Lore Forum Decorum - Just What is Meant by Good/Bad Faith?

[Lyth]

Oh dear.

The concepts around pseudonymous or 'sockpuppet' posting have existed before the internet itself, and anyone who has been on online forums for long enough will be well acquainted with the term. It's not really a conspiracy theory to hold a discussion around its impact to increase awareness.

I'm always surprised when someone would "deign" to provide the rest of us with unsolicited information, to borrow a particularly quaint turn of phrase. Sometimes perceptual errors have a way of playing tricks on us. Have a very careful look at my post again. What might strike one individual personally as "obvious" or "significant" might not be true for anyone else at all. That's what makes us all unique.

Either way, I think the average observer has enough information to formulate their own opinions around this.

...

It was an in-game quote, actually, taken directly from the game itself. Normally there's a text line with a variable <player firstname> <player lastname> that gets personalized to your own specific character when you play it. If I was copying out the quote, for example, it would say 'Lythia', not any other name. There are a few possible explanations for this error, some of which are innocent enough, but it did made me question what was happening in here, among other several things.

Mind you, I'm not really here to pass judgement, however eyebrow-raising this reaction was. It's not my job. I just want to see a better posting environment where people are freely able to actually discuss lore in here. My hope is that the individual in question will realize that none of this is really worth the effort in the long run. It achieves nothing. It convinces no-one. Especially when everyone now knows what to look for.

Either way, here's looking forward to patch 6.2, a fresh story direction, and a brighter horizon.

[Kozh]

snip

Lmao, this reminds me of the famous "Muffins Saga" when Amber Heard's lawyer trying to discredit the psychologist.

Anyway,

5/7 deductive skill, Eara/Cleretic's sockpuppet. Good job!

Maybe next you want to guess whose alt I am? Or perhaps if I have alts? Curious to hear your thoughts on that.

[Lustre]

Good faith is when somebody agrees with you, bad faith is when someone disagrees with you. Of course this isnt the actual definition but it might as well be because that's the level of discourse all over at the moment, regardless of what it is but especially for divisive topics like politics, or... characters in a video game.

The thing is, you can never prove intent and so debating whether a post was or wasnt made in "good faith" is kind of pointless. Maybe you can attempt to sus it out from the way they speak, or the arguments they use, but you can still never be certain.

It would be possible to have "good faith" discussions on lore if the writers hadnt essentially polarised the fanbase completely, into For and Against camps. The writing did this, not the fanbase. So the division in the community lies at the feet of SE for failing to deliver a quality, coherent storyline in my opinion.

[Necrotica]

Arguendo

Sometimes it is just fun to debate.

[Rulakir]

Frankly, if it bothers y'all that much, I'd recommend keeping it to a megathread, which has worked fine in general discussion. The problem is that the topics never stay in one and that's not solely the fault of people who didn't like EW as Ascian/Ancient hatred is abnormally rampant around here (compared to other spaces) and certain posters feel the need to insert it everywhere they possibly can (looking at you, voidsent thread). I guarantee you I have no interest in a lore thread about what gear the Quirin use when they go spelunking.

However, when you have topics like the Omega quest chain that directly addresses both sides then of course it's going to be filled with different opinions, especially as it's the first time the WoL is asked for theirs.

Lastly, if you don't want it to perpetuate then don't reply. It really is that simple. Given that it's always the same handful of people I'm led to believe that you do, in fact, enjoy these arguments. Especially so when I see some of you show up in general discussion to continue them when they're not happening here. This new 'campaign' I'm seeing to try to figure out how to get EW dissenters from posting in the lore forum anymore, by forceful ejection if necessary by accusing them all of being alts, is a bad look.

[Lyth]

The primary topic is about 'decorum' or conduct. You can always hold whatever opinions you like, but you do have a social responsibility to conduct yourself appropriately around others. We all know that the illusion of anonymity online can bring out some people's antisocial tendencies. A lot of game environments end up being extremely toxic as a result, and not everyone wants to have abuse and obscenities hurled at them during their limited time to relax and unwind. FFXIV's general approach has been to simply be very strict about its rules. And it works, because when the rules are enforced, people generally behave themselves and act in a courteous fashion. So in-game chat stays relatively clean for the most part, and I can very much appreciate that.

