Makes the fact that this community actually works even better, eh?

I've not visited the site for quite some time (I used to enjoy reading some of their discussions, even if there was more talk than substance most of the time, and some people had a very strange world view), but as the forum grew in size, it just became a haven for stupidity, and I stopped reading what was posted. There are probably quite a few intelligent people still there, but most of it felt like it was posted by teens who thought that they were deep & alternative because they dared to question society.

For those who have never visited the site: Imagine a serious 4chan. Same lack of moderation, same amount of general "stupidity", but instead of doing it "for the lulz" (as 4chaners like to say), a lot of people with extreme opinions try to have serious discussions there.


GOG reminds me more of Nozick's "night watch state" than pure anarchy. There is still some moderators, but for the most part, it is self moderating.

Interesting. I had not heard of that concept before (I just wikipediaed it). Yeah, you're probably a bit more right in terms of analyzing the forum as a state type.

edit:
Why would it be more acceptable to have a moderator either censor the post or ban the poster than to have the poster themselves realize they shouldn't have typed out their comment (for whatever reason)?

Even an active moderator won't see everything posted all the time and be able to get to something within five minutes. I guess a lot of people dedicated to watching posting traffic could do that though.

Just because someone gets banned, or suspended, or censored doesn't mean that it would change his/her mind on the issue they were punished for. In fact, I think it is better that people are able to self moderate (as this poster was in your example) because it at least means that they understand that the society they are in doesn't accept that behavior (even if the person themselves thinks it is acceptable still). With a punishment imposed it doesn't necessarily internalize the message that the society thinks the act(/word(s)) is wrong.

Because it's a vector for trolling. You put up your post long enough to be seen and take it down before the moderators show up. Because all of the moderation is done from Poland there's very little risk of being caught.

I used to hang out a bit on a different site where the reps were down in public with a note. Before too long those were used as a means of trolling as well and you could tell that there were jackasses that were abusing the system.

If you like the lack of moderation there are tons of places you can go that don't have moderation. The lack of moderation is one of the main reasons why the community is going down hill and has been for the last couple years. People see that nothing happens most of the time when there's a flamewar and it tends to corrupt the site.They may not consciously pick up on that, but it definitely does have an impact over the long term.

What's more often times when the mod does get up in the morning the flamewar has started and pretty much burnt out making any efforts at that point largely moot.

Not sure if this means they're 'good', but:

I check the GOG forums pretty much every day. Pretty much my favorite as far as forums go.

I also check out the World of Greyhawk forums on a regular basis, as that's the one Neverwinter Nights server that I played on regularly for about 4 years. And while I haven't played there much in the last year or so, I still like to keep in touch with some of the regular members there and I do still occasionally pop on the server.

I also check the Motherboards.org forums off and on, as well as HardwareCanucks.

Another is the ncix forums. Once in a while there's something there that interests me, but it's gone downhill since I first started checking it out about 5 years back. I mostly pop on the site to check out their sales.

And then there's the BioWare Social Network forums. I used to post a ton on the old NWN forums, but I post less and less on the BSN. Still check it out daily though.

As for 'bad' forums: I don't frequent them once I find out what they're like, so really don't have a list. I just lose interest and they drop off my radar completely.

I used to be more forum active in the past. I used to post a lot on a very famous brazilian PC hardware site. I kind of lost interest in all PC-hardware-stuff with the lack of proper PC games that are not ports. I just dont keep up with new hardware anymore, not to mention that the forum got flooded with nvidia x AMD x Intel fanboys.

Right now GOG is pretty much the only forum i post on. Sometimes i post on Steam forums too. GOG has a very good community, one of the best ive ever seen. People here are very nice and share a lot of knowledge related to gaming.

Theres a brazilian gaming site i visit daily to check the news that certainly has the worst community EVER. Checking the forums or reading the comments on the news is disgusting, it makes me want to put bullet in my head. I used to post there but i found out that i was getting just too tired of dealing with all the trolls and fanboys. And theres no moderation what so ever. People even post porn and piracy links on the comments. Not to mention that all discussions lead to personal offenses.

Yeah but how often do you even post or visit here? Less than 2 months seems like a really short time to come to that conclusion

Every day since i joined, a few weeks ago:) And it's paying off too, i just got HOMM3 in a giveaway:D

I usually visit GOG and Something Awful on a daily basis. SA has a great "Lets play" subforum and i love the way you can get banned faster than you can think "Goatse". It has done wonders to eliminate many trolls.

As for terrible, theres the Fox News forum that are just bursting to the brim with inbred, mouthbreathing, racist, extreme right wing white supremacists. It is my guilty pleasure to troll them into a raging argument and then sit back and watch them try to outdo each other when it comes to sheer bigotry and vile.

I may also not be completely sober right now.

edit: I love you guys so much.

I've always found it interesting how much they curb trolling on their own forum while historically they brought forum raiding to the mainstream...

GOG has a pretty decent forum atmosphere, I've only been active for a short while but I like it a lot. Otherwise, SELOC (a Lotus car forum) is a great community - very helpful, knowledgeable and friendly members and a lot of good banter.

I used to spend a lot of time on PC Zone / CVG but it's gone massively downhill in recent years.

I gave up on everything except r/gaming. Even then, I'm not really comfortable with that because it feels like I'm supporting Reddit as a whole by going there, and I do not appreciate the rigidity of the majority view (or slant) seemingly supported on that site (mainly r/politics).

Well, on-topic, this place and Hamumu.com are the only real forums I visit regularly, I suppose.

I sort of quit Reddit for the flip side of that. Although I don't consider myself an inbred, mouthbreathing, & co, I'm a moderate with probably a right-wing-ish slant. (Libertarian? I dunno) Anyway, I'm sure Reddit is more sophisticated (never been on the Fox forums :P) and logic-based, but there can be "sophisticated" shouting matches ("You believe that?! That's utterly stupid of you to not think the same way as me.") The lack of moderate views is kind of frustrating.