Every forum on the internet will have a few posters that rant, or tit for tat, or suck up all the oxygen in the room, unless and until something is done to stop it. You don't need me to provide a long list of interesting discussions that have been derailed here, as no doubt you've had your fill of them. Here, however, is what I take to be a watershed instance of the problem this forum currently has: yesterday IJW returned to offer some key rule clarifications (really cool community interaction, much appreciated!), but he could barely stomach the emotional incontinence that immediately threatened to derail the thread. And he's not alone: we humans are empathetic creatures and reading a discussion full of inflammatory remarks, shouting and personal attacks is a stressful experience for anyone but trolls and zen masters. Strange as it is to say, it's hard to be an active member of this forum. Now, I'm not saying that this is a problem particular to the Infinity community, nor that the Infinity community has a uniquely positive tone that is somehow being betrayed. Both would be a kind of bias because actually - surprise surprise - it has the exactly the same kind of community as every other internet forum: precisely as bad as its moderators allow. How bad does the current moderation allow things to get? Well, how often have you seen someone muted for a week? Is there even a mute button in the forum's architecture? Have you ever seen someone banned? The current laissez-faire approach here is holding back what the forum could be and until our moderator learns the art of the banhammer, or is replaced by someone that does, we'll all be stuck in an abyssal cycle of derailment, flaming and tit for tat. The first rule for this forum is that "offensive, insulting, discriminatory, racist, sexist or aggressive posts will not be tolerated. You can disagree with someone and remain polite." Until this rule is actively enforced through muting and banning, nothing will improve. Infinity the game deserves so much better.
Problem here is that IJW isn't an independent actor and that faq 1.2 is a terrible faq made worse by Hellois comment. IJW is an effective press secretary for CB. His job is make CB rulings look good, not to make good rulings that contradict CB rulings. This is precisely the reason why press secretary job is so stressful.
@Time Bandit I know my role in some of those threads. I'm an Aspie and I will either overheat and not stop myself from digging in a discussion I should drop out of, trying to explain my point ad nauseam and/or I will come across as aggressive while doing that and then get into an argument with trolls and drive by shitposters who seek to aggravate the situation. Or be unable to hide my irritation and disgust with some of them and start insulting them, seeing no other pushback against what they do. At the same time, what I get in return and what often triggers me is a lot more offensive - my disabilities are used as slurs, I'm getting openly told to "fuck off", getting called brainless and so on. And all the mod does is red text and red text. Nobody is taking him seriously, especially when the mod himself shitposts and aggravates other users. We need a new mod team or nothing will change.
Above all, we want people like Hellois and Ian Wood to communicate with us more often, not less often. I agree with the goal generally expressed by the OP. So many of us are individually to blame for toxic attitudes in the community though, it's a difficult one to solve. Demanding moderation is a fair demand but I don't know how realistic it is. Perhaps we could talk about what we, as a community, deem acceptable and unacceptable in terms of forum moderation? I would suppose that at the very least, directly making a personal attack on someone should result in some consequences. We could expand from there.
Yeah, but at the same time a company employee holding us effectively hostage of "behave well while completely unmoderated or I will vanish again and leave you without rules interpretation / faq / errata" is unprofessional and unacceptable.
The last thing this post is is an attack on any posters in particular, I hope it doesn't sound like that. In an overheated debate people overreact - not one person, many people. The crucial point is to moderate the debate so that it doesn't overheat, and therefore doesn't cause further friction and reaction (and that's what the point of this post is). Good moderation helps us to be better in dialogue.
Actually people have been banned, permanent bans are really rare though, usually a few days or a week, it goes unnoticed mostly if other posters do not notice a name with a strikethrough or the suspended poster mentions it. Thread has been locked and moved to a relevant section of the forum, It did not take a moment to go to bad.
