KSP has the best community I've ever seen. Let's keep it that way.

[Piv]

The problem is not that the newbies will infect the community and make it spoil, but people who think they are above others. That was a MAJOR problem in a game I was in (ROBLOX, the community is worse than Minecraft), people were thinking highly of themselves, higher than the newbies. That was pretty much why the community there was utter trash: because they rejected new players with hatred and arrogance. I know that you guys are doing this for the well being of the game and all of us involved in it. It's NOT going to fix it, it's only going to make it worse.

All I ask is that we welcome and help the newbies. Because in the end, the community's arrogance will discourage joining and may be the game's permanent scar.

Just my 2 cents. Feel free to comment or judge my opinion. This may be taken down but this a reminder to you guys.

Remember, we were ALL newbies at one point.

Edited May 29, 2013 by Piv

[OtherDalfite]

The problem is not that the newbies will infect the community and make it spoil, but people who think they are above others. That was a MAJOR problem in a game I was in (ROBLOX, the community is worse than Minecraft), people were thinking highly of themselves, higher than the newbies. That was pretty much why the community there was utter trash: because they rejected new players with hatred and arrogance. I know that you guys are doing this for the well being of the game and all of us involved in it. It's NOT going to fix it, it's only going to make it worse.

All I ask is that we welcome and help the newbies. Because in the end, the community's arrogance will discourage joining and may be the game's permanent scar.

Just my 2 cents. Feel free to comment or judge my opinion. This may be taken down but this a reminder to you guys.

This kind of behavior wasn't here back in 2011. The only time I started noticing the behavior was around mid-2012, when the game really started to pick up speed. The way it has gotten now is god awful, and there is really nothing that can be done about since the majority of them are either children or don't have the audacity to understand words put into a sentence telling them that they did something wrong.

[whatisthisidonteven]

Every time a popular youtuber makes a video everyone starts complaining about how all of the noobs are going to come. Look what happened when that nerdcubed guy made a video, there was a thread treating it like the end of the world.

The KSP community definitely has its good points but I wouldn't call it the best community I've ever seen.

[AstronautGeologist]

Everyone was a noob at one point.

[Shrike42]

Best community I've ever seen was the old City of Heroes forums, seven years ago. And then it became cliqued, both in game and out. It's easy to feel special as an early player, when the devs are far more active and able to respond to more posts, but then those responses make people think they're better than someone else, try to use their reputation score as a shortcut to justifying their positions and rally others, etc.etc.

This sort of thing invariably occurs over time, as the playerbase and community grows. People get tired of answering the same questions, get irritated with each other, make mistakes, gain hubris... and fall prey to charismatic trolls. That's a real thing I've watched tear communities apart. It was rather impressive, but no, I'm not going to give any examples. Not family friendly anymore, if those communities still exist.

There's far more reasons for it than that paltry list, but still, all communities will evolve, and it's up to each poster to make an effort to guide everyone else if you want to prevent it from happening. Jumping on others, self-appointing yourselves as enforcers of the laws... that's not the way to do it.

Keep in mind, KSP is a game at the end of the day. No one will ever live or die because of the choices you make while playing it, but you can impact someone else's life through your behavior in the KSP community. Be excellent to each other.

[Moustachauve]

Yea, I see tons of "Noobs are coming!" posts, but I don't see much "troll" post or anything bad except for this. The most annoying things on this forum actually are threads like this one and the "Let's not."... They are multiplying horribly

Edited May 29, 2013 by Moustachauve

[Jr6150x]

I've been prowling around the forum for a couple of months and it seems to me, In my opinion, that we do a pretty good job in helping the newbies.

[Wabur]

The problem is not that the newbies will infect the community and make it spoil, but people who think they are above others. That was a MAJOR problem in a game I was in (ROBLOX, the community is worse than Minecraft), people were thinking highly of themselves, higher than the newbies. That was pretty much why the community there was utter trash: because they rejected new players with hatred and arrogance. I know that you guys are doing this for the well being of the game and all of us involved in it. It's NOT going to fix it, it's only going to make it worse.

All I ask is that we welcome and help the newbies. Because in the end, the community's arrogance will discourage joining and may be the game's permanent scar.

Just my 2 cents. Feel free to comment or judge my opinion. This may be taken down but this a reminder to you guys.

This is how I feel. I, too, have been part of other communities where everybody treated each other horribly. This is by far the best community I have been part of.

One thing people need to realize is that everybody was a newbie at one point.

[3_bit]

I would laugh if this thread got derailed and locked. But that won't happen.

[Fel]

KSP has the best community I've ever seen. Let's keep it that way.

Started by Piv, Today 18:10

Let's Not.

