Jump to content

Community Code of Conduct


JeffR

Recommended Posts

Hey everyone!

As we've marched onwards to the ever-looming release of 4.0, we've had a pretty constant trickle of new people, as well as old Torque hands returning to the fold, let alone the guys that have been trucking on this whole time.

With the continuing growth of the community, and some concerns of conflicting viewpoints, behaviors, and stances, I figured it was a good opportunity to set some ground expectations via a Code of Conduct.

We like to keep things pretty easy-breezy here as you all no doubt have come to appreciate, keeping the forums a open place for people to show off, post what they're working on, ideas and feedback as well as just discussions about whatever gamedev stuff. But the internet being what it is, sometimes opinions can clash, viewpoints can differ and tensions can raise to the point where things can get ugly.

Which means that while we'll strive to avoid needing to lean on it, the Code of Conduct will be kept here as a framework everyone can understand the expectations of interacting with the rest of the community and - in the hopefully unlikely event is not adhered to, moderation will be applied in accordance to these expectations.

 

  • We, as a community, are committed to providing a friendly, safe and welcoming environment for all, regardless of experience, background, history or characteristic.
  • Please avoid using any overly sexual, offensive, or insulting alias or nicknames for yourself or others that would otherwise detract from a friendly, safe and welcoming environment.
  • Please be kind and courteous. There's no need to be rude.
  • Respect that people have differences of opinion, and that every design, implementation, or choice carries considerations, trade-offs, and costs. There is rarely ever a perfect answer.
  • Please keep critiques constructive. If you are going to critique someone's work, ideas, or decisions, do it with topical and specific feedback so that they can improve. Unconstructive critiques don't help anyone better their work.
  • Insulting, demeaning or harassing anyone is not welcome behavior, whether in public or private conversations. If you feel you have been subjected to any of this behavior, please contact any moderator or admin immediately. Whether you're a regular or a newcomer, we care about making this community a safe place for you. If you have any lack of clarity about what might fall under those concepts, feel free to ask for clarification from the moderation team.
  • Likewise, any spamming, trolling, flaming, baiting or other attention-stealing/seeking behavior is not welcome.

 

In the hopefully unlikely event someone is found to have violated an aspect of the CoC, they will be provided a direct, specific warning, explaining what they have broken in terms of the CoC that the moderation has felt needed to be corrected.

If the user then goes on to violate the CoC again in a similar manner, not having shown any acknowledgement to their behavior or what they have done wrong, they will then face disciplinary actions as follows:

On their first offense, following a direct, written warning, they will face a 3 day suspension.

On their second offense, they will face a 6 day suspension.

On their third, they will face a 9 day suspension.

If they, after returning from suspensions go to violate the CoC for the 4th time, showing no interest in changing their behavior, then they will face a ban.

Anyone facing a suspension or ban is free to appeal this by messaging anyone on the admin or moderation team and their case will be reviewed. If it is found to not have been in violation, then the user can disregard the original moderation verdict. Otherwise, if found to have been a correct moderation action, then it is considered to be upheld and the user appealing will be informed of the decision so they may - if required - adjust their behavior accordingly.

If there is any element of this Code of Conduct that is unclear, feel free to ask for clarification. As mentioned above, if you feel any of these have been violated by a member of the community, contact the mods or admins so that we can take care of the situtation.

As said, I hope that everyone takes the intent to heart to create a welcoming environment for anyone that wants to make games(or heck, just people that find making games super cool - because it is!) so that we never need to lay down corrective or moderative behavior.

With that, I look forward to this community growing and becoming even more awesome!

 

-JeffR

Link to comment
Share on other sites

It is a really bad idea to do something like this. I mean just after the big scandal of the Code of Conduct for Linux, which almost destroyed the Linux project, you try to do the same mistake here.


Basically all the points in the code are subjective interpretation and therefore are as good as no code of conduct at all. Additionally all the points have nothing to do with our project or what we are supposed to be doing here and this is work together and get things done. If it is only about being nice to each other, nothing ever will get done, as I have observed in communities that already employ such code of conducts.


