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Rating: 2 votes, 5.00 average.

Community bull

Posted November 17th, 2010 at 08:55 PM by Knuth Sleuth
Updated November 17th, 2010 at 09:09 PM by Knuth Sleuth
I've generally been impressed with the community and its one of the reasons that I play, but I have to say I'm really disappointed in this thread:

http://www.heroscapers.com/community...t=33590&page=2

The number of one word negative responses that don't add value and lack of community policing makes me sad. That the responses come from people with lots of "rep" makes it even sadder. From what I can tell, "Rep" is mostly a measure of entertainment value. Say something funny/cool, get lots of rep. It makes me concerned that people are more interested in being jackasses than I had previously thought.

The word 'errata' may be strong, but the general concept of game mechanics maturing/changing over time is fact and the desire for consistency in game mechanics is a worthwhile one. Being relatively new, I've noticed many inconsistencies or really "corrected" powers between waves and I too have wondered why don't we fix some of the older units that are disadvantaged.

Given that the game is discontinued, I believe the official rules now lie somewhere within the collective community and the opportunity to tweak the rules does exist. The game is not frozen in stone like a deceased family member. It is a living experience that we contribute to by playing and now, hopefully owning.

Anyway, nothing too serious, but disappointing to see what I'd thought was a pretty solid community act like a bunch of griefers.
Total Comments 11

Comments

Old
Jexik's Avatar
I think Cav's response was sufficient. More people copying him (many of whom had less rep) was probably not needed.

Romans are fine. Their bonding working with everything is one of the things that makes scape what it is.

I don't like the general "big mean community vibe" I've seen in a number of people's posts, but I guess it's just because I'm part of that big mean community. We all started as first time posters.

I'm sure there are more options, but I think here are the three main ones:

1. Conform to the community standards.
2. Complain about the community standards.
3. Improve community standards by posting interesting stuff.
Posted November 17th, 2010 at 09:38 PM by Jexik Jexik is offline
Old
Hey Jexik,
Thanks for your comment. You are a smart guy and have contributed a lot to the community. I appreciate the feedback.

I have to admit that I'm afraid to respond to your comment because I am guessing the probability distribution of outcomes from this exchange are:
80% - we disagree - no consequences for me
15% - we disagree - negative consequences for me
5% - we agree.

We've both been on the interweb long enough to know these threads rarely end well. But, there is hope, so I'm responding.

(The 5% is appropriately the same probability of Ne-Gok-Sa mindshackling another. )

Re. Cav's response, I am not sure what you mean by "sufficient", but I think it falls short of the expectation set by Revdyer's "If you happen to want my respect (or rep) here" post. I agree that AgentDex's post was also imperfect.

But, I don't know your definition of community standards and your definition can differ from Revdyer's, so our views can reasonably differ.

Regarding the options you've set out, I'm not sure they are solutions to "the big mean community vibe". From my vantage point, I have positive repped the people who added value to the thread to reinforce the behavior I like. I think negative repping fails to modify behavior. Option 3 is the best, but sadly, I don't have that much interesting analysis to add yet because I've been really busy at work.
Posted November 18th, 2010 at 12:28 AM by Knuth Sleuth Knuth Sleuth is offline
Old
CapnRedChops's Avatar
I think AgentDex was wrong in what he was calling for, but to me his post showed that he (or she, I dunno) had put thought and effort into their opinion, and to simply state "No." with no reasoning as to why is a bit disrespectful of the effort AgentDex put in.

Not the world's biggest deal, I didn't negrep Cav, but there's nicer ways to say no.

I think the real issue is the 'dogpiling', all the "Me too!" Cav-wannabes, that make Cav's original slightly harsh response into something much harsher community sanctioned response.

CRC
Posted November 18th, 2010 at 08:00 AM by CapnRedChops CapnRedChops is offline
Old
kolakoski's Avatar
Especially when it was clearly a semantics error. If the OP had said, as he did in his blog, that what he meant was that the lack of "official" presence frees us to make the game our own, individually and collectively, by using our own judgments to "tweak" existing units, as the Competitive Unit Congress does already, rather than use, or misuse, the word "errata", he would have been OK.

