From the newcomer's point of view a portion of the community suffers from the typical "Internet doesn't understand free speech" syndrom. Free speech protects from govt shutting down one's ability to critique govt actions. Being an ass and crying that soy snowflakes don't like one's "sense of humor" isn't covered by free speech. It's just being juvenile and not willing to own it. Not being as toxic as, say 4chan is a very low bar. But I guess it's hard to ask for more on teh interwebz these days. 

That sounds worth looking into, can you be more specific what problems you've encountered??

I don't know what this "soy" trend means and I've never visited 4chan so that's not a context I understand. 

Soy acts like estrogen. So soy or soyboy has the same meaning calling one a pussy does. 4chan and places like that are pretty good at using covert language of this kind.

This divides people into there groups: those who are in on a "joke" and play along, those who understand and aren't and if they complain, the third group will claim that they either don't understand or don't think it's that big of a deal, effectively siding with bullies. That's why it's so hard to get rid of pepe and ok sign which are nazi winks and nods - many simply can't or won't believe this is happening. :)

But to be clear, I'm not claiming that someone did attack me here. I just read tons of threads from the last 10 or so years and it's a general observation of mine. It is possible that some of this behavior toned down but I'm also watching discord servers and it doesn't seem to be the case. All that seems to indicate is that func became less relevant as a form of day to day communication, not that people, behaviors and attitudes have changed. 

I'm starting to think this is becoming an imagined problem. Every community has shits, and the only difference between them is that some communities ban the shits, and some have no mechanism to ban the shits.

We don't have a mechanism to ban the shits so we have to put up with a very, very occasional shitstorm. It's pretty easy to dig up one of these shitstorms from 2008 (for example) and say "look how shitty this place is" whilst kinda forgetting that this is a post someone made in 2008.

AFAIAW the common or garden internet edgelord doesn't really post here. These are the chaps that go on massive rants about muslims or gays or jews or women or whatever. Already that elevates us above 95% of internet forums. 

These examples are not for the sake of calling out individuals, but rather some common patterns of behavior. Maybe it is "banter" and I'm not picking up that tone, but both cases seem to have pushed people away from here:

1 - in the SM189 thread, there was talk about TBA143's map. It was a first map with some rough edges, but also some promise. AFAIK, TBA143 hasn't made any more mapping efforts for Quake. http://www.celephais.net/board/view_thread.php?id=61660
This is a case where we could've said "What kind of experience were you trying to create? I didn't get it / it wasn't for me, but the brushwork was really promising! Hope to see more maps from you in the future". See also the recent SM196, 195, and JamX conversations around Ing and Pinchy maps. They're doing something different with the tools, and it won't be for everyone, but we should welcome that variety and be glad that folks are trying different things (even when they fail).

2 - The General Abuse convo around "RetroPew". Again, maybe this was banter and I'm failing to pick up the tone, but I think there may have been a more constructive way to have this conversation. http://www.celephais.net/board/view_thread.php?id=1&start=30994&end=31010

Are either examples "toxic"? It's absolutely not 4chan, but these conversations come off a bit more like meatheadded miscommunications, but they're also both about maintaining a kind of orthodoxy of Quake, which is rather rigid. 

TBA143 made multiple later maps as Ukko though. 

is kinda mild. One guy says "gameplay is bullshit" because it's a map with no ammo in it (i haven't played it myself), but the rest of the beefy comments are actually defending the map it seems. 

Inside jokes are unavoidable among small communities. Especially when they know each other since long. It's never easy at first for the newcomer to get the local spirit and dialog subtleties between old members (!). As a long time Quake lover, steady lurker and rare poster on this forum, I really see this 'toxicity' as an imaginary problem too. Autarchy and self-regulation works well here. Without proper official moderation, I think Func is a great example of a long time healthy community forum after all.

Day by day life between people knowing each other well is generally full of (sometimes nasty) jokes, rants, flames, sometimes anger and rage quits. This is the price to pay when your life is built on love and passion. No mysteries here. No toxicity either. Just healty passionate people. To hell with god-fearing confessions ! (After all, Quake is about lurid dongeons, monsters, gothic visions, bloody body explosions and all, right ?)

And yes, maybe a 'beef thread' is filled with hard to catch spirit from a noob point of view, but anyway in this case, just refer to the Fight Club first rule... 

It's fair enough to say you don't like the name (I don't, for all the same reasons as have been posted). This is just feedback. I think the error there is probably as you say "meatheadded miscommunication" where the language used is a bit too strong for the subject at hand. Serious enough to raise it as an issue though? Quakeulf didn't seem fazed at all by it, so that's debatable.

A good post by JohnXmas btw. :cheers: 

Was there a better way of communicating with an extreme purist who doesn't think our maps are Quake maps anymore. Hmm no I don't think so.

It was obvious bait and/or cry for attention. It was met with an appropiate response. 

Felt like my responsibility, being the organiser of that particular pack.

Speedmaps are a great gateway into mapping, nowadays often very good maps in their own right, and I resent a worthless anon calling tba/ukko's map a troll map that shouldn't have been included.

Anonymous posts are the antithesis of func culture. 

just want to note here that the real toxic comment about TBA's map was from some fuckwad wanking shitecovered cumguzzling dick inhaling asshole anon again. 

