[vent] A harassment problem within the community

This is going to be more like a thing I need to vent about rather than something else you would find on the forums because I feel like I need to share this for other people to know. There appears to be a problem within the community that involves harassing specific people. What do I mean by this? Well there was something that happened yesterday that made me feel obligated to write this, what it was is me saying that in the past year I felt uninterested to play on the hunt based levels which involve hunting for gems and compete for the best score and would rather play on the coop based levels which involve working together to beat a standard level under a time you can't normally get by yourself. What happened after I said this? Oh it was not great, the people who mainly play the hunt based multiplayer levels came together saying my opinion is "dogshit and you should feel bad" and apparently saying I was being disrespectful with my opinion somehow, which I was just saying i prefer coop over hunt, yet that got almost every competitive player fuming with just an opinion. You might be wondering, is this the only time something like this happened? It's far from that, there are many more experiences like this but to not make this post too long, I will only be talking about one more. It's about allowing people to use the gem radar on my levels. Whenever I build levels for Marble Blast, I allow people to use the radar to search for any gems or powerups or the finish to avoid any instances of people potentially wasting a lot of time just to look for one gem, which was a very common issue with a lot of ancient Marble Blast Gold custom levels where radar was nonexistent. What's the problem with this? Well honestly I have no idea, radar is available on every level from the main games as well as most custom levels, yet people decide to target my levels in specific, not from any other level creator or the main levels. Now, I am currently typing this while not being in the server as I have decided to take a break from it after the most recent attempt of harassment towards me. I also talk within two other communities and they do not have a problem like this at all, everyone from there is really nice to talk to!! I feel like we definitely need to change something about this community to make it less like a place to bully others and more like an actual community where we can share our interest with the game!! In the end, if you are one of the very few people who decided to hear me out, then thanks for listening!! The people who were harassing me are most likely going to pass off this vent as not important at all while I think this is something at least one other person needs to know about.

Yes, I too wish online communities were less intense. Many people in the community can take insults or mean comments/teasing just fine, but this just makes others feel like giving such teases and insults is normal, and thus other more sensitive people end up receiving some. Arguments also happen often enough that people assume everyone is willing to argue, but they don't take into account people who are very protective of themself and who may get upset with people strongly disagreeing with them and persuading others to. Personally I'm not as sensitive, but being kind to more sensitive people is important for me, even online. My brother and my mom are both a lot more sensitive to insults than me, and I've had to learn the hard way to always stay at a certain level to not push them over the edge. If everyone could learn to respect people who could break down easily communities like this would have less crashouts, less people leaving the community for a while just because they feel disrespected. If anyone else from the community sees this, I strongly encourage you to be more considerate of your words and arguments, especially toward more sensitive members of the community. Thanks.

I agree that the community has a problem where people aren't considerate enough about more sensitive people. Having grown up with my brother and my mom, both of whom are more sensitive than me, I've learned how important it is not to push people over the edge. In this community, it can lead to people leaving the community temporarily or permanently due to their anger toward people who make fun of or disagree with them. I believe people online should show a similar amount of respect toward sensitive individuals as you would in real life. For the others who can take a tease or insult, just be mindful of who is less competitive, or who doesn't like being made fun of. It would truly make this community a better place. If you disagree with someone sensitive, don't make fun of their opinion. State your own and respect theirs if it differs. If you see something in their wording that seems a little too much (aka competitive slop) don't absolutely berate them for it. Suggest a correction and calmly state that not everyone hates multiplayer. If they still think you're obnoxious that's on them. Just try not to push people who would rather be let alone.

I see two issues here. First of all, it seems what you are feeling is that people in this community often have a very blunt, sometimes bordering on harsh way of expressing themselves that can be difficult to grapple with if you're not used to it. If you are able to try and see past the harsh words on the surface, you will often discover that the intentions behind them is for a good purpose. I agree with charlemaniac that sometimes we as a community could do better not to push people's buttons just for the hell of it. 

However, in your post you didn't mention the fact that you called a tournament we have all worked really hard on "competitive slop," and this is why people were upset with you. Of course it doesn't feel good to have tons of people upset with you. But how would it feel to you if i said "hey Jaxx, i don't understand why people like your hell train levels, they're all slop, BUT that's just my opinion." (for what it's worth, i actually like your levels a lot). When you say something that hurts people, you won't always get a nice reaction. It's very important to try and imagine being in someone else's perspective.

It is perfectly okay to not want to participate in competitive hunt. For example, I have not had much interest in speedrunning singleplayer lately. But I would never think of calling the latest Marble Blast Gold rampage "speedrunning slop" because it's important to lots of people who have worked very hard on it. 

I am sorry it feels like you had to see lots of insults thrown your way. Next time you see walls of text where it seems like people are hating on you, here's what i think you should do: focus only on ONE person's message, ignore everyone else, and consider why they are reacting in this manner. For yesterday's example, you could ignore what everyone else said in that disagreement and just look at what ShadowVisions said, and try to have a respectful conversation. I encourage you to try and think instead of the walls of text as people really trying hard to get you to understand why they are all upset. 