That used to be the case with the forums as well, and the actual terms that you agree to by posting in here are still extremely strict if you look them up. But two things have gradually happened since around late Stormblood/early Shadowbringers: there's less official engagement with the forums, and there's less active enforcement of the rules. I'm not sure if that reflects funding or a policy change. That in turn has created a culture change in here, such that we see less meaningful discussion and a lot more aggression.

That's one of the reasons why I'd like to see a formal discussion around this during one of the Q+A sessions. The forums are an incredibly valuable tool for feedback under the right conditions. But you need two things for that to work. First, you need to cultivate a polite and safe posting environment where people can have civil discussions without fear of being bullied or brigaded. Second, you need dev and community team buy-in to the forums as a place to hold two-way discussions. One of the things that originally got me interested in this subforum when I first started playing was seeing the likes of Fernehalwes/Koji post in here and interact directly with fans. It was very reminiscent of Blizzard's 'blue post' community interactions during their golden era, except much more friendly and polite. I really respected that, and I'll always hold it admiration. My dream would be seeing a job or battle team designer come in and do either an AMA or even just make an occasional position statement about their design philosophy. That would be incredibly cool and perhaps take some pressure off of Yoshi-p to always be the 'hard carry' for dev communication.

The problem is that it's a significant investment in time and resources to make this happen, and it's probably easier to just let it be a dustbin for people to vent into. Which is why most players tend to skip over this place and hold discussions in places like the affiliated subreddits. Granted, there used to be quite a few official community reps directly involved with reddit as well who would jump into interesting threads and answer questions, but I haven't seen them around in a while. Again, a lot of this has fallen off since early Shadowbringers. Which is unfortunate, because they were great fun.

---

As far as viewpoints are concerned, I don't think that many people are all that interested in debate. There's a concept called 'clash' that's central to debate, and that requires you to have some sort of starting common ground and reference points that you can debate off of. It requires a more moderate viewpoint, and a healthy dose of uncertainty and doubt. If you can't even reach an agreement around which source text you're using and the basic facts under discussion, then there's no debate, only shouting from across established battle lines and trenches. I've seen the General Discussions 'story' threads as well, and there's a general intolerance to any form of dissent, even towards people who might have originally been sympathetic to the enforced viewpoint. I think it dissuades more than it convinces. And you see a lot of the same kind of brigading behavior as you can on the previous page of this thread.

'Forum activism' does not work. You can't forcibly change someone's opinion. The only type of person you can really convince is someone who is both uncertain and open-minded on the issue. They're more likely to be persuaded if you're polite about it. And if you didn't manage to convince them the first time around, repeating the same statements ad nauseam probably won't cut it either. If anything, you'll just polarize them in the opposite direction out of pure irritation. Pretty much the only times these forums ever have brought about a change in game is when the playerbase as a whole was ready to see it happen. You cannot engineer that change out of nothing, the momentum has to already exist.

You cannot forcibly change 'story direction', for the same reason. If anything, it just encourages the writers to silently do the opposite. I know that most of what we're getting now has already been written and voice acted in advance, but a part of me wonders if we're much less likely to see anything to do with the Amaurotians in the future as a consequence of all this. Everyone here is human at the end of the day, and if you can't offer empathy and courtesy, people just won't give the time of day to what you have to say.

I'd love to see a lore thread about the Qiqirns' spelunking gear. I have a lot of admiration for people who can really dive into the details about the world and extract out little facts that nobody else notices. It's always more interesting to learn a fact that you didn't know than to be told what your opinion should be on a subject. World-building lore threads like that always bring a smile to my face.

[Vyrerus]

Anonymoose sometimes responds to me on Discord via DMs, and he basically said that this sub forum is no longer worth visiting. I'd give you his reasons, but I'm not comfortable speaking any further in his stead.

