Azeroh
Member
yes
im not crazy
Community impact of casual vs. competitive play
- Thread starter Kirise
- Start date
im not crazy
Azeroh
Member
do you mean it’s impossible for any system to stop communities devolving into a toxic shitfest? Or do you mean without effort it’s impossible for any system to stop the community from devolving into a toxic shithole? Sorry if I’m being an autist I really can’t understand
Azeroh
Member
would you say that 4chan is equally as toxic as xpoff? nobody is completely removing toxicity, but there are degrees of toxicity. I would define a toxic shitfest as 4chan, and it would become less/more of a toxic shitfest as the moderation would get better/worse. If every community was all equally a toxic shitfest, why even have moderation? Why ban people for racial slurs? You aren’t going to stop anyone, nothing is going to change, moderation would fix no issues.
obviously, moderation works. People want to be where they are comfortable, so they tend to places that are less toxic. Following this trend, places like YouTube that aren’t a big toxic shitfest are incredibly popular, and places like 4chan are a pebble in comparison.
You can give me examples of toxic dogshit on YouTube, but in comparison to the entirety of the site it is a very small minority of YouTube content. 4chan is entirely dogshit
obviously, moderation works. People want to be where they are comfortable, so they tend to places that are less toxic. Following this trend, places like YouTube that aren’t a big toxic shitfest are incredibly popular, and places like 4chan are a pebble in comparison.
You can give me examples of toxic dogshit on YouTube, but in comparison to the entirety of the site it is a very small minority of YouTube content. 4chan is entirely dogshit
Azeroh
Member
why is moderation not part of the developers technocracy? how is it a community effort if the community is not involved with the moderation? YouTube moderation is not community ran, Twitch moderation is not community ran, a large majority of sites are not moderated by their community.
you can say that dev systems amplify toxicity, but I can also say sometimes they don’t/stop it. If you want to claim that dev systems never work at stopping toxicity, you have to give a bit more evidence then just “they don’t”.
you can say that dev systems amplify toxicity, but I can also say sometimes they don’t/stop it. If you want to claim that dev systems never work at stopping toxicity, you have to give a bit more evidence then just “they don’t”.
Emelia
Twink Community Facilitator
I did a few hits before writing this:
Water flows and all seek to resist it and or be swept away by it for a time.
Every step of the way we either go with the flow for an easy ride or we fight it to become stronger.
this is my high minds view of Casual vs competitive in a nut shell anyways.
Every moment of interaction is a moment of either stepping inside or walking outside the box of "intended interaction".
No one can stop any niche of playstyle from forming and clashing with all others in the game world when/where applicable. When you get slapped by a leetest just carry on. If you get slowed down by a casual just slog along until they drop off your back.
There is no need to stop anything from organically forming from the "intended playstyle" and the eventual "outside of the box" meta. Unless of course a playstyle interrupts another. Doesn't matter your playstyle you should be seeking to educate others and tolerate the way they play. Harder to do than say sometimes.
It is the dev responsibility to the health of their game to make sure these interactions are not exploitative or unbalanced.
It is also the communities responsibility to pick itself up if they are nerf into the ground or another bracket.
Moderation comes through understanding the meta and exploiting it for your goals. if goals cannot be met find new ones.
The problem is formed when the community and or devs are not aware/have time for these playstyles and their interactions.
Devs are always pushing forward with new stuff and causing legacy issues to grow higher on the tree. Out of reach for the man hours available.
Eh, I hopped in late and smoked to much. <3
oh and every vacuum is different so /shrug
Water flows and all seek to resist it and or be swept away by it for a time.
Every step of the way we either go with the flow for an easy ride or we fight it to become stronger.
this is my high minds view of Casual vs competitive in a nut shell anyways.
Every moment of interaction is a moment of either stepping inside or walking outside the box of "intended interaction".
No one can stop any niche of playstyle from forming and clashing with all others in the game world when/where applicable. When you get slapped by a leetest just carry on. If you get slowed down by a casual just slog along until they drop off your back.
