In a large online community like CD, there should always be room to improve the level of discourse. Anyone have interesting ideas for how CD could be made a friendlier place? These can be anything from general suggestions on how the culture on here can foster friendliness, to suggestions on how the site itself can be changed (with apologies to Brandon in advance).
Credit to this thread (https://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/showthread.php?t=160018&page=3) for bringing up the idea. For discussion on how bad/how good the environment is on CD, I suggest folks post there. I just want to separate the constructive suggestions people might have from any debate going on in that thread.
I’ll start off with an idea:
Before new users submit a post, a confirmation dialog could appear providing guidelines/reminders about posting etiquette. This would not only help new users start on the right foot, but also serve as a friendly reminder when people try posting on throwaway accounts.
In all seriousness, the best idea that I have is for posters to denote when they are being sarcastic (because some people have a very hard time understanding sarcasm) and to stay away from any ideas that are negative toward a particular individual, team, company, etc., even when it’s the head ref after the still-hard-to-justify Southern Cross scandal, for a recent example.
With that said, as someone who is active on almost all major social networks, Chief Delphi is one of the friendliest places I’ve stumbled across. No website is perfect, and CD can definitely use improvement at times, but it’s really good compared to some of the appalling absences of basic decency I see on a near-daily basis.
This suggestion is being written half “tongue-in-cheek”, and half deadly-serious.
Any confirmation dialog should notify potential-posters that:
A) Asking simple questions without first searching for the answer on your own is a bit rude,
B) Asking about a complex topic without first searching on your own should be done by asking for help doing a search, not by asking for “the answer”,
C) Posters should not revive a dead-horse, contentious subject without
C.1) first searching for and studying past discussions of that topic, and
C.2) ensuring that they are going to add something truly new to the subject, and
D) When a search (see A) and B), above) turns up an old thread full of useful information about a topic; adding to that useful information by reviving the existing thread to ask or contribute something new (instead of spamming a new/duplicate thread into existence), is the right thing to do.
Following these suggestions would definitely reduce instances of reader-irritation that sometimes cascade into an “uncivil” discussion.
They are also useful suggestions to carry into many career-settings.
Conversely, if someone posts a question and is new to the forums, responding along the lines of “Use the search bar, jeez” is also rude. Most people are turned off of hobbies when on their first encounter with the community they are called out for doing things the wrong way. But, maybe that’s why CD seems like such a nice place? You won’t have any low quality posts if everyone is afraid to post!
I view “Please search the archives” as a sort of kindness in even posting in the thread. Especially since my default for threads when the OP should have done some googling or searching before posting is to just ignore them. Eric Raymond’s guide to asking smart questions has served me well over the years.
As a counterpoint to B, remember the xy problem is usually present when this does happen. In many cases I would prefer someone to ask about their problem generally than ask about a solution which does not solve the problem.
If the old thread is over about a year old (depending on context, of course–use best judgement) sometimes the better option is to start a new thread and reference the old one. Otherwise you get the “Holy ancient thread revival, Batman!” (or similar) response.
Honestly, I think anonymity contributes to a lot of the unfriendlyness/trolling here. I think that this is a forum where it’s okay for people to know who you are, and especially which team you represent.
I’m not one to move against anonymous accounts, since there are certainly valid times to have anonymous accounts (eg. asking about internal team issues, Looking Forward). However, anonymous accounts (from what I’ve seen) cause a disproportionate amount of trouble.
Avoid sarcasm and snark in good-faith discussions. Seriously. This isn’t hard.
In-jokes are funny only to the people who get them, and confusing and/or annoying to those who don’t. Don’t post them in serious threads (or in threads that might reasonably be mistaken as serious), and especially do not mock people who aren’t “in” on your personal web of marginally-funny memes.
Ask yourself the following questions before hitting the submit button: “What do I want to accomplish by posting this?” and “Is this post likely to accomplish that?”
Simple - get over the misguided notion that opinions have value. Stop spewing crap and people won’t call you out on it. That’s probably the biggest cause of people feeling “attacked” I see on here.
The other one is asking questions that are easily answered, someone like me comes along has no patience to deal with the 15th person to ask a question that’s easily verified in the rule book and just tells them to RTFM. Then they whine it’s not a friendly place when in reality they are just too lazy to bother.
And it’s not just on CD that it’s a problem - just this morning I had someone at the local makerspace complain that the training on a piece of equipment didn’t show them EXACTLY how to make their project because it didn’t go over how to clean up, or how to choose the right bit, or what materials were allowed. (As the person who did the training the answers are “you’re an adult, if you can’t figure out how to brush up sawdust please don’t use the tool”, “that is highly project and material specific and a lot of it boils down to experience, when you HAVE a project let’s talk”, and “no, I covered that. Also, it’s a wood router so… common sense”) In general - people need to take responsibility to learn about their questions, most of them can be answered far better by doing the research yourself.
