Can we all agree to not be like this?

[KasperVld]

You realise that you're on the internet and then laugh about how your life is better.

Just because you're on the internet doesn't mean you open yourself up to unreasonable criticism, flaming and trolling. The difference between the internet and 'regular' social interaction is that if you're extremely rude against someone in real life you have the chance of getting punched in the face; on the internet this is not the case and any kind of punishment is hard to enforce effectively. Some people see this as an opportunity to be extremely rude and annoying without being punched in the face and so the obvious solution would be to have a small pepperspray dispenser installed in every computer.

All kidding aside it speaks for itself that regardless of possible consequences it's a noble goal to treat people with respect even when you disagree with them.

[Ringkeeper]

That is exactly the mind set that will drive away modders. For example, why do I need to read this in one of my threads?

Instead of just stating what's wrong or what's to dislike, in an objective way, and perhaps giving suggestions about what can be improved, this person turns to language. I don't like that.

Now, the forum rules forbid that I just go ahead and answer the way I'd like to. So I do as you say, suck it up, and just ignore that person. But in the longer term, all that sucking up is building up frustration - and that's a thing I don't think any gaming community could want for modders to happen.

Well, if someone would post like this on work i do.... i would use this nice button in his profile, called "ignore user" . User gone, i dont have to read his ...., problem solved

But maybe i'm just already tooo blunted after 10 Years of customer support. Or i just got good at ignoring complains

[stupid_chris]

Wait wait....this is too spimple, lets get a bit more into it shall we?

1. You do something because YOU want it, YOU enjoy it for yourself...and then you share it because you can, why not?

2. You do something and share it because you like the recognition for it, beeing part of a community, talking about what you did and getting good feelings out of it.

Now, if you are type1...then who cares about feedback anyways? Yea, its nice if ppl like it, but as its your vision for your playstyle its easy just to not listen to the "always angry ones" that come with the territory.

-snip-

No. If you are type one, you are doing it because you enjoy it. If everytime you take a look at the feedback you're receiving, you only see hate, useless comments meant to stab at you, or whatever else that could be upsetting, you stop associating that activity with pleasure, and you start associating it with the fear of being shot down again and being spat on. And those are the people who are at risk of quitting from that pressure.

I'm a "type one". I made RealChute first beause it's something I really desired in KSP, because I like doing it, but also because I thought it was something the community equally desired. Turns out I was right. But there are days where scrolling through the RealChute thread just makes me want to drop it for a while. Some people end up downright demanding that I either implement what /they/ want or that I roll back on some changes I made because they don't make them happy. And that's ignoring the ridiculous amount of bugs being reported that were ten times before, or that were fixed versions ago, or if they actually are current bug, who come with a total lack of information.

At the end of the day, modders are the one who sweat it all and consume the ridiculous amounts of caffeine trying to get those awesome things together for you guys, if you don't like how they made it, dropping a bomb on them won't make it any better to get what you want.

Edited July 28, 2014 by stupid_chris

[Guest]

Just because you're on the internet doesn't mean you open yourself up to unreasonable criticism, flaming and trolling. The difference between the internet and 'regular' social interaction is that if you're extremely rude against someone in real life you have the chance of getting punched in the face; on the internet this is not the case and any kind of punishment is hard to enforce effectively. Some people see this as an opportunity to be extremely rude and annoying without being punched in the face and so the obvious solution would be to have a small pepperspray dispenser installed in every computer.

All kidding aside it speaks for itself that regardless of possible consequences it's a noble goal to treat people with respect even when you disagree with them.

When i say laugh about how your life is better, i don't mean "communicate that view with them". Look at the comment, laugh at their pathetic attempt of making you feel sad and move on.

After being a lead programmer for several 'mod' projects over the years, i'd say that it was a good thing people complain and troll, it helps you realise that you treat them as the same as in real life, you ignore them and move on.

I don't know how old the modder is, but you have to be mature enough to take critisism, even if poorly-founded, or even a troll; maybe he just needs a few months out to look at how he feels about the situation.

[Guest]

Further to this, it's something you see a lot on youtube as well. There's a period of time it takes to get used to pathetic morons on the internet. it just takes time to be confdent in yourself, whatever you're doing - even more so in the arrogance-accelerating enviroment on the internet.

[Streetwind]

KSP has one of the most mature gaming communities out there, on account of its target audience, science/education theme and lack of competitive gameplay elements. The mere fact that we, in this community, even need to have a discussion about this speaks volumes, to be honest.