Best wishes to you in your break from the community.
-Eguy (Emile)


 

Jaxx, since you and I have had these issues before I am just going to lay out exactly how I feel. It's just my opinion though, don't take it too seriously.

You consistently find ways to make yourself a victim. Whether it be because of the fact that you insist upon poking at things that people do not want you to poke at, be it the multiplayer scene or your insistence on using force radar, your passive-aggressive Discord statuses that you choose whenever you have the slightest disagreements with people or the fact that you have shown a pattern of talking down upon community members that have given a lot of their time and energy into this game, you have consistently found an issue that you can exploit and turn yourself into a victim.

You hide behind the fact that it's "just your opinion," which is not a defense of your own actions in the slightest. You are not required to like Hunt. You are not required to play Hunt. You are allowed to like playing co-op more. However, when you frame your take as "well, it seems that something that an entire subsection of the community is dedicating a lot of time an effort to is "competitive slop", the latter words of which was the exact verbiage you used, you cannot turn around and pretend to be the victim when you are the one holding the baseball bat that you've swung at the proverbial hornet's nest. To give you an idea: ShadowVisions has spent hundreds of hours of his own time and expertise to create a Discord bot to make our gameplay experiences more fun and immersive. He has also sacrificed his own free-time to run the very tournament you've called competitive slop. You single-handedly insulted a large subsection of the community by indirectly calling their time and effort slop.

Now, let's take a step back. You admittedly called Eguy's recent custom levels "blender slop." Which, in itself, is not only an inane comment, but it is also another example of how you talk down upon community members that are well-liked and have been pillars of the community since long before you joined it. Eguy is, for all intents and purposes, one of the most friendly people in the community. The reason you felt the need to call his levels "slop" is beyond me. I further do not understand your need to call things "slop." Is this your new favorite word? You also have repeatedly shown that you refuse to let old grudges go - your consistent down-voting of Endy's levels when he made them was just one example. The fact that you also called Connie "the bitch" is another.

I will also briefly touch upon the fact that you sent fetish content in a server filled with minors, then proceeded to turn it into another way to make yourself a victim. Even if you did not know what you were sending was, in fact, fetish art, you still bear the responsibility of owning up to it instead of deflecting and crying foul when the moderators actually did something about it. As a matter of fact, I am quite surprised this did not end with you getting a community time-out considering you managed to turn it into you taking offense that we did not appreciate you sending fetish art.

Furthermore, let us also touch upon the fact that you somehow manage to make everything that you don't like into some personal affront. We've gotten into this before - you complained that there was a community scheduled event on the top of the community Discord. This is, in and of itself, another bizarre hill to die on. I've noticed that you did not complain about it in the slightest when it was other community events. It was not until it was the tournament event that you took your chance to complain about it. It's a simple UI - you can scroll past it, just as every other person who did not want to participate did. When I told you that you could just ignore it, you turned around and made your Discord status a passive-aggressive call-out instead of just... acknowledging it and moving on.

Let's also talk more about your asinine defenses of Force Radar. There are multiple reasons why Force Radar is not something that most level creators use. For one, many feel that the point of playing a custom level is to explore and find things on your own. Forcing the radar to be on takes away from this. Secondly, authentic-feeling Marble Blast Gold levels do not have a radar. And third, perhaps most importantly, players that wish to use the radar can simply just turn it on by themselves. They do not need it to be on for them. They are more than capable of doing it themselves. You, again, chose to instead turn this into a point where you can make yourself the victim and die upon a pointless hill instead of listening to any criticisms of your work.

I do not know why you insist upon starting arguments and then turning around and playing the victim, but if nobody else will, I will tell you:
It is childish.
It is annoying.
It is the very reason that people reacted the way they did to you calling the tournament "competitive slop."

Had that opinion come from someone else, I believe that most people would have passed on reacting the way we did. However, your consistent pattern of insulting and belittling community members that most people would agree are not only friendly but important pieces of the fabric of the community turned this from a minor issue into a flashpoint. You are young. You are also, beyond a doubt, impossible to deal with on a regular basis because you either are extremely ignorant of what is acceptable in a social setting or are intentionally trying to turn yourself into a victim. Either way, I believe it is best that you take time away from the community and reflect upon why we might feel this way about you as opposed to turning this into another chance to victimize yourself and live in a make-believe world where you are always right and the community is always wrong.

But hey, that's just my opinion. Don't take it too seriously.

I understand how you feel by speaking with experience of being in the community for a few years now. The other two posts just appear to be a lot of yapping, especially the one by Icarus that is so much yapping just to target someone who is autistic

I forgot to mention in my original vent but I have told some of my friends from those other servers about the game and I got one of them to play it!! Though I tell them to not join the server because of how often people love to harass others here. Another thing too was when I was saying my opinion about gem hunt I said to not take the opinion too seriously, yet they took it seriously for whatever reason.

