Complaint forum - Can I have it? (was game=268)Follow

probably the most insightful and necessary post iv seen in weeks. please please consider this admins.

alla is a self-policing community. the best recourse is, if you dont like it, rate it down. its that simple. of course, im not saying to blatantly rate stuff down all willy nilly, but the hands-off approach the mods take on alla is part of what makes alla the community it is.

its up to the members of the community how we shape it. my personal approach is one of ignorance; i just ignore all the threads i dont like. let other people get wound up in their own things, its no concern to me. if someone says something particularly stupid and/or bad i might rate them down and i generally provide an explanation as well. the exception to this would be if someone already said what i was going to say, or something close to it. i dislike waste, and find no sense in repeating something that was already said, especially if its in a thread i find i distasteful.

so in short, the community is what you make of it. we have the power. given that a large number of of the complaining posters tend to have post counts in the sub-200 range, a solid round of rate downs will sub-default them pretty quickly. that generally sends a good message, and even if it doesnt that means they wont be posting anything on that name that anyone can see. just make sure you dont abuse it; if someone complains but does so in a mature way that doesnt scream "IM RIGHT AND YOUR WRONG AND THERES NOTHING YOU CAN DO ABOUT BECAUSE IM A UNIQUE SNOWFLAKE AND MY OPINION MATTERS!" then theres no point in rating them down as far as i can tell. that kind of mature attitude is what we want to encourage (oblique sexual innuendo shared by mikhalia and i notwithstanding)

having said that, it might not be a terrible to consolidate the complaining into a single post if it gets to the point that more than half the threads are about it. i dont see half the threads about it right now; maybe about a quarter or so, with another 10% being threads of complaint about the complaint threads, then the rest a mish-mash of helpful tips, fun stories, funny games and just general....generalness.


posted this when it was still in the general forum. not quite as relevant here, but i think the ultimate point still stands.

I understand the ignore option, I do for the most part. But its to the point that new people looking for a place to get information will be displaced with all the irrelevant to FFXIV information, and possibly be turned off by the game if they are looking for information about it. I love ZAM, I've been here for years and have always enjoyed the information I've received from it. I want this community to grow as the FFXI forums did. But in current form, and without more moderation on these negative threads I can't see that happening. This is not what I feel this forum is about right? I'm sure you guys didn't create a dedicated FFXIV forum so people can say "I quit" or "this game sucks." I realize everyone has their own say but categorically speaking I would think the General forum should be to help people that actually enjoy the game.

As for rating down, it doesn't appear to work anymore. The Naysayers are surmounting Rate ups to these negative threads to keep them above sub-default in most cases.

And I just want to emphasize that I hope everyone else feels as i do that these forums should be for those that ARE enjoying the game. Thats why I feel so strongly about these threads I'm talking about should be removed, moved to a new category or something else If someone has a better Idea.

I want the ZAM FFXIV community to grow and prosper along with FFXIV itself.

Are you serious? Why else waste the time to cover the game from beta, create custom themes based on the game itself, have forums named after the servers, and classes. Why create an extensive database of all enemies, items, skills, classes, recipes, etc.

It's obvious that ZAM created the forums for people interested and enjoy the game. Their is no point for all that hard work just so people can bash the game.


Why should this forum be for people other then those who are interested in and enjoy the game?

Yes.



I'm sure that's not why they did it, but surely you can see how the people who are upset with a game have played it and utilized those tools in the past...




Why does it have to be one or the other...?

I mean, sh*t, it's not like you have to sign a freaking waiver saying, "I will only say nice things about a game once I start playing it, so help me god." Heaven forbid other people have an opinion and wish to discuss it.

I don't even play an MMO anymore, but Zam is still getting my money and I'm still posting on the forums. Should I be forced to go away simply because I'm not interested in a game at the moment...?


Edited, Oct 9th 2010 12:08am by Belkira

Mainly because people interested, yet not invested in the game should be well informed before putting money on the product. I don't go to the fans of anything to do research on products. I go to the critics; They're usually the ones that think more about the product.

And really, anyone at a fifth grade reading level can tell the difference between criticism and trolling.

Well, i don't know if it was me or a multitude of people, but THANK YOU to all who approved of the complain department sticky.