I think we need to chill the passion on the language discussion. We can keep the discussion going but we're moving towards it being more of a fight than a calm, rational discussion.
I'm not sure where I stand on the language issue. I'm actually going to take it up with people above my level to see what our total policy is with this.
I don't think anyone really does; unless it's to the point of unreadable. Something like a comma splice here or there isn't going to kill anyone. The big picture is the point of unreadable. I'm not really sure what the point of "readable/unreadable" is as that is purely subjective.
That's the whole point I made last post. You don't know where to draw a line anywhere, which is why your point is moot. Your entire stance is "well we can sort of tell when it does happen" with no reasoning to support that. We can't title a section "What would yoshi9048 do?" - we need some kind of measure, which doesn't exist, therefore there is no discussion to be head.
That is correct; and the issue I have isn't with people that proofread and screw up. It's with people that don't and say they do. We can all tell the difference.
No we can't. I'm going to pin this down as you having read my post and responded part-by-part, and assume you hadn't read the end of it at this point. That's forgivable, but I'll reiterate the point - if you have no measure other than "I can tell" it doesn't belong in the guide. You haven't mentioned how we can tell, and as I say, we're not going to make a section which says "Don't fake not being natively English because yoshi9048 can tell."
Until you can explain your measure there is no point to be made here.
I'm talking about people that use a crutch to get out of proper forum protocol. I've played plenty of games with plenty of players who speak German, French, Italian, Spanish, Mandarin, Romanian, etc. and they will make small forgivable mistakes on more difficult syntax.
That's fine and cool. The key is that they're understandable and I'm spending more time enjoying their company and less time trying to figure out what the hell they said.
I've seen a lot worse than that from people genuinely learning English and you probably have too. Especially when they're typing.
And of course, the problem again arises that you do not explain how we can distinguish between the genuine people who speak English as a second language and the fakers. You just assume we all can and figure that's probably good enough.
Oh, you do me too much honor. I don't frequent these forums enough to be the police of anything; let alone good taste. But yes, perceptions are everything. If I pose a math problem: 5+5, and someone answers 12, I'd perceive that as incorrect.
Since we're splitting hairs:
5+5=10 is perceived as correct by everyone.
"X is a native English speaker using a crutch" is perceived as correct by you but not necessarily by the majority.
There is an obvious distinction here. If your perception of who is faking being a non-native English speaker was as widely accepted as 5+5, we wouldn't be having this conversation, so it's kind of a silly point.
That one thing you perceive to be true is actually true. That doesn't mean everything you perceive to be true is actually true. It doesn't even vaguely suggest that anything else you perceive to be true is true.
But there was a point somewhere; and I think it got lost in the mix. Oh, that's what happened, I conflated 2 points.
Point 1) People that are non-native speakers aren't necessarily bad at the language; but it's personally more forgivable if they are.
Point 2) Bad Grammar is bad; regardless of whatever bandaid excuse you put on it.
What do these things have to do with the guide though? What relevant point are you making regarding this guide? That was the question.
Your perception of my personal experience has no bearing on the discussion.
Your personal experience has no bearing on the discussion, let alone just my perception. I appreciate that you've met a lot of non-native English speakers who do X, but that doesn't really say anything about them all.
I screw up all the time; it's still absolutely expected.
You're making no point and missing mine.
Mine being that non-native English speakers should be expected to make mistakes (that means more often than you).
Ah yeah; I should go about doing that; that's also where difficulty arises. How do you draw a line in a generalized enough way that it'll fit in scope of this topic?
You can't, that's why bringing it up in the first place was pointless.
"type good" and "grammar good" aren't going to do anyone any favors; so it has to be something that can be easy to digest; and fits the theme of this guide.
That will take some time. I hope it won't take much and I don't want enforced conformity toward a single writing style. The 5 W's are a good starting point that's already been included. I'd probably hit that angle and run with it to see how well it'll work.
I think this discussion can safely end with you deciding how your points fit into this guide, considering my whole argument is that your point don't fit into this guide.
I'd say we've reached an appropriate stalemate until you've decided what you'd like to include. Generally I wouldn't even bring something like this up until I'd decided on that, otherwise the whole discussion is a bit pointless, right?
I'm not arguing with any rules here, but may I ask why wishlists aren't allowed? Personally I just think it's better to put lots of ideas into one thread than to spam the forum with lots of threads. Once again, not arguing with anything, just asking.
