|
There is something wrong with this forum. You can smell in the air - a deadening stink every time you browse a new topic. What is wrong you ask? Post quality, I answer.
The Analogy
Imagine you are a judge, presiding over a court, and you're about to sentence or free a possible murderer. This is no normal court though, this is the Team Liquid Strategy court, and the rules of procedure are somewhat... lacking, at least in their enforcement.
Everyone who has gathered before the court are standing in one rowdy ball of people. The lawyers, the witnesses and the media are all there. But there's more still. This is one popular case and it is open to the public, today you have unusually many spectators in the crowd.
The prosecutor has proclaimed his charges, and you're about to give the word to the lawyer. One problem though, you don't know who he is. So you ask out loud, can anyone provide any evidence for me?
One of the spectators is hot on his heels and shouts out loud: "That man is innocent, I swear!". Baffled you ask: "Good sir, are you perhaps the lawyer?". Embarrassed he remains quiet.
Next the main witness starts shouting: "That main is guilty. He stabbed his wife 7 times with a knife!". You respond: How do you know?". Angry the witness thinks: 'I'm the main witness for fuck sakes. Don't you know? Like hell I'm going to respond to someone as rude as you', and so he too remains quiet.
Slightly infuriated you ask if there is anyone out there who can back up their statement.
Now it is the lawyer's turn to speak. He begins without presenting himself and simply says: "That last guy who spoke is a liar, and I can prove it". However, this is one lazy lawyer so when you ask him to actually prove it he goes for a coffee break, and does not return.
Then a journalist speaks out: "I say the accused is innocent, and I will let you know that I have successfully predicted the outcome of over 90% of all trials over the last decade."
Finally the police chief steps into the room and speaks loudly: "I am the chief of the police. This man was dining with be at the time of the murder and I've got the tapes from my security cameras with me. Watch them and realise that he cannot be the killer".
The Problem
There are a lot of awesome advice given out daily in these forums, many interesting insights are being shared and there are some generally fucking awesome posts being made here.
However, all that is lost in a whole swarm of imbecilic comments, poor arguments and plain terrible advice.
Not only does this make for a somewhat infuriating reading experience, but it also makes it harder to find the important posts due to increased thread length and perhaps most important of all: Not everyone can tell good advice from bad advice.
The Solution
It would be nice if everyone simply stopped making bad posts, but it won't happen. The world is infested with an illusion of self importance. Children are taught to stand up for their rights, to fight for their beliefs, to never admit defeat, to always seek the last word and to take up their god-granted space.
Social biases a plenty will keep our forums drenched by the opinions of bad players and poor reasoners. Instead those who know what they're talking about and those who understands this game well enough should try to stick out from the crowd.
How you ask? By actually arguing your points and backing them up with evidence.
The Argument of Authority
No one knows everything about this game, but in general, the better you are at playing, the more you know. If you say that "Hatch first is good in ZvT", then that is an argument based on your own authority. However, few of us have any authority on our own.
If you say "Ret says Hatch first is good in ZvT", it is slightly better. But how do we know that he actually said it? When using the argument of authority, provide direct quotes from this forum or link to external sources.
But how do you go about easily finding your sources? I'm lazy and this might take more effort than I'm willing to put into a post. But please, at least try to use a search engine at least once before giving up. TLs search function allows you to search for posts both based on key words and on poster. If I for example wanted to find the post where Ret said that Hatch first was the best response to 2 Rax I might search for "15 Hatch" and by "'Ret". Here are the results of this particular search.
Your authority might still be wrong, but the point is that he'd at least be more likely to be right than you alone.
Reasoning
Now quick Stalker pressure might be a good idea against Pool->Hatchery builds where Metabolic Boost is delayed. But how do I know? If you tell me that it is a good idea because Stalkers can kite slow Zerglings and thus force a lot of Larva to be wasted on something other than Drones, then I will at least be able to follow your reasoning. Perhaps I find your argument solid, or perhaps I see a flaw in it.
By providing your reasoning you accomplish four things:
1) You make your argument less opaque and give your readers the possibility to judge for themselves.
2) It allows other people to make shorter counter arguments as they only need to point out where you failed instead of providing the counter argument to all possible arguments backing your statement.
3) You not only provide advice which helps knowledge, but advice which also help understanding.
4) If you argument is found solid you prove that you have some understanding of the game, which gives you a small authoritative argument.
Demonstrating
Don't we all love to discover a pro-gamer replay demonstrating the exact problem we've been struggling with, and how to solve it? Replays provide incredible detailed information about a situation. This can work as an argument of authority, but all those details also allow others to criticize your argument. They might for example make counter-arguments of the "But if you do that he can just do that, you're actually playing it blindly and gambling!"-kind.