I know you try to be nice in order to grow the community and such, but this does not work. As far as I know the number of people that came to our community from those politically correct other communities is zero and those who came are not users for Torque or game developers at all, but instead are just here to advertise their own things to gain members from this community and therefore are trying to make our community shrink. Therefore it is a really really bad idea to appeal to such an audience, since no matter how it turns out, there is nothing to be gained for us.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

agree with this 100% to keep new users in with us we should not meet them with negatives but be positive no matter what, point them in the right direction if we can, and if we cant say something in a positive way then we dont say anything at all.


For example: New post about an idea that may not be possible we do not say "no that will never happen are you stupid no one will go for that they only do what they want to do and unless ur willing to devote your last breaths to this then you will surely die alone"


Instead a proper response would be: Wow i dont know if that would work but here are a few sources of where it may have been done in other engines or ive never heard of that being done im sorry i dont have any ideas

Link to comment
Share on other sites

It is a really bad idea to do something like this. I mean just after the big scandal of the Code of Conduct for Linux, which almost destroyed the Linux project, you try to do the same mistake here.


Basically all the points in the code are subjective interpretation and therefore are as good as no code of conduct at all. Additionally all the points have nothing to do with our project or what we are supposed to be doing here and this is work together and get things done. If it is only about being nice to each other, nothing ever will get done, as I have observed in communities that already employ such code of conducts.


I know you try to be nice in order to grow the community and such, but this does not work. As far as I know the number of people that came to our community from those politically correct other communities is zero and those who came are not users for Torque or game developers at all, but instead are just here to advertise their own things to gain members from this community and therefore are trying to make our community shrink. Therefore it is a really really bad idea to appeal to such an audience, since no matter how it turns out, there is nothing to be gained for us.

 

A bigger audience is always a good thing no matter what way you slice it. and on your point about interpretation it will not be down to one person so the interpretation point is invalid

Link to comment
Share on other sites

A bigger audience is always a good thing no matter what way you slice it. and on your point about interpretation it will not be down to one person so the interpretation point is invalid

 

Why? You did not make any argument. I can also easily disprove your statement, for example we do not need the audience of spammers, so in that case a smaller audience minus the spammers is far better.

 

agree with this 100% to keep new users in with us we should not meet them with negatives but be positive no matter what, point them in the right direction if we can, and if we cant say something in a positive way then we dont say anything at all.

 

Yes and if they do not belong here we can tell them to leave or do you want this place overrun with spammers? What are we supposed to do to spammers etc? Invite them all in and encourage them to destroy our community?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Why? You did not make any argument. I can also easily disprove your statement, for example we do not need the audience of spammers, so in that case a smaller audience minus the spammers is far better.

 

Higher audience no matter how much knowledge they have they can always incorporate some form of knowledge that we didnt already know, i mean your a big fan of open source yet want this to remain a closed community for some reason. A larger audience is what this community needs, more activity which in turn will generate better topics for perspective new comers.

 

Yes and if they do not belong here we can tell them to leave or do you want this place overrun with spammers? What are we supposed to do to spammers etc? Invite them all in and encourage them to destroy our community?

 

spammers can be controlled, like they are on every other website that deals with higher traffic, i could help this site block spammers more effectively if they want. And i wont charge for my time, im a member of this community and i want to see it prosper. Spammers can be blocked with some simple techniques.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

How is a code of conduct supposed to do anything in regards of achieving a higher audience? I'm pretty sure it will do absolutely nothing in that regard, if anything it will rather reduce the audience since it adds more artificial restrictions and banning of people which will further reduce the possible audience.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

How is a code of conduct supposed to do anything in regards of achieving a higher audience? I'm pretty sure it will do absolutely nothing in that regard, if anything it will rather reduce the audience since it adds more artificial restrictions and banning of people which will further reduce the possible audience.