That has been answered several times by admins in the Forum Discussion and Info section, for example:
I'm not arguing with any rules here, but may I ask why wishlists aren't allowed? Personally I just think it's better to put lots of ideas into one thread
It really, really isn't. For one, it paves the way for posters to get kind of lazy and ditsy and just say "I would like zebras, chocolate milks and moar cats!! Thx in advance mojang!!!! =D =D =D!!!" This leaves a list without any details for anything listed. So you just have a 'add all these things alright bye' thread just sitting there. A good chunk of the time the OP doesn't even come back.
It would also be kind of annoying to criticize so many ideas at once, it leads to extreme thread stretching - which already happens anyway, so withlists would make that worse.
I think this discussion can safely end with you deciding how your points fit into this guide, considering my whole argument is that your point don't fit into this guide.
I went back and reread the whole spiel. It turns out the point was
"sorry for bad English, it's not my native language" (specifically) shouldn't be used in the context of the post.
This can be piggybacked onto other red herring statements that take discussion away from the topic and more on the statement which can do more harm to the post than simply omitting them.
Because of the above; the tangential point and editorial is "instead of creating an excuse on why your English is bad; instead seek to improve the readability of the suggestion." As a no duh, work with others replying to the suggestion to improve based on their feedback. That's why I call it a crutch; and not an explanation.
The problem here is I was waxing anecdotally and wistfully; and not applying any constructive input. It took me rereading the original statement to get my head out of the clouds.
----------
I was considering recommending to avoid slang and colloquialisms (for suggesters and critics). But colloquialisms just go back into a pool of "how do you expect to enforce/know that?" since each person is born and grows up with colloquialisms; it's difficult to know whether it's regional vernacular; or whether it's an appropriate generic. (pop/fizz/coke for carbonated soft drinks; chips/crisps for bagged snacks; chips/fries for deep-fried potatoes. etc) (to be honest, I'm amused by how extensive and broad the term "chip" is.)
Slang, on the other hand, seems more manageable. Budder, obby, etc. may be quaint and fun to use; but it can also make the post harder to read for anyone not in the know; unless you use acronym tags.
The problem I have with this whole discussion about slang, posts from non-native speakers, readability of posts, etc. is that this is not a Suggestions section specific situation, it is forum-wide -- and really shouldn't need to be addressed in section-specific guidelines.
The problem I have with this whole discussion about slang, posts from non-native speakers, readability of posts, etc. is that this is not a Suggestions section specific situation, it is forum-wide -- and really shouldn't need to be addressed in section-specific guidelines.
Agreed. This combined with the fact that it is so up for interpretation, I think we should leave it off these guidelines.
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Having finally read through the entire thread: In my own history, I have some small-scale experience with moderating online communities myself, and rather more experience observing some true masters of the art, who have openly discussed their own experience. So, I do have considerable understanding of what the moderators here go through. The prior "guides" represent efforts by community members to "help out" with the moderation; the problem is, that only works when you have a tight-knit community, with a mature membership that's already on the same page as the mods. Unfortunately, we have no such thing here, where the Curse forums:
Are open to a very large public, (that is, minimal barriers to entry) and composed in large part of adolescents, outright children, and not-very mature adults.
Have little social cohesion, because they're bound only by one of the most mutable games out there, which draws players with a huge range of in-game and community goals, and all types of play styles.
Have a membership which outnumbers the staff by not just one or two, but several orders of magnitude.
Are ultimately owned not by the moderators, but by a corporate entity which has its own issues with liability and reputation.
In a situation like this, I really can't argue with keeping the rules to a minimum, enforcing those few rules strictly, depending on the judgment of the moderators to deal with edge cases and subtleties... and being very wary of members trying to help out. Yes, I've seen cases where I thought one of the mods was being overly strict, or even going off half-cocked -- but then, they're the ones who are responsible for keeping the forums from turning into an open sewer, and that's not so easy. (I've seen plenty of badly-moderated forums on the net too!) Moderators don't have to be right every time, especially when nearly all sanctions are strictly temporary, and the more serious sanctions have an appeal link in the notice message (not to mention [email protected]).
I do want to directly contradict one thing I've been seeing in this thread: I feel that subforum-specific rule posts should not hesitate to repeat and reinforce site-wide rules. This is a situation where redundancy and repetition are no sins! If someone's reading the subforum rules, well then, you've got their eyes for the moment. Telling them to go read something else to get the rest of the rules is a stretch -- if some of the site-wide rules are relevant to what you're trying to tell them, then yes, repeat the relevant rules while you have their attention. (ETA: And clarify how a given rule applies to the particular subforum!)
