DiabloFans

Quote from shaggy

I don't know exactly how to moderate that because I happen to be a pretty big proponent of free speech myself. I just, I don't know... I'm also a proponent of tact.

We can have it both ways. There are sub-forums already labeled for off-topic and general discussion.

imho, if you want to whine, there's a perfectly good forum full of whining at http://us.battle.net/d3/en/forum/

I would love to see a D3 which enforced something similar to Elitist Jerks' "no whining" rule. If you want to discuss, discuss. If you want to theorycraft, theorycraft. If you want to whine.. gtfo, nobody wants to read it.

I think most people are just venting their rage on the official forums and that makes sense because its the forum of the company that actually released the product. Forums like this aren't going to attract whiners so poll is fairly pointless. Basically, you are asking ppl who like and play the game enough to discuss strategy if they don't like whiners and tbh I'm surprised the poll shows any opposition at all. Also, I think its fair to point out its not just haters, internetz lawyers, forum professors, inscutible walls of text, and fanbois, but CMs and MVPs spewing technicolor troll vomit all over the place. What really sucks is that people get banned for trolling for bringing up legitimate concerns while the MVPs can act like total morons at any given time and the CMs put up awesome cat posts for your viewing pleasure. Official forums are ran by trolls for trolls. True story.

TL;DR I choose option #3

Theres like 4 people on the first page of this thread who say such succient things in this thread, but in other threads, they do exactly what they are decrying in this thread, attacking the poster, and generally just jump in straight down people's throats for disagreeing with them.

I mean the poll alone in this thread, its troll-tastic.

You either agree with the poll, or you are wrong, the wording alone, its troll 101.

I just think take a harder line on thread deraillers.
And repeat topics should be redirected or merged with existing ones, even the D3 is broken topics, because, although negative, they prompt discussion, and thats what these boards are for. The people claiming this site used to be better are using the same "D2 rose tinted glasses logic" argument they spew out in every single one of these threads unprompted.
Totally agree I quit threads should be insta-deleted.

Theres a number of posters in this thread alone, who when disagree with a topic, don't jump in and discuss, they jump in and flame, and then 2 posts later they say close the thread its been derailed, and they are in here claiming its all QQ posts and they need to be closed.
Yet in this thread they are perfectly reasonable, and capable of intelligent discussion, I just wish they could bring this approach to all threads, even those with opinions they disagree with.

People need to accept some people love this game, others hate it and others think its ok. The threads reflect this in their content and diversity.

Quote from Zergie

I mean the poll alone in this thread, its troll-tastic.

You either agree with the poll, or you are wrong, the wording alone, its troll 101.

And, yet, less than a week ago there was a hate-Blizzard thread with a very similar poll. I surely don't remember you speaking up about that. Oddly enough that thread got locked because after a few pages some guy who just wanted to rag on Blizzard, after getting clarification from Daemaro on what "civil discussion" entailed, went right back to being belligerent.

At the end of the day, it's still a fansite, and therefore we shouldn't expect to be swimming through post after post about how Jay Wilson is a total fuckbag or Blizzard is a money-hungry corporation trying to rape us all to get grandma's social security checks, or how everything Blizzard North makes is the second coming of Christ and the only way to make a good game is to hire them and beg them to rename Torchlight 2 to Diablo 3.

I'm not saying that negative opinions shouldn't be voiced; as I said I'm a strong proponent of freedom of speech. But there is simply something off about people who claim to hate the game, refuse to play it, quit two months ago.... but still come to a fansite to tell us how shitty our game is.

I quit Guild Wars several years ago. I didn't understand the game, I couldn't get into it. I have never gone to a Guild Wars site, let alone a Guild Wars fansite, to tell them just how stupid I think the game is. Why? Because unless I'm going to propose some changes that would keep me interested in the game, what point is there? I can have a small degree of respect for the people who like the game, can't I? Isn't it more productive, as a whole, for me to give feedback for a game I plan on playing? To involve myself in something I do in fact care about?

If D3 is broken and cannot be fixed, if D3 is a humongous failure... if that is how you feel, isn't it appropos to just move on? Isn't the whole problem centered directly around people who claim they quit the game but are still here trolling the shit out of people who play the game?