From my point of view, there is nothing to discuss here. If you are being rude, you are being rude, and no amount of projecting the fault onto the target of your rudeness is going to change that fact. There is always, always a way for you to consciously decide to not be rude. Therefore, at any time you are being rude, it is your conscious decision to do so, and nobody but you is responsible in any way, shape or form.

Now if you'll excuse me, I need to go add a certain someone from page 1 onto my ignore list because they have succinctly proven themselves incapable of intelligent thought. No naming and shaming, of course. That would be rude.

[LordFjord]

When i say laugh about how your life is better, i don't mean "communicate that view with them". Look at the comment, laugh at their pathetic attempt of making you feel sad and move on.

After being a lead programmer for several 'mod' projects over the years, i'd say that it was a good thing people complain and troll, it helps you realise that you treat them as the same as in real life, you ignore them and move on.

I don't know how old the modder is, but you have to be mature enough to take critisism, even if poorly-founded, or even a troll; maybe he just needs a few months out to look at how he feels about the situation.

I've been in the same situation ~10 years ago with the game Freelancer and the Excelcia mod for 2 years. Me being an internet community newb, it led to a lot of internet drama, rage-quits and whatnot. Took me a while to get over it and now I see things differently.

However I wouldn't say that it was a good thing to encounter those trolls. Maybe good for personal strength, but a disaster for the project.

@syfyguy64:

Being a dev has absolutely nothing to do with the capability of dealing with criticism when it comes in a hostile way. People mod to improve their gaming experience, or for fun, or maybe for a bit of internet fame but none of these is a reason to deal with trolls who haven't left the "stage" of:

normal person + internet anonymity = douchebag

So yeah, why not turn it around? Instead of telling the dev to handle it, tell the troll to not say anything on the interwebz that he wouldn't tell someone personally face to face?

In the long run, the trolls just ruin it for themselves.

[Technical Ben]

My two cents. Even if a modder gets "elevated" into the status of a developer, if there are people who hate him/her, then the hate will come. It's just a matter of being steadfast with your vision for your mod or product.

Here's something that Dean Hall (creator of the Arma mod 'DayZ' and now the lead developer for 'DayZ Standalone') tweeted some hours ago...

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v291/rodsky/misc/Image1_zps4f43266d.jpg

You can't please them all. It takes a strong personality to be a developer.

It's a problem with charging for an unfinished game/product. Things can be broken in multiple ways, such as "too easy" or "too hard", and it takes time to find the good middle ground. Though no excuse for abuse and complaints.

Thankfully most of this community engage Squad, and Squad communicates with the community. Working together, instead of shouting out.

[Superfluous J]

Wanting people to act differently than they do is a recipe for disaster.

People are jerks. It's sad but true. If you can't handle jerks telling you you "sux" then you're in for a horrible, terrible life of misery.

It's not the way it should be, but it's the way it is. Saying people should be nice to each other is never going to change the fact that they won't be nice to each other.

I personally try to be extra nice to modders and developers, even when I don't personally agree with their choices or see flaws in their code. I hope that my words mitigate some of the jerks who can do nothing but spew anger. I would suggest that anybody else do the same, especially for modders and developers who seem to get more spite than praise for their efforts.

I also frequently publicly smack down people who are jerks to developers and modders, but I wouldn't suggest that for others. It's easy to go too far and then the moderators need to sit you down for a time out. But sometimes I can't just sit by and watch, even though I should.

[Padishar]

I also frequently publicly smack down people who are jerks to developers and modders, but I wouldn't suggest that for others. It's easy to go too far and then the moderators need to sit you down for a time out. But sometimes I can't just sit by and watch, even though I should.

Given the forum rules and the, generally, high quality of the moderator team in this forum, you would be better off simply reporting the post, making it clear that you don't want to read this sort of thing in these forums. One report may not be enough but if several people complain about the same post then it is almost guaranteed that something positive will be done about it...

In case it isn't clear, I understand how you feel and I also sometimes do the same, though I (like to think I) have got pretty good at putting people in their place without being directly insulting or abusive...

Edited July 28, 2014 by Padishar

[blizzy78]

I personally try to be extra nice to modders and developers

I don't think modders need extra cushioning.

[Godot]

...