A brief aside on the language issue: My experience here and elsewhere is that folks who are posting in English as a second language, often produce far more thoughtful posts (despite occasional miswordings) than the younger and/or less-educated native English speakers. (And disclaimer or no, their command of English is commonly better than many adult native speakers. :rolleyes:) So "English isn't my native language" really doesn't excuse a post that's poorly thought out or obnoxious regardless of grammar or vocabulary.
I did some CraftTweaker scripts for Mystical Agriculture. They fill in a couple of small gaps in MA, and also let you make or duplicate not only vanilla plants, but the blocks, plants and wood from Quark and Biomes O'Plenty. Also spawn eggs for most vanilla mobs! The scripts are here on Github.
I went back and reread the whole spiel. It turns out the point was
"sorry for bad English, it's not my native language" (specifically) shouldn't be used in the context of the post.
This can be piggybacked onto other red herring statements that take discussion away from the topic and more on the statement which can do more harm to the post than simply omitting them.
Because of the above; the tangential point and editorial is "instead of creating an excuse on why your English is bad; instead seek to improve the readability of the suggestion." As a no duh, work with others replying to the suggestion to improve based on their feedback. That's why I call it a crutch; and not an explanation.
The problem here is I was waxing anecdotally and wistfully; and not applying any constructive input. It took me rereading the original statement to get my head out of the clouds.
Your argument seems counterproductive to your point here. If I was a new poster who spoke English as a second language and I saw your contempt towards those who butcher the language, as you put it, I'd be 110% sure to make it very clear that English is my second language so people don't try to throttle me for my bad English.
The point here is that this is a double-edged sword. It's not enough for posters to somehow take it upon themselves to improve when you're railing on them for 'not caring enough'. Anybody who cares enough about a poster's English skills to mention it in a thread needs to be cooperative and assume the best, rather than concluding they're malicious (because apparently we can all tell, though I'm still dubious of this).
I was considering recommending to avoid slang and colloquialisms (for suggesters and critics). But colloquialisms just go back into a pool of "how do you expect to enforce/know that?" since each person is born and grows up with colloquialisms; it's difficult to know whether it's regional vernacular; or whether it's an appropriate generic. (pop/fizz/coke for carbonated soft drinks; chips/crisps for bagged snacks; chips/fries for deep-fried potatoes. etc) (to be honest, I'm amused by how extensive and broad the term "chip" is.)
This doesn't seem at all related to the original concern. Foreigners in my experience don't use English slang because they're unfamiliar with it, and have usually worked out already that their own slang isn't applicable to the language.
Slang, on the other hand, seems more manageable. Budder, obby, etc. may be quaint and fun to use; but it can also make the post harder to read for anyone not in the know; unless you use acronym tags.
There is absolutely nobody on this forum who uses the words 'budder' and 'obby' while justifying it by saying English is their second language. If they do that, it's because there's a deeper issue with grammar and fundamental vocabulary. That's what we were talking about, wasn't it?
I do want to directly contradict one thing I've been seeing in this thread: I feel that subforum-specific rule posts should not hesitate to repeat and reinforce site-wide rules. This is a situation where redundancy and repetition are no sins! If someone's reading the subforum rules, well then, you've got their eyes for the moment. Telling them to go read something else to get the rest of the rules is a stretch -- if some of the site-wide rules are relevant to what you're trying to tell them, then yes, repeat the relevant rules while you have their attention. (ETA: And clarify how a given rule applies to the particular subforum!)
I do actually like this point a lot and it's not something I considered. This doesn't mean we need to reiterate every rule, because then things become very drawn out and it gets harder to retain the reader's attention.
It ties into an idea I was trying to get across back when we were all fighting over the old guide (mostly in that thread rather than this one). For lack of a better way of putting it: we need to stop expecting our posters to be rational. Yes it sucks, and yes in principle it'd be great if we could just expect the best of everyone, but it's not practical. I was saying we needed to be pragmatic - even if the guide's writing style was largely considered to be 'personality', what it would do in practice was drive younger and more sensitive posters away, as they couldn't take the harsh criticism. You need to be pragmatic and do what gets results. It doesn't matter if all of the forum's problems are ultimately the posters' faults - we can still take steps to prevent those issues whether it seems fair on us or not.
I'm not talking about that age old debate now though, I just wanted to explain that principle so I can hopefully apply it here. It's the same idea - we can't just assume people are reading all the rules thoroughly, often they will just read the suggestions-specific stuff, and that's if you're lucky. As such, it might be a good idea to reiterate any especially applicable points from the main rules, not because we no longer expect people to read the site-wide rules, but because there will always be those who don't read all the rules and the solution is practical (even if in principle we should expect people to read everything).