 

Well right off the top of my head it would make it a more welcome place for new comers and would stop anyone from treating new comers poorly, meeting people with scornful remarks not only puts them in doubt of expressing their ideas on the forum again but also makes them leave the engine because they cant get help in the one place that is supposed to provide it. Shooting down peoples ideas shouldn't happen either

Link to comment
Share on other sites

@Jason Campbell

The nonexistent issue is that Jeff thought I said something negative that I did not say. So the initial reason Jeff wrote this thing here only exists in his imagination, therefore it is nonexistent.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

@Jason Campbell

The nonexistent issue is that Jeff thought I said something negative that I did not say. So the initial reason Jeff wrote this thing here only exists in his imagination, therefore it is nonexistent.

 

you would of course be referring to your response to julius' post

If there is interest we are currently working on a Mattermost based team-chat for interested open source game projects https://chat.freegamedev.net

Mattermost offers a lot of neat devops integrations such as https://github.com/mattermost/mattermost-plugin-github


We also have a Matterbridge running that could bridge to the existing Discord and IRC chats.


However, I have to say that Duion is currently banned on our network due to excessive trolling :) I might be willing to give him a third? chance though :p


P.S. we also have a new Gitea based code hosting repository: git.freegamedev.net

where you said

@Julius

This forum is for game developers using Torque3D, you are neither a game developer nor are you using Torque3D.


Why would I as game developer using Torque3D want to be a member of a game development community where nobody is a game developer or using Torque3D?


PS: Bridging Discord chats is even more stupid and dangerous than using Discord by itself, since you just spread the infection.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

@marauder2k9

You still did not make any argument, you just quoted something unrelated to his topic and said nothing on your own.

I can explain you once more, if you cannot understand what I wrote: I only made an argument why I don't want to be part of a certain community and why bridging Discord is even more stupid than using Discord itself.

I did not insult anyone even though I was insulted to be a troll. If you cannot even distinguish the offender from the victim you are either insane or corrupt, or both. Therefore your efforts to supposedly better things that were not bad, are undermined by corruption to begin with.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

@marauder2k9

You still did not make any argument, you just quoted something unrelated to his topic and said nothing on your own.

I can explain you once more, if you cannot understand what I wrote: I only made an argument why I don't want to be part of a certain community and why bridging Discord is even more stupid than using Discord itself.

I did not insult anyone even though I was insulted to be a troll. If you cannot even distinguish the offender from the victim you are either insane or corrupt, or both. Therefore your efforts to supposedly better things that were not bad, are undermined by corruption to begin with.

 

Oh i know why would i make any argument when u do a better job of making the point than i ever could, no one needs to hear my side when you make it so clear to everyone here that a code of conduct is in order

Link to comment
Share on other sites

As others have stated, a code of conduct is a very common thing, so one wouldn't think that having it should feel to be a problem at all.


That said, Duion, a good word to describe your behavior is antagonistic. Even in instances where your opinions are perfectly valid or you're correct, you are needlessly aggressive. This thread is an example of that where you're slighting at me for "imaginary issues". I know you're capable of conveying what you mean without needing to stoop to that.


I really don't feel that adhering to a code of conduct is that big of a problem. If the issues are truely imaginary, then it will be easy for everyone to follow the CoC without issue. My reason for pointing you at the CoC in the other thread is that it's pretty rude to align sharing space with another development community as an infection. You're free to hold your opinion, but that's a pretty rude way to posit your position.


You've similarly talked down at people for not being active developers. Even if they aren't currently, pretending that their opinion on things is irrelevent simply because they're new, or haven't been active recently is unnecessary.


All I ask is you consider your bluntness and wording. Again, if the issues involved are imaginary, then that shouldn't be difficult and there's no problem with otherwise following the CoC. If people are calling you insults then feel free to report them to me as well. These are community-wide rules, after all.


