The Beginning of the End?

So, Peter, how educated, really are you, that you've not been educated to know that people often can't or won't spell the way Typing College grads spell? Some of these people are old railroad people, people like my grandfather once was, and he couldn't spell very well, and neither could Einstein. Often, too, they're not a Face-book sophisticate, as you undoubtedly are, and aren't comfortable writing much of anything but a list. And, really, isn't the end of a list simply the last item on the list? Show some education: get beyond your prejudices and be creative for people who need your advice.

I agree that the forums(fora) are not like they used to be but I don't think that it is possible to single out any one cause. I believe that there are so many little irritants that together make the forum a less enjoyable experience.

What irritates me?

(begin rant)
Text speak.
Gross spelling errors and word substitution. Things like 'their' instead of 'there'
The 'Gimmie' posts.
Repeated quoting of screenshots.
No 'thank you' post when someone has been helped.
Posts that say "Ok I've fixed it' without saying how they did it.
Oversize signatures and people who think it is clever to ignore the COC.
Disguised swearing such as 's**t'.
People who post with a question that could be answered by searching.
(end rant)

Individually they are only petty irritants, together they mount up.

Rant over

Peter
 
A list for who...Santa Claus?:wave:
ok dude... enough with the jokes. this is a serious thread, not a comedic one... lets get back on the topic here. text talk is alot of it... what anoys me is when people dont read the posts and then post somethin glisted 5 posts below them. another irritator to people is when people bump 2-3 year old threads.
 
does anyone really care that you feel this way, when the concept is 'communicate about trainz', and not about your social class and accent? i don't think so.

and, as for the 'list', didn't you understand that engineering minds work best in lists, and that those minds are the kind of people who want to do something with trainz? -- something like, get it to work?

you think i'm joking? the most annoying thing on a forum, any kind of forum, are the politically correct and conventionally educated spell-check police. the point here is to get it on with trainz, not with social-caste markings.



ok dude... enough with the jokes. this is a serious thread, not a comedic one... lets get back on the topic here. text talk is alot of it... what anoys me is when people dont read the posts and then post somethin glisted 5 posts below them. another irritator to people is when people bump 2-3 year old threads.
 
ok dude... enough with the jokes. this is a serious thread, not a comedic one... lets get back on the topic here. text talk is alot of it... what anoys me is when people dont read the posts and then post somethin glisted 5 posts below them. another irritator to people is when people bump 2-3 year old threads.

I had no idea I had stumbled into a thread whose participants were plotting to modify human nature...

I've added many serious posts, but a little levity is never a bad thing. People are going to come and go and enjoy themselves and get mad, it's been this way since day one (at least since I joined in 04) and as Mike stated even earlier.

Trainz is going to evolve from the DLS to payware or something of a hybrid of the two or maybe even something completely different. That's just the way things are. Getting all worked up in a thread isn't going to solve it, that's been tried before.

Auran/N3V is going to do what they want, users will either embrace the change or leave. This has been going on for years. I can see Gary that you don't remember the bankruptcy and then the merger. That was before you joined.

Back when there was an Auran, content creators and Auran had a decent relationship, like any marriage there were rough spots but things were ok. Then we almost lost everything, then N3V moved in and there are some that just can't get past that. They went from being in love with Auran to filing for divorce...

Now nothing short of getting rid of N3V and rehiring all the old Brew Crew is ever going to solve that issue for alot of the older users and that just aint gonna happen...
 
Mikemike

I named no names.

I understand that there can be many reasons why someone makes spelling errors but with modern spell-checkers there is less excuse for it. I think that most times, the writer has dashed off a post, and not checked what he has written.

I make horrendeous errors when I type but I always check through my post and edit the errors. I am old-fashioned enough to believe that I am judged by what I say and write, and I expect others to judge me that way. Naturally, I tend to apply the same yardstick to what I read.

However, regardless of the reasons for it, poor spelling is an irritant to me, I can't help it.

Peter
 
What irritates me?

(begin rant)
Text speak.
Gross spelling errors and word substitution. Things like 'their' instead of 'there'
The 'Gimmie' posts.
Repeated quoting of screenshots.
No 'thank you' post when someone has been helped.
Posts that say "Ok I've fixed it' without saying how they did it.
Oversize signatures and people who think it is clever to ignore the COC.
Disguised swearing such as 's**t'.
People who post with a question that could be answered by searching.
(end rant)

Individually they are only petty irritants, together they mount up.

Rant over

Peter

Call me a pedant if you like, but I get irritated by these very same things, with the possible exception of swearing. I will rarely complain about them, but that doesn't mean I'm not sitting here feeling irritated. You can't help what you feel.

As for creators no longer contributing to forums or the DLS, well a lot of it must be attributable to the difficulty in keeping up with Trainz and its ever-changing rules. The sheer weight of old material that needs correcting, especially after you've been more or less forced into it by the Auran's life-cycle policy is taking up 100% of my Trainz time and it's really not enjoyable.

.
 
