What do I say to....

Ok, I'll admit it. While I try and not be discouraging to new people, and I'm not interested in getting into any kind of flame wars, there are those posts where it feels like I should say something, but what??!?

Everything I come up with is... snarky at best, eg:

"On a quiet night I like to sit out in the Collab forums and listen to dreams crush"

"The sad part of that post is, somewhere some poor UBI intern died of a massive coronary unnecessarily, without ever knowing you aren't in his management chain."

"4 billion years of planetary history, 50 million years of mammal evolution, plus whatever time your parents wasted trying to bring you up right, and you go and post that??!?"

See?

The best I've managed is to walk away from my computer and vent... but it's taking longer.

Anyone have any better responses?

Really?

 

what

 

No offense, but if that was said to me I'd think you were more than snarky.

 

None taken, that's why I don't respond. Oh, and agreed, snarky is an understatement. My question is, anyone have any better direction?

New people, especially young people, just don't know the scope, effort and expertise they're talking about. Yes, it's also a side effect of the industry messages. But sometimes....

In the end, it's probably best to keep walking away. *sigh*

 

It would certainly make moderating the Collaboration section easier if everyone did this ;-)

 

Something I've picked up as a survival trick, having worked on forums for over three years, is to type up the angriest possible response but not post it. You'll feel better and the mods won't have to come down on you like a tonne of bricks

 

@galent. If you don't have an interest in a project then you don't need to post anything. If you want to join the team then post on the thread and offer your services.

 

instead of being a douche try offering advice... they are new they dont know any better. If you must say anything say something constructive.

 

What I would like to see is less flame bait as well. There's acceptable conduct in posting, as well as replying. It's not my job to moderate these forums (and I wouldn't take the job anyway) - however there's limits to both sides. I generally just pop by in small bursts to see if there's anything I can help out on but occasionally I will get a bit annoyed when I see stupidity.

Walking away is best.

 

@KingC, I still try that approach from time to time, unfortunately in many cases sage advice is received as an attack on one's most treasured love. I've spend 4+ yrs on these forums walking away rather than going down the rat hole, perhaps age is catching up with me

@AdmiralAckbar - I typically run in-house projects or sub-contract through other networks. I've made a practice of avoiding the Collab forums for 2+ yrs.

@aNTeNNa trEE - How you folks moderate with a straight face is beyond me. Not posting is my little gift back

@Hippocoder - yes, there are those as well. But I find they're easier to spot. They just start by going too far, or utter MMO... either way they either did it on purpose, or there's no place for me to start offering any advice.

 

because they don't know how to take criticism. Its sad really but its the way the youth is raised today. I'm only 23 soon to be 24 I know I have much to learn that is why I love advice. But like you said, most immature people think your trying to bash them n get angry... So it is best to not even bother to try to help.

 

Trust me, all the moderators find the Collaboration section wildly amusing and frustrating at the same time. And of course we also take it seriously as in the end it should be a positive place to find people to work with on a cool idea.

And I've coped with it in the past by actually trolling the section myself... just once though with a separate account ;-)

 

Someone should totally ban this guy, such a bad influence on everybody else. What's that? Oh look, he's ADMITTED it! ;D

 

I'll ban my alt account right away ;-)

 

Yeah, he is an admin admitting to breaking the rules... he is the boss he can do that lololol. k?


but I think it would be better if he led by example. Not add to the problem. However no one probably even knew it was him..

I think there should be a requirement of proof of concept or atleast a demo prototype project before you can ask for help in the collab section. Right now it is a place where people go and ask for help on a project when they dont have any skills or they have not even attempted to make something on their own. Right now its a place to ask someone to make a game for you..

 

We take the forum very seriously. I actually had a meeting with a colleague about a forum dispute recently and it was fairly involved about how to resolve it peacefully. We want this to be a positive environment and we work hard to keep it that way.

My "trolling" was actually completely harmless and was aimed at people that spend way too much time on these forums (myself included) and having fun about the current state of the Collaboration section at that time. No one was hurt and it was shut down before it got out of control (and it wasn't really going out of control... it was just silly).

 

I knew it!

 

Yeah Yeah


I think its became a custom to people now to just paste the same thing into every thread without reading it. Ive seen a few lately that actually have decent set up. There does seem to be this thing implanted on everyone's mind that collaborations fail, But why.

 

One thread and 7 posts with that account ;-)

Do you have a GDD? Are you just the ideas guy? What are you contributing? Those types of quick reactions is what makes the section deteriorate into noise. If you read a thread that is ridiculous just ignore it and it will fade from the front page in 12 hours... I've said that a hundred times, but it never sticks.

 

Exactly. And what do you know You're saying it again

I was in a thread the other day were a user was being flamed for using 'CEO' in his thread. But if you looked into it, Legally speaking, he IS the CEO of his registered company.

