Moderate the post "Read this OR be ignored!"

[caiotoon]

TL;DR

The "welcome" post promotes toxicity and should be moderated.

What ?

The post Read this OR be ignored! is, in many cases, the first contact of a player who wants to engage with the community and feel like they can collaborate to improve the game, but the post is quite discouraging. The post has several patronizing and rude statements and should be tuned down a bit to encourage collaboration in a more constructive way.

Why ?

There are a few passive aggressive, some straight out aggressive expressions on the post, such as:

• Don't like mods, your problem
  Don't ever ask "I can also provide a picture/screenshot of what I mean. Should I?".
  You like colors? We like content! Don't use colors in text if there is no good reason.

The last two sentences don't even add a lot to the reason why it's not a good idea, and although we're mostly grown ups, it's a bit intimidating and promotes a toxic behaviour in the community.

I understand the moderation team must be tired of bad posts, but I don't believe that the answer is to take out on the community.

[aka13]

This post has been there for 8 years. You are here for 2 months. Don't you think, that if that post was promoting "toxicity", this forum by now would have been dead, and all full with flamewars?
There is a good saying, "when in Rome, do as the Romans do". If you don't want to promote toxicity, your third post propably should not be "I don't like this place, you should change".

[coppercoil]

This post has been there for 8 years. You are here for 2 months. Don't you think, that if that post was promoting "toxicity", this forum by now would have been dead, and all full with flamewars?

The things are not "you either live, or die". If forum can live with some toxic posts, that does not mean everything is fine. Yes, I can learn forum rules despite they left a bad taste in the mouth. I can outlive that.
That topic is not so deadly-bad. Though, it is worth improving.

I'm not obsessed with modern pseudo-humanism like "be nice to everyone" or "don't say a bad word", but THE GREETING in the forum could sound better.

[jodokus31]

The current one is probably honest and I really like the honesty among devs, mods and members, which includes, that things are not whitewashed.

But, not sure, maybe it stems from a time, where they were more activity and also more problematic posts. So, I agree partly with OP. At least OP provides a view of somebody, who enters this lovely place.

[Pi-C]

TL;DR

The "welcome" post promotes toxicity and should be moderated.

The post could definitely do with some editing because English isn't the author's first language and there are some mistakes that may make it difficult to understand the text. But I don't think it should be moderated because of some abstract concept like "promoting toxicity".

What ?

The post Read this OR be ignored! is, in many cases, the first contact of a player who wants to engage with the community and feel like they can collaborate to improve the game, but the post is quite discouraging. The post has several patronizing and rude statements and should be tuned down a bit to encourage collaboration in a more constructive way.

If you'd go down to the core you will find that the people who write in this forum do so for selfish reasons: There are the developers who want to get in touch with the community so they can improve their product and sell more of it. There are the players who have bought the game and want to max out their ROI by getting the developers to fix the occasional bug that makes the game unplayable, or to add new features that will make playing the game even more fun. Other players may want to show off their creations, still others may be looking for help with certain game mechanics so they can get more fun out of their game, yet others may look for collaborators/opponents so they can enjoy a multiplayer game. There are modders who want to promote their mods because they are proud of what they have made, or need help with a problem that's so mind-boggling it hasn't let them sleep in days. Occasionally, there are people who never played the game but want to ask questions for a school assignment or some research. Finally, there are the spammers who come here because they want to promote some other product, website, or agenda. Whatever the reason people are here, it is a selfish one when you are truly honest.

Why ?

There are a few passive aggressive, some straight out aggressive expressions on the post, such as:

• Don't like mods, your problem
  Don't ever ask "I can also provide a picture/screenshot of what I mean. Should I?".
  You like colors? We like content! Don't use colors in text if there is no good reason.

"Don't like mods, your problem": Perhaps this seems rude at first glance, but there are posts like this that explain why references to mods may be a good thing even if you don't want to use mods. Perhaps a link in the original post would have helped, but actually the post I've linked to is shown in a prominent place, just 2 lines above the posting you've complained about, in the "Announcements" part, so people wondering about the "Don't like mods" part could easily find it.

The last two sentences don't even add a lot to the reason why it's not a good idea, and although we're mostly grown ups, it's a bit intimidating and promotes a toxic behaviour in the community.

