Does the NI Forum Community Culture need a change?

Kymeia

Yes, I had suggested decoupling points from the flag system because some people have been misusing it to target people they just disagree with. It would be better if there was just a flag system to alert mods - fact is spammers won’t get points anyway and trolls etc can be dealt with by mods in whatever way seems most appropriate - including potentially penalties, but that should be on a case by case basis rather than an automatic point deduction as it’s too open to abuse.

Scoops

Why change the soap opera, I'm enjoying this.

We have a company that's sinking, Trust Pilot reviews that are awful, products not working, people on the forum discovering Sonoma solutions rather than a fully engineered and tested solution, moderators that aren't really moderating, angry customers, really poor support, unanswered support tickets, closed support tickets without solution, people leaving NI in droves, (yes I am one, Fabfilter and Spitfire out class NI by a long shot, I'm just in this for my legacy projects), a few that are posting just to get NI points, NI fanboi's completely missing the point, dripping sarcasm, a broken NA2, NI excuses (sorry it's biggest sale time of the year, we don't have time for support), and total lack of weekend support.

What's not to like about this?

Over the Black Friday weekend, I logged into a competitors website, ordered a large package, (BBCSO Pro), got confirmation of my purchase, and started to download inside of 10 minutes. It took a couple hours to completely download, but it did, and I have all my instruments, and it works very well. I had a question on Saturday, so I opened a ticket, and it was responded to and resolved inside of 4 hours.

THIS IS WHAT THE MUSICAL COMMUNITY EXPECTS!

Not the soap opera I listed above.

Ya really can't fix the forum until you fix the product

My $0.02

MyStudioOne

So if you allow users to Report only, the system doesn't not get abused ( no pun intended) and the mods are immediately in the loop.

The mods then get to decide whether to delete the abusive post and penalize the poster by way of the points deduction system) and follow up by sending a strike notice to the user behind the scenes. They either shape up or eventually get banned.

That all makes perfect sense. The moderators should be penalizing the offenders, not users.

Matt_NI

@Kymeia @MyStudioOne It makes sense. I will bring this to discussion tomorrow and we'll make the adjustment to the process/point system moving forward.

nightjar

My visits here are either to stay abreast of the front edge of product changes, or to share what I consider interesting thoughts related to NI products.

I don't really think much about points and such.. and I don't think I have ever flagged anyone. I certainly have been irritated by some posts.. but usually I try to dismiss those feelings because some people are sadly just the way they are.

After many professional years of having to problem solve issues with all sorts of personalities... it's so nice being in a position now to ignore and brush off bothersome people.

My condolences to those that need to deal with unpleasant people.

Matt_NI

@MyStudioOne @Kymeia While we make this adjustment, I'm still not sure this will really have a meaningful impact. If we talk about culture and how users behave on the community, there is still a fundamental issue about how some of the people talk to each other and the motivation behind some of the posts. The point system isn't the cause of that and I'm wondering how do you suggest we deal with that?

D-One

Great post @MyStudioOne, very well written.

The forum has always been sort of self-regulating without the need of too much intervention, but this has changed lately, quite a bit and I am not 100% sure why there's so much drama now.

It encourages over posting for the sake of monetary gain and I think it may have made the problem worse?

I also vote to remove all that gaming stuff, it's always roughly the same people winning anyway, I am sure most of the names I see on the leaderboard would contribute anyway. It's a bit sad to not give things to top contributors since they for sure deserve it but gaming shenanigans attract all sorts of issues of the childish kind, as the forum grows the problem grows aswell.

Giveaways on the other hand attract people that come, post 2 times, and never set foot here again. So, not sure what the solution could be to give back to users that actually deserve it.

It's a huge shame the actions of a few have resulted in a closed, but vital thread, but we just need to find ways to keep communicating, without taking everything personally.

Preach. Sometimes it's better to ignore than to keep quoting people you don't agree with than to keep trying to debate.

I am grateful for moderators but perhaps due to the current culture and an apparent policy of anonymity, it feels like they are sort of in hiding even if they aren't. I wish that wasn't the case. If I am a new user, I would feel most safe following the advice of someone who had "Moderator" in their signature. But it is often a thankless and even tiring job, so dedicated users could take turns committing for a defined period, sort of like jury duty for the sake of the community.

But Mods and Admins have their rank right next to their names, it doesn't show up for you? Mobile?

