The reason Robert is usually mentioned, is because he is the one that originally was very rash on the forums.
There are some genuinely mean people and there are people who might appear or act mean on the outside, for some reason my gut instinct always told me that deep inside he's not mean and that he's helpful. Usually one could easily distinguish those on a forum, as he was not like that in every single post. When I joined I asked questions, and I remember a particular user flaming and insulting / degrading everyone he was 0% constructive 100% mean/flame, all the time, so it SHOULD be fairly easy to seed out the bad weed
Before him the whole thing was still silly, but it wasn't really offensive or aggressive.
I remember Cheeseboy's posts and his nice comments on ENIGMA...... So ok maybe now things have changed for the better but imagine new people coming to see devs fight and talk trash about their own product and the work of others, how the hell do you think this resonates to new people, will they say "WOW this is an amazing project and community" or will they simply dismiss this as a kiddies playground.......that's the question.
So the ending questions is - What is exactly the thing that needs to be restructured? Just moderation for swear words?
Fuck no
You want examples
?
Here are some, it's all about common sense:
1) People who abuse and CONSTANTLY flame developers or other users, and are of absolute no use (such as the one person I witnessed when I joined), those usually are not contributors and trouble from the first day they join.....Those are the #1 candidates for moderation or ban.
2) Spewing garbage that could be a liability for the site and the project. Inciting illegal acts (do I even need to give examples here !?!?!?) inciting violence, hate, slander, defamatory remarks on a dev/user, making personal attacks against a person, homophobia/racism, etc. These kinds of discussions/remarks have absolutely no room in the official forums of the product, you can disagree with devs, other users, you can be harsh in your opinions, the line goes quite far, but there HAS to be a line that one cannot cross otherwise you just allow anything and things can quickly spiral out of control ! People who still think moderation is unnecessary have probably not much experience in forums or have not experienced situations that require it.
company/product bashing? Like many here (usually not developers, the only dev who actually bashes them is Robert) bash YYG, GM:S, Microsoft, Apple etc. Prettier site? As most know there was one very pretty which never went live. Josh doesn't want this to seem like a product or even worse, a
In a way YES. BTW, there HAS been bashing from devs, inside source code and on forum, I recall clearly comments made against YYG and new nicknames given to YYG and GM/GMS, long before I started using some of them as I thought it was kinda funny at the time, (and still do). But there is a line to draw, bashing a product when you argument your statements....
For example I bloody hate what YYG did with GM and the direction they took, their arrogance, their responses to people who asked them about features, removed features, etc, their removing of some functions, their telling people make your own, the way they handle certain things in GMS........so there is a difference on the intentions and context. Then there is straight / random bashing without any arguments, just bashing for the kicks of it, probably by people who never even bothered using the product, have not paid for it, or are newbies who can't learn how to use it. I think it is fair to assume that most of us here who bashed the product have been long time users of GM and paid users......I've known about GM since its beginning, it actually started as an animation progam......I've started USING GM at version 5 and been a paying user all the way. It's one thing to bash a product, but when is he line crossed ?
Making derogatory/degrading/racist/hurtful comments towards a person..... I think in all fairness most people here who bashed a product or company made solid and valid arguments. Others might not agree with point of views though. I could give MANY valid reasons why I stopped using GMS, but some kiddies attached to GMS might strongly disagree with me, because usually people who do, don't raise the bar and won't ever discover WHY......Catch the clown galore and boring ass games. How many of the user base of GM make EXCEPTIONAL quality games?
The majority ? How many truly push the limits ? I don't think it is the majority, and if I'm wrong correct me....
Common sense......you moderate when you see a situation can spiral out of control. Of course some mods on forums ban or close topics very quickly, that is BAD moderation. I've seen cases of people being banned or moderated for no valid reasons, whilst I've seen other people get away with a lot of shit, but they agree and suck up to mods and admins/company......(sounds familiar???
)
That is an example of BAD moderation and power abuse
But whether an open source / hobby project or closed source, EVERY forum should have rules. Otherwise no rules then anything goes........Then don't be surprised to see topics like these and any negative image you might get.....
As far as some people making comment that we should not talk about YYG or GM, that is difficult considering ENIGMA is tied to GM
and the reason of ENIGMA was not because GM was exceptional and flawless.......
finished product, mostly because that will attract a lot of people asking why X doesn't work or why Y isn't added in ENIGMA in the next 48h hours. People, especially comming from GMC, don't know what FOSS is. They expect from us the same things (or more) they expect from a company like YYG. And that is not what we want.
So use 127 point font, red big and bold and
make it clear that this is WORK IN PROGRESS. I have seen VERY negative comments against ENIGMA by people outside this forum, by the product itself, some very harsh terms even used by GM devs themselves..... So why the bloody hell can't we call out what deserves to be called out ?
But at the same time I want that new site online for MYSELF. So Josh, can we maybe put the site live, with just giant letter "THIS IS PRE-BETA!" or something?
lmao! then you scare people away thinking the product is absolutely bug ridden ,does not work and not worth using...... In my opinion work in progress is better. One could make fully functional games in ENIGMA, in certain situations more work is needed......this project will not cater to those who are newbies , D&D only and don't have minimal coding knowledge or work around skills.....People might join thinking ENIGMA is 100% compatible with GM, I think there are certain things that should be very obvious and documented on the main site, in nice big bold letters.......127 points will do!
Then people who complain have no excuse they didn't read
unless they are totally blind !