EDITORIAL: A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To The Forum
On the heels of the recent editorial here about “What’s Wrong With 40K Today?” I thought I’d offer an extension to that much needed discussion. Something that’s been on my mind for quite a while since I started looking at online Games Workshop forums a couple years ago is their use and abuse. Like most things, GW related fan forums were initially created for a variety of fun, useful and helpful purposes, such as:
– To create a place for hobbyists to meet others with a like interest so that they could discuss their passion for the hobby.
– To allow hobbyists to find assistance with the hobby, such as modeling and painting advice or to discuss rules questions or game strategies.
– To find information about GW and related products that support the hobby.
– To find out about events and stores in their respective areas where they could find products, attend events and meet and play games with other enthusiasts.
All of these are worthwhile services provided to one degree or another by virtually all GW fan forums, but there’s a dark side to the forums, one that became apparent to me within minutes of looking at one for the first time a few years ago. Specifically, there are a number of people on the Games Workshop fan forums that are not there for any useful purpose other than to entertain themselves at the expense of others. These people are in the minority, but they have a toxic effect on other hobbyists and the growth of the hobby. These forum “trolls” make their presence felt in a variety of ways depending on the individual, but there are some common problems that recur with great frequency:
– People whose only reason for being on the forums seems to be to look for what they perceive as any kind of error or weakness in the posts of others, whereupon they immediately retort with as much venom and vitriol as possible in an apparent effort to humiliate the other forum user. Many times their barbs are incorrect or false, but this doesn’t stop them from launching their attacks anyway. Regardless of whether or not another post is incorrect or not to your liking, it’s possible to disagree without being uncivil. If you want people to be respectful to you, try it out on others. Making people feel bad is easy, so there should hardly be any sense of power or satisfaction in doing so. On the other hand, making people feel great requires only slightly more effort and the rewards are far greater. It amazes me how quickly people toss away an opportunity to make a friend or ally on forums by being rude. For all you know, you may have just offended someone who could have really helped you down the road. The lesson here is, don’t be a jerk.
– People who claim they haven’t touched a GW product in years and that they dislike or hate GW’s products, yet they are still hanging around on the forums talking about them. I’ve seen this a number of times and it’s just mystifying. If I stop buying products of any kind by a given company because I’m dissatisfied I don’t spend my time years later hanging around on forums talking about them, nor do many other people I suspect. Nevertheless, there are a small number of people out there who seem to be fixated on chatting about GW on forums years after they’ve supposedly moved on from the GW hobby.
– Supposed fans who find fault with virtually everything GW does, yet they persist in buying their products and complaining about them. For example, if GW releases something quickly then these pseudo fans say it was rushed and poor quality, if GW takes their time releasing a product then GW is accused of stalling. To these people, every new miniature is more horribly sculpted than the last, an abomination and offense to the eyes. Yet, they keep buying the stuff and complaining about it. It’s not that GW doesn’t occasionally need some constructive criticism, but these “fans” seem to hate everything GW does just for the sake of doing so. My favorite irrational complaint, “GW just wants to sell us more models!” Yes, of course they do.
– Petty bickerers are another issue. These people claim not to mean any harm and they may on occasion be polite when they rant, but they just find fault with everything anyone else says and have to post a contrary thought to everything posted by others.
– The “politico” is another troll waiting to spring. Many fan forums are international and it doesn’t take long for some people to find something to be upset about and any post not concerning their own place of residence is seen as an affront and a deliberate statement of “anti-whateverland”. Or worse, they insist on posting something that is deliberately inflammatory themselves. Fan forums about toy soldiers are no place for politics. Check your political baggage at the door before signing on please. A post about something fun in one place is not a deliberate insult to everywhere else.
– The user who thinks he’s cool because he uses a lot of foul language. There’s a time and place for everything, including the occasional obscenity, but if you can’t carry on a conversation at all without such language, especially in forums where there are many younger users and children, then perhaps your ability to communicate is suspect. Not everyone on the forums wants to hear that language or have their kids exposed to it, so save it for another time and place where it’s more welcome and acceptable.
