A critcism of GBATemp

"Waste of time" you guys act like you're at a job

Simply put, some points are valid. Reporters shouldn't hold a staff position if they're unable or unwilling to properly use that power. They can and should be put just above users. There simply aren't enough staff members to coincide with the time differences between them all. To be able to properly moderate and maintain a forum isn't as easy as giving more people the power, though.

Community can be cancer I have to admit.

This forum is still better than xda where if you ask for a link politely they say somthing cocky instead.

@Ominous66521 we have that. Get a new member asking how to do something or where to find something and you have members that are all "use Google you lazy faggot". Like, Google brought them here dipshits.

^ staff =/= mod though.

Isn't the janitor considered hospital staff because he doesn't do heart surgery?

GBAtemp has alot of hatred between members for some reason. Here people always get to directly insulting the person which they disagree with to the point where it isn't even a civil backhanded insult. For example people here will be quick to call someone a piece of shit out in the open,which to me is completely immature and completely ruins the experience for older members. Not that age is an excuse. I saw an adult man advertising that he was going to mod nintendo switch when the chip comes out,he ended up calling a potential customer a twat. I just do not get how this stuff flies around here,but as far as gaining information related to nintendo goes GBAtemp is the best.

Okay, let's get technical. They shouldn't be seen as someone with authoritative power. Which, on a forum (this isn't a hospital or any place of business) being 'staff' would heavily imply moderation or administration. Why else would the point even be brought up?

I think that there is a big difference between the unwarranted hatred of newbies and arguments between members. Some people just ARE pieces of shit, and after they prove this to other tempers, they can't blame anyone but themselves when people call them out on it.

Where did you get "235 active users" from?

From what I've read this criticism seems very nitpicky. The moderation thing is a fair point, but the subforums thing is not. It lets precise discussion be found for the specific topics at hand which are very popular and each would end up flooding a "homebrew" or "hacking" subforum that was used for all three. It makes more sense to spread them out, as someone who's only interested in one topic has to only click on one to find threads on said topic instead of sifting through post after post of things that are related and tangibly related to the subject. My experience with the late skulltag forums makes me vastly prefer GBATemp's way of doing things.

The point about the userbase is just argued like fucking shit. For the "numerous cases" you talk about you've failed to list anything but one, one of which boils down to opinions. Yes it's controversial, but it's his opinion. GBATemp does not need to be a website where people who do not agree with everyone else politically are banned, lest we end up banning all extremists. While I fucking loathe them all regardless of their political views they have as much right to say their stupid shit here as anyone else does. If people aren't banned for being morons, saying and falling for stupid shit, or making fools of themselves outside of politics, why should someone be banned for saying harsh things? Besides, to a very, very small extent as someone playing devil's avacado here, gender dysphoria *is* a mental illness, just one that's not properly treated and understood, so he's right on that part. Is he being offensive? Absolutely. Should he be punished? Only to make him tone it down. Expressing said opinions, so long as he is not harassing other users with it, should be totally fine.

Why the hell do you use what's basically an anecdotal point to write off the userbase of the forum as awful, then to justify such a silly argument, you cite a website dedicated to inciting drama and documenting it? You can't use the cause of a problem to blame the site for the problem being present. You blame the cause.

The arguments you've listed are basically nitpicks and nonsensical. You pin blame on people who don't deserve it for reasons that come down to more disagreements in moderation philosophy. GBATemp has some shit users, some dipshit users, some unforgivably fucking moronic users, shitposters, trolls, and other undesirables, but the site itself should not have everyone labelled as such by it's incredibly small minority. For every gross furry trying to get hookups on SL, we have someone contributing news and homebrew to the scene. For every guy whose profile is a literal fucking fart joke, there's a bepisman who's a chill guy who doesn't jump down people's throats. For every mindless idiot that takes every statement at face value, there's someone who calls them out on it and tells people to think for themselves. There's two sides to everything. GBATemp is not some forsaken, hopelessly flawed shithole. That label goes more to the SEGA forums, reddit, and 4chan.

Also you linked a fucking XKCD comic, I think at this point your argument is made off of huffed farts.

