Again, since you still don’t get it, you issue a temporary ban first, period. If you haven’t issued a temporary ban yet that is the first thing you do. It does not matter whether it is an isolated incident or not, unless the person has gone completely crazy and is posting porn or something, you start with a warning, and then a temp ban, and then a perma only if absolutely necessary. Steam’s official guidelines lay it out in black and white that you are doing it wrong. Your community keeps telling you that you are doing it wrong.
Your personal anger about people criticizing you and your game should not reach out and escalate the situation over and over again. You have not been “harassed” fullstop, and if you want endless positivity earn it. You will never get it by punishing people until you get it, and you will regret it years on. I’m surprised you don’t already regret it. You destroyed the trust you built up for years and years without even realizing what you had.
Why is this so relevant. Why did you create this situation.
And like by the way, permabanning people who gave you money for stuff over something like this really is petty. Like, not only is this just a random community of people that happen to reside in your forum, we paid you! Why are you treating people worse when they’re paying you than before they were paying you. To counter your analogy with the house, we came into your shop and as soon as we handed you money you took a shit in our omelette. Straight up i would never have funded you if i knew there would be this much poo in the omelette.
Also i wonder why you don’t want to prove those people wrong in the future. Like i would consider even a year ban to be excessive but that would at least allow them to come back later and re-evaluate in a timeframe you might expect the game to improve in. You just go straight to “forever” out of anger.
Flav, you’re a great programmer, but I believe your stance on this community issue is wrong. That said, there’s no point in continuing this argument, especially since anybody who thinks posting this collection of hyperbole and straw-men arguments is a good idea isn’t interested in arguing the points. However, you’ve made your point(s) abundantly clear, now make your game.
Where does this suddenly come from that a permabam without a temp ban before is so outrageous?
Where was the outrage when irn4life was permabanned years ago?
Look, if a person is dead set on hating on the devs for banning critic from the discord, and they made it clear that they won’t change their stance on that matter, maybe that person is better off just letting go of those feelings or his/her emotional involvement in the project.
It is of no use constantly hammering on the same bend nail IMO.
Just for some comedy, and to provide some contaxt for irn4l’s ban to demonstrate why this is a small false equivilence. Oink Oink.
[16:25:37] <Mattk50> where are you from, irn4l
[16:25:43] <irn4l> wait
[16:25:47] <irn4l> let me ask my mom
[16:25:51] <irn4l> if i can say
[16:26:08] <Mattk50> just wondering about the country
[16:26:29] <irn4l> its jsut the biggest hypocrit scam ever
[16:26:38] <irn4l> currencies besides the in-game currency
[16:27:12] <irn4l> money that starts magicaly disapearing in layers of curerencies and currencies
[16:27:42] <irn4l> gaming completely owned by these mother fuuckers
[16:27:49] <irn4l> thats what they are complete mother fuuckers
[16:27:58] <Mattk50> drowned by washing machine salesmen?
[16:28:06] <irn4l> :(
[16:28:17] <irn4l> just let me know if the hat is fitting
[16:28:47] <irn4l> fucking mother fuucker should all burn in jail
[16:28:51] <irn4l> or else lets see
[16:29:15] <irn4l> wouldnt be way more dingnified, justice, honorable, and respected if my money could be taken back
[16:29:38] <irn4l> lets say i have extra 20$ i dont need for nothing atm
[16:29:49] <irn4l> so i put money in the game i play cause i like it and i want to support
[16:29:59] <irn4l> but sudenly my tooth starts hurting
[16:30:11] <irn4l> and i dont have those 20$ no mroe i needed for the dentists
[16:30:28] <irn4l> that i was willing to take and forget supporting the game i play and like
[16:30:33] <irn4l> no
[16:30:35] <irn4l> once there
[16:30:41] <irn4l> mother fuuckers take it no matter what
[16:30:49] <irn4l> all jail with these mother fuuckers
[16:30:51] <irn4l> pigs
[16:31:14] <irn4l> oink oink
[16:44:06] <Naiba> sometimes i feel like you need to write up a lexicon so people can understand what you're talking about... what do you mean by 'sellers'?
[16:44:21] <irn4l> dude investors
[16:44:33] <irn4l> they call them the monotization people
[16:44:35] <Naiba> you mean publishers?
[16:44:38] <irn4l> those mother fuckers
[16:44:54] <irn4l> the ones that decide what to do with money
[16:44:58] <irn4l> no
[16:45:12] <irn4l> monetizxation epople can be part of any group
[16:45:15] <irn4l> devs, publishers
[16:45:24] <irn4l> they are the owners of all this shit
[16:45:30] <irn4l> all should be in the fuucking jail
[16:45:38] <Naiba> why?