If your argument is found solid, a replay will also provide awesome instructions for how to actually do something.
Be wary of your own replays though. There are so many ways to win in this game even with flawed strategies. For example, even though your build was bad, your opponent's might have been horrid. Or perhaps he didn't know how to play against your particular build, but it is so simple that he'll easily figure it out when watching the replay afterwards. Or maybe you just got lucky.
The Appeal
Consider the following sentence, for it might be true: "I could be wrong, I might be making a bad post". A lot of bad posts are made, and they have to come from somewhere. Could you be among the guilty?
My appeal to the community is to devalue your own opinion, take a step away and look at outside evidence. If you cannot provide evidence for your statements, then how do you know you are right? Please consider not posting at all. And if you actually have evidence, then please share it, else we might not be able to tell you from the bronze leaguer two posts down.
Providing evidence takes some effort, but if you actually care about making a good post it is effort well spent.
Edit:
On January 17 2011 05:49 ZerG~LegenD wrote:
This was an appeal to the community, not the management. Yet so many turn their eyes towards the sky, seeking divine solutions to mortal problems. If you want improvement, look no further than yourself.
|
The analogy was great. Since there will always be new people joining (including myself) and people who want their post count to go up, there will always be bad posts. Mod Team does a good job at handling it and it's not too hard to find a good topic. I don't doubt the community but I do agree that this is common. It is for two reasons. There are people who think that they will be taken seriously when they post one-liner threads with no replays but instead just says, "I can't face zerg. I lose all the time." and then you have a group of people who are here to QQ about balance which I must say, gets handled very swiftly. I don't mean to direct this at any group or any specific person, but instead the people who continuously make browsing through SC2 Strategy 10x harder.
|
I want to propose a solution. Divide the forum into levels like 2+2 does it. Have an awesome bronze-gold section aswell as platin-diamond and masterleague sections.
???
profit
|
That courtroom analogy is probably the most accurate comparison I've seen. Really illustrates the point. Unfortunately, this topic has been brought up quite a few times, and from the looks of it, each thread's consensus seems to be that the only remedy for this issue is time. Once all the bad / ignorant / overly assertive / what-have-you people get bored of TL and leave, and once people in general get better at the game, the crappy, unsupported advice will dissipate and the quality advice will become more prevalent.
It sucks now, yes, but for now, one should heed the old military phrase, "Hurry up and wait". Patience, dude. =)
|
Every single person out there is thinking that my way of doing things is the right way. If you your way is thinking that your own advice is bad, then it's good, but most people don't do that.
Thinking your own advice is bad is a good thing. It makes you provide evidence and explain it in more detail, as OP suggested.
Thank you for posting this, ZerG~LegenD.
|
It's mostly down to personal ego.
If people cannot stand admitting they're not the best by a long shot, then they won't have any reasoning for backing down from what might just be terrible arguments. It's seen over and over everywhere and is hardly something you can change. I appreciate the petition though, it's nice to see there are people willing to at least put in an effort, regardless of the odds.
|
On January 17 2011 02:10 Greentellon wrote:
Every single person out there is thinking that my way of doing things is the right way. If you your way is thinking that your own advice is bad, then it's good, but most people don't do that.
Thinking your own advice is bad is a good thing. It makes you provide evidence and explain it in more detail, as OP suggested.
Thank you for posting this, ZerG~LegenD.
I think everyone kind of agrees with the OP from the heart, everyone wants quality on this site, but some people whose opinions aren't exactly profound still feel the urge to express them because they feel they are right, having lost to certain strategies or experiencing circumstances that seem to speak for an imbalance in the game. In general, that's how humans function, they are not used to greatly question their experiences. It just happens to those with longer experience in the game as well as those who confront their own experiences critically to see the way the game works, the strategies that seem appropriate etc.
Since not everyone can't be as profound as those whose longtime experiences eventually lead to the right conclusions, we can only hope (unfortunately not force - although the admins on this site are doing a great job) those who post more or less blindly to rethink their posts.
|
I'm not sure if more regulation of the 'market (of posts in this case)' is the answer. You might just be replacing random crap with well formatted crap. In which case it will be even harder to tell the difference between good posts and bad ones.
|
I was going to make a similar post as well, but was too lazy. The OP is asking for people to provide proof as to their actions rather than give anecdotal evidence. As for the OP's example, saying, "Ret believes that hatch first is stronger than 2-rax" is a lot better than "I'm a XXXX pt Zerg and I'm right and you're wrong".
