How to Survive ENWorld
I've been coming to this board for a long time. I've gotten the chance to see it at most of its stages and to be both a regular member of the community and a moderator. Along the way I've picked up some tips about how to get along here in these troubled times and I thought I'd pass them along.
1) Don't post angry. Every time I've done this I've regretted it. People will post stuff that will make you mad. You'll want to respond. Guess where this will go? Nowhere good. If you see something that makes you angry and feel the need to respond, minimize the window. Come back to it later and see if you still feel the same way. If you type out a scathing response, read it over again before you click that Submit button. Do you really wanna post that? Is posting it really going to increase your enjoyment of this place? Think before you post.
2) Give people the benefit of the doubt. Text is an imperfect medium of communication. It doesn't convey a lot of the information that we get from face to face interaction and different people can read a post and come away with very different impressions about its "tone". It will never hurt you to assume that the poster meant what they wrote in the nicest way possible. More of this will lead to less violations of Tip #1 above.
3) Don't be afraid of Ignore. There are over 56,000 registered users here. Some of them are going to piss you off almost every time they type something, regardless of how much you try and implement Tip #2. Ignore them. It will make your life easier and more pleasant with the click of a button.
4) Don't be afraid to Report Bad Posts. If you see something you think is a problem, report it. The moderators can't be everywhere and many a good thread has taken a bad turn because people start going after each other so hard that the thread can never be put back on its tracks again. If you see trouble starting, report it early and hopefully one of us can do some quick damage control.
5) Don't be shocked if nothing happens when you report a post. The rules here are somewhat loosely defined. That's a feature not a bug. But it also means that what you might find to be a "problem post" may not be considered a problem by the moderators. Also there is the distinct possibility that something happened that you don't know about. We may have contacted the offending poster privately rather than in the thread. Hell, we may have permabanned them. Just report and move on. Which brings us to...
6) Don't report a bad post and then immediately go address it yourself. I can't even count how many times I've seen this happen: Poster A posts a bad post. Poster B reports it. Poster B then proceeds to tear into Poster A for posting a bad post. Poster B is now part of the problem. Moderators come down on Posters A and B equally. It's stupid. If you call down the Wrath Of Mod on somebody, step AWAY from that individual.
7) Don't question moderation in a thread. Don't even comment on it. Nothing looks brattier than saying, "I'm glad to see that Poster A finally got nailed for being a jackass." If Poster A is a total jackass and the moderators jump on them, just smile and get on with the thread. Send cookies to the moderator in question if you like (except me. I'm diabetic.) If you have a real problem with how something was moderated then send us an e-mail.
8) When you send moderators an e-mail, be polite. I don't care how good your point is or how righteous your indignation, if you send an e-mail to us that starts "You Lying Bitch..." the response is not going to be favorable. We will also laugh about you for the rest of eternity.
9) Don't argue; discuss. If the back and forth between you and another poster is getting more and more similar to "You're stupid!", "No, YOU'RE stupid!", "No, NO. YOU'RE STUPID!!" then guess what? You're stupid. You're not adding anything to these forums. If you like something, explain why. If you don't, explain why. There's no reason to get all nasty and personal about it. Just talk, with the understanding foremost in your mind that people are different. You'll like different things. And that's ok.
10) Enjoy the place. What I mean is to use ENWorld as a place to enhance your enjoyment of gaming. Let it be a positive thing for you. Click on threads that you find interesting or enjoyable rather than ones that outrage or disgust you. It's fine not to like something. It's even instructive to explore the things we don't care for. But if you find that you spend more of your time in threads about stuff you don't like, griping about it, than in threads about stuff you do like, getting excited about it, then you are probably using ENWorld more to your detriment than for your enjoyment.