@Kinn
My point is not just the comments directed at TBA's map. The whole conversation turned into a beef where it was difficult for additional feedback that wouldn't get wrangled in. It's all a bit "salt the earth and let nothing grow"... or, to JohnXmas's point, it may be playful banter that I'm misinterpreting as a relative newcomer to the scene.

@otp
Good to know TBA is Ukko! That deflates my point a bit, but that's a good thing. 

There's no two ways about it, anonyposts have the ability to trigger a shitstorm, where otherwise there wouldn't have been one.

As soon as someone is accountable for what they say, they tend to be more civil.

The shit-talk propagates in both directions, when anons are involved. As well as anons shit-talking, a logged-in poster can also shit-talk back at the anon without needing to be civil in any way, because it's not personal. You don't know who's on the receiving end and it's fair game.

So it was that shitpost begat shitpost begat shitpost begat shitpost , until the great brown ouroboros of shitposting finally disappeared into its own arsehole and func was no more, save for a small, rusty-hued, infinitely dense pucker in the fabric of cyberspace.

The quake community, born from a love of the brown game, eventually died at the hands of the brown post. 

This one started over on #tf Discord and continued over here.

http://www.celephais.net/board/view_thread.php?id=31497&start=1033&end=1033

Could you blame a newcomer for reading this and being a bit put off? 

...is that people who have left here due to harassment or rudeness aren't around to explain why and who was responsible. Which makes this thread kind of pointless. 

My newcomer's perspective: I basically started speaking to the people who were receptive to my mapping interests and answering my questions. Nonsense posts I didn't understand did not concern me so I left them alone (who knows what long standing beef exists between strangers on the internet). After getting to know who is who, it's really not so bad. It is the internet after all, but more than that, it's an internet forum about a video game. Banter is part of any community after all- digital or otherwise.

The time has come to abolish the schisms of yesterday! One global Quake community- One struggle! 

When I made and released my one and only deathmatch map I was expecting it to be praised as one of the best ever made. Of course it was reviewed as nothing more than average, and me being the teenager I was at the time with a thin skin, threw a bitch fit. I was then promptly told I was full of shit, and rightly so. I'll never forget that.

But anyway every community has toxicity and drama, but besides a few bad apples I like to believe Quake's community is the most welcoming to newcomers. Sure you may get busted on every now and then but that's just any community right? That's not being toxic. Even if a person's first map or mod is total garbage, the majority of people here will say don't give up, keep going and you will get better. Not unlike certain members of the Doom community... 

Literally no one cares. 

Kinn: Quite possibly.

Mclong: Thanks for posting examples, that doesn't seem like singling people out, but just giving clear examples.

For the SM thread, I think it's pretty fair to be critical of a map with no ammo, even to the extent of calling the gameplay bullshit (by negke who is far too grumpy to troll). It takes a matter of seconds to dump some ammo boxes in. The consensus seemed to be it was a valid criticism, but an anon accusing it of being a troll map was less valid.

For the RetroPEW thread, there might have been some harshness, but I stand by my criticism on the basis that the name is scientifically and objectively awful. I - amongst other people - did praise the site for the concept.

For both of these examples, yes there is some harshness, but it's not against the person, and it is for a reason.

JohnXmas - good post from an irregular participant.

Killes - eloquently put. As I've said before, having registration as a pre-requirement to harsh commentary or beef is useful for accountability, which brings me on to...

Dumptruck - firstly, you're right, this thread might be unfortunately more pointless than I hoped, if people are no longer around to air things out. Although maybe that indicates the problems they had are no longer around??

Secondly, that is an interesting example. There is beef between OTP and Muk....plenty of know this and shrug it off, it's just two fluffly little things kicking their wee paws at each other again. It's self-contained interpersonal beef. BUT....is this off-putting in general?? Is it toxic in general?? I don't know. Maybe a bit if people don't know that it's just a couple of people beefing away (a familiar part of ANY community).

Kinn - also a conclusive argument.

Orl - there is a certain amount of rigorousness here, but then again that does partly encourage quality and progress (and it's usually combined with encouragement).

OTP - wheesht. 

I've spoken up here a few times in the programming help thread asking for help with what in retrospect was pretty obvious shit that's covered by the multitude of quake spec docs floating around. I still got multiple people each time answering my questions and helping me understand things I wasn't sure of.

The same for the quake mapping discord. I took part in the dm4 map jam, and my map was kind of shit, but whenever I asked a question or showed screens I got honest feedback that was no more harsh or pointed than warranted.

Place is fine. 

Not too long ago, acting like a xenophobic fuckhead in #terrafusion would have gotten you politely disinvited from func and ongoing events.

In 2019, calling out xenophobic fuckheads gets your post deleted for being "Unnecessarily off-topic and hostile"?

Shambler, maybe the first proper step in addressing the "toxic community" question would be to actually confront the bigotry, instead of shoving it under the carpet. But apparently you prefer to make big sweeping statements about not tolerating fringe behavior, and then chose to not act on them when necessary. 

If you highlight current xxx-phobias in areas where I can moderate them, then I will be sure to confront that and act on it when necessary.