Bad Forum Experiences?

[llamamushroom]

I've noticed quite a few of these (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=132949) sorts of threads recently, so I've been wondering - is the rest of the internet really that bad? My experience of forums is pretty much limited to this one, so what, in the Playground's opinion, makes this forum stand out above the rest? Why are people nice here? Why do they love?

Also, hugs for all. You guys are awesome.

[The Dark Fiddler]

No, the rest of the internet, as a whole, isn't really that bad. Most sties aren't as good as this one, with a few exceptions, but the rest get a bad rep from sites like 4chan (which itself gets a worse rep than it deserves because of /b/).

[Serpentine]

I had a girl "verbally" assault me for, from memory, suggesting that stripping isn't necessarily exploitative and/or bad, and she wouldn't let up.
That's about the extent of mine...

[Dallas-Dakota]

This forum steadily draws people.(With the comic)
The rules+enforcing mods/time draw away bad people.
You have things such as friendly banter and SMBG, which you can do stuff you like, instead of the forum being ''just about that comic'' or ''just for playing that game''.

Most other forums fail at atleast one of those three things.

[Setra]

I've been cussed out for misquoting a line from Evil Dead..

Or other things along the same line... This is the friendliest forum I've been too, but I haven't visited TOO many, most of them weren't bad though.

[Ichneumon]

I've had numerous experiences with people who came to a forum on which I was a regular member just to flame and insult us, in fact, the number of people who came to do that was so numerous that the forum had to be taken down. Yes, the internet has its darker sides.

[Strawman]

I've been to some forums that were little more than places for racists, homophobes, and anti-semites to scream hate speach.

[Atelm]

My bad experiences with other forums are quite varied, but as an example the Off Topic (Friendly Banter? No way, no how.) subforum of one rather big site's forum is practically all politics*, wherein you can be certain that the discussion gets into a heated flame war as fast as you can say "controversial topic".

Even if you only post a single well-thought-out post in a given thread, you can be certain that people will flame you, if not for your opinion on the question/issue the thread is about, then for your opinion on some unrelated topic you had posted about in the past that they didn't like.

*Mostly, as the political "debate" threads drown all other topics there, still they have subforums for other stuff so it is possible to avoid it all.

[truemane]

This is certainly one of the more pleasant on-line communities I've been a part of. And I think DD is right that having active mods enforcing a strict code of conduct are a big part of why it is so. Fewer rules = mpre jerks. That's just the way it is.

Of course, the rules also cut down on conversations that could be interesting and interactions that could be entertaining, but it's a trade-off.

I like playing rough, so I enjoy some of the more free-wheeling forums as well.

But this is a really good place.

[HellfireLover]

A large Brit-centric forum I frequent under one of my alter-egos has the primary rule as 'please be nice to all [forum posters]'. This rule is broken on such a breathtakingly frequent basis, with some people apparently only signing up to naysay and troll. Ad hominem abusive arguments are so common that I've all but abandoned posting there, and am seriously considering giving up reading it altogether.

My other experiences with some forums is that I'm just not one of the 'in crowd'. :smalltongue:

[Dallas-Dakota]

Yeah, one thing I forgot to mention.

The ''group'' thing. Some forums will just form such tight groups, which can be unwelcomeing, elitist or such, that it(as a(big) part of the forum) draws no new members who will stay. You don't really have that much here.

[Haruki-kun]

I don't think I've ever gotten anything worse than a "GTFO".

Most of the time you notice what kind of place a site is by the time you look at it.

[Mauve Shirt]

This is the only forum I've ever really been a regular at. I joined the Kingdom of Loathing forums a few years ago, but they were far too Serious Business and snippy over there. I've never been traumatized by the rest of the internet, but I've also never been to 4chan.

[Jack Squat]

Well, I got into a rather heated argument with a guy who said that Alberto Santos-Dumont was the first to fly. That's about the worst of it, though that same forum (the Mythbusters one on Discovery) was plagued with plenty of inane posts.

I left after they redid everything and got enough moderators for the Discovery boards that they actually started enforcing things. When I left, it was against the rules to tell someone their idea was wrong, much less be able to flame the guy who kept coming up with ideas for perpetual motion devices (who'd already been banned 5 times, which is pretty hard on a virtually unmoderated board).

[truemane]

I used to spend a lot of time over at Rpol.net and they're forums are also quite fun (and heavily modded as well). But the thing that impresses me about the place on a regular basis is that for a pile of role-playing geeks they're AMAZINGLY welcoming and helpful to anyone and everyone who needs it (like the folks here).

Geeks, god love 'em, tend toward heavy in-group biases and xenophobia. It's part and parcel of the whole fringe-community thing.