I really don't like the culture of anonymity online, it's exactly why so many people cross lines, no one knows their face, their socials, so they can do whatever free of any consequence. For this reason I kind of like the "Dislikes" we had in the old forum, it's like Karma on Reddit, if a user has a crazy dislike ratio then you know that person is probably not worth talking too, just like a youtube video with tons of dislikes are also probably not worth watching. No reasonable person had tons of dislikes in the old forum but of course, this too is something that can be weaponized just like Flags are being right now.

So if you allow users to Report only, the system doesn't not get abused ( no pun intended) and the mods are immediately in the loop.

Exactly what I suggested a while back. Theres zero point in Flag that does not notify Moderators, we do get notified about Reports, so it's no only redundant but also available to be exploited.

Matt_NI

The forum has always been sort of self-regulating without the need of too much intervention, but this has changed lately, quite a bit and I am not 100% sure why there's so much drama now.

The drama was real on the old forum too. It was wild at times and the amount of people getting banned was quite high. It was fine here for a bit but as we get more and more users, naturally things get a bit more complicated.

No reasonable person had tons of dislikes in the old forum but of course, this too is something that can be weaponized just like Flags are being right now.

We could try again and see what happens. I have a feeling that if flags are being weaponized now, dislike might be used as such even more.

D-One

@Matt_NI said:

The drama was real on the old forum too. It was wild at times and the amount of people getting banned was quite high. It was fine here for a bit but as we get more and more users, naturally things get a bit more complicated.

Humm... I remember a lot more bans, like 20x more but fewer arguments and bickering... However, I am getting old, memory might be failing me.

We could try again and see what happens. I have a feeling that if flags are being weaponized now, dislike might be used as such even more.

Correct, that is indeed a possibility.

But, if it's not anonymous it's easier to see who's abusing, including from the person getting the dislikes, we can then warn those people, or in extreme cases just ban, and then it's one less toxic person on the forum... While with flags no one knows anything, unless a user complains no one can know including Mods. I sometimes notice it and message people to cut it out, but I'm mostly only on the Maschine side of things, no idea how many users get tons of flags on other sub-forums.

It's a way of publicly saying "I don't like what you're saying" without actually starting an argument, if used in a mature way of course.

Matt_NI

I'll also put this as an option but we could NOT show who reacted to posts.

You'll see the number of reactions but not the members. This can help preventing people weaponizing reactions or getting offended if they get a "bad" reaction such as Abuse or Dislike.

D-One

https://community.native-instruments.com/discussion/comment/118468#Comment_118468

In that case, don't add it as a option as it will just be the same as now, it will do nothing...

Matt_NI

@D-One Yes the old forum had TONS more bans that's true but also some heavy bickering. Maybe it was more buried because of the amount of sub-forums and the volume of basic support threads.

Kymeia

https://community.native-instruments.com/discussion/comment/118451#Comment_118451

Yes I think it's tangential to the real issue, which I'm not sure there is an answer for tbh. I've seen much worse on other fora, this one is relatively well behaved for a music forum. It would be nice if we could wave a magic wand that would make some people grow up and learn to manage their emotional reactions, but this is reality. I wouldn't want an over managed forum anyway, where is the fun in that?

mykejb

https://community.native-instruments.com/discussion/comment/118451#Comment_118451

You could maybe monitor the way some people talk if they have a record of personal posts and how they flag, but even doing that it's likely some stuff is going to be missed or taken out of context and it's more work for mods. It's a difficult problem on all forums. I really think that the gaming element should be removed, or you'll always get people who are just here for the points.

-- Mike

MyStudioOne

@MyStudioOne @Kymeia While we make this adjustment, I'm still not sure this will really have a meaningful impact. If we talk about culture and how users behave on the community, there is still a fundamental issue about how some of the people talk to each other and the motivation behind some of the posts. The point system isn't the cause of that and I'm wondering how do you suggest we deal with that?

Tuning the system isn't going to change people of course. But if you can enable moderators to deal with abusive and/or incendiary posts BEFORE things escalate into a free for all, that is a good start, right?

@D-One But Mods and Admins have their rank right next to their names, it doesn't show up for you? Mobile?

Yes, you are right of course. I guess what I was trying to communicate is that there doesn't seem to be much of a Moderator presence. For example, there was at least 3 blowup incidents on the now closed thread which absolutely needed some moderation but there was none to be found.