N4G Users: Etiquette Ironing

I apparently joined N4G 1178 days ago. When you say it like that it makes me feel old even though a lot of you are even older. In the spirit of feeling old, I have decided to write a blog based around the theme of “etiquette”. It is a blog that I have been toying with for some time now as there are some issues with how people comment and respond to each other.

Politeness: This one is pretty straight forward. We all have differing opinions and that is okay; it is how we deal with those differing opinions which have caused a problem with our community. Too many times do I see (and also experience) people getting stoned on this website for voicing a simple thought. When I say stoned, I don’t mean the relaxed psychedelic hippy type of stoned. I mean the metaphorical pummelling; where you voice an opinion then immediately have to take cover while the community lobs insults at you. We shouldn’t need to take cover. I have had some great discussions with users on N4G (for example Zerocrossing, poprocks359, Cam997 and Nicaragua) where we may disagree on certain aspects of each other’s arguments but we responded to each other in a formal and polite manor. A simple I disagree without the typical “you are an idiot” or “fanboy drivel” isn’t so hard to say. I respect the opinion of those users I just mentioned as they showed respect back. Let’s not turn our comment section into the cesspool that is the Youtube comment section. Remember we are a community of gamers

Context: This may not seem wholly relatable to etiquette but this links back to the previous paragraph about opinion. A lot of what I see on this site is users flipping someone’s comment on its head by taking parts of it out of context. Context may be a mysterious grammatical term to some people but it is a very useful one. Context is a very important thing to bear in mind when reading someone’s comment. It is unfair to spin comments around and make a user appear to be saying something completely different.

Criticism: This, again, relates back to the overarching theme of politeness. A user on this site should be appeal to criticise a company’s direction without feeling the need to dig in and prepare from an onslaught from the rest of the community. I have said this before, we are a gaming community and as a community we should criticise the companies that inhabit our hobby. Referring to the politeness paragraph; you can respectfully disagree with someone without the need to insult them. Comments criticising companies is like walking on eggshells. Also, I have noticed a worrying trend that users judge and dismiss other users by their prior comments. A person may sympathise more with Microsoft, Sony or Nintendo but that doesn’t mean they instantly do not have a valid opinion. As long as the opinion is structured well then we, as a community, must respect the other user’s thoughts and outlook on the industry. Not everything is bias drivel. Remember we may be gamers but we don’t all think in the same way

I feel we all need to rethink our comment strategy. Some users get it but too many do not. A comment isn’t a personal insult to your beliefs (we should act like gaming is the next religion) it is an opinion shared on an open forum for us to disagree in a polite and logical way. Let’s not spin things to our own gain but respectfully disagree without the need for insult and the weird background checks some users do here (looking into our comment history). We would look infinitely better if we treated each other with a small amount of respect. Please feel free to share what other etiquette ironing you think N4G users should do

[zerocrossing]

I couldn't agree more.

The comment section getting bombarded by trolls and blatant fanboys really doesn't help the situation IMO, but I agree that if we want to keep the community going we all need to learn be more polite.

For example, a comment that happens to conflict with your own shouldn't be approached as if it's a personal attack, it would be better to attempt to the see the other side of the argument instead of assuming the user who's opinion differs from your own is either a "fanboy" or an "idiot"

Too often we see a users comment get taken out of context and turned on its head, heck it's happened to me enough, but this is often an attempt to dismiss another users legitimate concerns that happen to conflict your own.

I wrote a blog a while back all about how gamers need to learn to accept criticism, and apparently that still seems to be the case. I understand defending companies you like from fanboys and trolls who spread misinformation, but if you can't even bare to see a well constructed and/or legitimate comment negatively made in regards to the console or company you like, then you need to take a step back and look at yourself because you may well be on the verge of becoming a "fanboy" yourself.

Great article, I enjoyed the read.

[EXVirtual]

I hate it when trolls are swearing and calling someone a fanboy from 2 lines.

