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To preface this whole entry, I am by no means a big name on these forums, just a long time reader even before my current account. However, I have read enough to notice the evolution of these forums into what they are as of today. I must implore all of you to remember what forum you are on and what community this is.
I was first introduced by my friend way back in the day when he tried to get me to play Brood War. He told me if I wanted to learn to come here, so I did. I was absolutely over whelmed at how much actual knowledge and high level discussion a website regarding a video game had to offer. But with this invitation he gave me a stern warning of, "Don't be a faggot on the forums." This piece of advise is probably the best I could have gotten when entering the realm that is Team Liquid.
http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=17883
Remember this thread? I'm sure 80% of the new users / forum goers have never read this top to bottom, and many of the posts as of late have lacked serious substance. I am not saying all posts have been garbage, but just a higher percentage than normal.
Punic. Why are things going like this? What could have changed?
My theory: with the release of Sc2 came a whole new generation of starcraft players to the table and none of them new the culture and history that is Team Liquid. They just view it as a "Starcraft Forum." Believe me, the influx of people and popularity is great for what we want to see in years to come. However, let us keep the upper echelon discussion this forum is known for. We need to change.
With this blog entry comes a request for all of those people on Team Liquid, from the newest member today to the most senior of admins. We must maintain the culture. If you are going to make a post, make sure it warrants a discussion. If you are going to respond to a post make sure you are contributing to the post in a mature fashion.
We can do this. We are Team Liquid.
+ Show Spoiler +
 
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This post. Somehow gave me chills.  5/5 pro speech man. Sure. I'll definitely do just that.
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Korea (South)1897 Posts
Give it time, a lot of posters are learning fast, when the game was first released it was nuts how many bans were being given out, plus the age range, so as a community we are also growing and adapting along with the effects of sc2, I'm sure in a year things will be much better as our community will have grown that much more.
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I think you're nostalgic for a time that never existed. This forum has always had a tonne of crap on it. It's the 1% of posters that are amazing that keep people coming back. Which is kind of the issue with any community driven content. 99% of UMS maps are completely garbage, but the best ones get so much of your attention that you still love the game.
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On January 17 2011 03:18 MightyAtom wrote:
Give it time, a lot of posters are learning fast, when the game was first released it was nuts how many bans were being given out, plus the age range, so as a community we are also growing and adapting along with the effects of sc2, I'm sure in a year things will be much better as our community will have grown that much more.
I disagree. The forums are becoming even more noob ridden and low quality, because all the high level posters and quality posters just don't see what the point of making good posts is when 90% of threads and posts are retarded. It's like trying having an amazing operatic voice but being surrounded by tone deaf people shouting at the top of their lungs while trying to sing a song. Maybe if someone is listening really closely they can hear how good you are, but more likely they're just going to notice the cacophony.
Naw Chef, it's definitely worse than it used to be. Yah there was a ton of D level crap posts and "help me I'm bad" threads and horrible strategy ideas nonstop, but the ratio of crap to good posts was much better 3 years ago than it is now.
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On January 17 2011 03:23 Chef wrote:
I think you're nostalgic for a time that never existed. This forum has always had a tonne of crap on it. It's the 1% of posters that are amazing that keep people coming back. Which is kind of the issue with any community driven content. 99% of UMS maps are completely garbage, but the best ones get so much of your attention that you still love the game.
but would you agree that the amount of crap has increase significantly since the retail release?
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Not really. If anything there's been more decent content because there's been a larger pool of users to draw from.
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I've been reading TL since a little while before SC2 beta came up, and I have to agree that there does seem to have been an increase in improperly constructed, "hap hazard" posts since release.
Although I also believe that the dedication and unwavering awesomeness of the mods will steer team liquid back on track
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nice post, actually kind of ironic that you are posting this level of discussion with only 66 posts to your name.
I only joined TL after the release of sc2, I played a little BW but I was a WC3 and FPS gamer for a long time. You will see that i've racked up a few posts, i hope the majority have been worth my time to write. I have no idea how TL used to be, but all i hear are good things and how since SC2 that its gone down hill.
Personally I like to give people the benefit of the doubt. I imagine a time back in 2002 when BW was still a little baby of a game in comparison to now and the posts reflected that, perhaps that wasn't the case but with any new game the level of discussion never starts out at that of Plato and Aristotle. This is where I believe we are right now with SC2, the game is new and everyone from bronze to master think that they have something to contribute, even if they actually don't.