People are jerks. It's sad but true. If you can't handle jerks telling you you "sux" then you're in for a horrible, terrible life of misery.

...

Jup ...

it is just a matter of statistics ...

if we assume that 5 % of all people are jerks (IMHO a rather too optimistic assumption) ... and assume that the population of players of a computer game / users of a certain mod follows the same distribution as the normal population,

we can assume that for every 100 users of a mod, the mod creator will get pestered by 5 jerks

[Bloodlance]

There is a simple phrase to these moments,

Damned if you do, damned if you don't

As a developer or producer, you have to take this mantra in your life and understand it and live by its rule, and only do what you see is best for the "product".

There is always haters and loud small parts of the community that tries to effect the "product". Being too open and listening to the social structures around us too much, leads to devastation.

Edited July 28, 2014 by Bloodlance

[micha]

Given this is a closed community, it should be fairly easy to just ban users who are habitually obnoxious. On the whole (as a new member to the forum and the game) I'm pleasantly impressed by the overall tone and behaviour. However, following the 0.24(.1/.2) releases, there was a huge swell in childish and rude behaviour. Some of it can be taken as fun hype-style banter (to give benefit of the doubt), but a lot is juvenile wingeing, personal attacks, and people obviously not even bothering to read a page or two back in a thread and complaining about stuff that was either already fixed, or is known about.

Yes, if nobody complained, nothing would improve, but there are ways to do so politely and constructively.

[KasperVld]

Given this is a closed community, it should be fairly easy to just ban users who are habitually obnoxious. On the whole (as a new member to the forum and the game) I'm pleasantly impressed by the overall tone and behaviour. However, following the 0.24(.1/.2) releases, there was a huge swell in childish and rude behaviour. Some of it can be taken as fun hype-style banter (to give benefit of the doubt), but a lot is juvenile wingeing, personal attacks, and people obviously not even bothering to read a page or two back in a thread and complaining about stuff that was either already fixed, or is known about.

Yes, if nobody complained, nothing would improve, but there are ways to do so politely and constructively.

If you come across posts that violate our community rules (such as personal attacks) please hit the report button underneath the post so we can take a look

[Guest]

I don't think modders need extra cushioning.

Agreed, if anything you want to be worse. Many (especially younger) modders have no idea how stressful it is being a dev where the company has in-house advertising.

[helldiver]

Well my two cents since KSOS gets its fair share of flak. The most recent being the 32bit vs. 64bit debacle.

Personally I never really take to heart what folks say on the thread. I've known from the beginning that it wasn't going to make everyone happy. The KSO not really being a parts kit, I knew I was going to take some flak from folks who: "Damnit, such a cool looking model with IVA and it's not a part's kit!". I knew this was going to happen going in to it.

So I went into it by ignoring those folks completely, and focusing on the others who use the KSO orbiters as they are. Turns out, that the guys who use KSOS "as is" have helped evolve the mod to what it is now (originally it was just going to be the shuttle and a moon lander).

However, and this is something that took me a while to realize; The people making criticisms of your mod are your fans. The people that have been most critical of KSOS have sparked the most change. At first glance I took most of their rants as just that, rants and complaints. However, the Super 25 incorporated a lot of the things those folks asked for; Better IVA visibility, larger cargo space, improved flight, etcetera. I realized that the reason some of these folks are so critical, is because they enjoy the mod so much, that any blemish will cause them to tell you about it (not always in a diplomatic way).

This eventually evolved to simply reading the thread and if something seems like a rant or complaint, I make an evaluation:

-Is it something that can be fixed readily without new resources?

-Is it a legitimate bug?

-Is it a quality of life improvement?

-Can it be incorporated later on at a different phase?

-Is it in the spirit of the project?

So pretty much it's gotten to the point where I don't take anything in the thread as a complaint, rant, or troll attempt. This leads to a discussion I had the other day with one of our community members. In it he made a few statements that struck a few chords and my response may have seemed like I was upset at him specifically. In reality the only person that is capable of offending or chasing me away is, Squad. The response really wasn't at him, but was really my frustration with Squad.

They have claimed and continue to claim "We support modding", evidenced by saying this repeatedly in the twitch stream and just a few posts up someone just repeated it again. I'm not sure what priority Squad has given to modding in their business plan, but so far it is my opinion that it isn't very high, if at all. I've said it in my thread and I'll say it again; Squad does not support modding.

-Why is there no SDK? With all modules used by the stock game properly defined.