A brief aside on the language issue: My experience here and elsewhere is that folks who are posting in English as a second language, often produce far more thoughtful posts (despite occasional miswordings) than the younger and/or less-educated native English speakers. (And disclaimer or no, their command of English is commonly better than many adult native speakers. :rolleyes:) So "English isn't my native language" really doesn't excuse a post that's poorly thought out or obnoxious regardless of grammar or vocabulary.
We weren't really talking about that I don't think. Nobody is debating if it excuses a poorly thought out, obnoxious or otherwise terrible suggestion - it obviously doesn't. We're talking soley about grammar and vocabulary (though that's probably debatable, there is a bit of miscommunication and I don't think the discussion is going anywhere anymore).
We weren't really talking about that I don't think. Nobody is debating if it excuses a poorly thought out, obnoxious or otherwise terrible suggestion - it obviously doesn't. We're talking soley about grammar and vocabulary (though that's probably debatable, there is a bit of miscommunication and I don't think the discussion is going anywhere anymore).
To be fair, his brief aside is the sole point I was trying to make; it just got spun and mixed in.
I'd like to go back and minimize my point to his statement:
--- So "English isn't my native language" really doesn't excuse a post that's poorly thought out or obnoxious regardless of grammar or vocabulary.
This doesn't seem at all related to the original concern. Foreigners in my experience don't use English slang because they're unfamiliar with it, and have usually worked out already that their own slang isn't applicable to the language.
It was meant as a new/separate topic. I tried to separate it; but looks like I failed there. It was my attempt to move the discussion in a new direction instead of it being ground to a halt with back-and-forthing.
People, please take the discussion about language elsewhere, since it is not really on-topic in this thread. This thread is for discussing the existing guidelines or what should be added to the guidelines. The language/readability discussion is not Suggestions section-specific and therefore does not fit within these guidelines.
Could we have a section about proper planning and 'idea cramming'?
As soon as you explain exactly what you mean and explain why you think it is needed, we can discuss it.
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As soon as you explain exactly what you mean and explain why you think it is needed, we can discuss it.
I think he means people who post a not-refined idea, then people others point out how vague and "dude, what?" the idea is. Then the OP starts smushing stats in the idea just so the idea feels "complete" now. Just plan out the idea beforehand instead of pooping out a thread just for the sake of going "I made a suggestion! =D"
Slang, on the other hand, seems more manageable. Budder, obby, etc. may be quaint and fun to use; but it can also make the post harder to read for anyone not in the know; unless you use acronym tags.
I think the "budder" thing is more of a 'makes your post look reeeeeaally stupid" issue than a misunderstanding one. Trying to be funny with 'dank memes loool' doesn't help anyone. I've never seen "obby". I'm not gonna support a suggestion because an image from meme generator was posted.
I don't know if this one was said before, but this forum is also not a place where you make threads about insulting Mojang and acting like your game development skills are more refined than theirs. "Suggestions" does not mean "Come here to vent!!!"
I think he means people who post a not-refined idea, then people others point out how vague and "dude, what?" the idea is. Then the OP starts smushing stats in the idea just so the idea feels "complete" now. Just plan out the idea beforehand instead of pooping out a thread just for the sake of going "I made a suggestion! =D"
Falls under the guideline for being detailed then, although maybe a line could be added saying to include as much as possible from the beginning.
As far as people's reason to come and make a suggestion, I don't really care about why they want to suggest something. I agree that they should have a cool head and be respectful of others, including the devs that will never read their idea, but if their reasoning is that game feature X sucks and should be changed that is a legitimate reason to suggest something. If you like the feature that is a legitimate reason to disagree with them.
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Personally, if someone wants to come and rant; that's fine. Just make sure it's in the form of an actual suggested change and I'll be smiles and rainbows. There are various things in Minecraft I'd like to see changed and that I find rant-worthy so I can understand if someone wants to vent their frustrations. Just so long as they keep their discussion on the suggestion instead of spilling it out onto the community.
Personally, if someone wants to come and rant; that's fine. Just make sure it's in the form of an actual suggested change and I'll be smiles and rainbows. There are various things in Minecraft I'd like to see changed and that I find rant-worthy so I can understand if someone wants to vent their frustrations. Just so long as they keep their discussion on the suggestion instead of spilling it out onto the community.
