Has The quality of our Discussions Plummeted?

Has The quality of our Discussions Plummeted?

  • Yes

    Votes: 14 40.0%
  • No

    Votes: 18 51.4%
  • Other

    Votes: 3 8.6%

  • Total voters
    35
I voted NO.

There's always going to be heated discussions and threads that go off topic. I think that's just the nature of human communication. But for me one of the things the Watch excels at is that most of the time the discussion is on a mature level. I think the most divisive comment some of us make is along the lines of "There he goes again." For the most part the vitriol of some sites (ahem) is simply absent here.

Now, I will say that there does seem to be greater lack of forum participation but frankly that should be expected. The forum design hasn't changed ever. Where are the shinny graphic baubles to lure more folks in? Maybe a new cool RPGWatch main page. The industry knows about us, we get developers in here all the time, but does the general public? However, this off topic rant is clearly off topic. Topic.

So NO, I don't think the quality of our discussions has plummeted at all. Except for that time when the Codex went down for a few days . . . . . . .
 
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I don't think so. But I only post occasional comments on news items, and don't post in the other forums, except very rarely. But as far as news comments go, I enjoy reading the comments and haven't noticed a quality decline. Sometimes arguments break out about stuff I'm not interested in, but its easy enough to skip those back and forth posts, which do at times degenerate into flame wars.

However, overall I would say RPG watch has a good community, and by far doesn't have the kind of nonsense and trolls that other forums seem to have by the dozens.
 
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I also voted no. There are fewer posters that emit huge walls of meandering tedious self-involved blathering, but to me, that's an improvement. :)
 
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@HiddenX

I don't really see a problem, but I've really only ever been a lurker anyway.

What solution do you have for this decline that you see? You can't really enforce friendliness or a "proper" discussion (however you want to define that). What you have right now is an organic community of people who have an interest in being here. That seems like enough to me, but maybe you should think about recruiting people from other corners of the web that meet a requisite level of friendliness.

I voted no roughly for this reason. I have been with the Watch since before it even came to this web location although I don't post to much. Some of that is some things I like to discuss or post about are not as welcome here so I have to temper my posts somewhat ... although over time I have felt a bit more comfortable as most folks here seem somewhat open minded at least.

Anyhow having been here a long time I have not seen a huge difference over time but I also may not have been involved in as many threads as I tend to stick to just the ones that interest me. So other veterans may be more aware of people leaving, being quieter, or the like than I would.

That being said I tend agree with the person I quoted because forums tend to be highly organic and can be a hard thing to control. Social groups can be both very durable yet highly fragile. Almost all places online I go that are forums like this tend to have a high percentage of very active posters.

Some of it is time as well - writing and discussing takes a lot of time, something I know I am on short supply of simply because I have other hobbies that have a higher priority right now.
 
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@HiddenX

Rather than having a list of virtues and wishing that everybody would use them, it might be better to add buttons to the forum that allow members to nominate a post for being friendly, or whatever, in place of the thumbs up button. It may even be useful to have a forum poster of the month, so that new people visiting the forums get an idea of what values are wanted here with clear examples.

Again, I don't think we have an issue that needs fixing, but giving positive reinforcement of what you're looking for would probably be more helpful than a wish list.

As far as off-topic discussions, I like them. That is sort of what a discussion is all about. If you just state this is my topic and my objective is to gather opinions on X, that is sort of sterile and boring. Letting a discussion wander where it may is the interesting part. However, when the thread gets derailed by squabbling, I think the original poster should have the authority to remove those to a separate thread.
 
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A strong yes from me. I feel the strongest reason is that we've suffered by the number of the older Dot users going inactive. Also, it could very well be me becoming jaded but these days I'm so familiar with some of the personas we have that every single post of theirs feels predictable, tedious and same-y.

One thing I'm fairly confident about is that the suggestions to use the ignore function have increased dramatically. As has passive-aggressive moderating which I just don't remember being needed outside the P&R forum.
 
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I agree with you Kotas just look a few recent threads this week. I was told to be lenient by Mythros, and usually I am. Yet sometimes you can't just sit back.

Usually I will give a polite warning by PM, and it works. Sometimes it doesn't then posts then get deleted. If the poster still wont learn I will ban them.

Now most of you cause no problems, but it's sometimes the new members.

PS: Like I said above I apologize to anyone I was rude to in the past.
embarrassed-smiley27.gif


Update: Now for he next poll I will make on September 1st I was thinking of allowing multiple choices to see what the best Infinity game was.

You will be allowed to vote for as many as you want. Does this sound good to you all? I will take suggestions or feedback for future polls also.:)
 
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Update: Now for he next poll I will make on September 1st I was thinking of allowing multiple choices to see what the best Infinity game was.

You will be allowed to vote for as many as you want. Does this sound good to you all? I will take suggestions or feedback for future polls also.:)

Please do not forget the...

[x] Infinishitty engine sucked major donkey balls and all isometric RPGs except Divinity games can go and DIAF, kthx

... poll option.

You know, I just thought I'd mention that here since some folks asked for more positivity. And as far as I am concerned, less isometric RPGs can only lead to way more positivity and much happier gamers all around. It's like... guaranteed. No, really :biggrin: .
 
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I wont put it like that but I will add a none option. Never knew we had members who dislike every infinity engine game. The poll will be interesting.:)

Now excuse I need to think happy thoughts, and must resist the evil temptations.
violent-smiley41.gif
 
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Well, *grumble* ... *gnash* I guess Torment was kind of... OK.

;)
 
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I love RPGWatch for its passionate in depth discussions and varied points of view, (which aren't necessarily linear or on topic) so judging this question is very subjective and difficult without descending into a kind of navel-gazing self-inquisition. :)

Thus I've voted "no", but that does come with some qualifiers.

Ad-hominem attacks can certainly be an issue in the more heated and robust discussions and are definitely not what we want to see here.
Encouraging civility, politeness, respect and for posters to take a deep breath, (or to get a room!) and sit back and reflect before posting a personal comment or something unnecessary is a good idea in general.

Similar to what Kostas said, I also think that the loss of Dhruin has perhaps influenced the general probing "tenor" of some news-posts which can seemingly lead to more predictable responses by some members. This isn't necessarily a problem per se, merely an observation. For the most part, I'm enthused and amazed by the sheer range of news posts made these days.

It's logical that given this current period of new RPGs that we'll experience more traffic into the future. Let's do our best to greet this amazing time for our favourite genre and post accordingly. :)
 
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Seeing as this is an opinion thread, this is mine. I'm generally against thread control in 90% of cases. I govern several discussions at work via different mediums and I've never found conversation control conducive to creativity. Maybe my experiences are different because I deal with adults. Even on here I don't find "off topic" posts a distraction. If they don't go with the flow I have the capability to skip over them.

There are many things I don't bother to comment on because it's a clear redline trigger for people and as some threads prove, unless you are clearly "pro-whatever" then you must be assumed anti and burn as a heretic. I like the post of someone that said "We can disagree and not hate eachother." Honestly in the age of everyone's opinion instantly being shared across Facebook people have forgotten that not everyone thinks like they do, and quite often nobody gives a damn what you think.
We have threads here where three people have gone a page of arguing before someone points out they all agree just haven't noticed it.

Conversation is organic and is not easily controlled. If this means getting a few twigs in the pile of apples then I think its worth it. Claimed "off topic" posts are better than forum death. Ive watched it happen in real life arenas where people claim to want discussion, debate, etc; but what they are really looking for is people to agree with them, or disagree just enough that they can easily be converted to their point of view.
 
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Codex summoned me here to vote "yes".

Seems like Watchers also got "brofist" option, nice.
 
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