[okay this was meant to be a reply to charlemaniac]

that lot of "yapping" was me taking time out of a busy day to try and help you because i felt like being helpful. I guess you being unable to appreciate others' hard work seems to be a consistent pattern...

Somehow, I feel that the responses to Jaxx's post yesterday and his thread today only really prove Jaxx's points, and that the inflammatory responses found here should really be toned down quite a bit.

Jaxx I kinda get your feeling but sometimes you just gotta apologize and move on. Some of the things you say are quite disrespectful, even if you don't mean it that way.

I can't say I'm surprised that you wrote off genuine responses as "yapping", but it's entertaining nonetheless. I want to take this seriously, I really do, but the fact that you brought up the radar "incident" is just too funny because it's one of the biggest examples of you making a mountain out of a molehill for zero reason. How you're not able to reread that conversation and realize that is baffling. I hope at some point you're able to take a step back and have an open mind to what we say, but I doubt it.

Jaxx, I saw how you started the situation in the discord server and then completely left that out of your post. I see how you try to lie about the custom level radar situation (people disagreed with it being forced, not with it being allowed). And now I see how you completely dismiss the serious and genuine responses by multiple people as "yapping", despite the fact that you yourself said "The people who were harassing me are most likely going to pass off this vent as not important at all". You did the exact thing you thought others would do. 

"If you smell shit everywhere, then look under your own shoe."

Should you return to the community, you really need to learn to take onboard what other people say to you and take accountability for your actions when you do something that frustrates or upsets others. The way you dismissed people trying to help you out earlier was immature, rude, and ignorant. I fear how you treat people in real life if this is how you act online.

I'm more than likely talking to a brick wall with this post. It's a shame that this has to be my mentality, but after repeating this same behaviour for ages, at this rate it doesn't seem likely that you'll learn your lesson, before said lesson comes around and hits you in the face later on down the line, and trust me when I say that is not fun to deal with in the slightest. Please choose how you act wisely, I'm sure people don't want another case of a person in the community with serious potential yet unacceptable behaviour.

 

I don't like competitive hunt. But I still get along with people who participate in these events. Why? I appreciate them and all their works and contributions they've done. As Icarus said, ShadowVisions took a lot of time and expertise in making a bot to make Gem Hunt matches more fun and immersive. And he has organized tournaments, both of those are not an easy task.

I think the problem relies on your perspective too. Taking the situation when you called Endy's levels "blender slop". That is a sign of only focusing on the negatives (jealous that you can't be as skillful as him). In life, we need to know both the positives and negatives of something, and then give mixed opinions on what should be improved or fixed. 

I have personally been in this situation before. I was just a weird kid in class with nobody to play with. I was the attention seeker. I was online all day, trying to satisfy the broken part of me. Nobody even celebrated my birthday the day I came into class and told them about it. I was a nobody in class, and my reputation was burned in the MB community (due to old issues people had brought up). I had thought about doing it, and one day, silently, without anyone looking, I... tried. But I thought there's an entire life ahead of me. So I learned important life lessons, took a hiatus from the Discord server and overall just focusing on developing Marble Blast Wildron. As a result, I managed to complete the grade with a successful rating, made good levels for the mod, and even show up on television! If it weren't for Platoxide and A-Game, all three of those things wouldn't happen and I would be someone stuck in the past.

In some cases, we weren't trying to harass you. We were trying to fix you. You can not like competitive hunt, that's OK. You can play co-op, I don't have a problem with that. You can do anything as long as it's not violating the rules. But you posted fetish art to a server filled with minors. That's not OK. Minors shouldn't be exposed to content like this. And you're a minor too, look back at yourself. Even if you like those types of content, you should keep it to yourself. That doesn't mean other minors should be exposed to fetish art the same way that you did. 

I was not trying to offend you in anyway. But, I have also took notice of other people's posts and answers. This may be brutal, but they're right. None of them are "yapping" at all. Most of these people are older than you, who has more experience in life. Though I may be a minor, I think it's logical to give away my own life lessons, because I can't just stand there and watch you suffer. You still have a chance of recovering yourself and make a better impression in the community.

Let the past be the past. If you're going to drag bad memories of the past into your current life, it will continue to mess you up. Please, take time to improve your positives and fix your negatives. Make a timetable, pick books (especially self healing books), and take time to read those in a quiet environment. 

I hope you can understand your mistakes and learn something from other people's replies. That's all for me to say today.
-pasta_real

hello jaxx if you dont like hunt and you think its "competitive slop" you can just play another gamemode it ISNT that hard right

So, instead of actually reading people's opinion about a topic you started, understanding their perspective and trying to reply back with a proper argument to defend yourself or admit/deny something that is against you, you'd rather label it as "yapping" and dodge the whole point of this thread instead?

Way to go, Jaxxinator! You sure don't change.

he has done this before??