I am only going to say this once....

[robbalvey]

Guys, gals, everyone....

 

Over the past week I've noticed a lot more "bickering" going on in this forum than ever before.

 

People near-flaming someone else for opinions, taking our personal issues on the forum, etc.

 

You need to 'calm down.' Seriously. If you don't like one another, that's something you need to work out amongst yourselves, but DO NOT TAKE IT OUT ON THE BOARDS!

 

I do not want to have to start closing threads and banning people, but I will if I have to.

 

This is a place to have fun, post goofy stuff, and enjoy each other's company.

 

Understood?

 

--Robb "Please police yourselves because you don't want us to have to do it!" Alvey

[CoasterFanatic]

I do not want to have to start closing threads and banning people, but I will if I have to.

 

Sometimes it just can't be avoided.

 

Typical Flame Process:

 

1. Someone voice personal opinion

2. Someone disagrees

3. Person who voiced original opinion fires

4. Person who disaggrees fires back

 

You have to have all 4 of those step to constitute a flame war. That means to prevent one all you have to do is eliminate one step!

 

Examples:

 

1. If someone disagrees with you just simply say "that is just my opinion and your allowed to have yours and I respect that"

2. After the person fires their first shot, just simply ignore it

 

Hope this helps. Sometime you just have to turn the other cheek and walk away. Your not going to lose any man points for it.

[robbalvey]

^ Correct. And the only thing you will lose is the ability to post on these boards.

 

--Robb

[Sir Clinksalot]

Yeah, I don't think you have had to ban anybody yet, and it's kind of nice to keep it that way.

 

But, as with anything there are always some bad-eggs.

[disneygurlz2s]

And, behave in the chat room while you are at it!!

 

Shari "Robb had to kick butt and take names while I was there yesterday afternoon" Shoufler

[robbalvey]

^ and yeah, two people DID end up getting banned because of that!

 

--Robb

[Sir Clinksalot]

But ultimately at the end of the day, THAT is the point of forums, any DISCUSSION will have people voicing their opinions and people will ALWAYS disagree.

 

People tend to percieve THEIR opinions as right no matter what, although some people can and do respect others opinions, It tends to depend on age alot.

 

The whole point of forums is to engage people in discussion, sometimes heated because that is the nature of the beast. To not allow that kind of defeats the point of having a forum.

 

If things turn personal then those people REALLY need to get some perspective and calm down, that's definitely out of order but that's when warnings/bannings take place.

 

Most of the time if a topic is about something that people feel strongly about, Politics, Religion, Wars etc. then I simply don't post, it's not worth the potential upset.

[robbalvey]

The whole point of forums is to engage people in discussion, sometimes heated because that is the nature of the beast. To not allow that kind of defeats the point of having a forum.

 

What? Who ever said I wasn't allowing "discussions???"

 

Discussion is fine. Difference of opinions is fine. Even if a discussion gets a bit heated is fine. Bickering and yelling at people because they have an opinion will NOT be tolerated here. Acting childish and typing in HUGE TEXT is NOT going to be allowed on this board either!

 

The reason for this thread is because there has been a lot of bickering, name calling, and childish behavior going on, which I have had to delete. Those of you who are doing it know who you are, and if it doesn't stop, your accounts will be banned. Plain and simple.

 

I never said we were banning having "discussions."

 

--Robb "Who knows what the point of forums are all about, thanks." Alvey

[Sir Clinksalot]

What? Who ever said I wasn't allowing "discussions???"

 

Discussion is fine. Difference of opinions is fine. Even if a discussion gets a bit heated is fine. Bickering and yelling at people because they have an opinion will NOT be tolerated here. Acting childish and typing in HUGE TEXT is NOT going to be allowed on this board either!

 

The reason for this thread is because there has been a lot of bickering, name calling, and childish behavior going on, which I have had to delete. Those of you who are doing it know who you are, and if it doesn't stop, your accounts will be banned. Plain and simple.

 

--Robb "Who knows what the point of forums are all about, thanks." Alvey

 

It was difficult to know exactly what you meant from your initial post.

 

Near-flaming isn't exactly easy to quantify, most heated replies could be construed as "near" or even full on flaming. Attacking someone is quite different though, especially personally and I totally understand your stance.

 

Personal attacks are out of order no matter what the circumstances.

 

I totally agree with you, just your initial post wasn't particularly clear for those who haven't come across the cases you are referring to, it sounded more generic than it is.

 

Sorry for misinterpreting your initial post.

 

Simon "Who doesn't make personal attacks in his signature" Brown

[robbalvey]

^ That's ok. I'm assuming one of the reasons you probably haven't seen examples of it, is because we have been deleting them. So you being confused is actually probably a good thing in a way!

 

I should have stated before "Those of you who are doing it, know who you are...everyone else ignore this thread..."