Well, ranting IS a form of stress relief. I've never liked rants, but I can tolerate them as long as they keep a relative cool head. Obviously if the rant is over the top to the point that said person is breaking the rules by starting flames because of disagreement, and/or excessively swearing then yeah, rants are not ok. For the most part, rants are to just get some hair off your chest because of something one might find to be irking.
As far as rant posts being suggestions, as long as the person is suggesting something, nothing else really matters. They should still try and be well worded, but it is totally fine for a rant post to be a bit more sloppy than a well thought out post, because rants typically are"of the moment" type of frustration where they might not have had enough time to think things through.
Me personally, I tend to not like to post on rant threads that are obvious rant threads, because I feel they can often become destabilize if you just so happen to accidentally rub the OP the wrong way.
All-in-all: Rant threads are not bad, but should be looked out for because they CAN be brewing grounds for trouble, but I agree with your position on the matter.
Can there be a guideline about not requesting already implemented features be reversed? You probably know which specific feature I;m talking about, but those suggestions are pretty pointless regardless of what specific feature they want to roll back. Mojang's never gonna change something back after they updated it, because if they were so happy with the way things were originally they would have never spent the time and effort adding in a new thing in the first place. And if you want to make a thread to discuss/complain about a new feature or recently implemented feature, Discussion or Recent Updates & Snapshots seem like much better sections to do that in that Suggestions.
Perhaps, but that seems to fall under the category of "suggestions to specifically avoid," which is an idea everyone seems to have grown allergic to.
I'm fairly certain that the mods are capable of sorting this stuff out if it becomes an issue.
Perhaps, but that seems to fall under the category of "suggestions to specifically avoid," which is an idea everyone seems to have grown allergic to.
Saying that we've grown allergic to it just seems to be a euphemistic way of saying that we randomly decided it was a bad idea for no reason. This isn't true. There was a lot of discussion on this topic which you've just dismissed, and if you think we should have a list of bad suggestions, you should make that case.
As for the actual topic at hand, no. This section is a free marketplace of ideas, and whether they're likely to be implemented or not is a non-factor, especially considering the fact that the goal here isn't to give suggestions to Mojang in the first place. Regardless, it's very shortsighted to think that Mojang would never reverse an idea. It happens frequently in the industry and there's nothing stopping Mojang from doing it if they came up with a particularly terrible idea. People should be encouraged to criticise things they don't like in the game, even if the thing itself is popular.
The most obvious example of this, and probably the suggestion being targeted here, is the reversal of 1.9 combat. I think we should all be encouraging people who don't like 1.9 combat to make their case as well as they can. There's no use in trying to silence people just because you happen to like whatever they're trying to reverse. The whole point is to beat bad ideas with better ideas, why does this suddenly stop being the case under these particular circumstances?
Any thread which just regurgitates the same tired "I don't like it please remove" that we've seen 100 times is subject to removal regardless of whether or not it is mentioned in the guide or not. Fresh arguments should be encouraged because that promotes healthy discussion. Sometimes I wonder if you're all trying to kill off the section with all of these new restrictions.
I can openly admit it's my fault we got busted.
Rational mode on.
That's the whole point I made last post. You don't know where to draw a line anywhere, which is why your point is moot. Your entire stance is "well we can sort of tell when it does happen" with no reasoning to support that. We can't title a section "What would yoshi9048 do?" - we need some kind of measure, which doesn't exist, therefore there is no discussion to be head.
No we can't. I'm going to pin this down as you having read my post and responded part-by-part, and assume you hadn't read the end of it at this point. That's forgivable, but I'll reiterate the point - if you have no measure other than "I can tell" it doesn't belong in the guide. You haven't mentioned how we can tell, and as I say, we're not going to make a section which says "Don't fake not being natively English because yoshi9048 can tell."
Until you can explain your measure there is no point to be made here.
I've seen a lot worse than that from people genuinely learning English and you probably have too. Especially when they're typing.
And of course, the problem again arises that you do not explain how we can distinguish between the genuine people who speak English as a second language and the fakers. You just assume we all can and figure that's probably good enough.
Since we're splitting hairs:
There is an obvious distinction here. If your perception of who is faking being a non-native English speaker was as widely accepted as 5+5, we wouldn't be having this conversation, so it's kind of a silly point.
That one thing you perceive to be true is actually true. That doesn't mean everything you perceive to be true is actually true. It doesn't even vaguely suggest that anything else you perceive to be true is true.
What do these things have to do with the guide though? What relevant point are you making regarding this guide? That was the question.
Your personal experience has no bearing on the discussion, let alone just my perception. I appreciate that you've met a lot of non-native English speakers who do X, but that doesn't really say anything about them all.
