Conduct and environment.

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Aquitaine
Lead Designer Emeritus
Posts: 761
Joined: Thu Jun 26, 2003 1:54 pm
Location: Austin, TX

Conduct and environment.

#1 Post by Aquitaine »

This seems as good a time as any to make known my feelings about forum behavior. We have not any grave problems with this, but I have warned a few users over the last few months, and at least one of them took off afterwards.

FreeOrion is a professional project. The people who dedicate their time and energy to making this project a reality deserve an atmosphere that reflects the degree of professionalism (and ability!) that is asked of them (not that they need asking).

This is not to say that we require some amount of education or work experience -- indeed, one of the founding principles of this project is that anyone is welcome to participate. However, this forum belongs to the project, and so everyone that posts to this forum is a guest of the project, and is expected to behave as such.

More specifically, there is no age requirement. It doesn't bother me if you're 12, 23, or 83. What does matter is your behavior -- many of us have known fifteen year olds with a maturity well beyond their age, and a similar number of twenty, thirty, and forty-somethings whose attitude has not aged along with them. Nowhere is this sort of behavior more evident than in the QSI MOO3 forums.

The fact of the matter is that many people feel very strongly about All Things Orion. That passion is the reason that many of us are here. However, while we will tolerate fountains of constructive criticism (that's our job!) -- we will not entertain the slightest disrespectful behavior.

Specifically, if you want to be taken seriously, use proper grammar and convey yourself as best you can. This is a written medium, and so spouting off nonsense of the 'u r l33t' strain is tantamount to running around in public, dressed as a pigeon, making as much noise as possible. Yes, everyone will hear you, but nobody will take you seriously, except other people like you. If you can't be bothered to form a complete sentence, don't expect anyone to bother to read what you have to say. We're not grammar nazis -- nobody's going to discredit your ideas and suggestions just because of a few mistakes, but there's quite a difference between an honest mistake and going out of your way to sound 'cool,' where by 'cool' I mean 'like a moron.'

Given the above, it goes without saying that flamers and trolls will be removed with no warning. This is our house; you are welcome in our house. Please wipe your feet, and let's make FreeOrion.

Aquitaine
Surprise and Terror! I am greeted by the smooth and hostile face of our old enemy, the Hootmans! No... the Huge-glands, no, I remember, the Hunams!

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