[Eldan]

The only other forum I've been active on was a german DnD forum. Actually the community was calm and collected, and there were interesting discussions about politics and a lot of other subjects which are banned here, and they never, as far as I know, became flame wars. But on the other hand, the people there were really boring. No interest in most "nerdy" media beyond movies and DnD itself (i.e. you were almost laughed at for mentioning anime, manga, comics, cartoons, most games...), not much interesting homebrew and, generally, a lot of serious discussion without this forum's general wackyness.

[Catch]

The rest get a bad rep from sites like 4chan (which itself gets a worse rep than it deserves because of /b/).

Not really. /b/ sets the curve for 4chan's netiquette, so you'll find plenty of hostility and flamewars on boards like /tg/ and /v/ and /a/, with varying degrees of passive-aggression. /b/ is certainly the worst, but 4chan in general has low social tolerances.

[Weimann]

I think it's the cartoon figures in the avatars. Try to be serious when you are represented by one of those.

I have no real bad experiences personally, at least not that I can remember (which probably insinuated that they weren't so bad) but I generally measure a forum's quality by the amount of people who annoy me. This forum definitely score an all time low.

At one time in particular, there was a poster that I detested to the marrow of my bone, Not one single of his posts didn't offend me, and yet, he was allowed huge leeway from the mods due to being "a founding member". in the end, they did ban him, but that caused a great uproar among the oldies that lead to sever people getting banned (NOW they are quick to draw those ban-hammers?), and the rules getting the explicit paragraph "do not discuss this guy or we will kick you". I rarely go there any more, but that's just a great example of how things shouldn't be, in my mind.

The official WoW forums can be quite a heated place to be, though. I hung there while I still played the game, and while some boards were more lenient (the RP boards, and strangely enough, the Off Topic) I found that the general idea was "flame fist, ask questions later" - and many didn't bother with the questions. This could of course be due to the fact that it wasn't uncommon for ten threads on the same subject being on the front page at once. And then, the next day, ten new threads. There was just too little moderative action.

[Maggog]

Oh, I've had plenty of bad experiences, mostly in brazilian forums...

This one is the best of all, no doubt, people dont cuss, are polite, someone even apologized to me today and I didn't think that to be possible over the internet.

[Kallisti]

This place is great because it has:

Nice people and good mods (Very rare aming other forums)

A welcoming community (Not as common as it should be)

A nice variety of topics (Pretty rare)

Very few idiots, morons, or troublemakers (Dear Discordia, how I wish this were more common...)

Other forums? The WotC boards are pretty good, at least the parts I've been to, but they don't have nearly as much fun there.

/b/, and 4chan in general, is just...no. I don't think they can even have a discussion on ANYTHING without it turning into a flame war or being threadnapped by trolls or morons.

A lot of specific forums, like the WoW forums and the Siegenet forums, are OK, but you really can't go there just to have fun.

All in all, the Playground is a wonderful online community, and we're really lucky to have it.

*Snuggles entire Playground*I love you guys...

EDIT:

This one is the best of all, no doubt, people dont cuss, are polite, someone even apologized to me today and I didn't think that to be possible over the internet.

My very first post here was to join a PbP game. I was applying for the one villain slot, and it said to PM about it, and NOT TO DISCUSS IT IN THE MAIN THREAD! But this was my first post on any internet forum, and I didn't know what PM meant. So I posted about it anyway, but I didn't just ask what a PM was. I said I didn't know how to get into contact about the slot. And one guy was like "Wow. Apparently some people CAN"T READ! You, sir, are around the fifth to FAIL TO READ THE FIRST POST!" And I said I knew I was supposed to PM, but didn't know how...and he apologized. I'd heard a lot of horror stories about forums, and that really threw me how sorry he was for snapping at me.[/ramble]

[xPANCAKEx]

I dislike a lot of the pseudo-sycophantic behavior that goes on on this forum. Maybe some people don't have too many real friends, maybe some are just desperate for attention... maybe some just plain need to get out more often? Its just a bit disapointing how desperate some people are to kiss ass or claim the latest forum achievement ("yes, i got to announce that there are XYZ amount of members")

Maybe im just a grumpy old curmudgen, but there do seem to be some very fragile egos floating round on the internet

but beyond that, i do enjoy the wide variety of topics discussed on this forum

[Weimann]

I dislike a lot of the pseudo-sycophantic behavior that goes on on this forum. Maybe some people don't have too many real friends, maybe some are just desperate for attention... maybe some just plain need to get out more often? Its just a bit disapointing how desperate some people are to kiss ass or claim the latest forum achievement ("yes, i got to announce that there are XYZ amount of members")That is slightly unnecessary, I agree, but I don't think more people do it here than otherwise. At least the "first!" thing is closely moderated here. It's just the way of the internet; some things are Big Deals.

