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General discussionPetition To Tell GOG To Enforce Their Forum's Terms Of Service And/Or Remove Their Forum's Rep System(170 posts)(170 posts)
(170 posts)
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This is my favourite topic
Posted June 27, 2020
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finkleroy: Most users of this forum are sick of people abusing the rep system. GOG staff has repeatedly been informed of the situation and asked to enforce the rules they put in their own terms of service or remove the reputation system entirely. So far, nothing has been done about it. This has created a toxic environment which has caused many new and existing users to leave the forum. Many of these users also stopped buying games on the storefront because of this. At this point, the only thing I can think to do is start a petition and hope that enough of us tell GOG that we want them to enforce their rules and/or remove the rep system that they begin to take action. You can sign the petition here. Here is the full text of the petition.

For many years, the GOG forum's terms of service has stated that it is disallowed to abuse the forum's reputation system. Many times over these years, numerous users have asked them to enforce this rule, but every time, they have refused to do so. When trolls downrep people for no good reason, it creates a toxic environment. New and existing users see this toxic environment, are put off by it and leave. Many of the people who leave the forum also stop buying games on the storefront. It would be in the best interest of both GOG and its users if GOG would begin enforcing their rules.

One of the biggest examples of this violation of the forum's terms of service is that trolls love to downrep people for discussing the topic at hand in the two main threads that are dedicated to discussing mass game giveaways. The threads in question are located in the general discussion forum, the point of which is to discuss topics. These trolls believe that it's acceptable to repeatedly violate the forum's terms of service by downrepping everyone who uses the forum for its intended purpose. They have decided that the threads aren't for what the original posts state they're for. Instead, they have decided that these threads are for what they want them to be for. They believe that it's acceptable to severely abuse the forum's reputation system in an effort to get across their point that nobody should ever use these the discussion forum for its intended purpose.

It would have been nice if GOG had chosen to enforce the rules they put in their terms of service, but they have not. It would have been nice if GOG had listened to their forum users when they pointed out that this behavior is disruptive and drives people away. Many users have suggested GOG completely remove the reputation system. This would also be a valid solution to this problem. Sadly, none of this has happened, so this is the only remaining course of action. If enough of us inform GOG staff that we expect them to enforce their own terms of service, perhaps eventually they will begin to do so.
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finkleroy:
i guess all of you are desperate for removing people opinions who don't agree with you. sound sliek steam loyalty person would do.
Posted June 27, 2020
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DangerPlankton: I must admit I am very glad to learn that this is not his usual behavior
He is a kind soul who runs two of his own giveaways all year round, and is constantly doing a lot of good for people. I just think he got upset at this and ran with it as he did.
Posted June 27, 2020
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ConsulCaesar: The thing is, the report button doesn't even seem to do anything. Contrary to what logic dictates (and what the pop-up window says), there is no spam report sent. I think at some point it auto-deleted posts if there were several reports, but I'm not sure that's the case anymore: the bot posts stay there until a moderator manually deletes them.
I'd say I hope that a moderator could shed some light on that but I suspect that if one does post to this thread it will likely be to let everyone know it was locked and followed up with a form message of "we're doing our best" or similar.

I suppose I took it for granted that it just sent a generic notification flag to whatever UI anyone with mod capabilities has around here and they in turn just dealt with it as time allowed, unless someone directly linked offending threads or posts in the "UNDER ATTACK" thread of course.
Posted June 27, 2020
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Dogmaus: I couln't fail to see the irony of that, DP. I'm up-voting you.
That was unexpected. Thank you :)
Posted June 27, 2020
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DangerPlankton: That was unexpected. Thank you :)
I uprated your good posts as well, but it seems to have done little good(likely they got down repped by the same rep abusers OP mentioned).
Posted June 27, 2020
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The forums are not perfect that's for sure and in recent years there have been an alarming increase in dowvotes merely for opinions, personally i think downvotes are better suited for spam, frequent trolling, really bad behavior or even better yet ignore it.

I'm also quite tired of the argument that GOG can't afford to fix their forums because they can, GOG are part of the CDP ecosystem and they could allocate some of their funds to improve their own store if they wish it but i'm becoming more and more convinced that GOG is an afterthought to them for every year that passes, CDP is not small anymore so the excuses doesn't fly.

I fully support a better forum experience though but unfortunately i will not sign as long as it require emails and personal information.
Post edited June 27, 2020 by ChrisGamer300
Posted June 27, 2020
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Why is the petition on change.org. Are there more worries of vote rigging again by the staff?

New forum software would make the problem worse. Modern forums have poor UIs

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TheMonkofDestiny: They definitely need to enlist a wider swath of volunteers to moderate the forum.
The managers are doing a poor job. That needs fixed before we get new mods.

