"Feedback without Criticism" subforum and discord channel

As has been known for a while, and somewhat back in the spotlight now, that the forum and discord channels can get rough pretty quickly. I myself made some misguided but well-intentioned suggestions and got an undeserved rough treatment.

This does not help us get feedback from new people, it is very discouraging to get such responses or see people get them. Therefore I suggest setting up a subforum and discord channel for this.

Primary Purpose: get much more information from new, low-rated and sensitive people
Secondary Purpose: give these people a safe way to participate in the community

Basic rules:

• Negative or harsh responses are not allowed, posts will be deleted without warning
• (Constructive) criticism is strongly discouraged, mod may interfere without warning
• Asking questions to get to the core is encouraged
• To discuss a point raised, create a new topic in another subforum

Example misguided post and proper reaction:

OP: Seraphim ruin the land game!
No responses for 3 days: post ignored, there is nothing to say
Inquisitive person: Why do you feel that way?"

I'm willing to be a moderater for this forum, Discord too in principle but I am too busy to be an effective Discord mod.

Ideally this subforum and channel should be up ASAP, well before the end of the Player Councilor election

I think it's important to remember that the FAF forums are not necessarily a place to complain. You're bringing up suggestions that ultimately, other people are going to have to take the time to implement, and then take the flak if something goes wrong.

It's honestly disappointing that I would have to read something like this during my time on FAF. While I won't deny that sometimes, critique or responses are needlessly aggressive. The previous "era" on FAF saw a lot of instances where things were added to the game simply because "someone made it". This led to times where at best, people couldn't use the UI anymore and at worse - they stopped contributing entirely.

I would rather you tried something different, such as an anonymous feedback form instead.

Moderating suggestions contains major problems to do with positive feedback loops. Meaning the lack of any real negative responses might lead people to believe a solution is worth adding when it that is not the case. What are we supposed to do when they ask a developer to consider working on their suggestion? The balance team? Are they supposed to be gunned down on the spot once they leave the bubble? Or are they going to be flat out ignored and then wonder why FAF isn't listening to them when it's clearly a good idea?

I would like to think a community can help people grow, part of that is eventually learning that the ideas you bring to the table are not good enough. Again, it's other people that have to bear the brunt of these ideas.

valki said in "Feedback without Criticism" subforum and discord channel:

Ideally this subforum and channel should be up ASAP

So things made very quickly and without iteration should not be assumed to be worth the effort without strong rationale or research.

We're lucky to be past the time where volunteer developers were beyond any form of scrutiny. It's on the community to make sure the tables are not just flipped in the other direction.

@biass said in "Feedback without Criticism" subforum and discord channel:

I would rather you tried something different, such as an anonymous feedback form instead.

That might be even better, even lower threshold, and I understand your concern about positive feedback loops.