-Why has an asset manager not been incorporated into the engine without the need of 3rd party plugins such as Active Texture Management?

-In regards to IVA's only; why are we stuck with placing the IVA texture in the spaces directory next to the internal.cfg? This has become a serious issue for IVA intensive mods such as KSOS. We could save 25% or more on resources if we could point IVA textures to share them without using the idiotic props work around (which is in and of itself inefficient).

So far the source of any frustration I've had from a thread post has been just that; Something out of our control which is in Squad's court.

[helldiver]

I don't think modders need extra cushioning.

Agreed, if anything you want to be worse. Many (especially younger) modders have no idea how stressful it is being a dev where the company has in-house advertising.

Neither of you make any sense.

What cushioning do we need? If we were given any leniency by moderators, in what way does it apply?

The thread is about abuse against modders. Not modders abusing community members, remember?

Second, you say "If anything you want to be worse". What does that mean?

Moderators should be worse with us? Are you serious?

Is there a growing trend of abusive Modders ranting and yelling at community members?

[Kerbonautical]

Not gonna condone the attitude that the internet can have at times, just look at GAF for instance, one thread people love a game whilst another they're collectively 'cancelling preorders' due to a lack of a level. This is just the way of the net, all you need is one to lead and the flock will follow. However with that said it sounds like the creator of ICEnhancer has/had included parts of work that wasn't his own without crediting the creator. Over here that would typically get the mod shut down, so it's not hard to see how he angered people.

[Guest]

Neither of you make any sense.

What cushioning do we need? If we were given any leniency by moderators, in what way does it apply?

The thread is about abuse against modders. Not modders abusing community members, remember?

Second, you say "If anything you want to be worse". What does that mean?

Moderators should be worse with us? Are you serious?

Is there a growing trend of abusive Modders ranting and yelling at community members?

It's an exaggerated view*. Some kids whining on the KSP forums is nothing compared to what you're going to experience in the industry. Of course, we don't want anyone to be singled out here or made to feel bad, but the (pathetic) ranting/abuse is really part of the journey to being confident in your work and working within a company.

*I want modders to be exposed to this still, it's a lesson that is needed. There shouldn't be special rules/cushioning/hiding of more extreme views.

Edited July 28, 2014 by Linear

[blizzy78]

Neither of you make any sense.

Why am I not making sense? I wanted to point out that modders don't need extra cushioning to somehow "compensate" for abusive posts from others. If you disagree with a modder or don't like something about their mod, just tell them in a normal, respectful tone, and they will listen.

[SpaceGremlin]

Is there a growing trend of abusive Modders ranting and yelling at community members?

I have not seen this with KSP, but in another sandbox game that I enjoy. There are certain modders who do "abuse" the community. Stolen art assets from other projects, users with legitimate bug reports being met with derision, even mods that deliberately break other mods. Just as users feeling entitled to a modder's time and energy is bad, so is a modder acting as if they're above the rest of the community. The respect has to be earned by and shown to both sides.

[Red Iron Crown]

Why am I not making sense? I wanted to point out that modders don't need extra cushioning to somehow "compensate" for abusive posts from others. If you disagree with a modder or don't like something about their mod, just tell them in a normal, respectful tone, and they will listen.

This is what I've observed. Most modders welcome constructive criticism, if it's about improving the mod or providing useful feedback.

It's the non-constructive criticism that is the bad thing. "You and your mod suck" or "Your mod doesn't work (with no explanation)" don't add anything other than noise to the thread and possibly hurt to the modder. That sort of thing should be heavily moderated IMO. It would be great if modders could moderate their own threads, but I don't think that's practical or feasible.

[Aphobius]

Ahaha, 5 pages. If everyone tells you that your mod sucks, maybe it really sucks. "Boohoohoo, but I did it for free", yeah, so what, do you want to be venerated by everyone because you've done some crap for free?

If you are a good developer, even if this sounds strange, you should never listen to feedback. Just an extreme example, think about Blizzard, do you think they even read the feedback? Yet, they have some of the best games ever made (WoW and Starcraft 2, they are like the only MMORPG and RTS that deserve being played, other games of that kind are not coming even close to this two). And look on their forums, people say all kind of crap about the new dungeons, about the future dungeons, about balance in Starcraft etc. Do Blizzard ever listen to them? No. Because they are professional and confident that they are the best, it's not like the people on the forum are smarter than them or better than them at game design or anything.

