Hmm, fair enough.
Just saying that it have worked in some forums
Not an ideal solution though, since there are forums where it doesnt work in as you say, and im not sure if it woud have been a solution here.
Just thinking of some sugestions.

I woud also probably stayed away from those that wanted a mod possition the most.
Those tend to be troublemakers.
But you can ask active members that helps out that have a long history and seams fit for the job though.

There are a ton of varied topics in General Discussion. Splitting it into two forums would be nice, like this:
1. General Gaming Forum (for gaming related topics only)
2. Off-topic forum (all the stuff not related to gaming)

It would be nice to have an "acknowledge" or "appreciate" button similar to Facebook's "Like" button, so if somebody responds to you but you don't really have anything to add, you can just "acknowledge" their post and you don't have to make a whole new post quoting them and then saying, like, "Ah okay, thanks."

Why wasn't my suggestion implemented yet? It's entirely sensible and easy to do.

I don't think that I have either the current mental state(am enjoying a nostalgic trip with alcohol down memory lane, something I rarely do these days) or time to do justice to the post I intended to write here. But given where I currently am at with the forums and other aspects of life taking precedence, I am going to try to make some suggestions, hopefully somewhat coherently from the perspective of one who has had an amazing time here for the most part on GOG until I started doing a little research that confirmed what other long term members had been saying to me for quite some time. To clarify that, I generally don't learn from listening to others but do so through challenging learning experiences, or as one person PMd me after my farewell thread "pain is the greatest teacher" (possibly quoted or paraphrased).

For the "TLDR crowd"...stuff has changed, some are unhappy about it and would like to find a solution that prevents further issues on this site now that it has gained so much attention. The main suggestion is incorporating a filter similar to that which Facebook has, i.e. a "block list" and a "friend list" as mentioned previously would be very handy.

1/ I have noticed a similar pattern when it comes to social interaction, and that is that everyone's subjective perspective is the way to fix the forums. There is a wide range of what those perspectives are, for example - "I don't wan't to see [insert issue] on the forums". In "real" life, something I find strange given all social interaction is real, whether we are face to face, on the phone or sitting behind a computer, we have much more of an ability to avoid that which displeases us if we choose to(I know some could say just avoid x, but that doesn't seem feasible to me without a structural change to the forums). The ability to notice difference and be offended, upset or raging about those differences ultimately lies with our own subjective belief systems of our perception of "right" and "wrong". GOG has a community that come from a multitude of backgrounds, from all manner of countries, ethnicities, cultural, gaming and life experiences.

2/ The idea of promoting active members of the community to be moderators is insane. I say that because no one individual can incorporate the multitude of belief systems that would appease the masses. I have never seen an instance of this working unless it is in a small community with a shared belief system. See Dunbar's theory on the social interaction between primates for more in-depth information on this matter. I have had people offer me a lot of praise for some of my investigations(as well as criticism) for uncovering some behaviour which I consider to be distasteful. That is my own moral stance and I am aware that it is not shared by everyone.

3/ My introduction to GOG was in the form of buying some amazing old games that I used to play, that have been modified to work on modern operating systems, which enabled me to take a step back in time to a place of storytelling and nostalgic joy(to put this in perspective I have bought *every* game which is available here that I used to get from pirate or abandonware sites with the exception of Starflight, which I will add to my bloated backlog someday, due to wishing to support this site and their DRM free stance). Since then, for whatever people think of the changes(us humans often struggle with change, don't we?) GOG has no longer become the place of "Good Old Games" that it once was. Indie games and "AA games" as I have heard them referred to are now on the site. I can understand the reasons for those changes, as ultimately ALL of us should hopefully want to see this company succeed due to the joy we get from purchasing and/or interacting with members of this community, irrespective of our personal gaming tastes. One major issue I can see, that I have been wholly complicit in, is to get caught up in the gifting craze. I won't go into my reasons here, other than to say that overall this most likely has a positive effect on GOG sales, especially during promotion times. It also leads to some issues that have had some(myself included) contemplate or leave the site.

The community has changed demographically. It is no longer a bunch of [insert assumption] those aged 30+ who are here to share a love of their nostalgic gaming memories and have a chance to try those titles they missed out on "back in the day". I jumped on board the gifting band wagon, as the concept of "pay it forward" to shed a little joy on a complete stranger's life by gifting them a game that, for whatever reason at the time, was beyond their means, brings myself and others joy. Given my limited income being on a disability support pension(which I am truly thankful for in this country and try to give back in whatever means I can) I found out about game bundles, which as those in the know know, are mostly Steam and Desura keys. I believe it is that influx of gifting from cheap bundles(as well as those with a little more $$$ for GOG gifts) that has attracted what some(myself included) would deem "greedy leeching or scamming selfish bastards" (darn it I wanted to avoid swearing :P). We all have our own moral and ethical codes, and I have never encountered a group social situation where those do not come into conflict. I do not wish to see a rule enacted to prevent these giveaways, regardless of the types of people that it has attracted, as a lot, myself formerly, get a lot of joy from.

4/ So with that said, what is a way forward for all of us to tailor our experiences on the site to enable us to enjoy it for what is important to us as an individual? GOG's lack of moderation is something that I see as a good thing!!! The main issue that I have, and that will enable me to continue to enjoy the site as I once did, would be the ability to to enact some social media filters such as those Facebook does. I would really like to see a "block user" button. To me that means if I (or another) clicked that button, that there is NO possible interaction between the two parties - no PMs, no seeing of posts from either party. That would mean that every scammer fearful of me looking into them, could prevent that by pressing that button and I couldn't see any of their(to me) nefarious activities. It also means that once I have taken a dislike to someone, and see them post what I consider to be absolute bullshit to appear to be a "better" person in order to leech more of the generosity of this community, would have a much more difficult time in taking advantage of this generosity. It would allow each member to filter that which offends or upsets them personally and thus focus on the joy they get from these forums, which differs for each of us.

