On toxicity in forums

[Sylvina]

I love this game! While there are definitely some things which could be improved, (skill bloat issues being one) it's overall the best MMO on the market right now IMO.

[Theodric]

I can't say I've ever had much of an issue on this particular sub-forum. People may disagree with one another but things rarely get to extremes - and if they do it isn't long before the moderators step in.

The lore forum, though, is ridiculously toxic at times.

[Ilyrian]

As said before
1. Internet
2. It's a static written format – there is no nuance or tone and a conversation with many voices not in real-time.

By all accounts this is one of the better behaved forums I've seen.
You can generally judge how a thread is going to go by the title and topic – some are clearly more incendiary than others but again, the FFXIV forum seems pretty tame overall.

[JunseiKei]

I thought it was having power.

"Nearly All Men Can Stand Adversity, But If You Want To Test a Man’s Character, Give Him Power"

Abraham Lincoln

“Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men, even when they exercise influence and not authority; still more when you superadd the tendency of the certainty of corruption by authority.”

Lord Acton

As said before
1. Internet
2. It's a static written format – there is no nuance or tone and a conversation with many voices not in real-time.

By all accounts this is one of the better behaved forums I've seen.
You can generally judge how a thread is going to go by the title and topic – some are clearly more incendiary than others but again, the FFXIV forum seems pretty tame overall.

Pretty much this. Unless people know your particular mannerisms in typing and word choice to your own personal lexicon, people may take offense for something that was not meant to be offensive.

[Xeonerable]

The toxicity bleeds into the game as well. People will find things to argue and fight about because they are full of themselves and have nothing better to do. I can go a whole duty finder run and not say a word and play my job and people will find something to argue about. (Even if it's their own fault.) But thankfully that doesn't happen too often, but even you find a bad apple in the barrel.

There are just drama queens out there that probably get off to arguments. Personally I prefer to avoid conflict/confrontation.

[Naraku_Diabolos]

Guys/gals, the OP is talking about his/her thread on the Lore forum getting shot down because she typed out a fanfiction story on there that has nothing to do with actual in-game lore.

http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...words-for-Lyse

Has nothing to do with game lore but OP wanted to write something that corresponds with the lore, but it isn't needed as it's not a discussion.

[Ghastly]

FFXIV forum is pretty good compared to some other official forums where people get their guild friends to basically drown out anything anybody else said (because most mmo's have low population). In this that's not a problem because it's a successful mmo and everyone's opinion is appreciated most times.

But yeah you haven't seen a bad official forum until you get like 5 people from a guild basically flaming you because someone from that guild asked them to do that on purpose without any substance other than flame.

We're one of the better communities.

[Pondera]

O_o um.... sorry, that's just something innate with humanity and has been on the internet since forever. It's humankind's big quest to see who the biggest jerk on the block is. It's why the Nazis back in the 40s didn't look at each other and admit that this whole thing had gotten out of hand more than a little bit, and look at the size of their shoulder pads, for the love of God. It's why Stalin saw to accumulating the majority of war time casualties back in WW2, and then immediately turned around and executed some more of them. Everything from Enron to partisan politics, from ancient gladiatorial combat to monday night RAW, it's all to serve the ideal of winning and proving that the other guy is less than you, because being a jerk is just one of the small handful of things that we humans do.

[Lilseph]

I've been using online forums for 14 years now. Believe me when I say this is nothing. It's not forum specific, but an internet thing:

[Cyreil]

"Give a man a mask and he'll become his true self."