You're making no point and missing mine.
Mine being that non-native English speakers should be expected to make mistakes (that means more often than you).
You can't, that's why bringing it up in the first place was pointless.
I think this discussion can safely end with you deciding how your points fit into this guide, considering my whole argument is that your point don't fit into this guide.
I'd say we've reached an appropriate stalemate until you've decided what you'd like to include. Generally I wouldn't even bring something like this up until I'd decided on that, otherwise the whole discussion is a bit pointless, right?
That has been answered several times by admins in the Forum Discussion and Info section, for example:
http://www.minecraftforum.net/forums/forums/forum-discussion-info/517135-what-is-wrong-with-wish-listing
- sunperp
It really, really isn't. For one, it paves the way for posters to get kind of lazy and ditsy and just say "I would like zebras, chocolate milks and moar cats!! Thx in advance mojang!!!! =D =D =D!!!" This leaves a list without any details for anything listed. So you just have a 'add all these things alright bye' thread just sitting there. A good chunk of the time the OP doesn't even come back.
It would also be kind of annoying to criticize so many ideas at once, it leads to extreme thread stretching - which already happens anyway, so withlists would make that worse.
I went back and reread the whole spiel. It turns out the point was
"sorry for bad English, it's not my native language" (specifically) shouldn't be used in the context of the post.
This can be piggybacked onto other red herring statements that take discussion away from the topic and more on the statement which can do more harm to the post than simply omitting them.
Because of the above; the tangential point and editorial is "instead of creating an excuse on why your English is bad; instead seek to improve the readability of the suggestion." As a no duh, work with others replying to the suggestion to improve based on their feedback. That's why I call it a crutch; and not an explanation.
The problem here is I was waxing anecdotally and wistfully; and not applying any constructive input. It took me rereading the original statement to get my head out of the clouds.
----------
I was considering recommending to avoid slang and colloquialisms (for suggesters and critics). But colloquialisms just go back into a pool of "how do you expect to enforce/know that?" since each person is born and grows up with colloquialisms; it's difficult to know whether it's regional vernacular; or whether it's an appropriate generic. (pop/fizz/coke for carbonated soft drinks; chips/crisps for bagged snacks; chips/fries for deep-fried potatoes. etc) (to be honest, I'm amused by how extensive and broad the term "chip" is.)
Slang, on the other hand, seems more manageable. Budder, obby, etc. may be quaint and fun to use; but it can also make the post harder to read for anyone not in the know; unless you use acronym tags.
OFFICIAL POSTING/REPLYING GUIDELINES
UNOFFICIAL POSTING GUIDE (PRT)
UNOFFICIAL REPLYING GUIDE (FTC)
The problem I have with this whole discussion about slang, posts from non-native speakers, readability of posts, etc. is that this is not a Suggestions section specific situation, it is forum-wide -- and really shouldn't need to be addressed in section-specific guidelines.
- sunperp
Agreed. This combined with the fact that it is so up for interpretation, I think we should leave it off these guidelines.
Want some advice on how to thrive in the Suggestions section? Check this handy list of guidelines and tips for posting your ideas and responding to the ideas of others!
http://www.minecraftforum.net/forums/minecraft-discussion/suggestions/2775557-guidelines-for-the-suggestions-forum
Having finally read through the entire thread: In my own history, I have some small-scale experience with moderating online communities myself, and rather more experience observing some true masters of the art, who have openly discussed their own experience. So, I do have considerable understanding of what the moderators here go through. The prior "guides" represent efforts by community members to "help out" with the moderation; the problem is, that only works when you have a tight-knit community, with a mature membership that's already on the same page as the mods. Unfortunately, we have no such thing here, where the Curse forums:
In a situation like this, I really can't argue with keeping the rules to a minimum, enforcing those few rules strictly, depending on the judgment of the moderators to deal with edge cases and subtleties... and being very wary of members trying to help out. Yes, I've seen cases where I thought one of the mods was being overly strict, or even going off half-cocked -- but then, they're the ones who are responsible for keeping the forums from turning into an open sewer, and that's not so easy. (I've seen plenty of badly-moderated forums on the net too!) Moderators don't have to be right every time, especially when nearly all sanctions are strictly temporary, and the more serious sanctions have an appeal link in the notice message (not to mention [email protected]).