Now, to talk about the hatch first argument, I believe the pro's are now not totally convinced that hatch first is a better solution. Consider, for example, the number of games where the zergs are now going pool first against terran (for example, Idra vs Jinro).
|
it might be more helpful to make some sort of guide to help people assess post quality, wouldn't that be a simpler way of dealing with the problem? (if you are concerned with people who can't tell the difference between good and bad posts) eg:
- only give credit to people who provide replays
- actually look at the replays
- give higher creditability to pro players' posts [eg Nony etc]
- ask for people's ranks often
etc etc
|
Strategy forums were decimated by the massive skill disparity that came as a result of newer players entering the starcraft scene.
At least when BW was around it was:
a) clear who was good and who wasn't, because ratings were meaningful
b) less of a casual scene, so the quality of players was higher
It's not that noobs are a bad thing, but as anyone who played on iccup knows, even a solid D player is orders of magnitude more competent than anyone below diamond.
The fact is, we need a separate high level strat forum. Master's league is a good opportunity for TL. A master's league forum might not cut out all the bad posts, but it'd reduce that skill disparity to something closer to the BW strat forums and iccup rankings.
I know that TL doesn't want to seem noob-unfriendly, but noobs benefit the most from a separate forum as they can go and see actual high level discussion and good solid advice.
|
can this please be stickied... that strategy forum needs this so badly!
sometimes wading through this section is a real chore, maybe if people had a good solid read through this it would help?
i dunno my 2 cents.
|
I agree, I'm tired of reading Strategy threads only to find that either the OP didn't put much thought into the strategy or that the community attacks it for no reason.
|
An important problem with dividing the strategy forum into two parts is that top players are unlikely to give in-depth strategy advise that might reflect on their game as their competition might find it useful information. Debating the current state of balance and strategic trends is something where participating by high level players might be a good way to raise the quality of the discussion a lot though. as to become a pro player you have to 1. understand the game 2. have reputation to lose if you make statements that aren't thought through, and this will naturally lead to better discussion.
I can only think of a few pro players that often talk in the strategy forums though. A lot of them have said that the overwhelming stupidity of the posts there is a deterrent to participating however. And it's also true that everytime, say, Idra makes a post there's 10 posts that are saying "Hey Idra, now that you're here, can you answer me something?" ... or in general their presence derails the topic.
Not all high level players are pro's of course, and not all high level players are necessarily good at the game (since you get to fairly high ladder ratings by just doing one strategy very well, or having good mechanics, not by good understanding per se). So simply dividing is problematic if that's the only solution. Sure, ladder ranking might be decently correlated to strategic insight, but it doesn't necessarily follow.
With good enough moderation you can make everything work of course, but the state of the forums as they currently are allow everyone to give their opinion as long as it's civil. It doesn't require you to make actually logical posts and all manners of nonsensical advise are tolerated and allowed to confuse the topic at hand. I honestly think that using simply forums for strategy discussion is unwise, it just has a topic where everyone can talk as equals. For an interested but uninformed reader it's very hard to get a good idea of who is making sense and who isn't, especially as it can take a lot of work to test a lot of the claims for yourself in-game.
Maybe teamliquid should switch to a contribution + comment-section for this, similar to what they have on a lot of blog-type websites? I don't really know how something like that should look, but I think the core idea of encouraging people who know what they're talking about to write a comprehensive case for their point in a high-profile spot and then having some kind of measured conversation by response-articles as well as discussion in the comment-section can be nice.
|
On January 17 2011 02:36 [Eternal]Phoenix wrote:
Strategy forums were decimated by the massive skill disparity that came as a result of newer players entering the starcraft scene.
At least when BW was around it was:
a) clear who was good and who wasn't, because ratings were meaningful
b) less of a casual scene, so the quality of players was higher
It's not that noobs are a bad thing, but as anyone who played on iccup knows, even a solid D player is orders of magnitude more competent than anyone below diamond.
The fact is, we need a separate high level strat forum. Master's league is a good opportunity for TL. A master's league forum might not cut out all the bad posts, but it'd reduce that skill disparity to something closer to the BW strat forums and iccup rankings.
I know that TL doesn't want to seem noob-unfriendly, but noobs benefit the most from a separate forum as they can go and see actual high level discussion and good solid advice.
Except then you lose the high quality contributions that a select few lower skilled players have made (generally these players are mid diamond). Magic box technique. Sockfolding (mineral mining technique that was patched out by blizzard). Kcdc's 1 gate FE. Iechoic's hellion drop build. The 2 Thor push build posted by evoli. Antisocialmunky's marine raven build (popularizing marine trading for larva even before Marine King showcased his impresive splitting micro). Griffith's 4OC build (which still has a lot of untapped potential at the highest level). etc. etc.
Yes there's a lot of crap to sift through but you can still find those rare gems. Sometimes it takes someone below the pro level to break out of dogmatic thinking and offer stuff that can really change the metagame.
