Topic: Ideas for the site.

@Tasuki No, thanks for replying. We may fundamentally disagree, but at least you've taken the time to respond and explain your position. That's more than most places would do.

I guess I just saw it from the perspective of somebody wanting to help out. If somebody needs help with a specific trophy in a game, we have a place for that. If somebody has a personal problem and wants to chat about it, we have a place for that, too, but when somebody is trying to study an element of game design in the hopes of advancing the field, potentially leading to developments that improve the gaming experience for all of us, we tell them to move along... I dunno, as I said, I just felt it was a little harsh.

Perhaps if he'd asked his questions without using a link to a survey site, just as a conversation topic with bullet-points for people to quote and reply to, he'd have been okay? Obviously without asking people's gender in a public forum, of course. At least the survey made that part anonymous.

Sorry, I don't mean to keep pestering you about this. I'm just curious about where the line is.

Thanks also to @KratosMD and @kyleforrester87 and @BAMozzy for their replies to my question. All good and fair points which I can totally understand.

@RogerRoger I don't necessarily agree with a lot of the rules and I don't think they properly reflect the needs/size of this community, for example a regular user not being able to post a video of a game they recorded as it is "advertising"? Clearly there is a difference between this and a new user signing up with a load of links to their Twitch stream. These rules are probably more suitable over at NL where it's a bit busier - but then you don't need to agree with the rules to follow them haha. I just wish a bit more discretion and (dare I say) common sense was used sometimes. It's a small price to pay at the end of the day, and while small there are some good people here so maybe there is method to the madness.

@kyleforrester87 Oh, hey... Push Square is one of the nicest, most civil corners of the internet and whatever's responsible for that, long may it continue.

If that means the rules are slightly harsh at times, I can totally understand.

@RogerRoger No your not pestering it's all.good. keep in mind though that there is a signature space at the bottom of your post. We encourge people to use that space to post links for surveys, personal YouTube channels etc. After all that's what it's there for. That way when you contribute to the various posts people will see the links and can choose for themselves if they want to visit the link and it doesn't look as intrusive as a post asking to visit a link does in the forum section.

@kyleforrester87 @RogerRoger I post on Nintendo Life at times and it almost always ends badly.
I for one am happy that the mods take such a 'black or white' stance on the rules. The staff here have cultivated a wonderful community.
Members know what's expected of them and how to behave.
Would I like to post some videos on the site? Yes.
Would I do so at the risk of opening up the site to potential spam? No.

Perhaps the 'seniority' system @BAMozzy has suggested in the past would be a better solution.

@Fight_Teza_Fight pretty much agree with you to be honest, I would like some more discretion but it'd be a lot more work and probably end up in more arguments.

@kyleforrester87 The site's in a weird transitional period. It's clearly growing. I remember seeing a couple of PushSquare articles get referenced by some YouTubers I follow some weeks back.
With popularity comes criticism & criticism leads to confrontation.

@Fight_Teza_Fight Yeah, I was listening to a random podcast a month or so ago and they referenced a Push Square article.
If we made it a free-for-all in the comments and forums then it would risk becoming another toxic environment like several other sites and forums I could name. I feel more comfortable keeping it controlled and if that means keeping stricter rules then I can get behind that.

At the end of the day, its these rules that have helped PushSquare to become such a great community and why it doesn't have quite the toxic environment that other sites do. I do think that maybe there ought to be some stricter rules for 'newcomers' - especially as a number of those only seem to join to create Spam, ask a question (like why has Sony banned me, can you fill in this survey, can you watch my youtube video) and then you never see them again so having some 'buffer' could at least be prevented at source rather than being reactionary and dealing with things 'afterwards'. Those that are 'genuine' can be helped by the moderator who is assessing their post in the buffer - direct them to the rules, direct them to the correct thread to ask for help etc and that also helps 'long term' too as these newcomers are helped and the 'bad' don't get to disrupt or annoy the regulars.

I know that may require more 'work' and, as @Tasuki points out, they cannot moderate the site 24/7 as it is, the other options is that PushSquare has more moderators to be able to cover the site 24/7. This would 'share' the workload as the next moderator shouldn't be dealing with 'hours' of posts because the moderator before them has dealt with things that cropped up. You wouldn't necessarily need a 'buffer' either because the site is constantly being moderated, they can still be reactionary and deal with it instantly rather than 'hours' later. Even with the 'buffer' though, the workload wouldn't 'increase because you don't have 1/2 people having to go through 'hours' of posts when they do get online - just the posts made during their watch because they are taking over from someone else who has dealt with all issues during their watch.

Anyway, its up to the owners how they want to progress but as far as the rules themselves go, I think on the whole they are big contributor to the fantastic PushSquare community that has built up - long may it continue!

@Fight_Teza_Fight Again that's why we have the signature space so if you would like to post a link to your YouTube channel by all means that's what it's there for. (Hope that didn't come off rude).

@BAMozzy Honestly the amount of new users we get vs Spammers is quite low. We get alot more users who just want to be part of.the community or want to ask a simple question. As for spammers we don't get a whole due to Ant's measures he takes. I mean yes we did have a rash a few weeks ago but prior to that we didn't have too many. Just like any sercurity system though people will find away around it.

I really appreciate the feedback guys.

@Tasuki Not at all. I don't actually have a YT channel, but some time ago I wanted to share a gameplay video, but thought it might be against the rules. Doesn't matter now anyways, as I lost that footage :/ .
Anyways...
Site is great as it is. The rules exist for a reason and they obviously work.

I'm grateful for the responses from @Tasuki and others, and seeing how this conversation evolved yesterday evening and overnight, I'll just highlight my favourite part and leave it there for now.

Hear hear.

@Tasuki @get2sammyb @antdickens I'd like to request an IM (Instant Messenger) category in Account/Profile settings under Social.

Either that or please add "fields"/entries for Skype, Discord, and Telegram.

Source: https://www.pushsquare.com/user/settings#tab-group-social

@ToddlerNaruto I actually have no control over the design of the site, that's more @antdickens department but I will pass the word along.

If you like however you can post that sort of information in you signature for now.

Thanks, I will consider that if the answer is no.

@Tasuki In the rules I thought that homebrew and stuff was allowed for previous generations? Wouldn’t that mean the guy’s thread who was asking for help falls under the rules? It’s constructive and I think trying to fix your console falls under that purpose.

@Jaz007 Not here I am afraid. And because he broke the console trying to hack it discussion is not allowed here because it's going into that area. If for example he was trying to swap out the HDD or even say like it stopped reading discs that's fine but breaking the console because of attempting to hack it isnt open for discussion.

@Tasuki @Jaz007 if it's for the previous generation of consoles then it's fine by us. As long as we keep links to sites with copyrighted content out of it.

@ToddlerNaruto there's so many different IM systems I think it would be overkill to list them all, therefore probably best to add it in your forum sig

@antdickens Okay thanks. Could I also create a forum thread/topic for the purpose of sharing IM IDs if people so desire to?

Like the PSN ID thread/topic, but for IMs like Skype, Discord, Telegram etc? Would love to hear @get2sammyb and @Tasuki 's thoughts on this as well.