Good evening!

I have been an intermittent member here for nearly 10 years. Tonight I was yet again frustrated by reading a long thread from a beginner, only to find when I reached the end that I was unable the comment, as the thread had been "closed."

I understand; there is a desire to block people who don't follow a certain ethic--in this case, it was a new game enthusiast looking for developers to help him realize his game idea--but, I like to respond to those people with an explaination about the community's views and how they might pursue their ideas without annoying people.

Frustrated by again being blocked from replying, I went to chat where I interacted with a forum moderator who, after hearing my complaint, said simply "maybe nobody wants to hear your advice."

I think he may he right. I'm excited about games, and though I'm a programming professional with 30 years of experience, I like to hear the thoughts and ideas of--and interact with--people who aren't programmers and just love games.

At any rate, I'm outa here. This site has become something much, much less than a community for game developers and enthusiasts, and I'm off to find somewhere where, well, where my advice is at least welcomed, and at best appreciated.

Cheers!

Thanks for being a member for the last 10 years. I work with the absolute beginners as a teacher every single day so I'm pretty immune to everything. Some people though who have been around as long as you or longer may develop an intolerance for certain types of posts but at the end of the day even moderation isn't infallible or always kind. That's not an excuse for mistreating people by the way but moderators make their own judgement calls on posts and each moderator may have differing opinions on a particular post. I can even tell you that behind the scenes our moderator group has even had extensive and thoughtful discussions on things some may consider minor issues. I'm hoping you decide that leaving based on one moderator's opinion doesn't do anyone any good.

This community is shaped by everyone.. anybody can step up and have their footprint on the site. But if you believe there are problems then it's important to bring them to light so that we can discuss possible solutions.

What thread was it if I might ask?

Actually, if you had bothered to note the period and exclamation point, you would have noticed that what I said was entirely in jest.

To respond to your other bits and pieces:

You came into the chat and complained that you could not reply to a locked topic and that if you had known it was locked from the start you would not have bothered to start typing up a reply. You also complained about locked topics showing up in recent topics.

The "Locked" button appears at the very top of the topic in RED. As such, not noticing that it was locked AT THE START is entirely your own fault. If you were replying and a moderator locked the thread, then so what? Nobody gets to reply to locked topics except moderators, allowing through posts just because you started them before the lock was put into place would defeat the purpose of locks in the first place. Locked topics still show up in the recent topics because they're a recent topic, and the material may be relevant to someone reading that. Locking them should not remove them from there, as they will naturally fall off that page when things AGE more than an hour or two. Furthermore, you can immediately tell if a topic is locked or not, as there is a padlock icon by the thread name in the recent threads list if it happens to be locked.

I feel that this is a rather juvenile reason to quit the site, but if that is your decision: So long and thanks for all the fish.

Recruitment threads are a plague here which require moderation to keep the site actually readable.
We used to have one moderator that was dedicated to just making sure they were all posted in the recruiting sub-forum, formatted appropriately, and not over-bumped... but now we have the much easier to manage classifieds system.

It's not fair to the 90% of people who correctly use that system if we let a minority of new users bypass it and spam the forums with their recruitment posts, so we're pretty quick to lock them and advise these people to instead repost in the correct place.

If you want to comment on their topic, either PM them, or comment on their classifieds thread (assuming they make one).

What thread was it if I might ask?

Pretty sure it was this one:

http://www.gamedev.net/topic/660668-i-want-to-talk-to-an-indie-dev-for-making-one-of-my-game-ideas/

The first mod to comment mentioned that recruiting posts belong in the classifieds, but apparently forgot to lock it at that point, so a few members got to post their snarky comments before a 2nd mod locked it

@Michael,

I appreciate your response. I "thought there were problems" and did what I thought was appropriate to "bring them to light," only to be told my advice was possibly not welcomed. The Noob post issue has always been an issue on this forum; the issue is not that but the response to my first, one, and only suggestion.

@Washu,

Your description about how I was too stupid to understand the forum system would have been a terrific topic in chat--really, I don't waste a lot of my time on the forum software or standards; I focus on what people say and what I want to say in response. Being taught how to better use the system would be a good use of time.

My issue was two things: (1) how you unecessarily block posts from noobs (I know this is a real issue, but if our culture can't let those posts die naturally, I question the value or your censurship), and (2) killing threads that yet remain in "new content," so people can see, read and be motivated to participate, but then blocked.

Your response to me was juvenile and unprofessional. Perhaps you mistakenly thought I was some kid myself entering chat to wage a flame war because I had too much to drink on a Saturday night. Perhaps I mistakenly thought that the "Moderator" label made you a keeper of the culture so that I could lodge a single--and my first--complaint with you to help improve the forum.

Honestly, I considered how I might have misunderstood your Chat messages, but after reading your post here, I conclude that you are just a bad choice for a Moderator position; you aught not ever convey blame or consesendence or be trite about your members. I am sorry for the site that you have this position; it deserves people of a higher professional character.

@Hodgman,

Yes, that was the thread. I understand the issue(s) you describe, and thank you for your suggestions.

@All,

One unclean asshole can make a room full of well-kept men smell bad. Think about that.

Happy gaming, all! I won't be back.