In 5 years time, a player who has only been playing for three months will be know that they know nothing, but right now even the pro's don't know the full extent to which their knowledge extends. Many pro's are former BW players have the advantage of having played BW for 10 years and thus their knowledge carries over in many instances to SC2, but still the fact remains that SC2 has yet to be even 10% explored.
I have noticed myself that the quality and level of discourse of posts has slowly risen since the release of SC2, and i like to think that this will continue. The TL "newbs" are learning the ropes and people like myself who came from other communitites with similar ethos' to TL are finding our feet too.
While I applaud all who wish to raise the level of discussion, I think we must also take time to step back and look at the bigger picture, this game is very young. its community is a mix of old and new and those two elements are still trying to reconcile their differences and meld into a cohseive whole. It will happen, many people who are making the horrible posts of today will be the people who make the must see thread of the future.
We are all learning together, we must nurture the young and the new and not exorcise them from our community unless there is no other choice.
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On January 17 2011 03:44 emythrel wrote:
nice post, actually kind of ironic that you are posting this level of discussion with only 66 posts to your name.
Ironic that`s not. Sign of quality that is. (Watched Star Wars VI today)
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On January 17 2011 03:51 Grend wrote:Show nested quote +On January 17 2011 03:44 emythrel wrote:
nice post, actually kind of ironic that you are posting this level of discussion with only 66 posts to your name.
Ironic that`s not. Sign of quality that is. (Watched Star Wars VI today)
hehe agree aobut the quality. Also I think I'll note that I wasn't being snide, its very ironic that such a quality poster has so few posts. I have seen people with over 1000 posts and every time I see their name on a post i want to scratch my eyes out due to the lack of thought, grammar and sense they display.
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On January 17 2011 03:26 Chef wrote:
Not really. If anything there's been more decent content because there's been a larger pool of users to draw from.
I agree with this. The total amount of good content has increased at the same rate as the crap content. If anything the forums are much, much better than they were. Keep truckin' guys
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I say give it more time, as the people who aren't truly dedicated to the game move on to the next big thing, the true sc2 fans will remain and continue to contribute to the community. All the attention sc2 has received as the current big RTS can only be good for the longevity of the game, and hopefully visitors to TL will begin to realize just how important that members of the community consider this site.
TL is holy ground, some just don't understand that yet.
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Ive been on Teamliquid since 2008. And besides the balance talk i think teamliquid has only gotten better :/.
Edit- I agree with everything chef said . Things only improved. Your just suffering from nostalgia
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On January 17 2011 03:24 [Eternal]Phoenix wrote:Show nested quote +On January 17 2011 03:18 MightyAtom wrote:
Give it time, a lot of posters are learning fast, when the game was first released it was nuts how many bans were being given out, plus the age range, so as a community we are also growing and adapting along with the effects of sc2, I'm sure in a year things will be much better as our community will have grown that much more. I disagree. The forums are becoming even more noob ridden and low quality, because all the high level posters and quality posters just don't see what the point of making good posts is when 90% of threads and posts are retarded. It's like trying having an amazing operatic voice but being surrounded by tone deaf people shouting at the top of their lungs while trying to sing a song. Maybe if someone is listening really closely they can hear how good you are, but more likely they're just going to notice the cacophony. Naw Chef, it's definitely worse than it used to be. Yah there was a ton of D level crap posts and "help me I'm bad" threads and horrible strategy ideas nonstop, but the ratio of crap to good posts was much better 3 years ago than it is now.
You realize that 80% of teamliquid poster back in the day were D/D+. There were probably more "help me threads" than now and the strategy forums was always crap.
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The amount of "Please post quality" threads that are popping up is a little amusing. I agree with you OP, and think that your little speech was well written. I also think that we need to guide people, not flame or yell at them. Newer people might not know that quality is expected of them when they post, so we should be sure to guide them in the right direction. I am one of the people who came with release, and I didn't even really post for about a month or two until I felt comfortable that I'd actually be able to contribute something. At first I posted a lot of one-line crap, but with time my quality of posting has only improved. Give it time. Either people will learn and shape up, or they'll continue and drop out. We simply need to wait.