Around here, I have a feeling those posting stuff like that do it more as a joke than as any real claim to fame, however.

[Mx.Silver]

I've been kind of curious about this as well, especially considering that this particular forum is not the friendliest one I've frequented*. This may have something to do with my gravitation towards small forums (which tend to have a significantly lower proportion of jerks and idiots). Even on the larger ones I don't recall there being much worse animosity there than is displayed here in the recurring Eragon/Twilight threads. Then again, I'm uneffected by swearing and don't have a problem with strong disagreement - something which I suspect places me in a minority.

I have seen a few examples of just general picking-on people and 'cliquing', but this has been on a minority of the forums I've visited (these kind of issues on most have generally been dealt with by mods). Little of it was directed against me, though.


*It's also one of the less interesting ones, but that's a whole other topic.

[Haruki-kun]

/b/, and 4chan in general, is just...no. I don't think they can even have a discussion on ANYTHING without it turning into a flame war or being threadnapped by trolls or morons.

...have you ever even been there? :smallconfused: Outside of /b/, I mean, and not just one scroll down the page.

It's quite possible for people in 4chan to have a discussion. In fact, it happens a lot. Sure, there's lots of swearing and image macros, but it's still a discussion.

[Gaelbert]

I post on some Urban Dead forums that are, in my humble opinion, about as good as this one. Ironically, the one for PKers that I'm a part of is probably the funniest, nicest, and most entertaining forums I've ever had the pleasure of posting on. There was only one real flame war that I can tell, and that one was fully deserved (not going to go into details).

And you can call me crazy, but I lurk on 4chan sometimes and I don't think it's as bad as everyone makes it out to be. I mean, it's not the nicest place but it hasn't drove me insane yet.

Edit: Ninja'd by Haruki.

[Haruki-kun]

And you can call me crazy, but I lurk on 4chan sometimes and I don't think it's as bad as everyone makes it out to be. I mean, it's not the nicest place but it hasn't drove me insane yet.

It isn't, it's just all the hype and people going "4chan's the worst place ever, lulz."

[Moff Chumley]

Yeah, one thing I forgot to mention.

The ''group'' thing. Some forums will just form such tight groups, which can be unwelcomeing, elitist or such, that it(as a(big) part of the forum) draws no new members who will stay. You don't really have that much here.

*cough*

*hack*

:smallmad:

I'm so glad you feel that way, DD.

[RandomNPC]

I signed up on a foam weapons combat forum and in the first post, a hello and welcome thread, i introduced myself and my wife, and stated i enjoyed dual weilding. Within ten minuets a single poster PMed me and my wife long winded rants on how we were inferior for not going sword and board, and he followed it up with a death threat for each of us.

When i brought up in the thread that I felt rather bad about getting such bad PMs just for saying hi and how i fight, the guy who sent the messages got a warning, then my wife and i both got warnings for bringing up private PMs in a public thread. Haven't been back since.



Edit:
On our local foam combat site we had someone come by to flame a member, so we all went to his site and flamed every post. His site crashed and he never recovered it, but in our angry defence, the guy he was picking on was a fairly decent fellow.

[Ichneumon]

To be honest, I think most of my bad forum experiences have been on this forum. Sure, I have been on this forum the longest of any other forum, but still.

I think this forum is only perceived to be more friendly and better than other forums, because of the way "normal" forum interactions are done. Someone already mentioned the avatars and I think the Order of the Stick too has a role in this, I think people are triggered to behave overly friendly with all their "hugs" and "cuddles" to each other, which makes this community appear to be more friendly and welcoming. The severe moderations and rules make sure no "serious" topics are ever discussed so people tend to stay in that general "cuddles and hugs" mood of talking to each other. However, when topics tend to turn controversial or if there happens to be any sincere disagreement between forum members I don't think the forum members act in any way more courteous, friendly or polite than people do on other internet forums. The community in general is actually quite intolerant for ideas or opinions of others that they don't share. Maybe this is a result of the "friendliness" between all the members, I don't know.

I am not really sure why people behave this way, and I've found myself drawn to it too, posting with "hugs" and such, but I find it more and more annoying as it is rather dishonest and unreal.

[Cobra_Ikari]

To be honest, I think most of my bad forum experiences have been on this forum. Sure, I have been on this forum the longest of any other forum, but still.

