Last night or something, I don't know, I don't pay attention to timestamps, I got a message from some guy, claiming not to be Game Rager, or whoever the hell that is.

In my 1064 days here at GOG, I've done a lot, and I've done a little. I hope that I have made this experience for when I was paying attention to GOG that I may have entertained some of you.

But this guy, reaver-whatever started pming me. He said that some guys in the IRC told him to talk to me (Thanks guys, I thought we were friends).

Here's the extent of our conversation http://pastebin.com/x4RftYv0

I don't believe moderation is still necessary. I believe the use of the + and the - rep buttons are satisfactory enough to have a community that is self governing. GOG has long prided itself on the sophistication of it's users, although that may have changed since that little "we're closing" miscommunication (what can I say, they're polish, they aren't native English speakers, give 'em a break), either way I have not been an active member in the community since then (I couldn't stand the people bashing GOG, it was crazy one group of people would spend a million rep points on someone and then another would take it away), and I would not be a good judge of whether or not moderation is necessary.

I do believe that moderation was not ever necessary before that miscommunication, and I'd like to say I believe it is no longer necessary.

http://www.gog.com/en/forum/general/why_are_asian_men_presumed_to_be_so_low_endowed

This thread, with a significant amount of low rated posts, says to me that the general userbase has a good idea of what is and what is not appropriate for the forums. I am proud of you guys.
Yes, it took 11 hours for the thread to be locked, but the offending user learned rather quickly that the community doesn't like it. Just having a moderator close it, or just having someone 'with power' opposing the one person, doesn't really help to educate the offending user why it's wrong, but only encourages more opposition.

Having moderators would certainly change the air about this place as well.
If the community agrees to discuss a subject, there's no reason they shouldn't be allowed to, and having a self-governing community without mods allows for this. Instituting 'law-enforcing peons' who stay strict to the rules and get power rushes does not allow as much for a friendly community, that can discuss a wide range of topics with such sophistication.

GOG has always felt that moderation is unnecessary, sometimes things do need to be closed, but for the most part the community is fine.

I was here when the first thread got closed, and there was no doubt then, it needed to be closed, but GOG was in favor of a community based moderation then, and still is to this day.

tl;dr qq for mods, n00bs.

(EDIT: I'll use as many commas as I damn well please! MUAHAHAHAH!!!)

Uhhhhh...Who in the wazzat?

It could be due to not wearing my glasses but I can't make heads or tails of this.

Edit: I also can't make heads or tails of the other thread you linked to. Some dude made a racist post, it turned into a GR/state of the board bash, and then got locked.

What?

Wec, you haven't been here in a while and it would seem you haven't been following things, but it has become very plain that the +/- system only works in the most extreme examples like the one you posted. The everyday crap that gets posted around here by certain individuals who feel the irrational need to push the rules and the community to their limits is barely even grazed by the repping. In fact, the use of the +/- has actually become the source of much of the abuse around here and it seems that the GOG staff are unable/unwilling to take appropriate steps to keep this place the "classy community" it used to be. Whether or not mods would be able to do that either, I don't know, but at least they would be able to do more than nothing.

BTW - congrats on the engagement!

Thanks, we've been dating for almost a year now, and engaged for six months, planning the wedding to take place in a year or two. She has two kids, so with mine we have four beautiful children. It really is wonderful.

What crap? I come here every day, multiple times. Am I missing something here? This place is full of discussion on relevant topics. Are these vanishing so quick off the top list that I just don't see them?

Yes, I believe you have been missing something, though given your registration date, you probably never saw what these forums used to be like compared to what they are like now. Don't get me wrong, most of the topics here are still relevant and excellent discussions, but there are a few "bad apples" who constantly feel the need to post offensively, derail discussions, abuse the rep system with multiple accounts and GOG has done little to nothing to stop it.

The thing I don't get with that locked thread is that scientific evidence and research supports that asian's "size" isn't as big as other races (on average), such as caucasions or african americans.

So while it was bascially a troll thread, in different wording or context it could still be a legit question.

There's some disagreement about what's appropriate in the general forum.

It used to be a much better subforum to spend time in early on, but starting about the time that GR showed up (purely coincidental) the quality took a definite tumble and hasn't really recovered.

TheJoe's wording in the forementioned thread could suggest you are one of the people calling for moderation, otherwise you won't return here, so I guess he turned to you because of this.

No offense intended, but that kind of comes off as "Well in MY day..." type thing where life was so much better forty+ years ago despite all indications that it's not. I haven't been here since 2008, but I've been here for well over a year.

Outside of that post he linked to, I haven't seen much if any obvious troll jobs. There are plenty of people who derail threads by calling someone GameRager or "calling out a troll" though. Not too long ago I was called a troll (and worse) for having a different opinion but I don't think that's the derailing you're talking about. It goes two ways. Yes, there's some trolling, but there's a witch hunt on these forums that derail just as many threads as well. How do you define what's "appropriate" for general discussion? It's called general discussion. Anything not with a specific subforum, within specific range, by definition applies to it.

Hey, It's Weclock! Hi Weclock! Another one from the Beta has returned. Congrats on the engagement!

Anyway, back to the topic:

I don't think it's that bad, really. I mean, yeah, it's not the same forum as I remember it (then I just started posting here, too), but nothing that cataclysmic happened. There's still a healthy core which keeps the lid on the place, I think. Unless that core starts to lose interest and walk away (as has happened for many after the "incident"), GOG will stay the course as it always has. User mods are really not needed yet imo.

I don't know, I'm tired of being seen as some sort of god.
Hey man, thanks! Beta was pretty neat, I remember gushing like a school girl because I finally got it, and then couldn't afford to buy anything yet. hahaha.

edit: do you remember this thread? http://www.gog.com/en/forum/general/weclock_dopplegangers/page1

I've been here since the beginning, even though I refrained from posting for quite a while and I'm pretty tired of all the "no longer classy" bs. It's like the whiny SC2 nerds who claim everything is "RUINING E-SPORTS D:", minus much-needed cynics who'd make fun of said people.

I also don't think people should stick to discussing gaming and only gaming.

People taking that attitude that there's no such thing as off topic is precisely why this forum has gone to crap. We have precisely one non-specific-game related forum here with which to do our business.

We've got one forum in which to do things not related to a specific game series and if people don't take that more seriously when they create threads it's going to keep getting worse and worse.

I do have to grant you some amount of leeway since you weren't here before things started to go to hell, but still, this is the general forum, not the spam forum. And people ought to be considering whether a new topic is likely to be of interest to the people at large.