@WiiUBricker nah man, we go to Maxconsole! xD

So... this isn't really something new nor a big problem. I mostly just ignore people calling me things. I'm to old to mostly care about people calling me things.

Memoir, the definition of staff is:
"all the people employed by a particular organization."
Synonyms: employees, workers, workforce, personnel, hands, hired hands, labourers, human resources, manpower, labour;
office workers, white-collar workers, assistants, secretaries..... and so on.

Being staff does not heavily imply moderation or administration. Staff implies someone who we ask to carry out certain tasks. Sure they're not "employed" in where they get money, but they are assigned with tasks.
We're writing official reviews. They are journalists. They're asked to write for us. They're staff.

Points I agree, points I agree not, overall, there are far worse communities. Personally, I wouldn't have stuck here if I didn't see anything good on GBAtemp.
There are good and bad people everywhere on internet, and we can only deal with them.
Best advice I could give, after I learned the hard way (by lowering myself to the level of crappy users, or simply complaining about problems in here), is that we are human, and we all are different.
We're part of a very big community, and the best way to solve some of the toxicity is by contributing into making this site a better place. Being helpful, good users are very likely to attract more positivity, and make people more inclined to behave the same.
I've got myself teared apart many times, and I finally realised that getting into fights was never worth it.
Better stay at a certain distance, think twice before posting, report rule breaking content if you notice it.

Overall, be nice.

@Vinscool I totally agree!

I'd say the "bad users" or a fairly small minority considering that this is an online forum. Almost all interactions I've had with people have been pleasant.

Edit: I half expected either myself or a certain thread of mine to make the "GBAFail" list. It doesn't look like it's been updated in a while though.

*shrug*
I'm down for any other forum site somebody recommends
though sadly I'm too grounded here and only know the folks here when it comes to forum sites, I've never really gotten into other ones

The title of your medium article seems a bit of a stretch, I wouldn't really call it a mistake in forums. Everyone does there job here and I haven't had any issues with the site.

Hi Ev1l0rd

Judging by the title of your article I was bracing for much harsher language but it wasn't so bad after all. I'm glad you kept it civil. You sure made some decent points, some of which have been answered to by other members of the staff. If you'll allow me to weigh in quick:

1- dissatisfactory moderation: I respect your opinion, but remember that one of our core values on this site is a greater freedom of speech. We have rules, and if someone breaks them they get punished for it. That being said, the rules aren't extremely harsh and I believe this contributes to making GBAtemp a place where people can speak their mind - as long as they are able to withstand counter arguments of all forms. We heavily rely on reports for moderating the forums and blogs so if a rule infringing post isn't removed, it may be because it hasn't been reported. At the end of the day, I won't deny it, enlarging our mod team wouldnt be a problem at all, so I'm going to keep that suggestion in mind. (PS: I havent checked the stats you've given in your article so I can't say if they're true or not, but one thing is certain, the following statement is inaccurate: "it’s always about the same 3–4 staff members doing it.")

2- forum/category structure: again not denying we may have some cleaning up to do. But instead of complaining about it on a 3rd party site why not just officially submit your suggestion here? https://gbatemp.net/forums/site-discussions-suggestions.3/ I can't promise we will follow your exact directions but you can be certain that the staff reads them.

3- I understand you have some sort of conflict with GalladeGuy. You may hate the guy's guts, but here's the thing: he was already warned 3 times which makes him very close to a suspension. If you find that he continues infringing the rules please report his posts (reports are anonymous). He's on a tight leash.

In conclusion yes we certainly arent perfect but we welcome any suggestions for improvement. I'm sorry you felt you had to post such a long rant on a third party site when you could have just posted it here and sparked a constructive discussion.

@Costello very well said. I appreciate that you are allowing people to share their different viewpoints. I am not sure adding more moderators would be a good solution because it is impossible to gauge how someone will react when given power. Adding more moderators could also ruin the chemistry between the mods.

Also wanted to let you know that I appreciate @Isaac moderating style,it's very rare to find someone that is impartial to every single member.People react in a positive way when they perceive that the staff member is treating them fairly as opposed to singling them out.