[16:45:53] <irn4l> cause they are not correct
[16:46:05] <irn4l> many lives already been messed up for those fuucker to fill their pockets
[16:46:13] <irn4l> many gamers exploited for those fuuckers
[16:46:29] <irn4l> all pigs
[16:46:31] <irn4l> oink oink
[16:46:49] <irn4l> the gaming mafia
[16:47:13] <Naiba> what do you consider unfair monetization then?
[16:47:24] <irn4l> lol
[16:47:32] <irn4l> one way direction money
[16:47:36] <Naiba> how would games get money to be made in the first place?
[16:47:37] <irn4l> money that just comes in
[16:47:39] <irn4l> if a gamer
[16:47:56] <irn4l> saves and not spend and so wishes
[16:47:59] <irn4l> he should take out
[16:48:27] <irn4l> like they are made now
[16:48:40] <irn4l> or you are living in a different world then mine
[16:48:47] <irn4l> but no dev makes money until a game is finished
[16:49:00] <irn4l> real cash economy its the same without the vultures when yo finish it
[16:49:51] <Naiba> but what about the people who play real cash economy games thinking they'll be able to make money? the ones who keep spending and spending and waste their lives so that the developers can keep the game's servers running?
[16:50:01] <Naiba> isn't that exploiting gamers too?
[16:50:04] <irn4l> no
[16:50:14] <Naiba> how not? why is it different?
[16:50:14] <irn4l> al real cash economy gamers
[16:50:18] <irn4l> now what they are doing
[16:50:23] <irn4l> in a real cahs economy game
nobody who was banned recently has acted anything like this. There’s pages and pages of these logs, this was in the first ~30 mins of the ones i have recorded.
Also, irn4l was only suspended. He isnt banned anymore.
At some point I-Novae may actually finish and release their game and (subject to finding an engaging game loop somewhere) will have to manage a much more active community.
At that point the current situation where all criticism is taken personally will lead to community backlashes that make what has happened up till now look quaint. It is understandable that criticism is taken personally because currently the people reading that criticism are the people that created the thing being criticised. That’s a big part of the reason you have community managers, who can be dispassionate and understand what is best for the public representation of the team.
In lieu of a community manager, the very least that the team should do is implement a policy of temporary bans before permanent bans. There is a reason that Steam recommends this.
The fact that the team is so reluctant to do so is worrying and suggests again an inability to accept and act upon valid criticism.
These days visiting these forums feels like visiting Meduseld in Edoras.
Do you guys seriously believe that somebody that has been crusading against us for months, calling us names, liars / scammers, “I’ll go and reverse your tech and steal your files” and who after being warned shows no sign of improving, is suddenly going to have a change of heart after his one-week temp ban ? Temp bans are fine for people who accidentely have a burst, but somebody who clearly has an agenda is not going to change because of a temp ban, I think that’s pretty much a given.
You can easily tempban or permaban the person if there are issues after they come back, a permaban leaves a scar and you should give the benefit of the doubt to the person you are banning. Maybe the permaban was sloppy to begin with, maybe the person changes. It doesn’t take much effort from your side, but it’s a world of difference to the banned person.
With a permaban you are taking the opportunity of redemption away from the person, forever. Nobody can ever be sure that the person will not change for the rest of their life, regardless of what was said or done.
There’s a few things wrong here. First of all you shouldn’t be banning people at all for accidentally having bursts. Secondly, the scenario you’re describing should have been previously curtailed by the judicious application of warnings and temporary bans. Finally if those do not work, a permanent ban is justified. You did the warning part but then it sounds like you waited too long and jumped straight to a permanent ban with no middle ground.
The problem with this is that people will test your boundaries. The temporary banning stage that you’ve been missing out is where you establish those boundaries. By jumping straight to a permanent ban you come across as mean and overly sensitive.
It’s all about public perception, your perception of the reality of a situation doesn’t matter that much.
I don’t think it was necessarily clear what his agenda was, but we won’t know now. An escalating series of enforcement gives someone a slap on the wrist if they’re being disruptive by telling them to sit out of the community for a while, which can then be moved up to a more prolonged temporary ban with some further guidance about the behaviour you deem unacceptable, and then after that you go for a permanent ban if there’s no sign of improvement.
This doesn’t take much time unless you have a lot of troublemakers in your community, which you don’t, really. What it does take is someone who can calmly detach themselves from the situation and conduct enforcement calmly and fairly. I get that it’s difficult when you’re busy trying to develop this game to properly emotionally separate yourself to tell people to calm down on the forums, so it should probably be someone else doing it. I still think having a decent community manager will help and let you spend more time focusing on the game.