Please let me know if I’m misunderstanding the nature of this statement, but I’m not sure I agree with it. I tend to think this is one of the important tenets of online forums including CD - allowing users to post their opinions and have healthy discussions of opposing viewpoints.
To your point and the original question, it’s certainly important to maintain the line between healthy discussion of opposing viewpoints and personal attacks on the original poster. In order to accomplish this on CD, I at least personally tend to look up to and attempt to emulate some of the more respected posters within our community in how they are able to discuss topics/ask questions and maintain respect for others who may disagree with them
Avoid personal attacks and use the reputation button less frequently.
Pretty disheartening for a new member to get red dotted into oblivion because their opinion differed from a few others people. You shouldn’t red dot someone unless they truly are out of line.
Did you see Woodie’s talk this year about Facts and Opinions? I don’t have a good link handy maybe someone does?
There’s some things that are inherently opinion (how you feel about a game, what you thought went well at an event) but also some things that are inherently facts (robots shouldn’t weigh more than 120 pounds, XYZ motor controller isn’t allowed). My objection is that frankly an opinion of “well I think XYZ motor controller should be legal” in the middle of the season is pretty darn worthless and contributes nothing.
This doesn’t address the “well it’s my opinion so it can’t be wrong” when it CAN be proved wrong with some research (example - you can’t cut steel on a grizzly mill).
Then there’s the opinions presented as facts (“my regional is the best cuz I say it is and you can’t argue”, inherently an opinion BUT stated as a fact, also just comes across as a jerk) which are annoying for reasons that REALLY should be obvious. They are also completely without value, and generally make me think far less of the person posting them.
Basically, opinions are fine where they make sense - if I asked you about your favorite set of wrenches I expect an opinion. If I ask you if a district system would be more expensive for a team that currently attends 2 regionals and maybe CMP if they qualify I don’t expect an opinion I expect a fact with, maybe, your assumptions laid out in addition to it.
I know - And that (insert string of adjectives here) response is one that makes some (many?) peoples’ blood boil (leading to less than civil moods that leak into conversations). I have a fine soapbox and a long list of talking points ready, if it’s needed.
Ancient knowledge isn’t ancient. It’s just knowledge.
Blake
PS: In keeping with my suggestions… Here is a thread" about “On being rude…” It includes exchanges about RTFM’ing.
Here are the messages in one exchange: One Two Three Four Five This one is my favorite (The fact that I wrote it doesn’t hurt ;)).
I agree on this, though I would instead promote the usage of green or neutral rep. I’ve never given a red–not that there haven’t been times I’ve wanted to–but I’m not afraid to use a neutral as, if you will, a “warning shot” to convey a similar message. Or I’ll send a PM. (The other advantage of a neutral: If a red is really warranted, and you’ve already given a neutral, you gotta spread the rep around before giving the red… which gives plenty of time for the offender to mend his/her ways.
To me in order for an internet board to be taken seriously the physical restrictions within that board have to only be done to a point. What i mean by this is that you have have to be careful with what you ban or how you punish because if you aren’t and you start banning stuff like unpopular opinions then you’re website starts to become a hard thing to endorse. To me CD has gone as far as it can while still being taken seriously with regards to banning stuff. Beyond this point would be banning stuff like non-popular opinions or banning certain non-swear words for some reason.
That being said I do agree that there can be some stuff on the website that can be added to make it better. I agree with nomythicalbeast on adding in a way to denote sarcasm through a little button or something rather than just having to say that its sarcasm.
The main thing really that should affect how CD looks at friendliness is educating people. For instance, on CD if someone has green rep whatever level they have you usually don’t pay attention but if someone has red rep then you kind look at it like what bad thing did they do only to find that it wasn’t that they said something bad but rather they hold an unpopular opinion. Too many times on CD I’ve seen the rep function used to diminish peoples unpopular opinions rather than punishing an account for undesirable behavior.
I think this whole problem can be summed up by the word “professionalism”, and that’s not just because this is a FIRST orientated website. I noticed that as soon as I started being careful of what I was saying and acted more like an adult, I got far less criticism than when I first joined.
I used to be a complete bozo on chief who said the first thing that came to mind and never proofread anything. Now, I always read my posts at least 3 times before posting it, and I usually try to address the people of chief like they were a professor or boss (with the exception of threads that are meant to be silly ie: unofficial caption contests). I think a lot of the main issues mentors have with students on this website is how they come on here, and truly act like kids (like I used to). I can honestly accredit CD with “growing up” my online communication skills.
Of course this only is for student vs mentor arguments. Most mentor vs. mentor arguments, I’m not really sure how to fix.