[christian hour]

it's the one thing that keeps me away, but it's things like this that keep me coming back. There was a period of a year or two where i maybe posted twice and came on once a month maybe simply because of the vocal majority.

The reasons for this sort of behaviour can be numerous, to the person just being young or immature, raised in a world of two sides where there can be only "winners" and "losers" and no young man wants to admit he's on the losing side, even though thats a tangible concept and doesn't really apply outside of sports and second level education.

I touched on the other reasons as to why a man in his 20's would be so ignorant and hateful over someones opinion on games or a console in a comment from bout a month ago, so I'm just gonna be cheap and copy and paste it in, sorry for the wall of text in advance... original thread is here for any interested parties

http://n4g.com/news/1301960...

" " " I find it tends to be insecure people that need to justify their purchase as the correct one. People who tend to live in a morally black and white/good versus evil world tend to have this mentality; that spending money on something and then hearing someone else got a better deal by spending their money on a competitors product, people will then defend their decision to the death, rather than look inwardly and question themselves or just be happy with what they got.

When people hear good news about the product they purchased and bad news about the competitor, they most definitely get a rush of endorphin's and why wouldnt they want that to continue? They are after all, only human. So when they see bad stuff being said about their purchase, they'll do wahtever it takes to turn that statement around into sweet sweet endorphin release, maybe by oh i dunno, starting a flame war in the comments section of a news story relating to the competition.

Its part of the human condition and it is everywhere, religion, sports, goverment, family etc the list goes on. We are slaves to our natural chemical highs and sometimes we will act like morons, idiots and downright liars just to get back to that good feeling.

And if the others don't like it, we'll start a holy war to boost our egos and burn them at the stake...

I'm not the greatest wordsmith and although well-read and have a good grasp and understanding of a lot of things, I am terrible at communicating those things. Like utterly, woefully abysmal at this stuff, so if anythign I said above does not make sense or I missed a point or two, Apologies :) " " "

*edit* just wanted to add I've been visiting n4g since 2004 and registered in 2006-ish, and this is the first time I've ever read a blog let alone commented on one. I know, shame on me, but I'm kicking myself for not doing it sooner :)

[Embolado]

All valid and well said. Unfortunately it seems that the internet is having to instill etiquette in the children that they did not receive from home.

[iceman06]

I agree to a point. However, I think that the internet emboldens "children" to LEAVE any etiquette that they learned at home and just act out. I don't know if they need attention or just think it's the cool thing to do. It's not isolated to gaming forums either. News sites are some of the worst forums to attempt to have a conversation. Also, I think it has to do with the very nature of conversation itself becoming almost non-existent amongst the younger crowd. In lieu of face to face interaction, they text, facebook, instagram, etc. I'm all for social media...but AFTER you learn the social graces needed to have a real conversation.

[ravinash]

If you've heard anything about the Troll issues in the UK, that girl who killed herself after bullying on that social web site or the women who promoted getting more women on currency and the people who made rape jokes or bomb threats at them, it turned out that one of the people arrested was 32.

So don't always think that people acting out are children or people brought up doing what ever they wanted to do this generation.

Unfortunately there are idiots from all ages, races and religions.

In most cases it's just people who are dis-empowered or feel they need to draw attention to them selves. One of the easiest ways of doing this is to be negative to other people because this invokes a reaction.
An example of this was when Stephen Fry announced that he had mental health issues and had tried to commit sewerside last year. While Stephen is trying to do some good to show the public that people and faces you have known for years on TV or know personally can have mental health issues and should not be stigmatised. There were people out there making comments saying he should have died and saying horrible things.

Put people behind a computer with anonymity and not only do they think they can say what ever they like, but they also seem to forget that they are real people at the other end.

[The_Klank]

All well said but I fear you are really swimming uphill with this, I don't know what, if anything can be done about it.

Usually blogs are where the best discussions can take place imo, comment sections seem to consist of the same basic themes.
Attackers
Defenders
and unfortunately the quietest of them all are the middle men.

Flamebait articles don't help in this either, which I guess is up to the community as well but all to often we see them.