– Overzealous moderators are an occasional pitfall. Moderators are generally volunteers and their efforts to make order out of chaos are admirable and needed. However, I’ve seen perfectly good hobby conversations shut down because they were perceived as being off-topic, in the wrong area, or just not to the moderator’s liking. Most of the time these judgment calls are on target, but more than once I’ve seen some highly subjective judgments that were arbitrary, harsh and simply unnecessary used to close down a perfectly fun and enthusiastic hobby discussion. Moderators have a lot of discretionary ability and a few of them seem to exercise it at times just because they can rather than because it’s helpful. Most moderators are doing their best, but with so many genuinely rude posts allowed to persist on forums it can be amazing what gets focused on and what does not. If a conversation or post is highly useful or helpful, maybe a little reevaluation as to the necessity of moving, closing, or deleting it is in order. The forum will not collapse because of it.
My goal when I started participating in forums was and still is to promote the hobby and ensure the success of GW so that they’ll keep making great miniatures for years to come for all their customers all over the world. When I was invited by Bigred to write for Bell Of Lost Souls, I jumped on the opportunity because I thought I could contribute to the hobby by helping people with hobby information and promoting great new GW products and events. As a result, I’ve had contact with a lot of nice people who are enthusiastic hobbyists that want to share that enthusiasm with others. Unfortunately, in the online forums, like most users I have also encountered a lot of discord and rudeness. Because of this, I personally stopped using one forum entirely and have had an on-again-off-again relationship with a couple others. I’ll use a forum for a while and really have fun, then some unpleasantness will occur and I’ll stay away for a few weeks or even months. At times I’ve considered staying out of the forums altogether except to lurk for good sneak peeks, which is how I initially started my love-hate relationship with forums. After all, Warhammer is the most fun thing in the world to me and if something is taking the fun out of it then it serves no useful purpose for me at all. Warhammer is tons of fun and a great diversion from the harshness of the world for a lot of people and for most hobbyists the last thing they want when they visit forums is to have that fun spoiled by some evil troll.
So what is the point of this editorial? It’s simply this. Everyone who is on a GW fan forum should be there for one reason, even if it’s inadvertent. That reason should be to support the hobby they love. If they’re there to get answers to a painting or converting question, that supports the hobby as do the people who answer the questions. If they post news about events or product information, that supports the hobby. If they encourage other people with their projects or arrange to play games, that supports the hobby. If they’re making product trades or looking to buy more product, that supports the hobby. Anything and everything else on the forum should take a back seat to that ideal. That ideal, supporting hobbyists and the hobby, is the reason the forums came into being in the first place.
Personally, I want to promote this hobby to as many people as possible and get customers into the stores, something GW could really use in these economic times. I don’t work for GW and I never have, I’m just an unabashed fan who really, REALLY loves this hobby. GW’s holiday season sales were down a bit this past year and the company could use a boost like everyone else, companies and customers alike. GW would like to have about 400 stores in the US within 15 years. How can we help make that happen? Everyone should be behind that regardless of where they live to ensure the continued success of GW. When GW grows in any country, hobbyists everywhere benefit. More customers anywhere means more product for all customers everywhere. Everyone who loves the hobby should be doing everything they can to promote it or GW could go extinct like a lot of other great companies have done over the past few years. Everyone who loves the hobby should be helping to promote it as much as possible and everything else on a hobby forum should be secondary to that. If you really love the hobby and you’re on a forum for any other reason, perhaps its time to reevaluate your presence there. GW fan forums were not created as a haven for anonymous rudeness in spite of the fact that there’s plenty of it on them. The health of our hobby suffers from such behavior and as a community we need to reject it or one day we may find there is no GW hobby community or GW at all.
And for me, BoLS as a “blog” shines and it’s why I accepted the opportunity to sign on as a writer here. BoLS is a great fan site dedicated to promoting the hobby we love. BoLS has contributed directly and indirectly to community building for our hobby and I’m happy to contribute to that effort.
Speaking of the hobby, I finished painting my Fuegan model last night and I just have two more Phoenix Lords to go to complete all six. Phoenix Court of Khaine is coming! I also took advantage of the lower exchange rate right now between the dollar and pound and ordered a Forge World Revenant Titan for my Eldar as well as a couple Chaos Hellblade Fighters. And I’m just finishing up a secret super-heavy hobby project which I hope to show sometime within the next few weeks. Have fun!