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United States4796 Posts
Oh my, fuck yeah man. This is the insight that we needed. This is what everyone was thinking.
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On January 17 2011 04:12 Tabbris wrote:Show nested quote +On January 17 2011 03:24 [Eternal]Phoenix wrote:On January 17 2011 03:18 MightyAtom wrote:
Give it time, a lot of posters are learning fast, when the game was first released it was nuts how many bans were being given out, plus the age range, so as a community we are also growing and adapting along with the effects of sc2, I'm sure in a year things will be much better as our community will have grown that much more. I disagree. The forums are becoming even more noob ridden and low quality, because all the high level posters and quality posters just don't see what the point of making good posts is when 90% of threads and posts are retarded. It's like trying having an amazing operatic voice but being surrounded by tone deaf people shouting at the top of their lungs while trying to sing a song. Maybe if someone is listening really closely they can hear how good you are, but more likely they're just going to notice the cacophony. Naw Chef, it's definitely worse than it used to be. Yah there was a ton of D level crap posts and "help me I'm bad" threads and horrible strategy ideas nonstop, but the ratio of crap to good posts was much better 3 years ago than it is now. You realize that 80% of teamliquid poster back in the day were D/D+. There were probably more "help me threads" than now and the strategy forums was always crap.
Yah but the average D+ player is like mid master league now. Honestly it was fine because as long as people put effort into their OPs and followed the guidelines for asking for help it led to decent threads. I'm fine with help threads, but people don't even try to analyze their own play anymore. It's just "HOW DO I BEAT CANNON RUSH IN BRONZE DURR HURR!?!"
I'm fine with people being terrible at the game, but there's so many resources out there to put you into diamond that there's no excuse for not using them.
I just remember back when I was a D noob asking for say, TvP help, I'd ask very specific questions. For instance, "when do I add additional factories to hit a 4 fact timing push?" or "what did I do wrong in executing this 2 fact push?" Half the treads now are like "what builds do you guys use in TvP?" or "How do I beat zerg as protoss halp!?"
I personally think the strat forum mod team is doing a shitty job too. The only way the current system can work is if it's actually modded heavily, and I have a feeling they just don't have time/want to do that. I don't blame them necessarily - the system right now blows. However, if you're unwilling to fix the system then at least try to make it work -_-
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The only way to get people to adopt a behaviour is to lead by example. For instance, you could make a thread whining about the state of TL, and several other people will start whining about the state of TL too ^^
Maybe you should just make good threads and not worry what other people do. If you get tired of it and you think no one else is making good threads, then you just have to admit the site sucks. Right now people are making good threads. Sure there's offensively bad threads like the alphabet game which has something like 150 replies no one will ever read, but then there's Idra Decides to Become Mannered and Gracken vs Gorilla Terran... + All the interview translation threads... etc etc.
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I've been around since 2003-2004 and the quality of posts back then were a LOT worse than those of today. Trolling/image macros/one liners etc were a lot more common and the way your typical quality poster or mod would post back then would never be accepted on tl today. The quality might have decreased somewhat since 2007-2009 but that pretty much only holds true for the sc2 section.
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I disagree. With the (relatively) recent addition of the banlings and the increased moderation, I think TL has improved drastically since the announcement of SC2 and the beta. I agree with Chef's premise that there never was a utopia-like TL where every post was of 'high quality.' While it's true that there are more posters (and thus more bad posters), the moderators/admins/banlings are still doing an excellent job of keeping out the crap, and we now have even more good posters.
I don't really think that there's a basis for calling the TL community of today worse than it was in the past. There's an incredible amount of fan-generated content, from all of the recent fanart to the incredible resources like liquipedia. While there probably are fewer articles (one of the best article guys, plexa, is now busier helping make this forum better as a whole and I think some of the others have gone inactive), I'd say that the TL community is still flourishing and is active, both in BW (for example, superfans such as Daniel) and SC2 (all of the active fanclubs and the acts of fandom that appear every day)
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You're having nostalgic memories of a time that never existed. The quality of the forum overall has increased with the recent addition of more moderators, and the strategy forum has stayed about the same.
Read the old strategy threads from 2004, most of them are even more trashy than today's SC2 threads...