Just as an example. I've disagreed with Maka probably 85 bajillion times about the AH. I do not agree with his position on that topic at all, and I think that's pretty well-known. But I don't think Maka is a troll, and I don't think that Maka is bringing down the "quality" of these forums. Why? Because he doesn't preface every post with "my friends and i all quit 6 weeks ago" or "this game sucks because everyone is quitting" or "d3 is dead." So while I very much disagree with his opinion on one facet of the game, I do not feel that he's expressing said opinion in a manner that's outright detrimental to the community at all.

And therein lies the difference. I could name 10, 20, 30 people whose militant and antagonistic hatred are detrimental to the community. The whole "Blizzard is too Obvious" thread takes the cake for that right now. If you want to quit D3 to play GW2, fuckin great shit for you! But why are you still on this forum talking shit about Blizzard? Why is it too much to ask that people just move on in a semi-dignified manner and not this "I'm leaving but I'm breaking everything on the way out the door" approach? Is that really too much to ask?

EDIT
To a certain extent it's similar to me going to shop for a chainsaw, and I go to Sears and talk with a person there about what products they have for sale. For some reason I decide their prices are far too high and I tell the salesperson that I'm never shopping there again. But on my way out I decide to take a baseball bat and break a dozen pieces of merchandise and go to everyone I see shopping telling them that Sears sucks balls and that they're retards for shopping there. That's not rational behavior and we really shouldn't be forced to accept it.

Censorship is never the answer. People who think it is are hilariously stupid at best, and extremely dangerous at worst.

Whenever you try to suppress natural human tendencies, it simply ends up building up and then exploding, making a bad situation worse. Hasn't the fact that priests can't stop raping young boys taught you people anything?

If you can't deal with what somebody is saying, it says more about you than about them. Wake up. Just look at all the religious fanatics around the world who murder people for saying things they deem heretical...

Some countries which employ heavy censorship include Saudi Arabia, Iran, Russia, North Korea and China... Notice any trends among those nations?

Quote from Zergie

I mean the poll alone in this thread, its troll-tastic.

You either agree with the poll, or you are wrong, the wording alone, its troll 101.

I've taken pains to edit the OP several times now in order to please those who thought it was biased. A person of your questionable posting history should know better than to accuse me of trolling when it's clear I have been working with the community to use this post in a constructive manner.

Quote from Bilge

Censorship is never the answer.

Some countries which employ heavy censorship include Saudi Arabia, Iran, Russia, North Korea and China... Notice any trends among those nations?

I trust you realize that comparing a video game forum to a third world dictatorship completely invalidates any point you might have had?

Quote from proletaria

I trust you realize that comparing a video game forum to a third world dictatorship completely invalidates any point you might have had?

Only to someone unwilling to discuss the issue and allow other points of view.

To everyone else, I'm discussing censorship, which is very much on-topic in this thread.

Quote from Bilge

Only to someone unwilling to discuss the issue and allow other points of view.

To everyone else, I'm discussing censorship, which is very much on-topic in this thread.

Are you not familiar with hyperbole?

There is a reason discourse in congress goes nowhere, because one side compares the other to Hitler, then the next to Stalin.

You cannot simply lump appropriate levels of moderation under the banner of censorship and claim that all posts should be afforded equal protection under the (non-existent) internet law. If there were absolutely no moderation here the forums would be filled to the brim with gold seller spam.

You've taken what is shaping up to be a fruitful debate and turned it into a polarized censorship vs. non censorship ultimatum.

Quote from proletaria

Quote from Bilge

Only to someone unwilling to discuss the issue and allow other points of view.

To everyone else, I'm discussing censorship, which is very much on-topic in this thread.

Are you not familiar with hyperbole?

There is a reason discourse in congress goes nowhere, because one side compares the other to Hitler, then the next to Stalin.

You cannot simply lump appropriate levels of moderation under the banner of censorship and claim that all posts should be afforded equal protection under the (non-existent) internet law. If there were absolutely no moderation here the forums would be filled to the brim with gold seller spam.

You've taken what is shaping up to be a fruitful debate and turned it into a polarized censorship vs. non censorship ultimatum.

All I'm noticing about your stance is that it takes the spotlight completely off of Blizzard and the bad design issues which have sparked this spate of dissatisfied threads in the first place. Attacking the symptoms of a problem is make-work; the problem won't go away until you dig into its cause(s).

Quote from Bilge

All I'm noticing about your stance is that it takes the spotlight completely off of Blizzard and the bad design issues which have sparked this spate of dissatisfied threads in the first place. Attacking the symptoms of a problem is make-work; the problem won't go away until you dig into its cause(s).