Ok guy, lets try to keep this on the light side. I'm really interested in the reasons why folks stop creating or why they stop posting here. There are going to be somethings that nothing can be done about. It's time to stop all the nit picking and move on to the bigger problems.
 
As for creators no longer contributing to forums or the DLS, well a lot of it must be attributable to the difficulty in keeping up with Trainz and its ever-changing rules. The sheer weight of old material that needs correcting, especially after you've been more or less forced into it by the Auran's life-cycle policy is taking up 100% of my Trainz time and it's really not enjoyable.

This one bugs me too. :(
 
From some one who was on the old fourms the diffrence seems to be that nobody is in control any more - in the old days any sniff of a breech of the COC got you booted ...

These days the bulling, swearing, sexism and racism is out of control and how the owners have not been called up before the Australian Equal Opportunity Tribunal for the sexism alone is still amazing, it only takes one disgruntled user to cause all sorts of trouble.

I do not come here often due to the lack of members self control and if anybody speaks out about it there the ones who seems to be picked out.
 
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people spell the way the word sounds to them, or using the glyph they suppose works dynamically to convey personality and expression. the spelling we use is a convention, and a pretty one, but only one convention. a more severe and worthwhile convention, for an american like me, is kindness to strangers -- taking people as they are and finding their true spirit. this isn't a philosophy forum, and, if it were, you'd be disappointed in what we'd be talking about. we'd be talking about how we find our concepts in the first place, and how they're expressed in words at all.

if you're clever enough to know that a word is 'unspelled' -- that is, that you recognize it as a word in english -- then you're clever enough to read it as expression, as a 'word' in the first place.

when you make a route, you work within the parameters of the game, within its limitations, and express yourself creatively as you can. but, if you ask me about your 'scenery', i'm going to tell you that it looks like play-skool crap, that it has little to do with 'nature'. and, that would be pointless, worthless to you, yes? because, isn't it that you wanted to make something of your own?

this is about mechanical arts... it's Trainz, not oprah dot com.

Mikemike

I named no names.

I understand that there can be many reasons why someone makes spelling errors but with modern spell-checkers there is less excuse for it. I think that most times, the writer has dashed off a post, and not checked what he has written.

I make horrendeous errors when I type but I always check through my post and edit the errors. I am old-fashioned enough to believe that I am judged by what I say and write, and I expect others to judge me that way. Naturally, I tend to apply the same yardstick to what I read.

However, regardless of the reasons for it, poor spelling is an irritant to me, I can't help it.

Peter
 
Auran/N3V is going to do what they want, users will either embrace the change or leave. This has been going on for years. I can see Gary that you don't remember the bankruptcy and then the merger. That was before you joined.

yes, you are right. i do not remember the merger, however i did have the demo 2006 when it would have happened. and it was right about the time of the forum crashes too. one thing i might add, do you really except everyone to spell every word right? i misspelled 1-2 words in there... i mean ya i could have fixed it but i'm enjoying myself playing trainz as i type this. we live in an un-perfect world and nothing will change that unfortunatly. at least you can still read what i'm typing.

and to answer the question at the bottom of the post, yes. it is the beggining of the end. the less creators we have, the less stuff we have to give to n3v to put in our game, which in turn either means they wont release another one and go bankrupt, or they'll make there own content and put it in and still go bankrupt from employing hours.
 
From some one who was on the old fourms the diffrence seems to be that nobody is in control any more - in the old days any sniff of a breech of the COC got you booted ...

These days the bulling, swearing, sexism and racism is out of control and how the owners have not been called up before the Australian Equal Opportunity Tribunal for the sexism alone is still amazing, it only takes one disgruntled user to cause all sorts of trouble.

I do not come here often due to the lack of members self control and if anybody speaks out about it there the ones who seems to be picked out.

While I never had a issue with the moderation of these forum, the point was brought up that there is a lack of moderation. Is there a real problem with this? Your thoughts?
 
LWVRR

This is not nit-picking. I thought this thread was about changes in the Forum and the 'dislikes' and 'nit-picks' must be considered. I accept they may never change.

Regarding content creation. It is not really more difficult but it does require much more time. I think that the content creators who do drop out are being replaced by new ones who are posting here. They will take time to sort out the processes so at the moment they can not be seen on the DLS.

Peter
 
yes, you are right. i do not remember the merger, however i did have the demo 2006 when it would have happened. and it was right about the time of the forum crashes too. one thing i might add, do you really except everyone to spell every word right? i misspelled 1-2 words in there... i mean ya i could have fixed it but i'm enjoying myself playing trainz as i type this. we live in an un-perfect world and nothing will change that unfortunatly. at least you can still read what i'm typing.

and to answer the question at the bottom of the post, yes. it is the beggining of the end. the less creators we have, the less stuff we have to give to n3v to put in our game, which in turn either means they wont release another one and go bankrupt, or they'll make there own content and put it in and still go bankrupt from employing hours.

1st it's Peter that has an issue with spelling not me...:hehe:

I am the joker remember?

Now that we know who everyone is, the answer to your burning question is right in front of you. Get blender, learn blender, learn CCP, make your own toys and don't worry about the lack of people to create for you...
 