The last two sentences add the reason why it's not a good idea implicitly:

If you have a problem that you can't solve on your own, it's in your own interest to provide as much information as possible right from the start. Pictures can be so much better at showing what's wrong than some verbal description that can be easily misunderstood if author and/or readers are not versed very well in English. If you show a screenshot of your rail system, people may immediately see where a signal is missing. If you provide a saved game, others could see if your problem is caused by misbehaving or incompatible mods. If you attach the log file, somebody else may see something in there that you've missed. Actually, it's easy as pie: If you want help, and pronto!, don't waste time asking whether you should provide additional data, but just add whatever you have.

The other sentence is just as easy: "We like content!" -- that's the clue right there. Colors may be useful to emphasize things, but if your complete post looks like a rainbow, the multitude of colors becomes distracting, making it hard to read your text. So you should rather spend your time on writing something that's to the point and contains all necessary information instead of wasting it on fancy formatting.

I understand the moderation team must be tired of bad posts, but I don't believe that the answer is to take out on the community.

As I've shown at the beginning, we all are writing here for intrinsically selfish reasons. Therefore, I don't understand the thread title -- Read this OR be ignored! -- as a threat or as "taking it out on the community", but as a simple statement of fact that will help me achieve my selfish purpose: There are so many posts others could respond to, that they can be picky and choose the postings that conform to a higher standard. That's why I can improve the chances that the developers implement a certain feature I want, or that another player explains me why my setup doesn't work as expected, by following the rules set out. Moreover, it seems to me these rules are not arbitrarily put up just because a forum should have some rules! Rather, they are guidelines based on common sense -- and the experience of a moderator who knows what has already been asked, what has evoked many responses, and what has been mostly ignored.

[Tertius]

I never saw this sticky as promoting toxic behavior. When I was new to the game and thought about making some comment about improving the game, I saw that sticky and decided to not post. Not because it discourages posting, it just made me think about what to post and I realized my experience with the game was not mature enough to make a suggestion for a change. Some time later I found out it was the right decision to not post, because I didn't understand game mechanics properly at the time.
So it prevented time wasting on my part (writing an irrelevant suggestion) and on each other's part (reading, even answering to an irrelevent post).

In general, the sticky asks you to think about your suggestion and provide all information required to fully understand what you might suggest. This is a quite oldschool request, because today people expect to just throw one word or one phrase as suggestion, no explanation, and it's like pulling teeth to get actual and vital explanations. This behavior, although common these days, is actually a huge time waster, so the sticky promotes efficient communication from all sides.

In forums, I try to estimate how long someone might have thought about what he posted and how long it took him to type his post. About this time I will spend with answering. Many posts look as if someone needed 10 seconds to send 3 words. Ok, then I invest 10 seconds with thinking about and answering to that post. The sticky prevent this kind of time wasters and forum congestion.

[coppercoil]

I think you wrote too much philosophy for such simple issue:

>>> The topic sounds rude, may it sound more friendly? <<<

I agree it is honest, may the honesty sound any better?
I agree those rules are important, may we express the importance with some other words?

[Kyralessa]

But it has smiley faces all over it!

Or are those new?

To me it looks more like tongue-in-cheek humor, not rudeness, but without the smiley faces I think it would read differently.

[FuryoftheStars]

English isn't the author's first language and there are some mistakes that may make it difficult to understand the text.

I believe this to be the crux of the issue. To me, the post reads very differently with this knowledge in mind.

[Koub]

English isn't the author's first language and there are some mistakes that may make it difficult to understand the text.

I believe this to be the crux of the issue. To me, the post reads very differently with this knowledge in mind.

PI-C nailed it indeed. Not all of us are native English speakers. I even guesstimate most of us aren't. I'd rather let the original unadulterated writing in this post unless it was blatantly aggressive/rude/toxic or misleading - which I don't feel it is. My stance on moderation is "the less is done, the better".
If its OP, upon rereading it, finds it doesn't really translate his train of thought, he'll correct it for sure. But after so many years seeing it, I feel it's kinda part of the furniture.

[Tertius]

I don't mind text from non english speakers, as long as the meaning is clear. Be tolerant, don't be too sensitive. It's just the way things are. I read a strong German accent in Koub's and ssilk's posts, including the post this thread is about. For me (German as well) it is 100% clear what is meant in that sticky. However, everyone should be familiar with English text written by non native speakers, because the vast majority of people are not native English speakers and English is only the least common denominator everyone agreed to use to understand each other.

[caiotoon]

I dont think the clarity is a problem, the post is quite clear and English wasn’t a problem for me at all. I’m a non native English speaker myself. I understand if you say it’s a cultural thing, and that doesn’t sound rude in the authors original language, but my only point is that it feels a bit discouraging and reduces inclusion.