I do want to directly contradict one thing I've been seeing in this thread: I feel that subforum-specific rule posts should not hesitate to repeat and reinforce site-wide rules. This is a situation where redundancy and repetition are no sins! If someone's reading the subforum rules, well then, you've got their eyes for the moment. Telling them to go read something else to get the rest of the rules is a stretch -- if some of the site-wide rules are relevant to what you're trying to tell them, then yes, repeat the relevant rules while you have their attention. (ETA: And clarify how a given rule applies to the particular subforum!)
A brief aside on the language issue: My experience here and elsewhere is that folks who are posting in English as a second language, often produce far more thoughtful posts (despite occasional miswordings) than the younger and/or less-educated native English speakers. (And disclaimer or no, their command of English is commonly better than many adult native speakers. :rolleyes:) So "English isn't my native language" really doesn't excuse a post that's poorly thought out or obnoxious regardless of grammar or vocabulary.
Your argument seems counterproductive to your point here. If I was a new poster who spoke English as a second language and I saw your contempt towards those who butcher the language, as you put it, I'd be 110% sure to make it very clear that English is my second language so people don't try to throttle me for my bad English.
The point here is that this is a double-edged sword. It's not enough for posters to somehow take it upon themselves to improve when you're railing on them for 'not caring enough'. Anybody who cares enough about a poster's English skills to mention it in a thread needs to be cooperative and assume the best, rather than concluding they're malicious (because apparently we can all tell, though I'm still dubious of this).
This doesn't seem at all related to the original concern. Foreigners in my experience don't use English slang because they're unfamiliar with it, and have usually worked out already that their own slang isn't applicable to the language.
There is absolutely nobody on this forum who uses the words 'budder' and 'obby' while justifying it by saying English is their second language. If they do that, it's because there's a deeper issue with grammar and fundamental vocabulary. That's what we were talking about, wasn't it?
I do actually like this point a lot and it's not something I considered. This doesn't mean we need to reiterate every rule, because then things become very drawn out and it gets harder to retain the reader's attention.
It ties into an idea I was trying to get across back when we were all fighting over the old guide (mostly in that thread rather than this one). For lack of a better way of putting it: we need to stop expecting our posters to be rational. Yes it sucks, and yes in principle it'd be great if we could just expect the best of everyone, but it's not practical. I was saying we needed to be pragmatic - even if the guide's writing style was largely considered to be 'personality', what it would do in practice was drive younger and more sensitive posters away, as they couldn't take the harsh criticism. You need to be pragmatic and do what gets results. It doesn't matter if all of the forum's problems are ultimately the posters' faults - we can still take steps to prevent those issues whether it seems fair on us or not.
I'm not talking about that age old debate now though, I just wanted to explain that principle so I can hopefully apply it here. It's the same idea - we can't just assume people are reading all the rules thoroughly, often they will just read the suggestions-specific stuff, and that's if you're lucky. As such, it might be a good idea to reiterate any especially applicable points from the main rules, not because we no longer expect people to read the site-wide rules, but because there will always be those who don't read all the rules and the solution is practical (even if in principle we should expect people to read everything).
We weren't really talking about that I don't think. Nobody is debating if it excuses a poorly thought out, obnoxious or otherwise terrible suggestion - it obviously doesn't. We're talking soley about grammar and vocabulary (though that's probably debatable, there is a bit of miscommunication and I don't think the discussion is going anywhere anymore).
To be fair, his brief aside is the sole point I was trying to make; it just got spun and mixed in.
I'd like to go back and minimize my point to his statement:
--- So "English isn't my native language" really doesn't excuse a post that's poorly thought out or obnoxious regardless of grammar or vocabulary.
It was meant as a new/separate topic. I tried to separate it; but looks like I failed there. It was my attempt to move the discussion in a new direction instead of it being ground to a halt with back-and-forthing.
OFFICIAL POSTING/REPLYING GUIDELINES
UNOFFICIAL POSTING GUIDE (PRT)
UNOFFICIAL REPLYING GUIDE (FTC)
People, please take the discussion about language elsewhere, since it is not really on-topic in this thread. This thread is for discussing the existing guidelines or what should be added to the guidelines. The language/readability discussion is not Suggestions section-specific and therefore does not fit within these guidelines.
- sunperp
Could we have a section about proper planning and 'idea cramming'?
So a sub-section about muddling over ideas? I'm a bit confused. A section here on the guide post, or a section on the forums?
As soon as you explain exactly what you mean and explain why you think it is needed, we can discuss it.
