The internet language

[kavoven 4]

I'd like to describe a situation I'm observing more and more during the last month/years:

People are complaining all the time, about everything. Yesterday for example, some WoW servers crashed. No big deal, since they ran smooth for many month without a problem. But people were screaming their heads of, as if the world would end in two hours.

Someone wrote something really cool in the WoW forums:

"If the developers don't say anything, people complain, because the developers are quiet. If the developers say that there are problems, people complain about not knowing what the problems are. If the developers say what the problems are, people complain because they couldn't forsee them."

Today there was a news on a game-magazine page, and some people knew already about the topic. What did they do? They flamed the author that he was behind the time and so on.

Newspaper homepage. Their is an article about something random. What do people do? They complain about it. "Boring shit", "I knew that already", "There are so many gramma mistakes" ...

I don't visit pages from other countries so often, but if I visit the homepage of the London Times for example, I only see good quality comments.

So my question is:

Is this a German problem, or do other people in other countries wittness this as well? Do people everywhere think "Just because people don't know me, I can write whatever I want!" ?

[mr burns 131]

Your comparing comments made in a games forum to ones being made on a newspaper homepage?

Not good!

[kavoven 4]

Your comparing comments made in a games forum to ones being made on a newspaper homepage?

Not good!

There is also an example from a newspaper, please read more carefully.

[mr burns 131]

Your comparing comments made in a games forum to ones being made on a newspaper homepage?

Not good!

There is also an example from a newspaper, please read more carefully.

Ah well, ok .. misread.

But depending on which newspaper homepage (pls don´t say BILD or yahoo) it´s still 14 years old kids against mature people.

[kavoven 4]

Your comparing comments made in a games forum to ones being made on a newspaper homepage?

Not good!

There is also an example from a newspaper, please read more carefully.

Ah well, ok .. misread.

But depending on which newspaper homepage (pls don´t say BILD or yahoo) it´s still 14 years old kids against mature people.

No, its the "Welt", a serious newspaper. I don't visit the Bild, because you could also listen to your local fortune-teller ^^

www.welt.de

[mr burns 131]

lol, that was unexpected!

But looking at the page im getting the impression that their online staff has other priorities than the print guys.

Been reading the Welt a year ago and by that time an article like "poor marco bla bla" would´nt have made the frontpage.

Also the comments seem to be occupied by smartasses.

But maybe it really is a german problem

[baddo 0]

Hmmm...

when people talk bad things about other people behind their back... I think it's a bit similar situation in the Internet... they don't have to face the person in question face-to-face. So they will say things they wouldn't otherwise say. Often unreasonable things. I once confronted such a person directly, and told him that what I really dislike the most is when people talk sh*t about me behind my back, and when they have to face me then they have no courage to say the same things again because they know they would be talking sh*t. The person I confronted felt very uncomfortable, almost dropped from his chair, sweated, squirmed, swiveled, probably feared something bad is now going to happen (I'm not a bodybuilder and certainly not violent so he had nothing else to fear but my words). Afterwards things were much better as the person changed to behave much better towards me. He knew from thereon that he would have to face me again directly, if I found out that he had again been talking sh*t and lies about me, so he chose to change his behaviour into better.

So it made a very big difference when we actually talked face-to-face. He could not talk bullsh*t about me right at my face, but he could previously do it behind my back. I stopped it (or so I believe) by telling him face-to-face that this kind of behaviour I certainly do not accept.

Thus, I propose that the members of this forum gather together once a year, to Praque for example, to have a face-to-face meeting with each other. And let's see how rude we are towards each other, then. It could even change the whole atmosphere of this forum. I believe that most people visiting this forum are intelligent people who are normally polite towards other people. If they (we) were confronted face-to-face, they (we) would reconsider how they (we) treat each other here in an online forum.

Also, I think if people got to meet the staff of Bohemia Interactive Studio in person, and got to see what they actually do day to day, there would be much less complaining here on this forum about how BIS works (like they know anything...) or how their products turn out to be. It is so easy to complain and ridicule the other side of an argument when you know pretty much nothing.

It is one of my life philosophies that the more you study, the more you realize how little you know. People who claim to know everything have by my definition not seen enough yet. I think this fits into relationships too, also to online ones like between BIS-customer or customer-customer and so on.

[der bastler 0]

Ah well, ok .. misread.

But depending on which newspaper homepage (pls don´t say BILD or yahoo) it´s still 14 years old kids against mature people.