There is no need to stop anything from organically forming from the "intended playstyle" and the eventual "outside of the box" meta. Unless of course a playstyle interrupts another. Doesn't matter your playstyle you should be seeking to educate others and tolerate the way they play. Harder to do than say sometimes.
It is the dev responsibility to the health of their game to make sure these interactions are not exploitative or unbalanced.
It is also the communities responsibility to pick itself up if they are nerf into the ground or another bracket.
Moderation comes through understanding the meta and exploiting it for your goals. if goals cannot be met find new ones.
The problem is formed when the community and or devs are not aware/have time for these playstyles and their interactions.
Devs are always pushing forward with new stuff and causing legacy issues to grow higher on the tree. Out of reach for the man hours available.
Eh, I hopped in late and smoked to much. <3
oh and every vacuum is different so /shrug
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Azeroh
Member
Bop
Remember the Treeline
This is a complicated topic.
It's much easier to maintain house rules in a small community - particularly one that is insulated and private (like a wargame community) versus one that is open (battlegrounds).
When the player base is very small (20 wargame arenas), it's easier for people to follow rules. A bit of that is "power" in the sense that you want to have people to play against and you risk missing out on games if you're toxic or don't follow community guidelines on comps and such.
Another part is that the people who might set the meta or set the tone of the community all know each other. This makes coordination easy. As an example: when the 20s skirmish ladder was a thing at the end of Shadowlands, there were very few hunters being played by veterans. Part of that was because they were elo nerfed on the ladder, but nevertheless there were skirmish queues happening with competitive teams and yet almost no one played a hunter.
I would argue that small communities can maintain competitive integrity - and less toxicity - largely because it's much easier to coordinate on the administrative side. Once things get big, people join and do whatever they want. You don't have any power over them in Battlegrounds or Skirmishes. It's very difficult to apply community pressure on people who would be average players without the crutch class or spec.
The truth is that, by and large, very few people care about the experiences of the people they're fighting against. I have thoughts on this topic but they could fill a damn book at this point in my experiences playing video games.
tl;dr - I think having power over a community is more important than a community pressuring people to avoid being toxic / playing broken things. It's possible to use community pressure, without having "moderation power," to prevent busted things (That one xpac where Feral was absurd comes to mind; very few veterans played it). But it's simpler if you can ban them from your games. Big Community = hard to moderate / create balance. Small Community = much easier.
It's much easier to maintain house rules in a small community - particularly one that is insulated and private (like a wargame community) versus one that is open (battlegrounds).
When the player base is very small (20 wargame arenas), it's easier for people to follow rules. A bit of that is "power" in the sense that you want to have people to play against and you risk missing out on games if you're toxic or don't follow community guidelines on comps and such.
Another part is that the people who might set the meta or set the tone of the community all know each other. This makes coordination easy. As an example: when the 20s skirmish ladder was a thing at the end of Shadowlands, there were very few hunters being played by veterans. Part of that was because they were elo nerfed on the ladder, but nevertheless there were skirmish queues happening with competitive teams and yet almost no one played a hunter.
I would argue that small communities can maintain competitive integrity - and less toxicity - largely because it's much easier to coordinate on the administrative side. Once things get big, people join and do whatever they want. You don't have any power over them in Battlegrounds or Skirmishes. It's very difficult to apply community pressure on people who would be average players without the crutch class or spec.
The truth is that, by and large, very few people care about the experiences of the people they're fighting against. I have thoughts on this topic but they could fill a damn book at this point in my experiences playing video games.
tl;dr - I think having power over a community is more important than a community pressuring people to avoid being toxic / playing broken things. It's possible to use community pressure, without having "moderation power," to prevent busted things (That one xpac where Feral was absurd comes to mind; very few veterans played it). But it's simpler if you can ban them from your games. Big Community = hard to moderate / create balance. Small Community = much easier.
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