If you make something and someone says bad things about it and you get offended, you get offended because you know that he's right or you are not confident enough to know that he's not right.

Or if you get offended by people who talk random things ... really? Guess what, this is how people are and they are not going to change, making topics like this is not going to turn the world into a better place, what are you going to do?

Edited July 28, 2014 by KasperVld
removed rule breaking content

[helldiver]

It's an exaggerated view*. Some kids whining on the KSP forums is nothing compared to what you're going to experience in the industry. Of course, we don't want anyone to be singled out here or made to feel bad, but the (pathetic) ranting/abuse is really part of the journey to being confident in your work and working within a company.

*I want modders to be exposed to this still, it's a lesson that is needed. There shouldn't be special rules/cushioning/hiding of more extreme views.

Don't take this the wrong way. But you're not teaching, or qualified for that matter to be giving out any lessons in that regard. Why?

Because the treatment by a Mod Using community of a Mod author is the same as the treatment of a Game Using community of a Game Developer. There is no difference what so ever.

I've gotten rants about a character model I've made after slaving away for weeks on it, just the same as I've seen forum threads about a character I've made under contract for a game company. It's exactly the same.

You could apply that to programming as well (For example, MechJeb), or pretty much any project that requires: talent, patience, knowledge, and skill.

The only difference between a Mod and a something produced by a Dev, is the exchange of money. Which the line can be blurred sometimes depending on the game (there are for-pay Mods for FSX just the same). I could argue that do to donations, even mods here can blur that line as well. So even using that as an example doesn't apply.

Now if you want to make a distinction regarding quality, it becomes a whole other matter. So are we to say that less respect and understanding should be given to a mod that simply does a few armor/texture recolors compared to say a mod that adds 5 hours of additional content including new graphics, animations, and gameplay assets?

Why am I not making sense? I wanted to point out that modders don't need extra cushioning to somehow "compensate" for abusive posts from others. If you disagree with a modder or don't like something about their mod, just tell them in a normal, respectful tone, and they will listen.

Oh you meant, the mod using person doesn't need to cushion their posts at the Modder? Ok I understand now.

Somehow I got confused with a modder needing cushioning in regards to a moderator handling their thread. Dunno why I assumed 5thHorseman was a moderator (probably the big green bar). But I go into further detail below.

I have not seen this with KSP, but in another sandbox game that I enjoy. There are certain modders who do "abuse" the community. Stolen art assets from other projects, users with legitimate bug reports being met with derision, even mods that deliberately break other mods. Just as users feeling entitled to a modder's time and energy is bad, so is a modder acting as if they're above the rest of the community. The respect has to be earned by and shown to both sides.

This response is to all three:

-The same exact courtesy and respect afforded the Developer should be afforded the Modder. No difference what so ever.

-Now if a Modder is disrespectful, derisive, and abusive, it would be obvious to anyone that such respect is lost. However, this is no different than if a Dev acted towards the community the same way. No one makes exceptions towards one or the other. You do have some leeway with the Dev by not buying more of their games.

Just as users feeling entitled to a modder's time and energy is bad, so is a modder acting as if they're above the rest of the community.

They aren't equal. Don't you for a minute think that someone who spends months working on a mod is suddenly just as open to abusive comments and threads as someone who just downloads and installs a mod. "Boo hoo, I spent my time downloading this mod, therefor I demand the same attention and courtesy as the mod author". That's a no, and speaks of narcissism and self-entitlement. Even as recent as KSOS, I've had a few folks like that come into the thread thinking they are John Wayne, not realizing the amount of work, dedication, and commitment that goes into such a mod. I usually by ignoring them, or directly tell them to not download the mod.

Now then, if a modder is deliberately being abusive, then sure, I understand what goes around comes around, by all means. But that's not what this thread is about.

This thread is about KSP and KSP Modding. It's not about The Sims 3, GTA:4, Minecraft, or any other game with toxic communities.

I have never seen, Bac9, Snjo, Sarbian, Rbray, or any of the major mod authors be abusive to KSP community members. Even junior modders for the most part have been very respectful.

So the idea that "Modders can be just as mean and disrespectful to the community (because it happened in XYZ game), therefor it's justified for the community to jump in their thread and rant or make demands" is false and a propositional fallacy.

Edited July 28, 2014 by KasperVld
removed some rule breaking content