Reducing Pesky Fan Noise?

Thanks to FiringSquad for their editorial about how gamers and developers interact in public forums, inspired by Alex 'Marweas' Rodberg's public outburst in the HomeWorld 2 forums, which in turn inspired a Penny Arcade strip about the trials and tribulations of being a 'community manager'. The FiringSquad article suggests that "...there's an increasing divide between the people who make the games and the people who play them. And guess whose fault it is? It's yours, not theirs", and goes on to venture that "Online interaction is so impersonal, so fraught with assurances of anonymity, and so littered with the maladjusted and juvenile, that there are no social repercussions for acting like a jackass." What's to be done?

Comments

Re:IRC

[FooAtWFU]

I hang out on #angband (WorldIRC network). While I can't say that there are 400+ users the channel has a simple solution. Nearly everyone is an operator.
Of those 41 users who are on as I write this, 33 are ops. There are also about 5 bots and 2 services. There are a large number of regulars- impossible to count exactly, of course, but over 100 who are at least quasi-regular.

If some random jerk comes in and immediately starts advertising (and I quote from earlier today: "just go here.. really fun free game! join up!! http:// its like fantasy sports! except an RPG!") or something else truly idiotic and annoying, they get kicked. Boof.

People pulling mass de-ops are not an issue, since channel services can let many people back on to kick+ban the idiot who did it.

True, we still have occasional issues, policy conflicts and an ongoing conflict with a certain person who shall not be named (yes, person occasionally suffixing name with Dharma, you!)... but that is to be expected in any community this size, and people mostly deal with him farily well. Morons are (mostly) disposed of swiftly.

I don't know that I could stand being on a channel with 400+ people anyway, even if they are all completely legitimate people. If even a fraction of these people were actively chatting, it would be as loud as all get-out...