Why Are the FFXIV Forums So Bad?

[Bonoki]

I feel part of the problem with these forums are the the trolls and infamous posters (the ones who love the negativity they get for their problematic posts) who keep thriving because people feed their threads.

If everyone who disagrees simply stopped posting there, they would die out, but I presume the urge to point out their wrongs is bigger than that. Honestly, that doesn't achieve anything because these posters just feed on any kind of attention, good or bad. Sadly the lack of moderation won't help either.

On a technical aspect, the forums looking like a 2000's relic is enough to keep a lot of actual good threads going on. The most obvious aspect is the lack of a notification function. You need to keep manually visiting the threads you engaged to see if you have responses, that from an usability aspect is a game killer for a discussion forums.

Those negative threads thrive because those posters actually have fans. When you behave like Xenos but disguised as a forum poster, people feed off the raito of gotcha insults.

People are bored. Negative threads create more discussion than suggestion threads because it's entertaining and helps get you through the boring day. We rarely see real 'not trolling or fanfac ideas' suggestions on these forums. But when we do, we rarely see past page 2 of comments. It's been mentioned before that the devs meteic for forum feedback is through the upvote system. Sadly for these forums the only times I ever see upvotes get high is when someone got school yard burned from petty insults and passive aggressive hostility.