To my mind, it was clear what he intended, and that he meant no disrespect to anyone. Jumping all over his case for daring to suggest that some changes might be desirable enough among the general community to warrant a written "errata", however misguided you feel that idea is, is disrespectful, not only to the OP, but by extension, to the many on this site who do not believe (see the CUC, Heroscape Legacy, etc.), as one poster said in effect, that Heroscape, as it is, was akin to the Bible to a Fundamentalist Christian, that is, every word was true and immutable, handed down to us by God (or, in this case, by the Designers).
Posted November 18th, 2010 at 09:24 AM by kolakoski kolakoski is online now
Updated February 16th, 2012 at 09:32 AM by kolakoski
Old
Hey CRC and Kolakoski,
Thanks for your feedback. I appreciate your thoughtful comments.
CRC, I agree that the "dogpiling" makes it worse. Do you believe this is less mature members emulating role models or actual ill-intent? Do you think knowing this would help us figure out how to reduce the behavior?
Kolakoski, I agree with you that people need to move beyond rulebook dogma and understand that the game is theirs. Hopefully, with time, people will understand what WOTC dropping the game really means.
Posted November 18th, 2010 at 06:04 PM by Knuth Sleuth Knuth Sleuth is offline
Old
CapnRedChops's Avatar
Quote:
CRC, I agree that the "dogpiling" makes it worse. Do you believe this is less mature members emulating role models or actual ill-intent? Do you think knowing this would help us figure out how to reduce the behavior?
I don't think there's ill-intent, but I can't be sure. I think it's less mature folks wanting acceptance, trying to get in with the old guard and each other. Nothing bonds like a war. There was also some genuine amusement there at Cav's response: shallow, but understandable.

CRC
Posted November 21st, 2010 at 02:58 PM by CapnRedChops CapnRedChops is offline
Old
dok's Avatar
Quote:
I think negative repping fails to modify behavior.
Given the amount that people complain about being neg repped, it sure seems like it has some impact. There's also cases of people getting negrepped a bunch early in their time here, complaining about it, but eventually realizing that the neg reps reflected the community standards and changing their behavior.

I'm not arguing that it always modifies behavior (nor should it), but it does sometimes.
Posted November 21st, 2010 at 04:30 PM by dok dok is offline
Old
Chardar's Avatar
I'll vouch for the system. I'd been here about two months before being neg repped, but it straightened me right up. To this day I always keep that in mind when posting, and it's gotten me pretty far here.
Posted November 21st, 2010 at 08:18 PM by Chardar Chardar is offline
Old
Sherman Davies's Avatar
Chardar isn't the only one. Without naming names, I can think of more than a few members who had a rocky start and were neg-repped for it, but persevered and became productive, civil members of the community.
Posted November 21st, 2010 at 09:33 PM by Sherman Davies Sherman Davies is offline
Old
ok. thanks guys. you've convinced me that negative feedback works for new members.

do you think it works for older members?
Posted November 23rd, 2010 at 11:32 AM by Knuth Sleuth Knuth Sleuth is offline
Old
dok's Avatar
It depends what you mean by "works", I guess. Most older members have long since figured out how to avoid getting a lot of negrep (also known as, "how to avoid pissing people off on an internet forum") so there's nothing that needs to "work".

There are certainly people around here that get a lot of negrep and don't change their behavior. Devil's Advocate comes to mind. He likes arguing and doesn't really care that he annoys a lot of people. That's his thing and we're not going to change it - and nothing he does really merits banning. If you get annoyed by him but haven't put him on your ignore list, at this point, it's your problem.

I guess that's an example of negrep "not working". Negrep is not going to force every person to conform to the standards that the majority of the community likes. Of course, a system doesn't have to have a perfect "hit rate" to be valuable.

I'm (arguably) another somewhat interesting example. In my first 21+ months on this site, I got a total of three negreps (out of about 4000 posts). In the 3+ months since GenCon, I've lost count, but I've probably gotten 10 or 12 negreps. That's a pretty significant spike. I can hardly complain, as I've also gotten plenty of positive reps in that time span. But I do interpret this as a signal of some kind.

Honestly, I don't think my posting style has changed at all, but it's clear that something changed. Either the expectations of how I should act changed, or what people read into my posting style changed, or some people just decided that they don't like me. I can't really do anything about the third possibility, but I've learned that some of my joking trash-talking, which used to be ignored, now makes some people angry. I haven't completely abandoned it but I try to be more careful/selective.

It's not so much that I was deeply shamed by any of the negreps I've received, but they've told me something about community perceptions that is useful to me.
Posted November 23rd, 2010 at 01:19 PM by dok dok is offline
 
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