I think this forum is only perceived to be more friendly and better than other forums, because of the way "normal" forum interactions are done. Someone already mentioned the avatars and I think the Order of the Stick too has a role in this, I think people are triggered to behave overly friendly with all their "hugs" and "cuddles" to each other, which makes this community appear to be more friendly and welcoming. The severe moderations and rules make sure no "serious" topics are ever discussed so people tend to stay in that general "cuddles and hugs" mood of talking to each other. However, when topics tend to turn controversial or if there happens to be any sincere disagreement between forum members I don't think the forum members act in any way more courteous, friendly or polite than people do on other internet forums.

I am not really sure why people behave this way, and I've found myself drawn to it too, posting with "hugs" and such, but I find it more and more annoying as it is rather dishonest and unreal.

...not for everyone. I hug people because I want to hug them, not because I'm trying to behave overly friendly.

It's hard to be passionate about something controversial and keep your cool when talking with someone who's passionate about very different things. So I understand trying to keep topics from straying in certain directions.

Still...as far as I know, we don't have many flamers or trolls here, and while some people can get somewhat...insulting in their defense of things they believe in, it seems like it usually doesn't spill over into the rest of the forum. I've been places where a disagreement in thread A means that one person hunts down the other's posts and rants at them in 10 or so unrelated threads. I don't think we have that here.

*hugs tight*...oh, and that one's for you. :smallsmile:

[Altaria87]

I have to say GameFAQS is also a quite good forum, apart from that you're very unlikely to see anyone ever again outside of the game board you saw them in.
But the SSBB board on GameFAQS was possibly the most fun place on the internet pre-release.

[Gullara]

I haven't been around forums enough to have bad expirences. The only other forum I've been on is The Pure Pwnage Forum, GitP is much better though because there are so many great people and there are more topics than just gaming, too much of one thing is never good even if I really enjoy it.

[potatocubed]

I have no real bad experiences personally, at least not that I can remember (which probably insinuated that they weren't so bad) but I generally measure a forum's quality by the amount of people who annoy me. This forum definitely score an all time low.

Yeah, this is why I like this forum best too. I don't know why this place has fewer asshats than other forums I frequent but it does, so yay. :smallsmile:

[Weimann]

Yeah, this is why I like this forum best too. I don't know why this place has fewer asshats than other forums I frequent but it does, so yay. :smallsmile:I have a theory on that, see below ^^ TL;DR version is: they aren't different people, they just behave differently.
To be honest, I think most of my bad forum experiences have been on this forum. Sure, I have been on this forum the longest of any other forum, but still.

I think this forum is only perceived to be more friendly and better than other forums, because of the way "normal" forum interactions are done. Someone already mentioned the avatars and I think the Order of the Stick too has a role in this, I think people are triggered to behave overly friendly with all their "hugs" and "cuddles" to each other, which makes this community appear to be more friendly and welcoming. The severe moderations and rules make sure no "serious" topics are ever discussed so people tend to stay in that general "cuddles and hugs" mood of talking to each other.Indeed, and that is part of the reasons for the "perception" of friendliness, as I see it. From the boundary-defining rules and the strict moderation to the light-hearted layout and comical avatars, this forum isn't meant for discussing matters of great importance.

I also wonder, if the forum is "perceived" as more friendly and pleasant, is there then no chance that it actually is? :smallwink:
However, when topics tend to turn controversial or if there happens to be any sincere disagreement between forum members I don't think the forum members act in any way more courteous, friendly or polite than people do on other internet forums.People are people, and the Internet is the Internet. I don't think anyone will be able to stop a person from being empathic about something he really cares and has strong opinions about. However, by not allowing topics discussing the most commonly inflammatory subjects, we reduce the times this happens. So, each time it happens, it carries full intensity, but it doesn't happen so often, which leads to a net decrease in nastiness.

I seriously doubt we get "better people" here than other forums on the net. It's just that here, they have to keep in a stricter line, and so they develop different means of expressing something. I believe the "hugs and cuddles" can be just as "real" as any vitriolic flame post can be, just posted from a different perspective of the same person.
The community in general is actually quite intolerant for ideas or opinions of others that they don't share. Maybe this is a result of the "friendliness" between all the members, I don't know.

I am not really sure why people behave this way, and I've found myself drawn to it too, posting with "hugs" and such, but I find it more and more annoying as it is rather dishonest and unreal.I haven't seen a lot of evidence of this, I must say, except possibly in the "Rich is late with the comic" threads, when the OP sometimes gets a load shoved at him. It can be a matter of comparison, as you say; the snuggly atmosphere make it so much more obvious when someone decides that **** just got real. Still, while none of our posters are "better people" than others, they certainly aren't worse either. They are just complex, made up of both hugs and punches, if you catch my meaning :)

Edit: Oh, and also, I do consider a tended and calm language to be more inherently pleasant than one utilizing |_33+speak and cursing, even if it is agitated or even flaming to the tone. That might not be the general feeling, but I for one think it lends it more readability.