Its all about your stature in the community. If you're somebody, you're fine. If you're not. you're flamed.

 

Yes if the company is actually registered which it wasn't. I remember that thread.

 

Divinity Studios IS a registered Ltd company. I'm friends with the fellow brit.
But that's a whole other discussion

 

Perhaps I was thinking of the wrong thread; but I agree it is a whole other discussion..

 

You don't need any psychic powers to know where a thread that starts 'I'm the CEO of...' is going to end up .

 

I guess its the equivalent of seeing Ponies on an artists portfolio. So many ponies lately :/

​

 

BUT IM THE CEO DAMNIT!

resteptah me!

 

Papa Ackbar I like you for praying this all the time. Deep respect for your patience. But humans are not like this. Everybody want to say something even if it is stupid, especially me

 

I'm just a firm believer in keeping it clean. (^_^)!



If you have something to say, say it politely, svp.

If you have nothing polite to say, don't say it.

If a thread is a piece of carp, walk away from it.

Let is sink into the abyss.

 

wtf is that?

 

Something that should sink into the abyss.

 

It looks like a snowman made out of the stuff that surrounds them jelly aliens you get in a ball. either that or the Ditto equivalent of real life.

 

+1 that thing is just nasty

 

That's well within the rules of the thread and while the more experienced people can see the washed out bridge and the train rounding the bend towards it, someone with a different perspective just won't see it.

Despite people's perceptions that the collaboration threads don't work, from what little glimpses I have seen, a lot of the projects, even some of the most unlikliest ones do get significant levels of response with some decent sized teams being formed. Presumably this happens via PM. What happens after this? After the kicking most of them get, it's unlikely they'll let us know.

If you wouldn't touch the project with a barge pole, then fine, but there's no point saying so. The forum guidelines and the moderators have asked us not to. Let the posts sink if no one is interested and if people are interested, leave the thread to them and let them ask for more details. If they get no response and ask after a day why no one has replied, then tell them, but leave them alone until then.

 

It takes awhile to build a team, but you can probably build one so long as the game is something people want to make.

 

Never Forgive! Never Forget!

...I think we've lost control of this thread.

it is actually real

 

Owh god.

 

If you have something to say, say it politely, svp..... I do.. but people misunderstand me

If you have nothing polite to say, don't say it......... I tried but I have to inform you

If a thread is a piece of carp, walk away from it......Sorry, I cant resist

 

I've noticed.

 

The reason why discussion boards can go south :

 

Have you looked at how Gamedev.Net have implemented their "Help Wanted" forums? It's a very customised setup, but it looks good and appears to solve the most obvious problems.

Previously, they just had a standard forum, and it, too, was filled with "I wanna make a $GENRE_OF_THE_MONTH!!!!1!!!" posts.

One trick the GDNet crew did that definitely helped was having a moderator design and—crucially—<b>fanatically enforce</b> a standard template that all posters had to use when creating a new thread in the forum. The enforcement was very strict. I assume they've built in a lot of the template into the new back-end, so newbies can't avoid it now, but a required template would certainly help.

(If the forum software allows it, make sure all new threads in the "Collaboration" forum are set to pre-emptive moderation and check each one uses the required template. Otherwise you'll invariably see a flurry of "You forgot to use the template, n00b!" post from the usual Forum Vigilantes.)

 

I hate to rain on XKCD's parade, but this kind of behaviour has probably been going on for as long as we've had spoken languages; the internet didn't invent it. Anyone who's ever read the "Letters to the Editor" pages in any newspaper or magazine will have seen spates of similar back-and-forth arguments, but by far the easiest place to see it in real life is in any pub or bar. Even sports fans do it: they'll regale you with tedious statistics about their preferred team / players at the drop of a hat.

People love to show off their knowledge. It's innate. Our brains evolved to reward us when we learn something—anything—new, and there's a natural tendency in all of us to show off, at least a little.

(QED!)

 

My first few replies were pretty snarky. Since then, ppan has taken up the current role of troller of the collaboration section, and I've attempted to provide more constructive criticism.

 

A piece of carp apparently...

 

thats no carp. I fish.. Its not the Carp fish... atleast not a normal one.

 

The rule of thumb if you have nothing nice to say then saying nothing at all seems to come to mind. If the post has a condescending tone then the message will not be communicated.

I use the 'new posts' view of the forums to see what's new across all sections rather than individually visiting each of them. The collab section is something I would be interested in viewing if it were serious projects but as it is it's mostly garbage. It clutters up the new posts page, I would like a way to filter the new posts so it excludes collab but that is not possible.

I can understand the OP's frustration but getting angry gets you nowhere. You just have to accept that the collab section is, and always will be, filled with rubbish. You are powerless to control the situation so just shrug it off, take a different perspective. If it wasn't there perhaps the other sections would have more rubbish in them.