As I've mentioned in this thread already: the problem is not with leveling of criticism, but the repetition of a doomsday narrative and a level of antagonism brought against anyone who would argue with any degree of optimism. I don't think anyone in this community is not aware of the problems people have brought up with the game. There have been countless threads detailing the same story, the same issues, and the same solutions. Many of us who argue that the game is moving in the right direction have described our own faults with the game.

None of us are at fault for ignoring the symptoms or encouraging others to ignore them; however, many are at fault for attempting to describe those symptoms as incurable diseases in their own right.

Quote from Bilge

All I'm noticing about your stance is that it takes the spotlight completely off of Blizzard and the bad design issues which have sparked this spate of dissatisfied threads in the first place. Attacking the symptoms of a problem is make-work; the problem won't go away until you dig into its cause(s).

Arguably this is one of the things this thread is directly about.

This thread is about increasing the quality of discussion on these forums. Increasing the sound-to-noise ratio, so to speak. That includes NOT derailing things. This thread is not about Blizzard and there's no reason to even bring them into this particular discussion. This thread is not about who is to blame. This thread is about the people who use THIS forum and how to get away from what I like to refer to as "RMAH raped my grandmother" posts.

We get that you hate Blizzard. There is no reason at all to inject it into this discussion because this discussion is about how to promote reasonable, adult, discussion on these forums and eliminate not only duplicate posting but posting simply for the sake of hearing yourself whine, etc.

If this is a fansite then most posts, including the negative ones, should be aimed at IMPROVING the game that we're a fan of. It shouldn't be posts detailing how many of your homies quit the game unless that has some relevance to how to improve the game. If a person doesn't have direct suggestions as to how to improve the game their posts should still leave things in such a manner that others could say "yeah, I hear what you're talking about and I think this would go a ways to fix it."

But we don't need posts saying how GW2 is going to rape faces and D3 is just for pedos, or how every last little function of the game is nothing more than a RMAH scheme so that Jay Wilson can purchase a gold-plated space shuttle, or multiple posts about how shitty Legendaries are after Blizzard said they'd begun working on addressing that very problem.

We need to be forward-thinking. But so much of the discussion is, quite literally, crying over spilled milk. Instead of crying about it, since you can't un-do it, let's talk about getting a sponge and making the best out of a bad situation. If that's beyond someone then they really should take their negativity and find another game and forum to appease themselves.

No matter what, no game appeals to everyone. The simple fact that a game doesn't appeal to you, though, isn't carte blanche to turn every thread into a "sky is falling" hand-wringing mess of animosity and pessimism.

EDIT
Just to be clear here.... my stance is that we're all FANS of the game, right? I simply would expect that we'd all behave as such. People who, say, are actively rooting for Blizzard to fail have no business here as an example. We are fans, we should want this franchise to succeed, therefore we should all be forward-thinking regardless of if we have a positive or negative opinion. We should be eager to propose quality solutions instead of tear things down just for the sake of ranting and raving.

Quote from Winspin

Ranting is not bad. Complaining is.

If someone comes here just to smacktalk D3 pointing out how bad everything is in a way of "The auction house sucks", then it can't be healthy for anything.

Constructive critique should by all means be welcome, as this is what changes the game for the, hopefully, better. If you can draw up some points you believe to be valid problems and present them in a way which they can be discussed, then by all means throw it my way. It has lately, however, turned into a shitstorm of kids pointing fingers, rationalising excuses to people who literally bitchslap down their poor post.

If DiabloFans want a good, healthy, debating community it should start striking down those who do nothing more than bring the typical CoD mentality here. Warn/Add fractures to those who post the same whiney posts about class imbalance and why X is better than Z.

In my opinion Diablo 3 has had somewhat of a rough start. What seems like an unpolished game is being rounded off on the rough edges.

The problem isn't one-sided. There's just as much of an issue with hyper-sensitive rule-follower types going nuts when someone criticizes the game without first adding a disclaimer of "But blizzard is great and wonderful and should be worshipped!!!"

The moderation here is necessarily slanted a bit toward this way of thinking, since their goal is to maintain a reasonable forum. Anyone who rocks the boat, even if they have some good points, is seen by authority as dangerous. It's never viewed the other way - that perhaps those getting upset need to grow a thicker skin. This isn't specific to internet forums, nor anything new to the human condition for that matter...