Want some advice on how to thrive in the Suggestions section? Check this handy list of guidelines and tips for posting your ideas and responding to the ideas of others!
http://www.minecraftforum.net/forums/minecraft-discussion/suggestions/2775557-guidelines-for-the-suggestions-forum
I think he means people who post a not-refined idea, then people others point out how vague and "dude, what?" the idea is. Then the OP starts smushing stats in the idea just so the idea feels "complete" now. Just plan out the idea beforehand instead of pooping out a thread just for the sake of going "I made a suggestion! =D"
I think the "budder" thing is more of a 'makes your post look reeeeeaally stupid" issue than a misunderstanding one. Trying to be funny with 'dank memes loool' doesn't help anyone. I've never seen "obby". I'm not gonna support a suggestion because an image from meme generator was posted.
I don't know if this one was said before, but this forum is also not a place where you make threads about insulting Mojang and acting like your game development skills are more refined than theirs. "Suggestions" does not mean "Come here to vent!!!"
Falls under the guideline for being detailed then, although maybe a line could be added saying to include as much as possible from the beginning.
As far as people's reason to come and make a suggestion, I don't really care about why they want to suggest something. I agree that they should have a cool head and be respectful of others, including the devs that will never read their idea, but if their reasoning is that game feature X sucks and should be changed that is a legitimate reason to suggest something. If you like the feature that is a legitimate reason to disagree with them.
Want some advice on how to thrive in the Suggestions section? Check this handy list of guidelines and tips for posting your ideas and responding to the ideas of others!
http://www.minecraftforum.net/forums/minecraft-discussion/suggestions/2775557-guidelines-for-the-suggestions-forum
Personally, if someone wants to come and rant; that's fine. Just make sure it's in the form of an actual suggested change and I'll be smiles and rainbows. There are various things in Minecraft I'd like to see changed and that I find rant-worthy so I can understand if someone wants to vent their frustrations. Just so long as they keep their discussion on the suggestion instead of spilling it out onto the community.
OFFICIAL POSTING/REPLYING GUIDELINES
UNOFFICIAL POSTING GUIDE (PRT)
UNOFFICIAL REPLYING GUIDE (FTC)
Well, ranting IS a form of stress relief. I've never liked rants, but I can tolerate them as long as they keep a relative cool head. Obviously if the rant is over the top to the point that said person is breaking the rules by starting flames because of disagreement, and/or excessively swearing then yeah, rants are not ok. For the most part, rants are to just get some hair off your chest because of something one might find to be irking.
As far as rant posts being suggestions, as long as the person is suggesting something, nothing else really matters. They should still try and be well worded, but it is totally fine for a rant post to be a bit more sloppy than a well thought out post, because rants typically are"of the moment" type of frustration where they might not have had enough time to think things through.
Me personally, I tend to not like to post on rant threads that are obvious rant threads, because I feel they can often become destabilize if you just so happen to accidentally rub the OP the wrong way.
All-in-all: Rant threads are not bad, but should be looked out for because they CAN be brewing grounds for trouble, but I agree with your position on the matter.
Perhaps, but that seems to fall under the category of "suggestions to specifically avoid," which is an idea everyone seems to have grown allergic to.
I'm fairly certain that the mods are capable of sorting this stuff out if it becomes an issue.
If you are planning to make a suggestion, please read this.
If you want to know more, you can read this.
For those who complain about post-Beta generation, you might want to see this.
Saying that we've grown allergic to it just seems to be a euphemistic way of saying that we randomly decided it was a bad idea for no reason. This isn't true. There was a lot of discussion on this topic which you've just dismissed, and if you think we should have a list of bad suggestions, you should make that case.
As for the actual topic at hand, no. This section is a free marketplace of ideas, and whether they're likely to be implemented or not is a non-factor, especially considering the fact that the goal here isn't to give suggestions to Mojang in the first place. Regardless, it's very shortsighted to think that Mojang would never reverse an idea. It happens frequently in the industry and there's nothing stopping Mojang from doing it if they came up with a particularly terrible idea. People should be encouraged to criticise things they don't like in the game, even if the thing itself is popular.
The most obvious example of this, and probably the suggestion being targeted here, is the reversal of 1.9 combat. I think we should all be encouraging people who don't like 1.9 combat to make their case as well as they can. There's no use in trying to silence people just because you happen to like whatever they're trying to reverse. The whole point is to beat bad ideas with better ideas, why does this suddenly stop being the case under these particular circumstances?
Any thread which just regurgitates the same tired "I don't like it please remove" that we've seen 100 times is subject to removal regardless of whether or not it is mentioned in the guide or not. Fresh arguments should be encouraged because that promotes healthy discussion. Sometimes I wonder if you're all trying to kill off the section with all of these new restrictions.