Member Problems

No doubt about it, if you’ve been browsing this board long enough, you would’ve noticed certain posts from multiple members, and within these posts are a lot of argumentative aggravations, where some members seem to think they’re staff members, and take it upon them selves to snap up at members for things which they may or may not have done wrong, infact, I too am especially guilty of this.


Yes, we all know that there are idiots on the forums that will ask stupid questions without attempting research, and the like, etc. But we also know, that it is up to the staff members to take care of any stupidity on the board, and I think we should start acting like “members” which is what we are, I mean, do you really want to think of SSRG as the place where people argue over issues which wasn't their problem to begin with? I certainly don’t, yet it often feels like it, and I wouldn’t be surprised if guests would be put off by our oppressed community, and feared to join.

We seem to be forgetting this rule above, as we snap up at others for doing something we think isn’t necessary. This isn’t exactly respecting fellow members, and if we’re not careful, we’ll end up with a board that has no place for honest and friendly opinions, but rather constant picking at everyone else.


I am not staff myself, and I’m certainly not “expecting” or “Telling” any of you to what to do, that’s not my place here, but I felt it was something that needed to be address and acknowledged, so that we can have at least a more friendly environment on this board.

 

I have the excat feeling like you have. What I did yesterday was just because all questions we get are going far beyond laziness, it's more like doing it for me and I could flip out if I only hear that words.


I acually like helping people with problems, but I don't like helping lazy arses with their goddamn "problems".


Another problem is their writing style. I mean like seriously, how can they not see that they don't write properl... oh wait, we already had that topic like million times now.


I don't really regret to say something this, well, at least not to members who are a bit longer here (because sooner or later he will find out anyway, and why later if you can do it sooner? *runs*). If there's someone who just joined, I'll try my best to be polite.


I know that I'm not an admin or a staff member, but it should be obvious that most of them are pretty rare online, which leads us to a problem.


Also, I remember RetroHack having a validation system, that allows you only to post if you make a topic in the introduction forum. Maybe we should do that as well to sort out even more idiots than we already do with the quiz.


Oh, and if you wanna know why I was so pissed off yesterday, I recieved this PM just before I posted:

Made me almost explode, that loop question did it fully.

 

If people expect to be treated with respect, they should offer the respect of courtesy, tact, and basic intelligence first and foremost. I have no reason to respect someone if they disrespect me, my intelligence, my position, and my ability to interpret text. I imagine people shelling out insults are on the same page in this regard.


When I approached this fundamental issue at Retro, I found the best solution was to nip the very issue itself in the bud--the idiots who get insulted. By screening every member who comes in and holding them to a strict subjective standard of quality, you assure that only intelligent and reasonable people are let in, alleviating the need for insults and conflict as a result of incompetence. Granted, it is a manual process and very open to human error, but I've found it to be pretty successful so far. Any indications to the contrary can be safely nipped in the bud without having to worry about justification (or a lack thereof).


Expecting people to show respect to people who can't even show themselves respect is, frankly, completely unrealistic. You can take out assholes and alienate the talent and knowledge that comes with them, or you can take out the idiots and improve the intractability of the forum as a whole. Whatever choice you make, though, be very conscious of the effect it will have on the forum; if you want to complain about a lack of productivity, don't be surprised that it's because you wanted to make the forum more open. Not everyone can win.

 

This is not primarily directed at you, this is quite a few people. We are all aware of the lazy attitude by some newbie members, but that doesn't give us the ticket to choose to snap up at them if we feel they've done wrong, if we were to just point them in the right direction, or better yet, just ignore their post and leave the staff to deal with the issue, they will take the right action needed (Although I'm more than aware that some are almost never around).


All I'm saying is that everyone is starting to turn nasty as they attempt to act administrative. You don't have to answer the stupid questions, no one's forcing you too, and no one is certainly forcing you to help whoever you're helping out, that's up to you, but is it the right reason to take our rage out on this board? Were we not newbies ourselves at one point?

 

That's true, but you still need to sort out the newbies who are actually trying to things by research and the lazy guys who are asking for help every five minutes (even though there is a way to tell those people on a kind way, but when that doesn't help you need to pick more fitting words to tell him).

 

I can't say much on the subject since I have not been here as long as most of you but I do have a little bit.


It's not completely unfair to be a little rough around the edges, there needs to be a balance. Too "friendly" could also come off to newbs as "people who will answer my every question"


and then being too rough can make them run away. I would recommend trying to keep your cool if you can of course, that does help


But I must say that you guys have been nice to me since I joined

 

For someone who hasn't been here as long, you sure make a lot of good sense =)

 

One-post validation doesn't cut it. Posts made by members after that can change. We need to reinstate the Trialist system to prevent further retards from making the SSRG another noob hole. Over the last few days there has been an increase in idiotic posting by new members and we have to stop that.


It's worth noting that there has been a decrease in registrations when Hacktube got turned off. This is good because pretty much everything that was submitted was shit bar a few hacks.

 

You want to be careful with that because the last thing you want is people to associate your board with a bunch of assholes. Referring to new members as retards doesn't help the board's image, just saying.