I wish it wasn't so, but it is very true that the Lore forum no longer discusses Lore very much. It's been characters, factions, character motivations, and Endwalker grievances for months now. While not necessarily completely devoid of Lore discussion, everything becomes bent around those topics, so much so that the place is like a snake eating its own tail.

The problem lies mainly with us users, but also with the game not being able to keep up with how quickly we digest it. Though I'm sure not too many folks are loading their plates up with heaping helpings of all that there is to know or see in the world of FFXIV. I, too, would love a Qiqirn spelunking kit thread if the game gave us enough info on it.

[Theodric]

Oh? I'd be very curious to read his thoughts on the matter should he see fit to weigh in.

[Ceridwenae]

Anonymoose sometimes responds to me on Discord via DMs, and he basically said that this sub forum is no longer worth visiting.

Oh, that's sad. I like Moose posts. I'll be honest, though, despite posting a positive response early on in this thread, I've more or less come to the same conclusion. It's be so, so disappointing to see how things have gone down here. I'm clearly no great lore poster - I'm more of a pop culture reference geek, so my contributions are rarely insightful, and that's one reason I don't post as much as I might have, given it's really not the right place for it and I'm not sure there is one, and I'm on the verge of moving to gaming pastures new anyway - but I've always enjoyed reading people's takes on things. At least, when it wasn't so mean-spirited, needlessly, pointlessly argumentative, unfun, unfunny, and (again) disappointing. A lack of graciousness and generosity towards each other abounds for no good reason I can think of. A plague on both your houses, I say (not that I think it's necessarily Montagues vs Capulets, but it can often be what I am left feeling after visiting here).

I wish it wasn't so, but it is very true that the Lore forum no longer discusses Lore very much. It's been characters, factions, character motivations, and Endwalker grievances for months now. While not necessarily completely devoid of Lore discussion, everything becomes bent around those topics, so much so that the place is like a snake eating its own tail.

You're not wrong; I'd go so far as to say it's tedious but true. I don't know if there's some element of needing to have the last word, or trying not to lose some sort of "face", but I've found it increasingly tiresome to read. So now I mostly don't bother. I'm actually happier for it, because I'm not reading weird arguments about made up stuff that's supposed to be fun. Also, I could make the case for being technically too old for this shit, anyway.

The problem lies mainly with us users, but also with the game not being able to keep up with how quickly we digest it. Though I'm sure not too many folks are loading their plates up with heaping helpings of all that there is to know or see in the world of FFXIV.

I wouldn't mind having a plate or two, even with my dead sub, even if I do decide I'm putting this game down more or less for good. I never got around to acquiring the lore books (I mean, in this economy?!), so this was what I considered the best place to read up on things. It just isn't now, but if people are genuinely willing to work at meeting in the middle, it could be again. I can see myself with an occasional resub but with a lot of good reading being the icing on the cake.

I, too, would love a Qiqirn spelunking kit thread if the game gave us enough info on it.

Yes. This is something I'd also like to read if it were possible.

Anyhoo, good luck, Lore forum and all who sail in ye. I hope if, when, I pop back again*, a concerted effort will have been made and things will be more appropriate and pleasant again.

*Hopefully last EDIT!: just to say, I'm reading that last sentence and it's making me want to stress that the aforementioned concerted effort should not be made on my account, because I am most definitely not the Lore Forum Supreme Deity (pretty sure that's Moose. Iamsdanites!, and that'll do.).

[Rulakir]

Anonymoose was largely before my time. I vaguely remember him making a review post about EW, only getting to Garlemald or the moon, and never continuing. It made me wonder if he didn't like the story after that point.

As I said to a friend, I wanted to talk about ShB because I loved it. I needed to talk about EW because I hated it. I wish a megathread like on general discussion had existed at that time. It's frankly been a process to meet and interact with people who felt similarly because the FF14 community in general is highly intolerant of criticism or negative feedback.