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AB2012: I agree it's technically possible to spot patterns based on metadata like IP addresses, screen resolution, web browser & OS version numbers, etc, but the problem is if GOG can't spare / afford the support staff, then it's entirely possible that literally no-one is or will be monitoring that metadata anyway. It's easier just to disable the downvote button and make the "report as spam" (that's currently hidden behind it) always visible in its place as a simple one-off intervention vs needing constant monitoring by staff that GOG simply doesn't have spare.
They managed to have facebook,twitter and google slurping up gog website data plus whatever is hiding behind gog-statics.
Posted June 27, 2020
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BigBobsBeepers: I uprated your good posts as well, but it seems to have done little good(likely they got down repped by the same rep abusers OP mentioned).
Many thanks too :)
To be honest I don't mind people downvoting me if they disagree with me - that's what it's there for after all, and I am going against the opinion of the OP, although I have my reasons which I have given.
It's just ironic that they choose to downvote me in this of all threads considering downvoting also goes against the opinion of the OP. Disagreeing with me by downvoting my posts is basically saying they are happy with the downvoting system.
Post edited June 27, 2020 by DangerPlankton
Posted June 27, 2020
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Signed.
Posted June 27, 2020
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Spectre: New forum software would make the problem worse. Modern forums have poor UIs
I still think a modern forum implementation, like the open-source 'discourse', would be an improvement by a lot. There's a like button, but no negative downvoting.

Would also mean little effort on GOG's part.
Posted June 27, 2020
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DangerPlankton: It's just ironic that they choose to downvote me in this of all threads considering downvoting also goes against the opinion of the OP. Disagreeing with me by downvoting my posts is basically saying they are happy with the downvoting system.
I believe more are against mass down repping abuse and less about down repping posts that deserve such.
Posted June 27, 2020
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BigBobsBeepers: I believe more are against mass down repping abuse and less about down repping posts that deserve such.
Yes I think the real puzzle is how to filter the trolls without having to bump up moderator staff - a problem that has been an issue on a lot of forums for a long time. There are lots of possible experiments/solutions, most of which would just shuffle the people suffering from the problem to a different group or just not work at all. Steam for instance made it so you have to have made at least a $5 purchase to be able to post but that didn't help.
There are lots of possible ideas and if gog had the time and resources it could try them all till one worked better than the current system. My idea for intance would be to leave the system as it is but work on a behind-the-scenes method of filtering out trolls. I don't have any idea how that could be done but brainstorming that idea might produce more effective results.
Posted June 27, 2020
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Spectre: The managers are doing a poor job. That needs fixed before we get new mods.
Maybe. Seems more that the majority of paid GOG staff don't want to deal with the forum end of things and only do so when they absolutely have no other choice.
Posted June 27, 2020
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Enebias: Account registered today, I suppose?
Who are you, really? I'm assuming you are a regular that doesn't want to express their opinion publicly, hence making your point questionable to say the least. If things were fine as they are, you wouldn't be afraid to speak without an alt account, aye?
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DangerPlankton: If you want GoG to pay attention to this thread, you will have to consider both sides as they will be doing and come up with constructive criticism of counter-arguments rather than simply making basic attacks on people who have the opposing view. So far everything you have done has supported my argument.

I think bringing this to it's own forum is a good idea and I do see both sides of the argument, downvoting for the sake of it when people make valid posts (which almost certainly happened to OP and others he witnessed to fire them off in the first place) is definitely a bad thing and I hope you guys come up with a working solution. But downvoting a series of ranting posts that are clearly just trolling (and I'm sure you all have had experiences of that) is what the system is for and at the moment is what makes this forum better than Steam forums.

To OP, in future, try not to become the forum troll you are trying to keep the thread clear of and try to be a little more democratic and open-minded than:

"If you agree with what my petition says, please sign it. If you disagree with what it says, you need to leave the forum. Nobody wants you here. Go away."

Anyway sorry to have disturbed the party people, I had assumed this was going to be a place for rational debate on the matter, I'll leave you all to it.
It wasn't an attack on you point of view. I disagree with it, sure, but it is legitimate - you have your opinion, and sharing it is only fair.
What I was questioning is how you decided to bring up your point; it sounds hypocritial because either this is your main acccount, created just this month, ot this is an alternate one for a more known user. In the former case, just a few days on the forum hardly qualifies you for an informed opinion on its history and features, while in the latter you are just plain contradicting yourself, in a "rep is fair but by saying this I risk losing it so I won't post with my main account because, well, I'd be unfairly downrepped".
This is what I mean, but if there is a third option I didn't take into account feel free to expalin it.
Anyway, I never push both the green and the orange buttons. I did in my first days here, but then I realized they really mean nothing - the only problem is, if you don't have at least 5 rep you are cut out from basic stuff like posting links.
Posted June 27, 2020
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Signed. I think it was yesterday I read the discussion on one of the mass game giveaways that led to the creation of this petition, I'm glad you decided to take this action and I hope GOG will finally listen.

A while ago I posted on on of those threads to thank someone for posting a link to a game I wanted, and, of course, I was downvoted, that's when I noticed this was a common occurrence on those threads, so I decided never again to write there.
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This is my favourite topic
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General discussionPetition To Tell GOG To Enforce Their Forum's Terms Of Service And/Or Remove Their Forum's Rep System(170 posts)(170 posts)
(170 posts)