I'm not a board staffer but working in tech support for a living and providing online tech support off-hand for Nefarious has exposed me to the kind of people that want you to do everything for them. The key is, without coming off as a asshole, getting them to do it themselves and that can be done by just giving them basic instructions. People need help/guiding, its a fact of life.


I'd also like to note that while ASM and Hex editing is second nature for most of you it can be surprisingly difficult if you've decided you want to try it yourself and have no experience in any kind of design/programming or don't understand the basic concepts of computing. I know "why would they try if they don't know anything" but some people get curious and want to try it.

 

tl;dr:


If you want to weed out some of the stupid members, use a "help others help themselves" philosophy, instead of angrily giving them answers. The people who don't want to work for an answer you strongly hint at without telling will leave of their own accord. Give a man a fish, etc.


Not too long; did read:

A thousand times this. As of late, the questions I've seen here are pretty simple to answer, to the point that all one can really do is give the answer. But given the site's former tendency towards tutorials and guides, and given more complex questions, there needs to be less copypasta code and more pseudocode. If somebody wants to know "how do I make Sonic jump dash?", we shouldn't have to say...



; for Sonic 2 2007 Disassembly: insert into Obj01_MdJump
; Jump_Dash should be reset in Sonic_ResetOnFloor with bset #0,(Jump_Dash).w


move.b (Ctrl_1_Press_Logical).w,d0 ; get buttons newly pressed


andi.b #$70,d0 ; is A, B, or C pressed?


beq.w Sonic_JumpDash_End ; if not, return


+


btst #0,(Jump_Dash).w ; did you trigger a dash during this flight already?


beq.w Sonic_JumpDash_End ; if so, branch


bclr #0,(Jump_Dash).w ; make it so you can't jump dash again right away


move.w #$900,x_vel(a0) ; make Sonic move at said speed


btst #6,status(a0) ; underwater?


beq.s + ; if not, branch


move.w #$480,x_vel(a0) ; halve speed


+


btst #0,status(a0) ; facing left?


beq.s + ; if not, branch


neg.w x_vel(a0) ; move in the opposite direction


+


move.w #0,y_vel(a0) ; don't continue upwards and/or stop falling


move.w #$BC,d0 ; prepare sound effect


jsr (PlaySound).l ; play it!


Sonic_JumpDash_End:


; rest of code here



...because most people here wouldn't comment the code that well, so the odds of teaching anybody anything are slim, and if it is commented I doubt most people using this code would read said comments. I'm only posting this code because it's already on the forums anyway. A better way would be to say...


"You'll want to put your code into Obj01_MdJump: that checks if Sonic's in a ball and in midair. First, you'll need to read button presses. You can check the Sonic_Jump routine to see how the game checks for the A, B, and C buttons, and you should branch out if you're not pressing any of them. You'll also want to check if you've already jump dashed since you last went into the air, and branch out if you have. Find an unused bit in RAM to use as a flag for that; you clear it when you jump dash and set it in Sonic_ResetOnFloor. Zero out Sonic's y speed and set an x speed for him, then check if he's facing left or if he's underwater (bit 0 of Sonic's status tracks what way he's facing, and bit 6 tracks if he's submerged) and adjust accordingly. You can play a sound effect if you want, too, by looking at calls to PlaySound throughout the game."


That was just as much text, but it requires the person to have read through bits of the disassembly first. I never read any documents on ASM before being Tech'd over at Retro; I learned entirely from reading comments in the ROM with a programmer's mindset, and from dissecting tutorials provided by everybody here and on Retro. That text tutorial tells the person which routines to look for (Obj01_MdJump, Sonic_Jump, Sonic_ResetOnFloor, PlaySound), what flags to learn about (status, a new flag for the jump dash), what values need to be used (x and y speeds), and what conditions to change the code around (left-facing, underwater). If the person has poked around the disassembly before asking how to do this, all of the necessary commands should be easy to learn, or at least easy to copy and edit for this guide, and it's just a matter of ordering them.


If the person does have further questions, feel free to answer them, of course. If there are no further questions and a jump dash is present in his next hack release, then he's learned some ASM zomg! If there's no more questions and the jump dash isn't present, call him on it and ask if he changed his mind or just got lazy and didn't want to learn. I still ask for help myself: I'm dealing with homing attack code atm that homes in just fine, but causes graphical errors and crashes, and I'm probably going to slip into Retro's Tech Lounge and ask for a little bit of help debugging. Thing is, I won't ask "Hey guys, what lines do I change?", but rather "Where do you see errors? Why is it wrong?", and if we could force everybody into this mindset, I think that giving help wouldn't be as grating on our nerves...


...although it still wouldn't fix having to say "search the forums before asking next time, idiot."

 

This seems to be a big problem on MANY forums. I'm glad you all can admit some people are harsh like gentlemen, unlike other forums. We should control anger levels/ego's before it reaches the peak. If new people see others acting like it, they'll get the wrong impression and copy us because they think that's how to get along here.


(Just an example of what could happen.)

