I think at this point it would be more productive to report posts that attack you or MissCheetah, than to try to argue with someone who has made it quite clear that their stance has taken root and is not open to being changed.
There’s a time and a place to argue and nitpick, and one has to recognize when there is no point doing so and the other party has turned hostile.
Attack is an interesting term. They need to actually break the code of conduct before I report them. We only get 5 reports per 24 hours so they have to be used wisely. Just posting misinformation is not something the Forum Moderators may even pick up on - they handle forums for every Blizzard game and product so are a bit busy, and don’t know the details of every news article/aspect of every game.
When it comes to misinfomation, or outright lies, I can, and WILL, correct them as I see them.
If someone does not like that, they should fact check themselves before posting.
He did seem to harass drium on multiple threads and anyone else that disagreed with him got what I would call a “lacking” treatment
You really need to follow this, you are one of the worst offenders on these forums. You constantly post quotes from interviews out of context, add in your own, and make it sound as if its factual.
Most of us know your full of it, but some new players may not know otherwise and take what you post as legit.
It’s understood that you can’t just do anything you want, and that you wish to exercise a gentle hand - and that’s good.
But for the mature, adult gamer who spends most of their gaming time actually playing the games, and would like to come to Blizzard’s forums for some useful content and discussion, it’s pretty difficult.
The continual spew of anger, negativity, insulting and demeaning comments, all couched in a vile stew of sexist, misogynist hate speech gets tiresome after a while.
And after a while, one starts to notice that it is all coming from a small handful of highly “motivated” posters who do not represent the mainstream gamer, and who could not have time to play the games very much with all the time they spend here bashing and insulting people.
I hope there is a way to get some of that negativity to leave these forums - they would be more user friendly to actual gamers if you did.
There is a way to remove the toxicity from the forums and it’s the report function. The mods will sort it out afterwards, and users generally become unable to post for XX amount of time once moderated, with, I presume, stacking penalties that can eventually lead to permanent suspension. So… I mean… there you go.
The tools are there, you (and others) just have to use them. As MissCheetah pointed out we are limited to 5 reports a day, which means any one single person is in no position to flag all of the anger/bile/toxicity/whatever else you want to call it.
I can’t do anything personally. MVPs are other players who have green text, and Trust Level 3 so I can post links or images to help players or explain game stuff.
You are not wrong. Those are the sorts of comments that most certainly break the forum code of conduct and when reported are removed and the players suspended. Enough suspensions and they get perma banned. There are steps beyond that for patterns of trolling or harassment, but I won’t get into that. Those are special circumstances.
Around here, most of the decent folks just report and move on. The jerks get moderated by the mods, and when they don’t get bites on their trash posts, they get bored.
I will say, the Diablo forums are MUCH better than they used to be. So that is progress.
I strongly disagree. I have tried to the best of my ability to make certain that Blizzard quotes and my personal opinions are clearly denoted and separated.
For example, my first post in this thread contained 2 direct quotes from Blizzard. Please see how carefully I separated my words and clearly correctly attributed quotes. I used the block quote feature to separate my words from the direct quotes from the news articles. Moreover, you will see the provided direct quotes are often quite long. For example, 1 is a couple of paragraphs long) so that the quote is in context.
There is a difference in having divergent opinions and the underlying facts. In relationship to quotes, there are two types that are relevant to the forum. The first is typically interview quotes of Blizzard/VV staff that are provided to various news outlets. In general, I tend to provide direct quote and give the link to the initial source so anyone can read the news articles in full. I do this to demonstrate full transparency so that anyone can read the exact same source that I read. Also, they can independently validate the veracity of said quotes. I consider this ethical.
Secondly, there are times where I quote other forum members. I tend to read what was explicitly stated. This can lead to my literal interpretation or to understand that a statement is based on an underlying assumption. Often when I respond, the other forum member will later reply saying that is what they said but they actually meant something else. The old cliche is often true “Mean what you say and say what you mean.”
The “new” diablo forum is ~23 months old. There are divergent opinions on many hot button topics. In matters of taste, there is no right or wrong. The simple facts remain that providing direct quotes as I have done in this thread (as well as often providing links to said quotes) allows for others to reach their own conclusion. You may not like my opinion but it does not change the underlying facts about what Blizzard has communicated and my attempts at transparency.