The root of the problem is the infux of new users and the low retention rate, known as Eternal September. If you take a look at Reddit, it has a bigger user base than the Unity Forums but they have the ability to create their own subsections, this allows them to maintain the small tight-knit community feeling within these subsections.

The problem is the Unity forums do not scale. This is due to the fixed number of subforums and lack of a rating system. New user's posts are all at the top and anyone who just joined probably wouldn't stick around long because of the low quality discussion. That means that apart from the few loyal long time users, the majority of users are new and always will be.

 

l love how half of us are discussing what the hell that thing is.

 

its more interesting than this topic I guess.. hahaha

 

hehe, I've started about 3 responses and re-thought all of them. Let me level set where I'm at:

- there's nothing wrong with the collaboration forums. They're there so interested parties can connect, usually in the absence of direct monetary payment for services. Everybody wants to be the game designer, with unlimited budget and freedom to explore their creative ideas to the fullest.

Perhaps the biggest bug there is, so do professional game designers Yup, if you haven't been told yet, indie is about as close as anyone gets to the dream gig. Publishers pay, and expect control, there are limitations of people, skills, software and hardware, and so on... there are probably a dozen? maybe 2 dozen, game designers in the world with the reputation to get a major publisher to spring for one of those dream projects.. and that said I've never heard of one that went that way.

When someone, young or not, rides their chariot out into collaboration or any other forum, budget-less, waving titles they don't really understand (yes, I will concede that anyone who owns a company, separate legal entity or not has the right to grant titles, even their own, but like all "big titles" I know you're one, when you know why you'd probably rather not want the job). That just sets the wrong tone.

- Ahh, in the first issue lies the second. Technical issues and skills. Can Unity do X? I'm going to ... MMO... and totally wipe out Blizzard. Back to my OP, what do I say to that? Yes I ignore many, almost all of these. But I have to admit, I throw away a LOT of half-written posts on this one. Yes, the couple thousand professionals working at Blizzard are up nights worried some indie without a budget will eventually completely replace WoW. Well... they're up nights anyway

I find these questions hardest to answer without sounding derogatory. Most of the posters don't know enough about the computer in front of them to even begin to understand the answer. Can Unity do X? Maybe. I hate answering a question with a question, but... Can you tell me when you need to code your own engine or when any of the available ones will do? Most of these posters lay down 2-10 d*mned hard technical game design and development issues in about a sentence or 2.

Pointers to courses, videos, online tutorials, etc.. just seem to overwhelm those folks. Perhaps it is the enormity of relatively simple tasks that makes tutorials seem like "a waste of time" or getting in the way of progress. Either way, I've seen valiant attempts at sticky threads, signatures offering orientation advice (thanks JustinLoyd, your timing is perfect ), etc... Maybe, there are some who do the right thing and start to learn what it is they're asking...

- Ranting, trolling, whatever isn't my thing. Yes, I do often really WANT to pull trigger on something along the lines of where I started with this, but... 1 if I succeed in driving home my "message" (ie, they stop posting), someone, somewhere has been burned before they ever get off the ground. That's not my intent, even when I'm frustrated. 2, some of these people, and even more of those reading are professionals in this industry.

Last year, I tried to warn one young fellow that he was ranting at someone he would probably rather work for... but *sigh* One Forum handle looks no different from another I guess. I've seen real business people, going to make a game, get flamed down. Now, they might have been naive in their original posting, and looked for the world like another 15yr old out to remake their WoW/Crysis killer game. But real business people none the less... Look around the gossip forum. Without looking, anyone care to tell me who were the original founders of Unity? Who's an 18+ yr veteran game designer? Who's working for Lucas Arts, or EA, or UBI, or....? No? (here's a hint: they aren't using a real name, or any reference to their company, unless you're looking in the Paid work forum - unity folk aside).

- and finally... this isn't a Unity thing. It's worse in many other places. I bought Unity Pro 4 yrs ago because of the community. A quick look at the forums for Torque (old ones, haven't been over there in a while) and, well.... RTFC isn't a helpful reply to any question... especially from a moderator.

This industry, like it's parent (general entertainment), makes people nuts. And too many "businesses" abuse those who dare to dream. game engine forums (especially collaboration ones) are ripe targets for those looking for free quick labour. After all, who can turn down the poster who sounds professional and can actually arrange meetings with representatives of Will Smith, Harrison Ford, [insert any popular figure here]? Are they for "real"? Yes, some of them. You can't tell the difference. How do I know? You'd be part of the circle of people who already know, and wouldn't talk to them in the first place

What I'm really searching for is the, yes it can be done, no you can't do that right now, here go read this and practice for 3 yrs, PM if you get stuck, have a nice day canned message ... Hmm... perhaps I'll just post that sentence from now on, what do you think?

Cheers,

Galen