I do agree with OP that posts should be backed at the very least by sound reasoning. High level replays should always be provided when possible, but sometimes there are new concepts that haven't made their way to the pro scene yet.
+ Show Spoiler +most recent example: terran going mech vs protoss. I even personally argued against it, and tested it in practice games with the proponents to show that a speedray transition completely dominates mech. But with flux vanes removed, Jinro showed that it's at least conceivably viable on some maps by going 2-0 vs MC... Time will tell if it's actually solid or whether it's just a brief phase that can win on the surprise factor, but at the very least it shows that people need to be less dogmatic in their approach to strategies.
|
On January 17 2011 02:36 [Eternal]Phoenix wrote:The fact is, we need a separate high level strat forum. Master's league is a good opportunity for TL. A master's league forum might not cut out all the bad posts, but it'd reduce that skill disparity to something closer to the BW strat forums and iccup rankings.
Skill in playing the game does not imply skill in analyzing, discussing, or teaching the game. What is really needed is some sort of encouragement for good posters to make good posts, and more importantly, for bad posters to stop posting all together.
|
I agree that when talking about current strategies, people's posts should contain either evidence, or solid reasoning that can be followed easily, not just a "because I said so" argument, which seems to be so prevalent.
I say either/or though, because sometimes there isn't evidence. I know a lot of people hate theory crafting, and it doesn't usually help unless used correctly, but that's one of the only ways to discover new builds and strategies. All strategies start as ideas. I am of the belief that discussion is vital to the development of these ideas. Not everyone is a high enough level to test their strategies, and even for those who are, they might still be missing something that could make a seemingly failed idea work.
I think this is a general problem of the strategy forums. People theory craft in Help threads, and demand hard evidence that doesn't yet exist in Guide and Discussion threads. Maybe if people respected the point of different kinds of threads, we would have more progress and quality. I don't mean to say that new strategies don't require proof, but just that posts like "Oh yeah, show me a replay, this could never work" are somewhat useless and don't contribute to discussion. Instead of cluttering up a thread, why not give your reasons for the perceived weaknesses of a build, or expand upon ideas that could help revolutionize the strategy. Even better, if you're at a high rating, why not test it yourself against competent players? [D] stands for discussion, not dismissal. Help threads suffer from a similar problem where people would rather theory craft than give good advice to the OP or help analyze his play. It is not the place for theorizing new strategies.
I also don't think lower rated players should simply be dismissed either. I know there are some people who barely play, but who watch lots of replays, and who have a very strong grasp of the game. In the same vein, I know highly rated players who know a number of builds very well, but who wouldn't be able to be creative to save their lives. These people should try to stick to what they're good at, or even help each other. Some players are both highly skilled and very imaginative, but a lot of people are sometimes one or the other. The strategic analysts should try to contribute to discussions about general strategy or the strengths and weaknesses of new builds, while highly rated players should help other players with their actual game right now. There is crossover, but people should use their own discretion about where their knowledge really applies and would help the most. The best outcome is where people can theorize about new strategies, and then have skilled players test them in a real environment. This allows both kinds of people to play to their strengths and contribute the most to the forum.
As for people who don't know anything and are not skilled? Sit back and watch. Ask questions, give new ideas. Don't just post crap in threads that says nothing and doesn't contribute content. Don't be angry or dismissive for no reason. Stop attacking people when you disagree and don't provide any reasoning. In short, don't post unless you have an actual concern or something useful to say about the topic at hand.
This turned out to be longer than I imagined. [/rant] :p
|
I agree the quality of posting has declined recently but to be honest, compared with the rest of the internet this place is still a haven of semi-logical discourse in my mind.
|
One solution, which would (unfortunately) take some coding to implement would be a community moderation system similar to slashdot.org.
Basically, once you have been in the community for a while, you occasionally get "mod" points and you can mark posts up or down. Then readers can filter by post score. So, if you want to you can see all the posts, or you can filter out to see only the highest rated posts.
There are potential pitfalls with this method, but I like the end result at slashdot.
|
On January 17 2011 02:01 PepperoniPiZZa wrote:I want to propose a solution. Divide the forum into levels like 2+2 does it. Have an awesome bronze-gold section aswell as platin-diamond and masterleague sections. ??? profit
Sadly this would not work. I have seen crappy posts by people who come from the master league, and excellent posts from people who come from the bronze league. You can't classify players simply by their ladder level.
I don't think there are magical ways to prevent bad posts and punish bad posters. We can hope they will go away with time because they are obviously not that into Starcraft than the ones willing to discuss the game and thinking before posting, or you can ban them 1 by 1 (wich seems kind of arbitrary though).
|
|
|
|
|
|
EPT
