Community, Communication, and Controlling the Chaos

Largely the issue with all this is the difference between forcing people to obey the rules, and asking them to obey the rules.

Here asking is something based on trust which is only possible with smaller groups of people who are happy to stay within boundaries. Forcing is the approach which recently has been needed more often due to the multiple issues which have recently come to the surface.

I don't necessarily know how much BeamNG has grown in its user base in my many years on the forums but I would hazard a guess it has grown massively in the last year or so just by the increase of spam/hate content/whatever. Not only does the issue of rules become more difficult to enforce, the number of occasions it needs to be enforced will increase dramatically also.

Combine that with the fact everyone (or at least at a decent number of the world's population) is locked down/stuck at home, means these issues are more likely to come to the surface and need dealing with. Its a tricky tightrope that the devs/mods walk and I don't envy them the task.

That being said, the communication methods, which everyone on here has already mentioned, might go some way to diffusing the tension/rage which quite a few people are feeling. Going straight to more Draconian "instant ban" type things will only see people get more angry

(Note: not an attack on the community, or the devs, more a retrospective on what comes with large groups of people. Also note: this was an obscenely long post...sorry about that)

 

I joined these forums back in 2015.
But what i can safely say from my own experience and my own opionion is that, i see a lot of jealosy.
what i mean by this is, if one forum user has a mod that another user does not, and the other user wants that mod, they may ask in a thread "where did you get that mod", and some people, are friendly enough and will link them to said mod.
Others, and for no reason, and i am trying so hard not to go into a rant here, they seem to... glorify the fact that they have said mod, would it not be simpler just to reply with a simple, "it's unreleased?"
That was my first issue that i need to raise.
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Another issue i would like to raise comes from personal experience.
The lack of community support on these forums is tremendous.
When i started out on these forums, all i wanted to do was mod mod mod.
But i never got any support from the members here on how to improve mods, for example, once i made a mistake on modelling an engine for the etk, where, a turbo was mounted in an unusual position, i did not realise that i had done this until a couple of hours later, by a freindly forum user who pointed it out to me.
But it was pointed out to me because i was getting a lot of bullying like critism on a seperate website.
That, to me, dragged my esteem and confidence down to the solid hard ground, and i stopped modding for two months, because of some members literally bullying a creative individual who just wants to make mad car engines or mad car designs.
The reason why i have an issue with this is becasue, I see, to this day, a lot of hate for new modders, and personally it just, breaks my heart, for instance...
I seen a thread once of a new user who wanted to port his design over to beamng but did not know how to jbeam the design.
A reply, and it sticks with me to this day and it was just so horrible to see. someone replied "uhh maybe learn how to jbeam first".
This user was a new user, they did not know how to jbeam or use the site to a certain extent.
Would it not be better just to show them where to locate the material to at least get some notion of how to build a skeleton for their design? rather than troll them for not knowing how to jbeam? come on, seriously.
Just because you have more experince than that new user does NOT mean that you can drag them down to the ground, you are not superior, you are not a master, you will fail, because you too are NOT perfect.
These are the only two major issues i have.
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I am still activly modding BeamNG, not because i have to, but because i want to, it fills my time, and is a good hobby.
Upon saying that, i seriously have doubts on the future of the forums, I don't know how things will play out, but i hope that they can change for the greater good.

Thank you for reading.

Daniel
AKA (Daniel398767)

 

Sorry for the bump and if I get this thread locked. I'm sorry. I'm not a 100% sure if this is a dead topic or not. I can say that stuff went on with me and Shiokarai since this thread has been dead. For me, it was tagging users too many times. Some Forum Discussion is a thread, btw if you wanna go on there.

 

Just curious, what does it have to do with the thread? I'm autistic and I see things differently.

 

They probably thought it was community screenshots because of the similar titles

 

Thank you.

Yeah, you're probably right.

 

To everyone questioning my picture post, um, well, in the side bar of the forums main tab, i saw the word community in the title and thought this was community screens. Sorry for any confusion.

 

That's okay, man. I wonder why you think these forums are a toilet.

 

I dont think the forums are a toilet, i simply just posted in the wrong one due to misreading the name...

 

Oh, okay.