The State of the Forums

Preface: I know we've had threads like this before, so I hope I'm not speaking out of turn here.

The recent fiasco in the micro-blogs prompted me to make this thread. More specifically, I wanted to echo and reply to Aljowen's post:

Reading these forums have been incredibly cringe inducing for me lately. I constantly see people be warned about posting off-topic, and yet continue to do so. I see people quote huge posts only to reply with "I like this". People with avatars that are decade old memes that can't form full sentences (and I don't mean people who have English as their second language). The last time I saw this sort of stupidity was the Rust subform on Facepunch (I don't recommend it if you want to stay sane).

The devs have already warned the community time and time again about things like this, and even introduced posting rules and locking threads, but I've yet to see it have a lasting impact. This is not something the devs should have to deal with when they're developing this game. And yet, these are all things that could be fixed so easily with a bit of common sense from posters. Nobody would mind if you quoted a dev post and then discussed it in the Update Speculation Thread. And instead of derailing a thread to talk about browser compatibilities, why not just start a new thread and link people to it?

If this behaviour carries on, I would be in full support of the devs handing out temporary bans more often for these sort of offences.

I apologise for the rant, but I feel that if we must have this conversation again, let's keep it to one thread.

tl;dr: The devs are too busy to put up with this childish behaviour.

 

I strongly agree with you on this.

 

I agree 100%
There should be more moderation for who joins or comments on threads in my opionion.

 

Actually enforce the age limit, not because of a kid saying he's underage but because of it being obvious the way he acts?
People getting gagged or generally silenced because they are a major pain in the ass for everyone even tho they don't do anything bad as is?
Hell yes please

 

+1, I see so many people bumping old threads with "This doesn't work!" or "I like this!" and once told not to do it again on another page.

 

May as well x-post my reply.

I look back at some of the previous micro blogs threads, and i realized how spoiled we were back then. Rightly so too. Back then they could post some work, and there would be quality discussion about said work. People cared, and actually contributed to the thread. They discussed the code behind it, the implications of said code, and anything else that could actually have some meaning to the thread. Now whenever an update is posted, it's quickly spammed out with absolute worthless shitposting like OMG LOKZ AMAZINGBDFNGBSDNFGD GIB NOW SDGFKJSHGFKJSGK XDDDDDDDDDDDDDXDXDXDXXDDX.

Its really sad to see where the forums have gone to, and I can see why they've stopped posting so much. They have nothing to gain from doing it. And like you said, its a very small number of users who are causing this discord. Though some of us do have power to stop them, and that is the ignore list and report button. If I see an annoying user I throw them on my ignore list and problem solved. I don't have to deal with their whining or useless shitposting anymore. If everyone sensible just ignored problem users, then they would just be shitposting into an empty echo chamber and when they realized that no one was paying any attention they would stop. They're just a very vocal minority causing problems for the rest of us.

There should be a strictly moderated section of the forums, the "content created by beamng" section. 1 Strike and you're out. This is a place where developers can post what they're working on and get feedback. Feedback is important to developers, and they should not throw that out because of a few immature users. Plus, being an early access game, they really need to work on their image. They can't be like a lot of other developers and just stay quite for weeks and months on end until they release an update because then they have the stigma of an uninterested developer who will be much more likely to abandon their game, and some people may not buy beamng because the developers are so silent.

 

Some posts are ok, like a random screenshot or something, but not them goddamn roleplay BS that is spamming this forum and whatnot,and releasing stupid and unrealistic mods, especially config mods, like why?. and speed mods that add a couple of 0s to a jbeam file, it seriously needs to be moderated more. And also, for new people, they shouldn't just "sign up" they should be asked proof of their identity(how that would work i don't know).
And for those who make sh*tposts, you know who you are,dont come complaining about a mod that you downloaded and is 3 years old.
also, please don't put up threads about russian mods not working, of course they don't work -_-

 

dont diss all config mods. I know most are shite, but theres a couple where people have put a lot of time into them, like adding custom skins.

ot
i agree. forums are going downhill imo. biggest thing for me is the age limit. idk what it is, but if its not 16, i think it needs to go back up to 16, or at least maybe 14 or 15.

 

its 16

 

i take this into consideration.
but beamng have no way of finding out a persons age, thats what i mean about signing up, a moderator should ask a new member for proof of their age (linking their facebook page to here or something)

 

The age limit is a fantastic idea in theory, but realistically I imagine it's very difficult to enforce.

I'm not sure what the method is now, but my idea would be a harsh three strike system: 1st strike is a visible warning on their profile, 2nd would be a temporary posting ban, and 3rd would be a permanent ban.

 

but i have seen some people making new accounts straight after being banned on other forums, it will never work in my opionion.

 

Well it is true that the forum is turning into the s*h*posting place of 12 year olds (maybe even younger)


İ think there is no way to make an age limiter because they may pretend older.

Bannig is meanles too because they can open new accounts.

I think closing some threads and not opening them untill an update is the solution

Otherwise blocking the commentary on the users that havent linked their steam is a solution. (That tester badges are not true i own the game but that won't show up so we can't judge the fact "owner" or "not" by just looking them)

 

If the forum age requirement is 16 and you want to enforce it go ahead, ban me and many other good natured forum members for no reason other than living on this planet for less than a certain amount of time. I will be 15 in 9 days and if you want to release me on April 9th, 2017 than do it. You did it with Jackattak and Supernoob. I understand the age requirement and the idea behind it is to keep immature kids out of here but just banning for the soul reason of age is a bit ridiculous. Let the people prove they are mature enough to be among older people and let them stay, if they are 18 or so and acting like they just graduated kindergarten go ahead and ban them.

 

I say lock the entire official content forums. Dev posts only.

Also. We should have a dislike button, enough dislikes and your post gets hidden/deleted. Of course some people would just dislike anything they disagree with, but it would probably help cut down on shitposting.

 

15 is ok, we talk about the 12 (lets make it 11) or younger (at least i talk about that)
--- Post updated ---

That would bring a "trolling" problem

 

12 was and still is enforced. Thats why when supernoob turned 13 he was unbanned. But i dont want to go too far into detail as it is not necessary.

 

I dont think thats a very good idea. Looking back at some of the older micro blog threads, there was a lot of helpful and informative discussion going on there. Plus that would prevent devs from getting feedback/answering questions regarding upcoming content. It should be strictly moderated instead, with a few more moderators added. They should really add more moderators to these forums. There are nearly 130,000 members, and as far as I'm aware there are only 7 moderators to police those members and the 19k threads. And its not like their only job is moderating as well.

The best way to solve the problem is more moderators and much stricter and more heavily enforced guidelines for some places in the forums.

Also the dislike button is fantastic.

 

Age limit: Not reliable. You can just fake it and try your best to act as if you are as old as you've stated and (if you're good) no one will notice.
Dislike button: Very good idea. Maybe make it so that, if a post has 10 dislikes or so, it'll get removed, after being analyzed by a moderator?
Locking Dev forums: Again, good idea. Making a seperate thread for discussing the things the devs have posted is probably the best thing that can be done.

 

We should be able to report posts as spam, if enough reports are handed in someone will review the post and if it is one of the crapposts it should be hidden, but still accessible through the press of a button.
Only problem I see with this is that there might be too many reports for those who run the place to keep up with, so maybe a player council for trust-able long time members? I don't know, but it's just a random thought.