Posting and Commenting Guidelines, Restrictions, and Responsibilities

[Sharlikran]

Posting and Commenting Guidelines, Restrictions, and Responsibilities

I have not had time to completely outline every concern I have for mod author and user comments. A recent thread Current addon for porting settings? went from request to a discussion about both mod author comments and behavior to mod user comments and behavior.

People were making points that were valid but were only valid in the context of the original conversation. What I mean by that is points made were about past experiences or interactions with other users. The comments did not have anything to do with the original post or the users request.

It gave me something to think about. I still have not outlined what I want to put in this post so I will be updating it more during the week. Consider this a work in progress. I will start with user comments first and add some thoughts about mod authors and suggestions they can use going forward.

User responsibility

Users need to take responsibility for their actions. If users can not do so then they need to have posting privileges temporarily or permanently revoked or the user needs to be banned. Here are some examples.

- Users should read the site rules: https://www.esoui.com/forums/showthread.php?t=7
- Users need to be civil and not make rhetorical, provocative, or inflammatory statements.
- Users should not act as if they are victims of some kind of mistreatment for the answers they receive.
- Users should not act as if they are entitled to the authors time. Which includes posting comments in multiple places, bumping posts, and posting as if the solution must be provided immediately.
- Users should not act as if the mod author is not helpful if the mod author can not reproduce the users error and asks for more information or steps to reproduce the error.
- Users need to accept that they chose to install the mods that provide them with features they want while playing. Troubleshooting their mods is the users responsibility.

Rhetoric - language designed to have a persuasive or impressive effect on its audience, but often regarded as lacking in sincerity or meaningful content.

In regards to making rhetorical statements and rhetoric, refer to the provided definition. If the user has nothing to do with the conversation and posts a comment such as, "this is what a helpful comment should look like." then the statement is purely rhetoric. It does not benefit the conversation, mod request, or error report. The comment should be moderated by site admins and the user should be reminded of the site rules.

Mod authors should not fear any kind of retribution for declining requests and informing users they can not reproduce errors. Users should be held accountable when they make inflammatory and provocative statements.

Mod author responsibility

Have not had time to decide everything yet

- Remind users to post the issue and then post some information about it. When does the issue occur or what where you doing when the issue occurred?
-- I will post other things later

Most of these are not new to mod authors. However, what I would like to suggest is to start moderating your comments sections more strictly. Too often they become cluttered with errors that are caused by users not updating mods or not installing requirements correctly. If the issue can not be reproduced then simply delete the post and move on. When the user can provide more information then take it as a genuine issue and look into it. If you can not reproduce it then set the expectation the post will be deleted again.

The reason for deleting posts is not to be rude or disrespectful. If an error can be reproduced and the author can correct it then the information is useful to anyone reading the comments section. Users can easily find issues they may be experiencing and see that the issue was resolved in the version the author has specified.

If users installed mods correctly, updated all mods to the current version, and disabled mods that break or conflict with other mods, then they would not need to post they have an error to begin with.

Leaving posts that do not provide any useful information is pointless and causes users to post repeat questions because they can not easily find information they need. There isn't even a search option to search previous posts. It is wasteful of the users time to read through arguments over bugs and requests that only pertain to specific edge cases or specific users.

Resources

- Providing users with ways to contribute

There is no reason a mod author can not tell a user that if they want a specific feature they should make their own mod, look for a mod that has the feature they are requesting, or to write the code themselves and contribute to the project.

When used in the proper context and as a polite response then users should understand the author has objected to the request. Mod authors should not be verbally abused for answering no to user requests. The user is not entitled to the authors time. If the author does not want to add the feature requested the user should accept the response and move on.