No, its the "Welt", a serious newspaper. I don't visit the Bild, because you could also listen to your local fortune-teller ^^

www.welt.de

Welt does belong to Axel Springer Publishing Group...  

[mr burns 131]

That explains alot!

[Staos 0]

I think the answer to this lies in the GIFT.

All joking aside, that's pretty much how it works. Take any normal person off the streets, give them anonymity and perhaps an audience, and they'll become a total f**kwad.

[sputnik monroe 102]

The internet makes me lose all hope for mankind. Try looking at any youtube video and read the comments.

 It can be a video about kittens and puppys and within 3 comments every one will be saying "%#&@ you yanks, I wish you all died in 9/11" or "France always surrenders!" or "We saved Europe during world war 2" or "x nation is better than nation y" though usually the comments are written out in such a format as to look like a blind ape typed it with it's  flat nose. Example, (actual youtube comment follows) "yeah coz we shout and screm while we walk. try this 1 while u walk. 'your mamma blows goats'............ "

Screm? 1? coz?

Sigh

[baddo 0]

Yeah... I always start laughing quite soon if I read youtube comments. I laugh because it's so unbelievable how stupid comments people write there.

It's just a big insult-fest.

It wouldn't be if all those people met face-to-face. They would go "oh this is a nice guy, I will have to be friendly to him! and he's from France and he's quite tough I gotta say... didn't put his hands up yet! And oh that yankee over there isn't a moron after all, I mean weren't they all supposed to be...? " and so on

As I said, if people don't know anything then it is really easy to insult. Learning makes them understand how little they actually know (and hopefully want to learn more).

[sanctuary 19]

The penny arcade internet theory, already linked up there, explains nearly everything from the internet.

But complaining can be entirely valid, what can not be is the method of complaining.

Quote[/b] ]Also, I think if people got to meet the staff of Bohemia Interactive Studio in person, and got to see what they actually do day to day, there would be much less complaining here on this forum about how BIS works (like they know anything...) or how their products turn out to be. It is so easy to complain and ridicule the other side of an argument when you know pretty much nothing.

Complaining is one right for a paying customer.

Why BIS should expect from every people that are buying a BIS product to be completely supportive to the point of denial to every BIS designs/coding/whatever ... if they estimate the product they bought with the money they worked hard to earn is not what they expected or in a state they hoped it to be.

Last time i checked, none of those people got BIS giving them money BIS worked hard to earn.

So for people in such situation, complaining is the only right they have in their mind, if BIS tolerate that right or not, it is not of my concerns as i don't really care about BIS buisness.

But ask yourself for a few seconds, do you really think BIS products would have got so much additions through patching if none would have "complained" on the BIS board to have it.

Certainly what i agree is the method of complaining, stupid posts (refer to the internet theory) are extremely annoying, not only for the buisness owner or for other readers and customers as well, but they are more drowning the fish instead of adding more value to an entirely legit complain.

[baddo 0]

Of course customers have their right to complain.

I have given negative feedback for BIS too, publicly and privately.

In what kind of style you do your complaining is another thing.

Also, you should consider what did you buy. Did you buy endless customer support for ArmA from BIS? No you didn't. Did you buy a right to get X, Y, and Z features added into ArmA one year after its release? No you didn't.

Unreasonable requests are often seen here. I think you can agree with that. People ask for major revisions of significant parts of an already published game. Animations. Physics. Artificial Intelligence. Damage simulation. And so on.

Bug fixing is another thing. Show-stopping bugs can reasonably be expected to be fixed by BIS.

Do not understand me wrong, I am definitely a person who would like to see the whole PC software business-style change dramatically. I believe the system is quite a lot broken in its current form. I am one of those who believe that a game should receive zero patches after first public release. People are absurdly happy when a game developer publishes a 1.5 gigabyte patch... woo-hoo should I say? No. I'll take it but next time please don't make me go through it again.

The evidence of people behaving unjustifiedly rudely towards BIS is all over this forum. I said they would change their behaviour if they would actually meet BIS staff and have some serious discussions with them. They would still complain but maybe in a style which would be taken more seriously and would be more helpful to both sides.

[Thunderbird 0]

Quote[/b] ]Is this a German problem, or do other people in other countries wittness this as well? ?

This seems to me to be more a matter of individual attitude slightly affected by the local mentality than a specific issue regarding a particular place of the world.

Regards,

TB