Does anybody know when exactly this forum turned to shit?

It's a serious question. People around here used to have class, but it seems like lately that not a single day goes by where I don't see a significant number of people engaging in some rather rude behavior.

It used to be that there were rules here. People might actually get banned if they insulted each other. or broke the rules. These days, not only is that a common occurrence.

Maybe it's the new games, maybe it's the growth or maybe it was just a matter of time, but the typical intellect around here is rapidly approaching that of the Steam forums.

It's rather depressing really,this used to be a cool place to hang out, but now we've got entire threads dedicated to trolling new users. Posts that really shouldn't be in GD, but GOG hasn't felt like providing anywhere else for them, so things like the forum games, which are reasonable to have, end up taking up valuable space on the front page when really they ought to have their own entire sub-forum where people can find them, but where they aren't in the way of discussion.

I'm not seeing much difference, besides the occasionally new posts about support abuse, GOG abuse etc. These only became more prevalent when Galaxy was starting out.

I'm pretty sure there was a thread about picking on agnostics and atheists a year or so ago. Is that not sub standard behaviour?

The only subforums I could suggest at the moment are ones for; giveaways, and mod suggestions for GOG.com. Oh and one for the 'what did just update' thread.

There are always a ton of threads in any forum that aren't of particular interest to everybody. I think that's a given.

what concerns me isn't that the higher minded threads are much less common than they used to be and the substance is much lower so much as the amount of group think and just general poor netiquette that I'm seeing.

The outright abuse of rep is a growing problem. I don't personally care about it, but the thing that it represents is a much bigger problem. You get idiots being repped up for some pretty asinine views and people being downrepped for no reason that I can identify. Removing rep would take away the obvious problem, but it's a sign of decay.

In the past, I don't recall seeing as much mis-repping going on. Now, that could definitely be perceptual, I didn't notice much repping going on at all in the past. But, who knows. The complete lack of moderation and consequences for forum goers that stop over the line has gotten out of hand.

Even posting private PM messages doesn't get a baning or anything more than a stern talking to.

*Shrugs* Beats me. I'm starting to miss a lot of members that used to post here. =/

Sep 2012

Wait please. Let me grab some popcorn first.

Oh yes, I didn't take the up/down repping into account. That has definitely gotten out of hand.

Kind of annoying to see someone with a retarded one-liner get highly rated. What annoys me is the 'elite' of GOG have this pack mentality when it comes to upping and downing rep. But, as you said, the numbers don't mean shit.

That sounds like how the god-awful voting system on reddit works. Personally, I hate having a system where people can vote posts up or down, and would be happy to see repping done away with. At the very least, I think it would be good to remove the ability to down rep.

Well, then, sorry, but you recall wrong. There has been rep abuse the very moment rep was introduced in the message boards (I refuse to call that... thing a forum), with people losing and gaining rep in the hundreds in the span of a mere day.

And the "classy" thing. Then again, I think you're wrong (no bashing intended, right, just my perception of things). The message boards have had highs and lows, but I don't think they're very different now than when I joined. I think the main point (based on my own personal experience on several forums I was member of) is that the message board evolves: some pretty involved people suddenly disappear (private life, work, health concerns, etc...) which creates a "gap" and new people join that can be not to your liking, thus conducing you to feel that the message boards are "turning to shit".

I think it's impossible to keep a forum in a perfect state, since we all have our own definition of that "perfect state". I've resigned from some forums not because they turned to shit, but because I realized that I had less and less in common with people using it - be it a difference of centers of interest, age, etc...

So, to answer your question, no, I don't see more rep abuse these days than before (although I agree they should get rid of that system once for all) and I also don't feel the message boards turning to shit.

Of course, it's just my two cents.

This is happening with me nowadays .

This forum has never really been "classy" in any sense of the word.

I suspect what you miss is the fact that (a) the community was much smaller before GOG introduced indies and modern titles, and was also much more manageable and (b) the community on the whole was a fair bit older (age was a prerequisite for the majority to appreciate the games that were here - younger fans of DOS games are rarer on the whole) until indie games and modern games arrived, which in turn has attracted a younger audience, a sizeable chunk of which makes its immaturity plainly obvious.

Also, as the problems of DRM manifest themselves in different ways to different people, DRM-free has become a much more mass-market force than before and is no longer simply a niche phenomenon limited to those with an understanding of the technical and practical problems of DRM. Whereas before this forum was largely made up of people who understood the problems of DRM and simply didn't want to be burned by these problems, now we have a lot of people who have actually been burned by the likes of Steam, UPlay and Origin and have only come here in the light of those experiences.

And the rose-tinted glasses of nostalgia do help to expunge the memory of idiots like Roman5 with his procrastination and misogyny, GameRager with his extremely unpleasant elitism, and SimonG, who would quite regularly point out how Steam users were supposedly intellectually superior because he preferred Steam and because of his implied vocation in the legal industry (while frequently falling short of ever calling himself a lawyer).

These forums have been largely unmoderated for the entirety of the time I have been here. I can remember 2 bannings, neither of which related to the way people spoke to each other.

Maybe I don't notice it that much as I don't participate in the giveaways etc. It may also be that I care more about the games in GOG than the forums, even if I am quite active in the forums too.

On the plus side, to me it would seem there are less heated Steam-arguments these days, or then they are just hidden under the piles of other threads. Maybe all the arguments have been mostly had already on that front. Same maybe for consoles vs PC arguments, I think. Or Linux vs Windows, or PC vs Mac?

In my eyes, there is no "community". There is only a group of people with somewhat different interests. Maybe the only common thing is that they have some interest to PC gaming, and gaming in general.

Apart from that, the reasons for being in GOG.com are wildly different from one person to another. Some naysayers used to claim there is a "hive-mind" among GOG users, but I say hogwash. Of course anyone who claims that considers themselves to not be part of the "hive-mind", or the "(un)classy community" that they are complaining about. They are never themselves part of the problem they perceive, it is always The Others (great movie BTW).

This too. I was wondering if there was stricter moderation before I joined, or how I missed those bans for misbehavior.

That's one of the things where GOG users are different from each others: some want more and more moderation (somewhat like Steam forums I guess), others like the place as it is, with very little moderation.

Sing it baby: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kODOHodMqck

I don't know much about class but I do know that the community has recently been full of gas. Whew! Was there a Taco Bell special? Everyone seems to be getting enough fiber that's for certain. ಠ.ಠ