It's only if you refuse to acknowledge that there are more constructive ways to phrase things that we will have an issue, but I honestly think you're capable of phrasing things in a more constructive manner. So please do so.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Codes of Conduct are good things to have. Fully support this. They are in fact "normal" for every single type of online community I have ever been a part of. I have been a part of this community for more than 10 years, I just lurk a lot. The more polished we can get Torque 3d and its website and forums the better off Torque is.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

My reason for pointing you at the CoC in the other thread is that it's pretty rude to align sharing space with another development community as an infection. You're free to hold your opinion, but that's a pretty rude way to posit your position.

I never said that, you made that up in your head and falsely accused me of it, so you are at fault here, that's why I say imaginary issue.

The discussion was about Discord and how it would be infectious for other services to Bridge them to Discord at no point I talked about other communities at all, I only made a comment about a certain person that is stalking me and calling me names like troll and telling everyone how bad I'm supposedly are, even though he is not a game developer or Torque user, so his intention is clearly not to be helpful in any way to our community.

 

You've similarly talked down at people for not being active developers. Even if they aren't currently, pretending that their opinion on things is irrelevent simply because they're new, or haven't been active recently is unnecessary.

I joined that community because I thought I could find like minded people and/or other game developers, so far I have met zero of them, so you are trying to appeal to a community that brought forth not a single active game developer using Torque3D or contributing in any way to our community or project. They do not even seem to care about the open source philosophy anymore by trying to bridge Discord to open source services.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Strictly speaking for myself (as always) I'm a reflexively foulmouthed, downright abrasive, task oriented person that can and does get lost in the task at hand to the point of forgetting at times that I'm discussing stuff written by people. More so at the ass end of the day. If I can draw the distinction between 'this looks like an idiotic move' and 'you're an idiot' during a live conversation, there's zero excuse for folks forum posting not to take advantage of the extra time to reflect before they hit send.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 3 weeks later...

Excellent CoC, Jeff. Pretty much covers all the bases.


In my experience, CoC's are never a problem, and are even welcome by those who naturally stay within their guidelines. They're always a "problem" for those who don't. It's always the latter group who protest having them. Funny how it always holds true, even here. "Those who scream loudest..."


A good example of how a community can be badly affected by negative people and behavior is the official GameMakerStudio community. Every time I've looked there myself, I've seen frequent abrasive attitudes and behavior. I've seen people recommend to stay away from their official forums for the same reason. It's not a good reputation to have, especially when you're "home base" for a product. With the potential T3D has to grow and expand as a viable 3D Game Engine and draw in a larger community, it's wise to get ahead of such eventualities. Makes Moderators' jobs a lot easier, too. The CoC does the heavy lifting and lays out the rules. The Mods just have to apply it as necessary.


If you want a healthy, open community that anyone can join and contribute to, a CoC is an important thing to have.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

In my experience, CoC's are never a problem, and are even welcome by those who naturally stay within their guidelines.

 

NEVER a problem? Did nobody notice the huge scandal when a CoC for Linux was introduced which resulted in Linus Torvalds leaving the project and several other Linux contributors threatening to revoke the licenses for their contributions, which could have resulted in the destruction of the Linux project in total and in the destruction of 90% or whatever of computing infrastructure, since most computers run some kind of Linux.


So just recently a useless CoC almost destroyed most of the computing world, but you don't see a problem in that, if everyone just pretends to be nice to each other.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

NEVER a problem? Did nobody notice the huge scandal when a CoC for Linux was introduced which resulted in Linus Torvalds leaving the project and several other Linux contributors threatening to revoke the licenses for their contributions, which could have resulted in the destruction of the Linux project in total and in the destruction of 90% or whatever of computing infrastructure, since most computers run some kind of Linux.


So just recently a useless CoC almost destroyed most of the computing world, but you don't see a problem in that, if everyone just pretends to be nice to each other.

"Scandal" is a bit of an exaggeration. Linus Torvalds didn't leave the project he took a 1 month vacation. the "computing world" was in 0 danger of being destroyed least of all because of the Linux CoC. Linus Torvalds treated people like dirt for decades and issued an open apology promising to change his behavior within hours of the CoC going into effect. No harm came from it, but some good might.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

×
×
  • Create New...