Micro usually make sure to be constructive, makes sure to back up his statements and in general very level headed and rational from what I have seen, only people I have seen that had problem with him are the usual “toxic” folk that are not here to talk but be vocal
adding his opinion to his posts is what conversation is, and he is not injecting anything foul or wrong to what he says, if you think that way, you probably need to open your mind a bit and see beyond your own perspective and listen to your own words
just because you don’t think he is right, doesn’t make him wrong
I will say that while I usually agree with 90% of what Micro has to say, their matter-of-fact, longwinded way to write, picking apart posts with multiple quotes and feedback on individual sentences (often out of context) isn’t something I’m a fan of, and is something I can completely understand causing people to bunker down instead of try to change their opinion.
Micro approaches arguments like a machine would (that’s not an insult, exactly), which is to bombard the other person with play-by-play analysis of every statement on its own, slamming down links and quotes like blunt instruments. That’s a good way to make people close themselves to change and/or get hostile in return.
But TBH if they get hostile, Micro should stop engaging and just file reports. It’d be a lot more productive overall, because if you weight the quantity of text in any given thread where Micro started engaging with someone, their replies would make up over 50% of all text in the thread easily, and even if it is factual (and it often is), that’s not a good look.
You are somewhat correct in your assessment. I take a Vulcan-esque approach as I value logic and analytical reasoning, both personally and professionally. Philosophically speaking, a forum poster claims X based on A, B, and C. Let’s assume that B and C are factually inaccurate and logically claim X is invalid since A and B are false.
I try to break things done into simple elements and contextually provide facts to support my argument. My posts tend to be long in part because I try to provide direct evidence and not simply say “Blizzard said something contrary” or to explain something more fully.
Personally, there are people who disagree with me and vice versa and that is fine. To me, it is rare that someone on the forum gets hostile. Folks can disagree vigorously and not be hostile. It is my opinion that factual errors should be corrected. My goal typically is not to change someone’s mind. There are many psychological studies about why facts often do not change people’s opinions. Although I may be responding to someone, I often view my rebuttal posts as to provide a case for those with open minds, and not necessarily to the respondent specifically.
no No no, read what I said again… He posts quotes and comments from interviews and lies about them as if they said what he wants, not just his own opinion, he states them as facts, in his own clever way. Its wrong, its trolling.
The most common one he does is posting a comment from a Dev stating “we are still looking at more changes if the community wants them” (Paraphrasing) Then he will go on and state the Devs are looking at making major changes like Ploot and what not and makes it sound as if its what the Dev actually said.
Defend him all you want, call me toxic, but its a fact and hes not the only one who does it, hes just the most frequent.
I don’t think he lies intentionally. I think he interprets things very strictly and it is not always how others see the same info. He then doubles down on the quotes or math (depending on topic). Sometimes he is just wrong in his conclusions - but they are not an attempt to outright lie like some of the trolling posts here.
This for example. Yes, they are open to possible changes. That is a true statement. It is a true statement to say the surveys asked questions about a wide variety of hot topics.
What is not a “fact” is that they are for sure looking to make major changes - or making specific major ones. They MIGHT be. They might not be though. Maybe they are looking for feedback for an optional DLC. Maybe they are looking to make some minor tweaks.
The point is we don’t know until the Devs actually tell us. Arguing down in the weeds about an article quote (that we don’t have full insight to), is not productive.
This is correct and similar comments have been made by a few Blizzard/VV staff.
This assessment lacks nuance. I have said that there was a a question in one of Blizzard’s surveys about personal loot instead of FFA loot at D2R launch. I have even discounted this as a real possibility, but I think it is fair to say that Blizzard has at least considered personal loot options at some point (it may or may not be under consideration at the moment).
Please forgive my intellectual vanity (Have you ever seen the movie “Name of the Rose” with Sean Connery and Christian Slater?)
My math tends to be right. The one major time I was called out about my math was not about my math at all but the selection of the underlying dataset that I clearly stated and defined. I used later data directly downloaded from Blizzard’s API after the patch/season had matured. Later, I received an apology stating that I was correct in my overall assessment and their data was too early in the patch/season to yield reliable/accurate results.