reasonably specific but for the most part never say what you can or cannot discuss, and arguments are allowed to continue. This does give us some freedom, which I think is great in a community.
The downside to it all however is we get a few unsavoury characters, as all communities do. But since they can carry on getting in arguments, they start to fester as a character. And before you know it they lose sense of themselves and begin to retaliate in unacceptable ways, such as phishing or abusing other users, or they spam the forums. And then when they get banned they take it as some giant personal slight against them, and decide to attack the community or Badspot.

That's the one thing that's bad with our community. It's free enough that these broken individuals get a foothold in the community and draw attention to themselves.
In more moderated communities those sort of individuals are much more quickly picked out and gotten rid of. And that's a lot easier when you have LOTS of strict moderators, compared to our few relaxed moderators, who are otherwise preferable.

I feel like a lot of the people who have been here for a long time are actually pretty chill about things.

I've been here for about 6 years. I'm pretty split on this.

change has an inevitable priority of happening
thanks to time

cherish what we have now before the next generation

I find it hilarious when people dismiss other forums as hugboxes. Like, if they aren't malicious starfishs to eachother, they must be pansies right?

No.

It's called maturity. I had posted some long thingamadong on a topic to test waters on the subject. Went over decently, so I'll summarize here. There's another forum I also frequent that has to do with guitars. They have just as many members here, if not more. The community is incredibly helpful, and overall decent people. People don't blatantly attack people. They don't eat eachother alive. The reason I think it has to do with it the most is age, but moreso maturity. There are people well over 20s and 30s on that forum. They have jobs and a life and know what's up. The forum even has a marketplace for trading/selling/buying. The rules are exactly the same in that forum as this one. The leniency is about the same too. But it isn't even close to how this forum acts. This forum? It's mostly teens. It's like a cliche high school. The proof is in the pudding of the first page. The OP brings a serious subject to light and everyone's like "NO, LOCK THIS, UGH SO STUPID" instead of actually facing it and accepting it.

But with all this community's flaws, why do we stay? Why do problems users always come back? Banned members? Because it's become who you are. It's a community. You've known these people for years. You've grown up with them. Become friends with people here, made enemies. Even with stuffposting and silly topics, there's always something to laugh at, have fun with. And that's what matters.

But with all this community's flaws, why do we stay? Why do problems users always come back? Banned members? Because it's become who you are. It's a community. You've known these people for years. You've grown up with them. Become friends with people here, made enemies. Even with stuffposting and silly topics, there's always something to laugh at, have fun with. And that's what matters.
it bring a tear to my eye

/begin_walloftext

The problem is that the game, being a lego building game is likely going to attract a lot of little kids, but this is a very mature forums.  You can talk about all the forgeted up stuff you want and post near nudity and swear all you want do all types of "non kid friendly stuff" without consequence.

That problem, however, I also think is a great strength of this community.  Problem users are more or less dealt with by the community itself rather than have moderators deal with everything.  The community basically moderates itself through the use of things like shunning people who are richards and also through the drama section.  This is a community that by design doesn't try to hold your hand.  Its like being thrown out into the harshness of the real world to learn the hard way.  Nothing is censored, everyone's opinions are in full view.  No matter how mature the subject of a discussion, anyone can read it at their own liberty.  And that I think is another great thing about this community.  Since no one has their opinions censored or blocked out to prevent offending someone else, it allows people to have intelligent discussion on all levels of topics no matter how sensitive or mature the content without worrying about getting banned or some stuff.  It allows peoples ideas, skills and opinions to melt together.  It helps the mind mature through critical thinking and brown townysis, in turn creating a sort of melting pot of cultures and ideologies.  I would say that as harsh as this community can be, if one can survive in it, one can learn a lot and mature a great deal.

Imagine a forums where every post had to be checked by a moderator before being shown, to keep others from hurting others feelings.  It would be so boring and uninteresting.  It would discourage intelligent discussion and debate and encourage everyone to be the same care-bare free-hugs-shirt wearing friends.  People wouldn't forge such strong friendships with each other because there would be nothing about each individual person that was special and made people want to seek that person out.  There would be no type of social development or maturing over time of the people using the forums.  It is the freedom to communicate with others however you feel that makes you come back, because you feel like you are connected to the forums.  You feel like family, even though you all have your differences.  It is your differences that allow you to forge stronger relationships.  Honestly, even though this is such a hostile forum and there are a lot of people here that I don't agree with on things like politics/religion/etc, I can't imagine a better group of people to spend time with.  Its a hell of a lot better than everyone being watched so that they don't make others feel bad.

I have to say the forums have helped me mature a lot for my age.  Why?  Because when people here have something to say, they just say it without any regard to the other person's feelings.  While that may make some people want to leave, those that stay and learn form their mistakes will be much more mature than before.  This is a place of learning, not just a place to talk about a game. I would even go as far as to say that the social lessons I have learned here have helped me in real life scenarios.  I would say that its worth looking like starfishs if the products of the forums are going to be more mature users in the end.  There's some other message that I'm trying to convey here but I can't think up a good brown townogy so I'm just going to say this:

"The Blockland Forums:  That forum where people learn more about life and social interaction than they do about building"

Yes we are starfishs.  Is that a good thing?  Well in many cases, yes.

/end_walloftext

I think y'all should take a look at the Bay12 Forums and see the people there. They are all a bit deranged, maybe, probably because of prolonged exposure to Dwarf Fortress...

Anyway, it's a forum about a game that's inherently much more violent than Blockland (Throwing babies into pits with spikes and rabid dogs to train stats, all in the name of !!SCIENCE!!) But they all get along almost perfectly fine. Much of the people here are rather vicious, as stated by OP.

I agree. The sheer amount of hatred some players have towards other people here is sad.

So many people hate users like Setro and Maxx with a passion. Sure, they may have done some stupid things. But haven't we all? Yes, perhaps they're annoying sometimes to some people (I don't mean to offend either of you two, out anyone else for that matter; I personally don't find you guys annoying). Doesn't mean you need to hate them though.


Anyway, I try to be nice to people, but I fail too often in my opinion. I should try thinking about what I'm posting before I post it a bit more.

Agreed, but I hate to say that this will get you a ton of hate.