Started by Sputnik-1, Today 14:23 1

[MR4Y]

KSP has the best community I've ever seen. Let's keep it that way.

Started by Piv, Today 18:10

Let's Not.

Started by Sputnik-1, Today 14:23 1

Every discussion thread with an inch of criticism has to be followed by a thread with the exact content, but with bootlicking instead.

[Uberick]

I, personally, LOVE seeing new people show up on the forums. I, myself, was once new; and I'm pretty sure that everyone else here had a first launch, first failed launch, first successful moon landing, first successful moon rescue mission, etc. I think that it can sometimes be difficult for veterans to put themselves back in their old "shoes" and see how foreign the game may seem to someone just starting out.

I remember when I tried to land on Duna the first time. I felt like I was trying to hit a target obscured in darkness a million miles away while looking through a pinhole(which was mostly true). I finished my initial ejection burn, and watched as Kerbin got smaller and smaller as I entered that great span of nothingness between planets. I felt kinda helpless; just wafting around like a speck of space dust. It seemed like magic when I actually arrived at Duna's SOI, and I felt a panic set in as I saw that my orbit was some millions of meters away from the planet. I knew that if I missed it, and slid on by, I would plummet away into the darkness of space. . . and there would be nothing I could do to get back. I eventually corrected my orbit, managed to land successfully, and even send a successful rescue mission later to retrieve the whole crew. But that moment when I actually touched down on Duna after a few months(time accelerated minutes) in deep space lifted a huge weight off my shoulders.

To someone new at this game, it can be daunting. Things that veterans take for granted like planetary transfers and docking can seem impossible at first. I think it is the responsibility of the community to help new members understand this game as much as possible, so that instead of having a group of veterans and a group of noobs, we have a single, united playerbase always welcoming in new people. If we can do that this game will become unstoppable:)

From my own experience, I have found this community to be nothing but helpful. In no other game have I found people willing to walk me step by step through math problems to allow me to achieve something, and then rejoice in that achievement as if it was their own accomplishment.

Keep it up guys!

[Fel]

Yea, I see tons of "Noobs are coming!" posts, but I don't see much "troll" post or anything bad except for this. The most annoying things on this forum actually are threads like this one and the "Let's not."... They are multiplying horribly

Don't consider it "trolling;" Consider it "Arrogant Discussions Meant to Make the OP feel special."

We should ENCOURAGE the "I landed on the mun :)" threads and DISCOURAGE the "I am awesome because I can do X (Discuss what makes you awesome)" threads.

I wouldn't say this is a hostile to newbies community... but a fair bit childish, yes.

[Wait- Was That Important?]

Every discussion thread with an inch of criticism has to be followed by a thread with the exact content, but with bootlicking instead.

I invoke internet rules 13 ("Anything you say can be turned into something else- fixed") and 8 ("there are no real rules about posting").

I dislike how reactionary this community is. The people here are literally rocket scientists but a stupid troll post gets 15 pages of responses and two/ three offshoot threads slyly or sometimes not-so-slyly referencing the main thread.

That being said, elitism is a factor in all games, and it isn't really that bad in the KSP Community. There's never a really huge influx of annoying noobs after a publicity boost, and we're lucky to have people nice enough to greet them and answer their questions.

[KinkyFerrets]

Am I the only one that's confused as to where all this negativity came from? Like the "Lets Not" thread, what on earth set that off in the OP's mind?

Everything I've seen so far on the forums has been consistently positive. I haven't seen the community arguing with devs about any major or even minor features, just some complaints about bugs that go further than the posting of a bug report. And I haven't seen people bashing on noobies. I just dont get it.

[MR4Y]

Am I the only one that's confused as to where all this negativity came from? Like the "Lets Not" thread, what on earth set that off in the OP's mind?

Everything I've seen so far on the forums has been consistently positive. I haven't seen the community arguing with devs about any major or even minor features, just some complaints about bugs that go further than the posting of a bug report. And I haven't seen people bashing on noobies. I just dont get it.

That's the only angle some here see. As for being mostly positive posts, let's bring another MODS vs STOCK discussion, followed by REALISM vs NON-REALISM.

[Spatzimaus]

As for being mostly positive posts, let's bring another MODS vs STOCK discussion, followed by REALISM vs NON-REALISM.

Don't forget "SSTO Spaceplanes versus Asparagus Rockets", or pretty much any discussion involving MechJeb.

[KinkyFerrets]

That's the only angle some here see. As for being mostly positive posts, let's bring another MODS vs STOCK discussion, followed by REALISM vs NON-REALISM.

Well yeah, bring up either of those, and there'll be arguments, but for the most part thats the only type of negativity I see on here. 2 examples of threads that are naturally going to be argumentative because the goals of either are in direct conflict with the other. That's understandable.