 

--Robb "Didn't want to make it sound like it's a global issue!" Alvey

[Twister II]

I think flaming starts when people PUSH their opinons on others directly.

 

I try hard not to, just try to type IMO, instead of "I dont aggree" etc.

[Mr.Six]

Well, two things I've noticed.

1- Usually the pointless bickering isn't even about the topic at hand. Usually something gets started due to a side note on someone's post. So, perhaps it would help if we tried to stay to the topic at hand and not make other comments on seperate events.

 

2- It seems like "most" of the bickering is done by the "younger" crowd. Now, I realize me being 16 puts me in a younger crowd. But I try to act as mature as I can while discussing serious issues. So, for all of us younger people, lets try to keep things clean on the boards!

 

Michael"Do it for the Donkeys!"Thomas

[maliboomer]

I admit I did do a bit of softcore flaming towards two members....but I've stopped! We don't want this turning into coasterbuzz...

[robbalvey]

^ Thank you.

[Maynard_Hicks]

I promise to stop pushing my opinion on other people, I have already started the metamorphosis. I am doing it so I can acheive peace with myself, and reach 46 & 2.

 

Oh happy day brother.

[benzo41190]

sometimes I do find myself arguing but it is usually when I am not feeling well. I will try harder to stop myself.

[Gregory DG]

As long as people don't voice their opinions on politics & religion, 99% of flame wars won't happen.

 

I've seen good boards go down the tubes when those topics pop up. Avoid at all costs.

[Angry_Gumball]

It's weird...it's amazing how they can start, as an example in the RCT/Coaster game forum here. I replied in a topic about BPB park not loading and then it went into this debate of RCT3 sucking and beginning stages of flaming, completely off topic of the park to begin with...I just simply stated that it wouldn't load up on mine.

[CoasterEricHP]

There's a difference in argueing with someone rudely.. or argueing while at least understanding everyone has an opinion that might not match yours. I've been on a few boards and I only really post on here anymore because the other ones are AWFUL now! All people do is fight over stupid crap..

 

Robb/Elissa, thanks for actually not being afraid to do something about this and keeping TPR awesome and entertaining! Seriously.. where else can you look at *PHOTO* TR's on anything from bowling and getting a tattoo to Alton Towers?!

 

Eric

[Sir Clinksalot]

To quote the great Mr. Vernon:

 

Next time I have to come in here, I'm crackin' skulls

[AllisonY2K]

 

to quote the great John Bender, "Eat. My. Shorts."

[Sir Clinksalot]

It's weird...it's amazing how they can start, as an example in the RCT/Coaster game forum here. I replied in a topic about BPB park not loading and then it went into this debate of RCT3 sucking and beginning stages of flaming, completely off topic of the park to begin with...I just simply stated that it wouldn't load up on mine.

 

To be fair, you didn't "simply" state it wouldn't load up on your machine.

You suggested that the park was somehow to fault because you have a "decent" computer.

 

Too bad it won't work on a decent computer. Not unless BPB looks like some gray box with a red X on one side with some error message text with an OK button.

 

To which I replied saying that it worked fine on my "average" machine and gave you some suggestions to try and help you get that park (and the other park you said failed with the same error) to work.

 

Here is what I said:

I think something else may be at issue here, NvCpl.dll is the NVIDIA Display Properties Extension. Which suggests either you have driver issues or you don't have enough RAM/Virtual Memory. Try installing the latest NVIDIA Drivers (which at the time of post are 77.72), as for RAM and VM Windows should do a reasonable job of expanding VM as needed. How much RAM and free Disk Space (on C: ) do you have ?

 

I had no issues at all with loading BPB (except the HUGE loading time, mostly due to my lack of RAM I imagine) and I've not exactly got a great machine. (Athlon XP1700+, GF4Ti4400, 512Mb PC2700)

 

I did however take exception to Stitch's completely non-constructive and off-topic post and replied to that AFTER the tips intended for you. My original replies were simply opposing the suggestion you couldn't make large parks in RCT3 which is simply false. To which Stitch's replies in the end were getting quite aggressive so I suggested he PM me to discuss things further as the thread was already turning way off-topic. To which he never PM'ed me so I just assumed that was the end of it.

 

In hindsight I shouldn't have even replied to him to begin with but what's done is done and at least I did try to take it off the boards once the whole debacle started getting personal.

[FlyingScooter]

I just noticed this thread today.

Since Robb opened the forums on this site, the one thing that has made it a pleasure to be here is the Lack of Flaming and fighting.

I'd personally hate to see Robb put in the position to stop the forums, but if the headaches get too much, the plug will get pulled and that would be perfectly understandable. He hasn't said anything to this effect yet, but it would seen a logically order if banning people doesn't work.

Let's not put him into this posiition.

-Mark