 

My view:


If people are "clever" enough to pass the test without failing it first time, then they obviously are capable. I also happened to be a n00b at some point,but I was capable.

 

The test is piss easy, if you fail that one you're obviously a retard.


I personally recommend another form of validation. The Trial System, although used before, is an effective way of determining whether or not a user is capable of receiving full membership based on his/her current posts.

 

I agree with the old validation system. Post limit, limbo status and whatever that other stuff was. However, I think the post limit should be something like 5 instead of 20 (you might get the reason).

 

Doesn't it bother anyone that we have more site only access than actual members themselves?

 

I suppose this is the same problem women face when they dress in the morning. They put out a bit of cleavage and a short skirt so they can attract the http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TdrE1VMxzoE, not realising that for every furtive glance they recieve off a diet coke drinking ioj-lookalike, they get one hundred gawping, vacant stares from pit-stained, grey-sweatpanted, gaping-maw-slug-men, or that annoying guy off Ghostbusters 2.


I think everyone here for either side has brought valid points to the table. I'd like to add a couple of things.


Firstly, I think Thorn is spot on with his assessment - teach a man to fish, etc. The problem is, the way I see it, it's no coincidence that the people who think "I wonder if this question has been asked before," "I wonder how I will portray myself if I ask this question here," "I think I'll try a couple of things myself first" or "I wonder if I can find this out myself" before asking a question, are the same people that turn out to be decent hackers. The people who understand the lesson behind the "teach a man to fish" parable were going to turn out to be great fishermen anyway. The people we are concerned with lack the ability to comprehend that the story contains a lesson in the firstplace. "Why do you have to teach me this? Why are you being mean? Can't you just give me the fish? It'll only take two seconds!"


I'd also add that by making a big deal out of this, you are alienating the few regulars that SSRG does possess. The reason why certain members have been seen to do "backseat mod" in this way, is because they are on the forums more than the admins. These members check the forum daily (which is about 7 times more than a lot of mods do in a week.) They get to the thread first. They've seen it before. They know what the admins are going to say because they know SSRG. These are the people who you should be trying to get to stick around, and attract more of, these members that care abotu SSRG. They care enough to try and clean it up themselves. Instead, you are trashing their posts and making a big deal about it, whilst sympathizing with the sorts of member who you should be discouraging, the ones that post ten stupid questions a day, use no spelling and grammar, etc etc. I can't honestly see why anyone would start driving away the good guys for getting pissed off at the morons.


I also think that some generalisations and sweeping statements have gone around here. In this thread specifically, for example, I can understand Selbi and Daleksam's posts being binned, but CarrascoZX0?!

 

5 is too short. 15 would be better. Hell, if you really want to go small just give them 10 posts, but 15 generally fits the bill.

 

<topic words>


The way I see it, it's not the 'being newbie' that's the problem, it's the fact that they're lazy, do no research. At least read the manual, do SOME form of searching. I don't think that's asking much. But yes, I do agree with you Markey, the 'response' hasn't been appropriate either.

 

You, know what? I think these people do need a reminder. Sure, I've been quite a n0ob for quite a bit. Just look at my very first topic... (Which I posted in the Lounge by mistake (my fault).) At first, I was pretty nervous talking to you guys for the first time, cause to meet such intelligent people online for the first time, let alone people who weren't stupid bratty twelve year-old brats that whined about stuff like;


"u likes the 360!!11!! ur gai!!1!!! Ps3 is gawd!1!1"


"noes!!11!! 360 pwzzz yer mawm!!1!1!!!"


"lady gahgah is da best!!!111! u fhail!!111!!"


"at lest i'm nawt a prostitute!!!11!! lolololol"


However, there are people here who are being extremely dumb. I say we up the stakes. I learned, that to get better, you must study, learn, and spend some time to do what you want sometimes. This is a good thing, as it separates the bad newbie hackers from the good. The problem is that they might simply forget, or just don't care.


I approve of Tweaker's plan. If we are going to deal with this squaggle, we go for the bullseye. Stop the bad noobs from getting into the site, with a test, and an introduction to prove the persons intellegence. If we have a forum specifically for these introductions, we make it a rule that you have to read the rules, so the people signing up have an idea of how to behave around SSRG. Than we make a test for them to state three rules of the SSRG, if they fail, the account is terminated, or something a little less harsh. If it doesn't work, I say we can try something else. Trial and Error.

 

We used to have a forum for introductions and they were a requirement, this was back in 2008. As anyone from that time will tell you, this had the effect of killing the board, there were only a few members on at a time. Most people were put off by having to demonstrate their "worthiness", and some members, who had proven themselves to be contributive at other boards, simply abandoned their accounts after being presented with this step. The current Entrance Quiz isn't perfect, I'm willing to admit that, but the concept behind has been the best at maintaining a balance of filtering people out and also not putting people off.


Some people slip through the net, but that happens on any forum, it's impossible to make a perfect test. I don't believe our site or forum has enough incentive for people to spend a long time writing an introduction, we can quickly see what they're like from their posts, and ban on sight if they turn out not to be contributive.