So far, it doesn’t seem like the community agree with me.

[Loewchen]

The topic was created when there were only a few thousand people playing the game and only a fraction active on the forum, back then all topics like it had similar direct and informal language, they just lost it after being rewritten dozens of times. I do not think it's toxic but I find it hard to read, it could use an overhaul to remove bloat and improve its structure.

[Koub]

I read a strong German accent in Koub's and ssilk's posts, including the post this thread is about.

Which is kinda fun, because I'm French

[Tertius]

Which is kinda fun, because I'm French

Argh! I apologize. I guess I mistook you for Loewchen, and if I'm wrong again, I will hide under some brown paper bag for the next few years.

[mmmPI]

As I've shown at the beginning, we all are writing here for intrinsically selfish reasons. Therefore, I don't understand the thread title -- Read this OR be ignored! -- as a threat or as "taking it out on the community", but as a simple statement of fact that will help me achieve my selfish purpose

I think your argument about the purely selfish motives animating people posting on the forum is saddening, and would like to point out that there are also many comments of people just saying "thank you for the great game", or for that super mod . And i wish you do not see it as selfish people trying to promote something they like so they can have more of it

Also i have been helped on this forum and learn things from people that spent time for it which i think were guided by "altruism" and not some secret desire to proove their knowledge to me or any selfish motives

Nonetheless i agree on your conclusion and the reasons that lead to it that it is a statement of fact that will help anyone achieve a specific purpose.

So far, it doesn’t seem like the community agree with me.

Maybe it's only the persons who disagree that are responding

It's difficult to define toxicity in itself as to me it is a variation to the norm, things considered toxic in a place would be accepted somewhere else and vice versa, in that regard the post you mention seems to me as trying to convey the rules of etiquette/explaining the norm which imo has a little 'roughness' in it, the post as the forum. I think the previous answer do not disagree on the existence of it, rather try to explain it, either saying it is working how it is, or it's the sometimes difficult part of earing honesty, not hypocritical, direct statement.

I think part of it comes from the communication habits of the audience and part of it comes from those of the developpers and moderators which are not so different in the case of factorio, a 'difficult game for grown up that like robots' which would be different from many other genre of games sort of what you describe as 'cultural thing'.

Aside from the core message, it is possible that after such long time the audience of the specific message is a little different, factorio has a larger community than in 2014 and maybe the post could be moderated/edited to make it easier for non-english speakers to get the sense second degree in the text which is "a guide and not a law" with the rule -1 " every rule has exception" and the smiley faces.

[ssilk]

Sorry answering so late, I had my dose of Covid this last days.

Well, to the article: at the time of that post it was so that there where many suggestions that where technically unuseable. The reasons are all listed in that article.

I tried my very best to make it funny: I added many smileys. And also tried to make it interesting to read by adding many different font sizes and some translated German proverbs.

Well, it’s still not good (that post) and needs to be rewritten (or not). But it helped measurable to increase the boards quality/usefulness.

Toxic? When that article had been written that word didn’t exist in that usecase. sorry, I need to laugh, because nowadays everything that might be misunderstand-able seems to be “toxic”.


To be honest when I edited the Suggestion Template weeks ago, I already played with the thought to remove the sticky-flag from that article and let it go into the digital graves of time. But Koub also said it’s now part of the furniture of this board. So I didn’t.

If someone wants to write a new article (new sticky articles), that can replace the old one: you’re welcome. Just write me. I’m too long moderating this board.

P.S.: thanks for all the nice words.

P.P.S.: interesting facts
viewtopic.php?p=31496#p31496 explains under which circumstances that article was written, and the original title was “Having sex with biters (Read this OR be ignored!)” (I looked into the articles logs)
THAT was of course toxic. but as already said: it worked quickly.

[coppercoil]

the original title was “Having sex with biters (Read this OR be ignored!)”

I like that title! This is the classic: "sex" - now we have your attention.

[ssilk]

I wrote an explanation into that article. Please tell me, if I made it worse (or better).

[coppercoil]

Please tell me, if I made it worse (or better).

I think it is worse because who will read rules introduced by a novel? Also, excuses reduces the power of statements. The writer may think this is an explanation, the reader will think this is an excuse, because he was forced (by title) to read that post.

I'd suggest 2-3 sentences, maybe after TLDR section.

OT

Also, that post has non-toxic issues: there's a chaos of different styles: regular, bold, underline, supersize, quote. And now we've got a green
This is just a thought; I know, writing good texts is not easy.