[Setra]

I have to say GameFAQS is also a quite good forum, apart from that you're very unlikely to see anyone ever again outside of the game board you saw them in.
But the SSBB board on GameFAQS was possibly the most fun place on the internet pre-release.
Gamefaqs?

My experience there was rather.. harsh... though think a lot of it varies depending on which exact forum within you visit.. The Dissidia Board wasn't so bad, for example...

[PhoeKun]

I've been around the inter-block a couple of times, and there's really only one significant difference I've found between this forum, and all the others.

You know what it is? Me! You're welcome, people. :smallcool:

[Mx.Silver]

The community in general is actually quite intolerant for ideas or opinions of others that they don't share. Maybe this is a result of the "friendliness" between all the members, I don't know.


Or it could be due to the fact that those views in question are ones that most of the people happen to take particularly strong issue with. Which is, you know, a pretty normal run of events for humans.

[Blue Ghost]

I've been on at least one forum where people who flame newbies are sigged and treated as heroes. :smallannoyed:
Most of my experiences have been on the Playground, and really, it's been great. I generally don't participate in the more argumentative threads, since my fundamental views differ from most of the Playground. Some of the sub-forums can get a bit ugly at times, but nothing near the level of what I've seen on nearly every other forum I've visited.

[Ichneumon]

Or it could be due to the fact that those views in question are ones that most of the people happen to take particularly strong issue with. Which is, you know, a pretty normal run of events for humans.

I don't think I completely understand what you mean to say. The fact that it is "normal" for people to disagree strongly about something, doesn't suddenly validate intolerance. In fact, I'd say that the "good" of a community is especially measured by how well they can tolerate unconventional and radically different opinions of other individuals in the community.

[Weimann]

I don't think I completely understand what you mean to say. The fact that it is "normal" for people to disagree strongly about something, doesn't suddenly validate intolerance. In fact, I'd say that the "good" of a community is especially measured by how well they can tolerate unconventional and radically different opinions of other individuals in the community.This is all a bit vague. Can you explain further how this intolerance manifests? Is it by jumping on differences or opinions not relevant to the discussion at hand, or is it by refusing to change opinions when presented with hard evidence, or something else?

[RandomNPC]

i take back what i said before, I have had bad times here.

It's always minor things, but they add up when i think about them.

Every time i mention a player wanting mystic theurge (sp?) in the roleplaying thread, i get flamed for allowing weak casting abilities, i mention monks and within three posts i get a full rundown of why someone thinks monks are inferior, and last time i PMed a mod about something i never got a reply on topic, just a warning about sig length.

thats just the things that jump out at me. But over all, this is where i lurk, and despite these minor things, it's a fun place to be.

[Maximum Zersk]

Well, I spend time on the parts of the internet with less idiots, like here and an older forums I used to go to. One of the worst I've seen is Graphjam and PunditKitchen comments (God, those guys can turn anything into a religion war.) But Forum Experiences? I don't go to many forums so I don't have that many bad ones. The worst would probably be those Nightspammers who try to spam the whole forum before being banned. (It happened; I actually got about a hundred spam PM.:smallsigh:)

[thorgrim29]

Meh, I personally know everyone on the only two other forums I frequent, so things tend to be pretty civil even if the moderation is much more lenient then here (plus, we stopped discussing politics when we realized that the four of us who participated were't about to change their mind). That said, what I like most about this forum is how most people actually write in english and not some bastardised version of it. Plus the media discussions/gaming/rp is cool. But I agree it feels a bit Stepford-y at times, and there is a lot of elitism. Also I think the mods mostly do a great job but that the Gunslinger ITP is a tad trigger happy. I mean, a thread got locked because a guy wanted to rp Jesus Christ, Vampire Hunter just yesterday. I like the place, but to go as far as saying it's the last beacon of hope or some other nonsense is a bit extreme. Oh yeah, I did hang out at Bugman's Brewery a few years back, and it was pretty cool there too.

[Weimann]

Well, yeah, I'm not claiming it's perfect :smallbiggrin: Just the best I've found so far.

[Roland St. Jude]

Sheriff of Moddingham: This thread has turned into a referendum on this forum, which requires an incredible amount of monitoring just to make sure people aren't insulting each other individually or collectively. Thread locked.

As for the Forum, it is what it is.