I thought it was ok. "Good" would be a stretch, but it was fun, and it's hard not be impressed with the scope of it given it's all practical effects.


On the matter at hand- I agree the only thing to do is ignore the trolls. I do, I never respond to them, don't even read their posts most of the time, and in the end they can do jack shit to me. And they did try to harass me, or at least they tried, bless their puny little heads, and sometimes still do.

I know in a game-thread like the movie one it's much harder, but it can be done. Or start a new thread, make it a clear rule at the start that Kleetus and Tauto are to be ignored by legitimate participants, and from then on just downvote their posts to immediately hide them if they show up. It's hardly an abuse of the "-" button to downvote someone who is so obviously trolling.

O.O

Its more than just whether one is attacked. More than once I've wanted to jump in on things, stopped by myself, swallowed the desire, and moved on.

I agree the trolls are the ones that should change. However, forcing change on them is generally beyond the reach of the victims; the victims can only control their own response.

To go the other way: Has lashing out at the trolls actually solved the problem, here or elsewhere?

I'm done replying to them (you'll notice I haven't replied to any of his crap all week), but TBH, I'm looking forward to seeing Kman victimize himself after he reads your post.

That's why I said that moderation is needed :P
Victims alone can't do much, except for maybe leaving the forum as some people did. :(

We've already seen the discussion on the limits of moderation, and we've already seen the notes about how the trolls are (or at least attempting, in some cases) to use the moderation to further their trolling.

*shrug* Abandoning the place is perhaps the ultimate defense for the victims, with all that it entails. An analogy could be made between the forums and an alleyway. Safe enough as long as everyone plays nice. It got dark, and now GOG has hired a cop to come through every so often. Said cop has commissioned some lights, but the alley/forum still isn't entirely safe.

I can name several and so can you.

Eh, sadly that has been caused by the (unavoidable?) decision to dismiss past transgressions, thus creating a kind of amnesty for trolls & scammers.
Luckly, the mod isn't so naive to believe their tricks, but some of that lowlife still stays hidden and it's capable to use alts and bots.

I do think starting the rules with a "from this point forward" approach was the right decision. Everyone gets a second chance, and hey, if the trolls straighten up and become upstanding members of the community, then great!

If GOG tried to retroactively apply the rules, then 1) it would be a nightmare tracking down all the offenders, in no small part because people would be rightfully angry when some people slip through the cracks (due to sheer scale of such an endeavor), and 2) half or more of the forum would be temp banned for rule violations.

Sometimes I've written a reply and instead of clicking "post my message", I've just clicked the X on the top right.
This way one can vent into thin air without provoking more bs.
GOG forums made me use this method in the first place but it works.

Oh look, DaCosta, Breja, phaolo, and myself all of a sudden have all of our posts low rated. :P

I can see me, I'm a dick, but by hitting the other three the trolls are only reinforcing the very reason we need these new rules and moderation

You.. just.. said:
trolls are [..] attempting [..] to use the moderation to further their trolling.
Those guys don't straighten up, they just lie more.

I was obviously talking about the worst offendes (scammers, intolerant people, serial harassers, etc..).
It's not like I'm suggesting to ban someone who said a bad word 3 years ago..

Btw, some cases and proofs were quite unequivocal (e.g: scamming admissions, threats, etc..), you didn't need to check everything.

I said that IF they do, then great. I didn't have any more expectation that they WOULD than you did.

The alternatives were to either try and retroactively hit everyone (a nightmare, as mentioned), or to only retroactively apply the rules to some members (giving a platform for all sorts of accusations of favoritism and screwing the mods out of any chance they had of appearing at least somewhat neutral). And that assumes they retro-banned the "right" members; a great many users have different people on their personal lists of who should be banned.

And just who are the "worst" offenders? By what measure do you identify them retroactively, especially considering all the edited and deleted posts even from the past year? For example, a great many necro'd threads no longer have the original necromancer post in the thread. More than a few intolerant posts have been deleted, and there have been more than a few intolerant posts directed at the people who posted the first round of intolerant posts.

There are at least some non-alt users that don't have a problem with the people generally considered to be trolls. There are respected members that don't care for other respected members. One person doesn't have the time, assuming they even had the tools, to start from scratch and try to unravel all of the tangles in the behaviors on this forum.

It's much, much simpler (and in many ways fairer) to declare "Alright. Everyone is basically forgiven for past crimes during the era of non-enforcement. New policies start now and apply to everyone." The trolls that don't at least nominally abide by the new rules are very quickly going to be reported and tossed.

People are still whining about moderation?

The same people who craved for it and wanted it are now complaining about it.

The irony is palpable.

You really don't know or are you speaking in general? O_o

Something is still there (also PMs).
(btw, I blame those geniuses who spam reported proofs)

Sure, people who don't check the forum frequently won't notice anything wrong.

Because it's like admitting:
"You've been smart to steal games and harass people in the past. Now you'll be considered equal to other goggers, even to those who helped the community or made a lot of generous giveaways.
Very fair..

In general. For example, if you and I compared lists, we'd have several names in common, and quite probably a few that aren't in common. On the other hand, if you compared RWarehall's list with Vain's list...

Some of it may still be buried in the databases, sure. For that to be useful, someone would have to be able to find it. Also assuming, of course, that it was setup to keep the deleted posts in the first place instead of straight up discarding them.

Many of the worst posts were hit with deletion precisely because they were terrible. A self-moderating function working (more or less) as intended.

If we open up PMs for review, then you may have people getting banned for conversations that neither participant thought were a problem (like taking one's insults of a user out of the "public" sphere). Additionally, a great many PMs were lost during the shift to the PM functionality; granted, that was years(?) ago, but still.

Remember the GG thread? Both sides claiming the other side is trolling, and both sides with people who frequent the forums. Generally each side was more tolerant of those on the same side.

Everyone is given an equal footing to start out. Because the new rules have a hard deadline, and because habits don't change quickly, the serial offenders are very, very likely to rapidly incur penalties that nicer forumites will not. So more like "Here's your clean slate. Try to wait at least a day before you boop it up."

In the meantime, the rest of us who have been here are already aware of the problem makers, and we can take steps to avoid being scammed by them. Your forum reputation doesn't disappear just because the "legal reputation" (if you will) has been wiped clean one time; other people are required by the rules to be civil, but there is no requirement to interact with the historically annoying or include them in current and future giveaways.