@HScottH Having entered chat shortly after you logged out of it and read your relevant posts as well the replies in the history, I find myself confused as to why the extreme reaction of insta-leaving the GD-dev site which you announced in chat and then with this post a couple of hours later. Was Washu's comment open to misinterpretation? Sure (though punctuation was an indicator that it was not meant to betaken literally), but it was also not his first reply nor his only reply to your raising the issue of:

not being able to comment in a thread that was locked and that locked threads should be deleted so that you were not reading through a thread only to find yourself unable to comment (i.e. wasting your timemy interpretation).

His initial answers to you included the fact that such threads were not deleted as they also served as an example of behaviours (i.e. thread content) should be avoided. His last comment as cited by you (without the punctuation included I note) seemed to have elicited an unexpected reaction in that you have decided to leave Gamedev.net but I will be honest, I truly hope that you are leaving Gamedev for other reasons than simply this, as this is not even a storm in a teacup to be honest.

I like to hear the thoughts and ideas of--and interact with--people who aren't programmers and just love games.

I suspect you have been hanging out in the technical forums and not so much in the creative forums else you would find that this does occur over here. Not being a coder for a long time, my skillset is on the creative side. Myself, as well a number of others who hang out there often discuss issues, mechanics, ideas etc, more importantly we would welcome people who can bring experience and eagerness into those forums to help foster this side of the community. I would ask that you think on what I am saying here and realise one very important thing. A community will evolve, but how it evolves is something you can help shape.

Lastly and this is just a general comment for people who enter chat.... it is not the polite moderated world of Gamedev Forums. Discussions are freeranging, often offtopic or slightly disturbing and sometimes very spirited and should NEVER EVER be taken as an attack. There are enough active members in Chat who are pro-active when it comes to shutting down attacks. That said, there are also interminable periods of silence where 10 members in chat are saying nothing while they do other stuff.

Edit: Also the best place for attracting attention with regard to issues within the GameDev.net website (including the above issue raised by the OP) would be through GDNet Comments, Suggestions and Ideas forum as it opens the issue up for discussion as well enables the Staff members who manage the site (as well hold overall decision power) to interact.

Thanks for your contributions to the site over the time you've been here. Like some of the others I'm a bit surprised by the extremity of your reaction after reading through the chat logs. I can definitely see how you may have taken Washu's response the wrong way, and perhaps it wasn't ideal for a moderator to make that type of joke -- but I can also see that he was simply responding in jest and did in fact continue on to begin explaining how the forum software displays which topics are closed -- albeit after you had bid the chat fairwell, and perhaps after you had already closed the window without your departure being registered.

We've also been told that our moderators are sometimes too serious and should be more easy going, so we're stuck between a rock and a hard place trying to please everyone with a consistent moderation style and instead leave decisions up to individual moderators depending on the situation, and I don't think Washu could have predicted that his small joke would result in you immediately leaving both the chat and the site itself before he could continue to be more helpful.

I also see another misunderstanding in the chat log -- before Washu's joke -- that doesn't seem to have been addressed yet. You asked (paraphrasing) "why it's productive to leave locked topics accessible", and Washu's response was "because it gives you a recent objective example of what not to do." Your response to that ("Huh? Like 'reading the new content on GameDev.net?' Is that what I 'should not do?'", "I don't see anything saying 'You should not ask people to make your game...' int he thread instructing people.", "I just see 'Okay dude, you're an involved community member and you just read ALL this stuff, and now you can't give your advice.'") seems to indicate that you took this as being directed at you, but I believe it was actually the answer to your question: the productive point of leaving a topic that can not be posted in accessible is that it provides an example for other beginners who may be considering a suitable post.

Briefly returning to one of your points from above, you said that "I don't see anything saying 'You should not ask people to make your game...' int he thread instructing people", but the second response from sunandshadow to the topic indicated exactly that: "We don't allow anything that could be described as recruitment or hiring in the regular forums. So look near the top of this page for a button that says Classifieds." The same sentiment was reiterated in the sixth and final reply from Tom Sloper.

You said that this was your first complaint/suggestion, and Washu was obviously the first moderator you contacted with your issue; although I can see from the log that Washu was continuing on from his joke with some more serious conversation, if you weren't happy with his response there are many other moderators you could also talk to, and as you can see from the responses to this topic there are plenty of people who are willing to listen.

This is a community and if you would like to see changes you can be a part of making them happen -- as such, and given both the apparent misunderstanding and the number of people who are willing to politely listen and respond to your feedback I would encourage you to reconsider -- but if you really feel you should leave because of this it's obviously your decision.

I notice people cry a lot here. (Everywhere actually, must be the fluoride.)

I do like the articles though.

I agree this is not a very friendly forum especially for beginner, people dont realy help it seems like on some other forums.

I dont know of any other forum sites about game development do you ?, please advice.

I'm the mod who locked that thread. I normally delete recruiting posts entirely, and issue a mild temporary warning to the OP. In this case, since it was off-topic in the forum where it was posted and had gotten replies, I only locked it and moved it to the more appropriate forum. I knew it could tick off others who wanted to add their two cents, so I included an apology when I locked it.

Come to think of it, since this thread is complaining about GameDev.net, shouldn't it be in the GDNet Comments Suggestions And Ideas forum? I guess I'd better not move it, though (somebody else might rage-quit us!).