Round Table Discussion - Everyone Invited

[Hamma]

With the recent conflicting opinions about someone who has been banned here (he shall remain nameless ) I wanted to start a dialog with the forums. Afterall you guys are the reason we are here.

Anyway, I started this site around 2 years ago with the intent of starting the most non elitist gaming forums I could possible form. Now all that time later I feel as if the staff and I have done a good job at making that happen. It has recently come to my attention that maybe not everyone thinks that. You have to realise that in running a website with the amount of traffic this one has it is nearly impossible to please everyone, hell sometimes even I am not pleased with what is going on.

So anyway, I want everyone who has an opinion about how things are run around here to please post your opinions and suggestions. Don't post in fear of being banned as I am not going to ban anyone for just posting their own opinions.

Fire away, I'm all ears.

[Mag]

Kudos on taking the initiative to start up a thread to keep the flames contained. Good move.

[Hezzy]

Perhaps a question forum / newbie forum? Sarcasm smiley?

[Liquidtide]

I'll start becasue I'm about to go to bed. I know I don't post much. But when I do 99% of the time I think it adds or is at the very least relevant to the situation. Many people just post what they think is funny which is not funny at all. And the amount of hijacked threads recently has been rampant. Can we please 1) stay on topic and 2) bring something to the table that's worth posting, not just getting your count up.

Jeff

[Mag]

Originally Posted by -Hezzy-

Perhaps a question forum / newbie forum? Sarcasm smiley?

QFT, winnar.

[Jennyboo]

Originally Posted by Liquidtide

I'll start becasue I'm about to go to bed. I know I don't post much. But when I do 99% of the time I think it adds or is at the very least relevant to the situation. Many people just post what they think is funny which is not funny at all. And the amount of hijacked threads recently has been rampant. Can we please 1) stay on topic and 2) bring something to the table that's worth posting, not just getting your count up.

Jeff

Agreed stay on topic, stop the trolling

[Hezzy]

Yes, we could do with less topic hijacking.

Perhaps this could be solved by more use of the split thread function?


EDIT: Even more mods? We've got quite a sparse number at the moment. Maybe if they used their power abit more too?

[Hamma]

I agree we don't really have to many mods at the moment. And I agree a few more would probably help matters, the problem is picking reliable and consistant/trustworthy mods.

[JetRaiden]

whoa this thread is a pleasant surprise. nice job hamma.

I shall remain opinionless on this matter for the time being. Tonight has just been amazing, and has given me infinite more reasons to drink this weekend.

[Hezzy]

Originally Posted by Hamma

I agree we don't really have to many mods at the moment. And I agree a few more would probably help matters, the problem is picking reliable and consistant/trustworthy mods.

True. I've seen forums break to pieces because a certain mod was a questionable person.

[Electrofreak]

Honestly, I'm as sick of the crap as you are Hamma. I joined PSU back in February, and while I like to think of myself as part of the community now, I am definately not a hardcore "veteran" yet. And at times, the "veterans" of the community have been a bit hostile towards the "non-vetrans" and its definately not cool. Personally, I'm glad you banned that particular individual to which you refer, in my opinion he was the crux of the problem. The fact that he could be an asshole and get away with it all the time, or come back after a 1-day ban sorta made all the other elitist "vetrans" feel that they could do the same.

I really like PSU. I really like a lot of the people here at PSU. Many of you are my outfit members, people I debate with on the PolDeb forums, people I discuss tech stuff with, and people I've played with in games such as EVE, Soldner, PlanetSide, etc. Not only that, I really enjoy some of the conversations and humor that people post on the forums and in IRC. I even got to meet a bunch of you at PSUMA and had an ass-kickin' time.

The only thing that has been hurting it is the elitist "OMG I > j00" shit. We all know who starts it, who participates in it, who perpetuates it. They don't need to be named. Then theres some of us who have once or twice created problems and drama as well, myself included. It really needs to stop. I'm glad the drama surrounding myself has ended, and I apologize that it ever happened in the first place.

The anonymity the internet provides you, combined with the fact that its much easier to flame / insult someone when you don't have to do it to their face, does not give you, or anyone, the right to be a prick. THE INTERNET IS NOT A PLACE FOR YOU TO PAMPER YOUR SELF ESTEEM AND YOUR EGO BY DEMEANING OTHER PEOPLE. AND NO, ITS NOT COOL. If that is what you want to do, go do it somewhere else, PSU is not the place. I'm happy Hamma is taking steps to ensure this, no complaints from me.

[Derfud]

I think more mods would be a good move. But as you stated, finding a good mod is hard. The last two mods you appointed, the nightshift mods, (Ouro and OMA) are hardly around anymore. They are great guys, and I'd like to see them back, but when they arent here, there is a void. On the issue of the banning, I dont know what the exact conditions of the final move were but I can say for the most part, I did enjoy dhark's presence here. Almost every post of his I read gave me a chuckle, and thats a hard thing indeed to do.

[Electrofreak]

Dhark may have been funny at times, but thats really no excuse for some of the crap he pulled.

You can rob a bank and then help an old woman across the street, but you're still a criminal.

[I Hate Pants]

This isn't just PSU, but the internet in general and relates to what electrofreak said.

If you need to come to forums to flex your ego and make others feel less compared to you... well..... that says something about your social life. Or perhaps your life in general.

Banning you know who wasn't just good for the PSU community. But good for you know who as well. Maybe he'll go outside or something.

[Electrofreak]

We all do it to a degree. I don't think any of us can deny the fact that at least a couple of times we've purposely made a comment towards someone else to make ourselves feel superior. The real problem is the people who do it constantly.