On Opinions, Being Outspoken & Bickering

[APZonerunner]

Hey all,

Some of you may have seen the recent thread about FF13, where quotes from a months-old Square Enix press release were pulled out and used as a basis for one member to express their opinion. That's fine. What followed was ridiculous:

• Users dismissing the quotes as PR spin (okay)
• Dumb bickering where the primary response on one side was to brand people 'haters' and on the other to brand someone an idiot (not okay)
• Flat-out insults
• Continued complaining, bickering, and backseat modding even after mod intervention

Opinions are fine. Being Outspoken is okay - but you've got to obviously temper it so as not to be a frustration to others. Insulting each other, being dismissive to others, and so on - it isn't on. We try to be cool here, but it's getting to the point where people are going to have to be removed from circulation if this continues. I'd intended to leave that thread open, but as I went to delete individual posts, I got to 27 posts and decided the thread wasn't worth rescuing, so I deleted it.

I encourage you to vote with your posts and likes; if you think a thread is guff, start one of your own and let the one you don't like sink to the bottom of the listing with few replies.

===================================

In line with all this, I plan to introduce another mod - starting today, @Squirrel Emperor will be joining the team to help try to keep stuff under control. Please be respectful and listen when they, or other mods, chime in.

Cheers.

 

[llazy77]

Im all for our new squirrel overlord.

 

[Crystal Power]

Well all I could want in a Final Fantasy community is for each member to be respectful, for fans to be considerate to other fans who love an installment they may hate (and vice versa, though I would promote 'love' overall), and that all members follow the forum rules and guidelines.

I honestly think you should create a penalty feature @APZonerunner , something that works as "Three strike, ban for a month. Three more ban for 5 month. Eventually you get an indefinite ban for many strikes and bans". I think this would work very well to keep behavior and rules in place.

 

[coffee-san]

I honestly think you should create a penalty feature @APZonerunner , something that works as "Three strike, ban for a month. Three more ban for 5 month. Eventually you get an indefinite ban for many strikes and bans". I think this would work very well to keep behavior and rules in place.

seconded. I've only been a part of one other forum, but a penalty feature definitely helped to impede questionable behavior on forum. With the added mod support from Squirrel (who's online pretty frequently afaik), I don't see why something like this shouldn't work.

 

[LeonBlade]

I don't go to many forums, this is the one forum I go to and like the community that's here. Final Fantasy is a big deal to me, and it's nice to be able to talk with fellow fans and discuss just about anything in an orderly manner.

I hope that moving forward we can have a place that everyone can continue to go to without having these things happening and to clean up the place. Let's hope this is a great start for a better future on the forums. As for the penalty system, anything that can keep people on track is alright to me, but, ultimately it's a mod decision.

Glad to hear things can start improving for this great community.

 

[Sora96]

Yay. Now we have can have more positive forum with no hate.

 

[buddhafied]

Thanks for posting this, Alex. I love this small community we have, but recently I feel like I've been coming here just expecting a few threads of trash talking.

I think, if I may suggest, we can also start to use less of words like "hate" and "haters".

First of all, the word "hate" is relative. How I define as hating something is very different from someone else saying they hate something, but the word itself is never pretty and is creating conflict between people that otherwise could have been avoided. When we call someone a "hater", we are neglecting everything that person had said (reasons why they dislike the subject, history of the topic, etc.) Therefore, I think calling anyone a "hater" is accomplishing nothing except for causing *actual* hatred. It's labeling, and for most cases, people don't like to be labeled.

Secondly, in my humble opinion, I haven't observed what I would define as hatred on this form. As someone who is a double minority and have to deal with bigotry and possible hate crimes, what this forum have in terms of "hatred" is just an annoyance at best. I am not trying to downplay this, as this can be, and has been, a serious matter in the forum, but what happening here can not possibly be measured high in the hate scale. If you want to experience what hate is, walk down a busy street in a less acceptance town holding hand with a person with same gender. Everything is relative.

Lastly, we come here to express our like and love for the games that we enjoy. Some might "hate" certain aspects of a game, or *hate* a certain game in the series, these are just *component* of the series. (I dislike many things about Final Fantasy VIII for example, and I certainly dislike the draw system, but do I hate the game? No. I want to yell at my mom whenever she tried to guilt trip me over the phone, but do I hate that woman? No.) I can't imagine someone who loves absolutely *everything* about Final Fantasy either. So let it go, if someone happens to dislike what happens to be your favourite. Embrace the fact we are a diverse community with people liking different things and try not to fixated on why we can't all just be the same.

Edit: I am just as bad as using the word as many people, I'm stating this to also remind myself not to use it.

 

[APZonerunner]

I've deleted some posts from this thread because already people are dragging this off-topic with accusations of people being terrible people for disliking something. Opinions are okay, even ones that are different to yours. Chill out! Good lord. It's not a personal insult, and if it is, we'll step in.

 

[Jenova]

It's been awhile for me. What happened?

 

[Crystal Power]

@Jenova: I think it's best to "Let it go".

 

[Jenova]

@Jenova: I think it's best to "Let it go".

Tough to let go of something when I'm unaware of what happened exactly. Ah well. If someone wants to PM me I'm open to it. I'd rather be informed than in the dark on these matters.