5/ Friend list - some of us are at times more active on these forums than others. I would love to see a friends list, as mentioned above, where I can see my friend's posts with ease and given some of the quieter members, be able to add them to stay in touch if we've only had a few conversations via a thread or PM. Sifting through hundreds of PMs = urrgh

5/ Transparency - I would REALLY like to see an easier means of looking into a member's post history. To some this is an abhorrent idea, and I have found that the reason is usually due to them having a past history of questionable behaviour that they either continue with or have stopped. If one posts ANYTHING on the internet it is available by some means, regardless of its deletion.

To put it simply, GOG is a company that wishes to make money as any business does. There is plenty of evidence(see the amount of replies to the link to my farewell post above and my PMs - check em GOG staff, I don't mind :P) that suggest that there is at least a few people on this site who understand the sentiment I and others have shared, that gifting is a REALLY good thing for this site, and therefore ultimately GOG making money. The amount of comments I have seen where people say "this is unlike any other internet community I've seen" i.e. that it is very welcoming and generous speaks leaps and bounds about its foundation and continued energetic input by many members to make this a great part of cyberspace to hang out.

Given the overwhelming response I have had in my farewell thread, I am in the process of reconsidering that decision as it has become very obvious to me that a lot of people are NOT voicing their opinions on this matter. I can understand that as it does attract quite a lot of criticism at the same time, especially when one makes an error and has that derail their intent and purpose, which for me was to aid others to make more informed decisions of where their gifts go.

Edit: and the irony I can see here is that within minutes of posting this, my reply was low rated. Thank you for the feedback, obviously someone is taking note :P

Edited for alcohol induced grammatical errors and typos

I think you have a stalker or a bot. That was waaaaaay too fast and the post is waaaaaay too inoffensive.

Yup I lost 5 rep with 1 friend to counter it in a matter of seconds since I posted that message. Fortunately for me, I have met enough people through this site and have established gaming contacts beyond, that I don't take this down-repping to heart as perhaps a new user may, which could equate a loss of sales to GOG if that member leaves.

Thank you down-repper for acknowledging my presence <3 A lack on anonymity with down-repping(or removing it altogether) would be a wonderful addition as mentioned previously by other posters in this thread.

Alcohol giving me a headache(I knew there was a reason i barely drink, especially given I havent preloaded on vitamins b and c and hydrated properly) so I'm off to sleep :)

All this giveaway drama has created a mess, maybe giveaways should have their own subforum.

Maybe getting rid of rep would help as well, but perhaps keep both the up/downvote buttons since others have raised good points about why these buttons should exist (Teshra had a good post about this).

Also, I like that GOG doesn't follow the curve on having us make shitty account profiles with friend lists etc., so I dislike anything that would change that.

I can see value in having post history, and I was for this at one point, but now I am neutral on this idea because I don't see why people are so intent on stalking one another.

Again, all of this is happening because of giveaway drama, so either people figure out a nice, secure way to do giveaways like steamgifts, or don't do giveaways at all.

Don't like getting scammed? Stick to steamgifts, or talk to the steamgifts team about expanding to GOG games. Or include rules in the giveaway subforum that your account should have this many games to take part, or you must do this many giveaways first to take part.

Or maybe giveaways should just be banned if people can't handle having nice things.

Your suggestions are so common sense, it's hard to believe they aren't already implemented. I assumed many of those to be basic features that most message forums have by default (viewing post histories of members, being able to ignore or block specific members, etc), and that I just couldn't see them due to being new/having low rep

I find it a little bizarre that a community for gamers is so bare bones by way of features...but manages to have a rep system in place that means jack. I have no way of knowing if a member has low or negative rep because they have unpopular opinions, because they're generally a jackass though they've never actually violated TOS or screwed anybody over, because some troll has latched onto them with a personal vendetta or because they've scammed people. Who knows? And who's going to bother trying to sift through a single catch-all forum and who knows how many posts to try to get a better idea? Ain't nobody got time for that.

As a newbie, I'm hardly qualified to make suggestions or give advice, but here is my perspective FWIW. I've moderated and administrated message forums in the past, and in my experience, moderators can be helpful for enforcing TOS but more helpful is giving the members sufficient control over their own experience to be able to "self moderate." Simple measures such as those Tarnicus suggested can go a long way. They aren't a panacea, every forum will attract predators and douches, but it's better than what is presently in place.

I hate to self promote, but - it's not like that ;-)

I created a thread to say Thank You to people, that is not tied to GAs (where it should be natural). Just for the sake of it.

http://www.gog.com/forum/general/the_thank_the_fellows_thread

We have an official thread for introducing yourself... Why don't we have an official thread for leaving?
That way we can consolidate all of the over-dramatic and self-important pity parties into one place, instead of having them clog up the rest of the forums.

Then we'd need a separate thread for all the people that leave and then reconsider and come back. We'd also need a separate thread for all the people who don't really partake in the forum but only show up once every month or so just to bitch about it.

This is going to get really confusing! :P

I didn't think that far ahead.

I just hope rep doesn't get removed before I catch up to you. That has been my secret goal for 6 months ;)
Upping every comment you ever make probably isn't helping my chances :P

I have ups and downs. Right now I'm riding a huge wave but I can almost guarantee in a month or so I'll be hovering around 400. :D