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Look, you need to understand that I am NOT saying that long ago during the heart of BW awful posts / trolling etc did not exist. What I am saying is that some of the new generation of starcraft players have not been apart of a forum with such educated (im not sure if this is the right word i wanna use right here but it felt right when it typed it) users. There is obviously many more well thought out and cleanly written articles than other gaming forums (IMO). We need to maintain the high caliber of threads and discussions.
Maintain and promote quality.
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On January 17 2011 06:55 Punic wrote:
Look, you need to understand that I am NOT saying that long ago during the heart of BW awful posts / trolling etc did not exist. What I am saying is that some of the new generation of starcraft players have not been apart of a forum with such educated (im not sure if this is the right word i wanna use right here but it felt right when it typed it) users. There is obviously many more well thought out and cleanly written articles than other gaming forums (IMO). We need to maintain the high caliber of threads and discussions.
Maintain and promote quality.
...so what is your complaint, then?
The moderation staff is doing a great job, and I believe that the quality of these forums is much better than it was in the past. If your complaint is about the quality of the forum, I would say that you are entirely wrong. The first pages of the General forum are entirely composed of 1-liner original posts with a bunch of 1-liner replies, many of which are off topic (arguing over Nexuses vs Nexii, etc.). Today, a thread like this would be closed immediately, and the OP would probably be warned.
If your complaint is that there are too many new people around who do not appreciate what it is to be a part of the forum, I'm not sure what you feel would be an adequate 'solution'. Does every user who logs on to these forums need to take a 3 credit hour course on "The History of Team Liquid' " or something? I think that, over time (by reading and posting), you gain more and more respect for your peers and understanding for what is going on.
I think that your belief that most people don't read the 10 commandments is entirely the opposite. Few people violate them, and if they do, it's usually just slightly/in a fit of passion about whatever subject they are supporting/arguing in favor of. I don't see too many memes posted; I don't see tons of "+1" posts, or posts IN ALL CAPS in every thread. I don't see spam posts in every thread, and most people respect people with bagillions of posts/moderators. I can count on my hands the number of times I've seen entire posts in languages aside from English on this forum, and most people either enjoy themselves or just stop posting.***
(***these are, of course, with the exception of LR threads, which have always been the bane of humanity since their inception. I feel like they're a grandfathered in as the exception to most of the rules of TL.)
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Yes the mods are doing a good job. Yes there are people putting out good content.
Do people post in forums that do not warrant discussion?
Yes.
Do people "contribute" to threads with no real content?
Yes.
We should be able to police ourselves. Wishful thinking, I know, yes, but why not? We are the biggest and longest lasting gaming community out there. So why not?
This is not a complaint blog. This is trying to encourage all members of team liquid to become better, which everyone can do. Things will not get better by you or me hoping they will. They will get better through the actions of other forum users. Doing the right thing is not always having to add something to a forum. It is the act of NOT putting something in the thread. Sometimes the greatest action is no action.
+ Show Spoiler +please please please do not confuse this with a complaint blog. this is trying to reinforce the great community that is TL and we can grow it and mature it into something greater as time goes on but only with the help of the community wanting it to be
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I think right before SC2 beta was announced and all the new people started joining, the posting quality was superb. Then it took a nosedive with so much BM especially with new posters against progamers, or higher posters, particularly in the SC2 forums. Now I think its getting better, the "GSL popularity" thread lasted alot longer than I thought it would until it eventually deteriorated (incorrect spelling im sure) and was closed. So, ya its getting better.
Ive been trolling this site forever, but was too scared to post cause I thought id get banned. So I only posted on iccup forums, and basically just visited here for everything sc and not sc related
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This is hardly a shocking revelation to anybody that has been using message boards since 56k.
Communities start growing and create their own little niche until it overflows and it starts to dilute into something it was not.
You can't stop it, however, you CAN do your best and put your own effort into keeping the community as tight and as good as it was.
Do I see more trash posts? Yeah, but I also see more good ones and theres no denying that the admins and mods of TL do an excellent job to make the trash disappear.
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Basically, I think there are just shit loads more people now.. So there's just more content in general, both good and bad. Back when I joined you just about knew every single poster... I don't remember which thread it was shown in, but there's a graph demonstrating the rise in users on this website and the exponential growth is rather obvious. It's less intimate now, sure, but it's still definitively "TL" and there's a looooooot more going. A good thing IMO.
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EPT