[A Fat Pokemon]

Honestly, I've seen about the same amount of negativity today, as the day I joined, which our friendly moderators handle quite nicely.

[Frostiken]

The problem is not that the newbies will infect the community and make it spoil, but people who think they are above others.

Interesting choice of words.

Everything I've seen so far on the forums has been consistently positive.

That might have something to do with the fact that our 'crack team' of moderators' solution to managing this board is to completely delete any post they don't like with utter totality. Doesn't matter if there were useful things in there, rather than be like any other forum and edit out the objectionable content (or be an adult and let it slide) they'll just nuke the entire post. We've already seen how one person makes an angry post and an entire thread people were posting in gets locked, because it 'ran its course'. Yeah okay, I guess we had nothing else to say because *YOU* say so, Mr. The Man.

Nanny-state forums don't do any better, by the way. It turns the forum into a passive-aggressive pandering to authority circlejerk, the entire intent of which is to anger people into doing something that you can cry to the mods about and pretend to be a victim. It happens pretty often.

Edited May 29, 2013 by Frostiken

[air805ronin]

Every discussion thread with an inch of criticism has to be followed by a thread with the exact content, but with bootlicking instead.

While I do agree I see the same trend, I think using the term "bootlicking" automatically sours people's opinions of whatever you might post. Just being honest here...

This trend you point out is also indicative of the fact there are generally 2 camps of people. Those who are critical of a path the game may appear to be taking, and those who are quite happy with the path it has been taking. Dualities are present in almost everything about being human. hence when a critical thread jumps out, those who want to present the other side create their own thread.

Another inevitability is that people like me will post in the negative thread, and people like you will post in the positive thread trying to make sure the thread shows both sides.

edit: even with a built in spell checker I don't actually use it...

Edited May 29, 2013 by air805ronin

[MR4Y]

Well yeah, bring up either of those, and there'll be arguments, but for the most part thats the only type of negativity I see on here. 2 examples of threads that are naturally going to be argumentative because the goals of either are in direct conflict with the other. That's understandable.

I'm sorry to disagree with you, but my(short) experience tells the opposite. People will often feel personally offended for various reasons.

[MR4Y]

While I do agree I see the same trend, I think using the term "bootlicking" automatically sours people's opinions of whatever you might post. Just being honest here...

This trend you point out is also indicative of the fact there are generally 2 camps of people. Those who are critical of a path the game may appear to be taking, and those who are quite happy with the path it has been taking. Dualities are present in almost everything about being human. hence when a critical thread jumps out, those who want to present the other side create their own thread.

Another inevitability is that peope like me will post in the negative thread, and people like you will post in the positive thread trying to make sure the thread shows both sides.

I personally don't see what other word could be used in this case. I'm not talking about different points of view. I'm talking about people that shield SQUAD and don't want to see the problems, while also using the same old excuses ("It's an alpha" for example) to keep people from voicing their opinion, even getting the support of moderators in that quest.

A positive thread will have the equal amount of negative threads and even people shielding might have negative opinions, but have the fanboy goggles stuck too firmly.

[Frostiken]

Those who are critical of a path the game may appear to be taking, and those who are quite happy with the path it has been taking.

The difference is that - and literally every marketing department in business has shown this - people generally don't go out of the way to praise something. When you complain, it means something bothered you enough to go out of your way to get some sort of solution or try to enact change. If everything is working, people generally say nothing.

So going out of your way to dump praise sounds extremely douchy and disingenuous.

Anyway, like I said - I've been around the 'ol internet a time or two, and I get the impression that I've been doing so for longer than some of our players here have even been alive. And my point is that over-moderation is just as bad and ruins a community as undermoderation. Hell, 4chan is one of the largest communities on the internet and look what you can get away with there. I once dropped an f-bomb on this forum (that automatically got censored to '****ing') and someone went out of their way to complain to me about 'ruining the community'.

That's like driving my car down the street and then some woman in a minivan cuts me off, stops, and screams out the window about how I rolled through a stopsign. The only real response you can offer is something along the lines of 'go to hell, lady'.

Edited May 29, 2013 by Frostiken

[KinkyFerrets]

I'm sorry to disagree with you, but my(short) experience tells the opposite. People will often feel personally offended for various reasons.

As all too often happens, those defending something they passionately believe will take personal offense. You see it on the Academic debate circuit sometimes. People who can normally make a well reasoned argument, and are very well mannered, become vicious, rude, offensive, and unprofessional because they got stuck on the side of a topic they happen to agree with, and are now defending their own carefully constructed rational as opposed to defending a concept or point.