Forums, and manners

[Starnerf]

My frame of mind is if you have time to make a post, you have time to make it helpful.

 

[Erana]

I totally agree with what tomato said. I think a big part of why people are so unhelpfully rude when somebody asks something like that is because they are those type of sad people that care too much about their post count on a forum. I guess some people feel threatened that somebody has got 1-up when they could have googled it. Thats how pathetic forums can be.

As I've said countless times, Escapist forum interactions should well translate into a face-to-face conversation.
So, a bunch of people are having conversations of relative intelligence, and then someone says loudly, "How do I do X?"
Its kinda disruptive, even if the speaker meant no malice. And just like in the real world, if someone feels like they've been disrupted, they're gonna react.

Of course, I think this is perhaps a subtle example of post/join bias. I mean, if TheBobMaster asked how to do that, he wouldn't get so many nasty replies.

Also, while we're on the topic of forum manners, I'd like to slap everyone who insulted the poor boy who shared his short story.
My #1 rule in etiquette is Never try and kill someone's creative spirit. What kind of jerk would laugh at a little boy's efforts to write a story? That's classless, tactless bullying.
What else bothers me so much about it is that young people are sensitive, especially with their burgeoning inner artist. He trusted us to help him with his writing, and how did the Escapist respond? By trying to kill his will to create. As an artist, I know how much overblown critism hurts, especially coming from someone who I have some respect for.
And don't give me any bullshit about how its his fault for having put it out there. I expect better from the Escapist users.

 

[cuddly_tomato]

As I've said countless times, Escapist forum interactions should well translate into a face-to-face conversation.
So, a bunch of people are having conversations of relative intelligence, and then someone says loudly, "How do I do X?"
Its kinda disruptive, even if the speaker meant no malice. And just like in the real world, if someone feels like they've been disrupted, they're gonna react.

I agree with you when it happens in the middle of a thread. But when someone starts a fresh thread to specifically ask about something that isn't distrupting anyone, there isn't a need to get involved if you can't add anything constructive - and no, the person doesn't "need to learn" (not directing that at you Erana).

The rest of your post I wholeheartedly agree with. I have been in that situation myself. Work for ages on something, done my best, put my time and effort in, for free, to do something a lot of other people can enjoy. And then some people just take a shit all over it and justify to themselves by saying "you need a thicker skin". Actually no, certain people need to learn that manners apply to the interactions of the internet just as much as they do in the real world out there.

 

[Radelaide]

Just because you're on the internet, doesn't mean you automatically get to act like a prat.

I hate watching people start flame wars and calling people nasty names on the internet when I know perfectly well these same people probably wouldn't do it in real life.

Though I must admit, I have NO patience for "lol hy guyz I r hre tu post abt ZP, why 4 u all mad?"

But I'm an old man, and I refuse to "net/text" speak.

I think this is also incredibly rude. Speaking like that doesn't just label you as lazy, it's also labels you as stupid. It's also incredibly annoying to decipher this kind of "talk". If you have time to make a post, at least put some effort into your grammar and punctuation. Let's have "Zero Punctuation" errors on our forum, eh? Okay, no more bad puns, promise. =3 But the point I'm trying to make is that if you type how you speak, you'll be fine. You speak like that (in that quote) you're probably not the sharpest bulb in the box. (the sharpest being the broken one, obviously.)

 

[Syntax Error]

John Gabriel's Greater Internet F*ckwad Theory also holds in this part of the plains? OH THE HUMANITY!!!

 

[Novajam]

-big snip-

This thread has nothing to do with all that and isn't even about the escapist. This about manners in general.

Oh. Well you related to something that happened her e a couple of days ago, so I assumed you were talking about the Escapist in particular. It's just a pain to see the jagged-edgedness of a lot of posters all the time.

My apologies for venting out of place

 

[wewontdie11]

I try and aid somebody if they post a question. Like in the thread a couple days ago where somebody was asking about posting links as text and NewClassic ninja'd me twice with advice the helpful git he is.

 

[wilsonscrazybed]

I am going to quote the post Cuddly was talking about.

I was wondering if there was a Glados Voice emulator out there, as in text to speech?

Someone asking for help. Okay let's see what people say.

Not that I know of. There's this wonderful thing you can use though to find out. A SEARCH ENGINE!

A decent suggestion, a search engine might help if the thing he was searching for actually existed. My guess is the OP did search, and was out of ideas. He encourages another new user to post

What is this "Search Engine" you speak of. I is not like I use it to find the website every day.

I get the feeling he was trying to be funny, but failed. So the OP makes it clear.

I used the magical powers of google to search it but I found nothing so I decided to ask around here.

So YougetWhatsGiven suggests searching a couple other sites, but it comes off a bit snarky.

Ah, but you underestimate the equally magical powers of Ask.com or Yahoo!

To Cuddly: I love ya man, even your bald head and that terrible nickname your girlfriend calls you, but there's no reason to start a thread about a thread. If you see someone acting like a jerk you can come directly to any staff member, over PM or on IRC.

To snarky one-liners: Stop alienating new users. Even if you don't know the answers there might be some who do.

 

[jim_doki]

this is an interesting idea. Ideally we wouldn't need threads like this, people would be able to understand the guidelines and be done with it. politeness goes a long way

 

[heliosa]

I'd like to clarify this. I did search for this, found no conclusive results and decided to ask around here as a last resort. I did get a few good answers, but some weren't as good. End of story. We can let this be and not start a flame war.

 

[arcainia]

I agree with this. Ok, if the person created a thread about "where can I find X?" then yeah, they may have it coming. Though the person could state in their post that they have already searched Google and couldn't find anything useful.

But people's behavior gets ridiculous when it comes to this:
A few days ago I wrote my own thread, asking for people's OPINIONS about something, and someone still told me to use Google(and no, it wasn't a joke), like it was going to start a deep and thought provoking conversation with me or something. THAT, is rude, and stupid. I wont name names, but you probably know who you are.

So yeah, some people need to get off their high-horse and try to be useful. If you have nothing to contribute, don't post.

 

[The Wooster]

The problem with help requests and such is that they're fine the first time but 27 requests later and even the most polite user is ready to crack. Same goes for people starting repeat threads (oh those fucking hadron accelerator threads). I don't think there's many users who actually go from thread to thread screeching "search button. Do you use it ************?" It tends to be different users who've lost their rag on that particular topic, happens to the best of us. On the bright side, a short sharp shock is sometimes what a new poster needs and if they're going to contribute to the forum in any meaningful way they shouldn't have to be told more than once.

Also I totally read this thread like a week ago. Use the search button for god's sake.

 

[Sporky111]

I think people should rely on more reliable sources for information than Forums (Escapist in particular). This is an opinion site, not IT. Google it, or Wiki, or actual tech support would be a better first step.