I hope more people read this blog.

[Cam977]

Brilliant blog, I agree with your points because it's absolutely true. Most of the community can't handle conflicting opinions so spam the user with disagrees (regardless of the validity of their statement) and even (in some cases) personally attack the user who voiced their opinion.

It's a shame.

To stop this we need a stricter submission process (too much flamebait gets approved) and perhaps the moderators need to offer stricter punishments for such immature behaviour. We come here to have rich, in-depth conversations, however, some users demolish that with immature fanboyish feuds and off-topic posts. I love some of the conversations I've had here but in general there are too many immature users.

I guess the immature users wish to feel powerful. We're on the internet, we can't see each other, so there is absolutely no reason to erupt with childish responses as some users have done.

Oh, and thanks for the mention, you've offered some great conversations over N4G before!

[christian hour]

I've always wondered why the mods and people behind this site don't step in to do something to prevent this sort of behaviour.

All I can ever come up with is that this site makes a lot of its money from ad revenue, so the idea of them working towards a smaller but more mature community would be a financial mistake from their POV.

It is hard to find the decent folks names and familiarize yourself with them amongst all the flamebait and fanboy rhetoric, but I'm happy to say there are a handful of users on this site who's names I recognize and always breath a heavy sigh of relief once I know they've entered the conversation.

Also i don't think it's all doom and gloom, the fanboys may have increased immensely, but so have the decent folk, I remember this site at the dawn of the last gen and I'm pretty sure the ratio of fanboys to well informed peoples was leaning heavily on the fanboy side, rose tinted glasses and all.

[darthv72]

Great blog but if i could interject something. Replace or add to the first topic of politeness with civility. they sort of go hand in hand. We can agree to disagree and still respect each other.

Well played superman...well played indeed.

[wishingW3L]

front page community is a complete joke and the forum is a burial ground. XD

[DragonKnight]

I agree with this blog in general, but specifically with Context and how users like to skew what others say and create loaded comments to create opinions for others to share. That has actually happened to me today on my last blog that no one cares about anymore.

We all have our moments of not being polite or being harshly critical. It happens. Either you're having a bad day and you're taking it out online, or you're feeling particularly passionate about something one day, or whatever the circumstance is. Those moments come and go. But the Context aspect. That is a subject where one user CHOOSES to twist a person's words to stir up trouble. I personally think that, of the 3, that is both the worst offense, and the most important aspect of commenting etiquette.

[Nicaragua]

Thanks for the mention, it's always nice to know that someone has found value in a discussion or comment with me.

As for the topic at hand I don't completely agree. Just like in any social interaction there are people worth engaging with and there are idiots talking crap, and by that I don't mean people disagreeing with me I mean idiots talking crap.

If I'm in a pub and I hear people talking racist garbage then I'm not going to agree to disagree on the basis that we are all local people in the same pub sharing a love for beer, I'm going to call them out on their bullshit. Likewise here.

Personally I don't buy into this "we are all gamers we should all get along", that's just not me. I build my relationships based on things I value like intelligence or humour, not just some default setting of we are all gamers.

Respect should be earned and to give it freely cheapens it.

[iceman06]

I sense that either you have some great upbringing or you are not of this younger generation (or both)...simply because of your last statement. All too often, this younger generation believes that respect is an automatic thing. They fight and even DIE over "being disrespected". All the while, not really understanding what respect and to be respected really means. You can't DEMAND respect, you must COMMAND respect. It lasts much longer when you earn it.

[CyberFlux]

Too true, I agree with all points; though the articles can sometimes bait people into flaming.

[mydyingparadiselost]

Whatevs, etiquette is for *insert console name* fanboys and idiot twits! LLOLOOLOLOLL! Now it's time to go spread misinformation and not read articles before commenting how dumb they are and how dumb all the people that actually read them are!LLOOLOOLLOLOLOLOL!

Seriously though I agree 100% with this, especially about not becoming like the YouTube comments section. That place holds more mentally ill babble than a Honey Boo Boo episode....