I agree that the forums(fora) are not like they used to be but I don't think that it is possible to single out any one cause. I believe that there are so many little irritants that together make the forum a less enjoyable experience.

What irritates me?

(begin rant)
Text speak.
Gross spelling errors and word substitution. Things like 'their' instead of 'there'
The 'Gimmie' posts.
Repeated quoting of screenshots.
No 'thank you' post when someone has been helped.
Posts that say "Ok I've fixed it' without saying how they did it.
Oversize signatures and people who think it is clever to ignore the COC.
Disguised swearing such as 's**t'.
People who post with a question that could be answered by searching.
(end rant)

Individually they are only petty irritants, together they mount up.

Rant over

Peter

I disagree with many of those things also, Peter. The disguised profanity could probably be called a silly way to get around the CoC prohibition on profanity. If I was a moderator, then there would likely be less of that around. :p ;)

Regards.
 
LWVRR

This is not nit-picking. I thought this thread was about changes in the Forum and the 'dislikes' and 'nit-picks' must be considered. I accept they may never change.

Regarding content creation. It is not really more difficult but it does require much more time. I think that the content creators who do drop out are being replaced by new ones who are posting here. They will take time to sort out the processes so at the moment they can not be seen on the DLS.

Peter

What I ment by nit picking is the fighting that so many are getting used too. I'm interested in all problems no matter how small.
 
I've noticed the big change here too since I joined back in early 2004. A big part of the change happened when the old forum went off the air. After that things got different. Then Auran went through the tough times in 2006 and 2007, I think that period was then. That really changed the feelings around here.

With the teathing problems of TRS2006, people started nay-saying everything that came afterwards, and in particular with TS2009 and its new flavor. TS2010 brought on the SpeedTree haters. Yeah there were and are problems with those things, but I found you have to work with them rather than fight them. They really are a lot better looking TS210 than the old flipboards, which have the alpha-channel problems. I happen to use certain trees that look the most realistic. Some really are weird, but then there are those that have a good shape to them. They are big, but you don't need as many as you needed before to fill in a forest. Anyway to these people TRS2006 is the bee's knees and everything else afterwards is trash. What happened to TRS2006 being the rotten pig in the poke? Wasn't that trash at first. I suppose everything is relative.

The other thing too we have to remember is forums do have a lifetime just like everything else. The members grow up, die off and new ones come on board. It's like they're part of a real community or a live being. Right now this forum is going through its mid-life crisis of sorts. A new crop of users are now joining with some of them getting the point and becoming good members, and others never getting with the program and will leave. No loss as far as I'm concerned these quitters are what they are, and will never put the work into anything they do.

These are the new gimmie pigs and demanders. This I attribute to the new generation that doesn't like to think, or work out problems themselves. I saw that last year when I went back to college for a year. It was the easiest and best time of my life, but for the young folks, they couldn't get out of their own way when it came to writing papers, or giving presentations! Heck, they had to be reminded how to write footnotes and references. I used to hear the complaints of how difficult it was to write a paper, and the papers were only 4-6 pages of actual paper with double-spaced type. The rest was a cover page, and references! Geeze, come on folks you really have to think and work! It only gets worse as you get older!

In my opinion, there are people here who will never be satisfied no matter what version comes out. These people come here to complain, and complain loudly if the program isn't like UTC or TRS2004 was. It never will be anymore. There's too much happening now with the program that make it a different world than we were used to. It's all about change. These people probably complain about everything in real life as well, and to be honest I would hate to support them in real life.

It's all about patience with the patients. You have to be nice no matter what. I just smile, grit my teeth and bare it because there's nothing much else I can do about it. At my work, I support over 450 users every day. This doesn't count the new hires, which are coming in on a monthly basis as well, making my work-life pretty hecktic. I'm nice to them, and they treat me well. At Christmas, I got more gift cards than I could handle for everything from Borders to Dunkin Donuts. :) You're nice and it pays off - really.

Yes there are the older folks too that have difficulties with computers. I can understand because this really is a new world for them. My dad for example, is going on 77 and uses a computer every day. He never had one before in his life, and is pretty lucky to have me around. There are probably hundreds of these folks out there who got a cheap computer from WalMart or BestBuy, thinking they could run a program like Trainz on it only to find that the program requires a more substantial machine. They read the requirements on the box, or website, but never really understand what they mean. The sales people at the stores don't help much. These elders ask them if the machine could do this and that, and they're told sure and sold a hunk of crap after being dumped with geek-speak, which is really confusing for someone who doesn't know anything about the hardware. I've seen this way too many times, and it raises the hackles on my neck every time.

John
 
If petty things like most of the things described so far in this thread really annoy a person, that person really has no business being involved in a public forum, perhaps the internet in general. Public Forums are, by their very nature, a system which brings people from many different places, backgrounds, personalities, education levels, and so on. It's what makes the internet so great, but I supposed that can be a double-edged sword for some. This forum is far more diverse than most, IMO, so there are going to be even more differences than usual.
 
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