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[Orange-of-Cthulhu]

The discussion board on Steam IMO is now a negative thing for the game.

There's a ton of trolls in there that for some reason hate DF and want to devote their time to trolling it. So so much of the stuff in there is trolls hating on the game, claiming it is unplayable/horrible due to various troll-reasons.

And in general, the mood in there is just like vile. If there's is a bug, it's immediately like "the devs stole our money and don't want to work on the game" and such stuff.

Steam obviously is not able to moderate it. It's not going to happen that they deal with it.

I suggest deleting it and replacing it with a link to some nice communities with moderation.

I feel like, it is sad that new players looking for advice or the community or whatever then enter a troll den. It would be better to get players away from that foul place and get them into the community.

Tbh I am not sure if I would have played the game if the first discussion place I see is full of people claiming the game is unplayable due to crashes, the devs don't care ever to fix anything in the game, the people playing the game are crazy cultists, and in general nothing works and nothing is fun.

Even if I was aware they're making stuff up, I'd stil feel like "whoa the people around this game are super toxic and vile", maybe I better stay away from this product."

If it's not possible to just delete it, which I think would really be the best - Then AT LEAST out up a sticky with links to some nice places and a warming that the Steam forum is toxic and not representative of the DF-community.

[Nihilich]

I agree. Nothing good comes from that den of iniquities

+1 to deleting the steam board.

[Salmeuk]

simply don't visit the forums or even mention their existence. think of it as a quarantine, maybe as a pit for goblin prisoners or whatever.

 even this thread represents a place for possible discussion to occur revolving around such "troll-reasons". so I would suggest locking it and finding something else to post about..

that being said, why? well, haters gonna hate.. people seek attention and validation and not much else. Hours of laborious forum posts are written about this or that mechanic, and sooo sooo many unresearched suggestions are put forth, ignoring the decade of suggestions previously posted on this very forum.

 But that is to be expected from the decision to bring DF to a larger consumer audience.  mix that with Steam's lack of genuine community (or: "libertarian paradise of free speech"), and also the understanding that DF's is still a very fiddly experience, overall, it's not surprising that many might react against the mythical presence that is DF with criticism or complaint, and do so readily and with many many words.

 However, the fact they choose to do so with hatred and vitriol is something of a cultural conundrum: when did people get so violently angry over video games? . . .we shouldn't even try to answer that question here.

[Orange-of-Cthulhu]

simply don't visit the forums or even mention their existence. think of it as a quarantine, maybe as a pit for goblin prisoners or whatever.

 even this thread represents a place for possible discussion to occur revolving around such "troll-reasons". so I would suggest locking it and finding something else to post about..

that being said, why? well, haters gonna hate.. people seek attention and validation and not much else. Hours of laborious forum posts are written about this or that mechanic, and sooo sooo many unresearched suggestions are put forth, ignoring the decade of suggestions previously posted on this very forum.

 But that is to be expected from the decision to bring DF to a larger consumer audience.  mix that with Steam's lack of genuine community (or: "libertarian paradise of free speech"), and also the understanding that DF's is still a very fiddly experience, overall, it's not surprising that many might react against the mythical presence that is DF with criticism or complaint, and do so readily and with many many words.

 However, the fact they choose to do so with hatred and vitriol is something of a cultural conundrum: when did people get so violently angry over video games? . . .we shouldn't even try to answer that question here.

I mean, sure, there's going to be trolls out there picking DF to troll about instead of something else. Trolls troll about everything that's a thing. I know it is unavoidable.

But it is avoidable to dump new players in a non-moderated troll forum as the default.

Especially as there's some really nice well-run places for DF discussion.

The subreddit for instance is very nice, because it's moderated. Probably there are others?

If reddit makes it through their current rocky period, it would be good to send new players there.

[Bralbaard]

I don't know. People who come from steam expect steam forums to be like that. Both those forums and the workshop generate a lot of traffic with people that would not bother to visit external sites. There are still a lot of people giving good advice on those forums. It can't hurt to advertise the bay12 forums more, and to try to draw people here, but removing presence on steam would be a mistake.

[DenBjornen]

Now there are a couple over-the-top DF stans there making DF fans look bad, as well. I recommend jumping in to the board to be helpful to new players or post something fun and just stay out of the handful the endless back and forth ranting/argument threads.

[Goldbeard]

I saw one post on Steam claiming they'd tried to register for this forum months ago, and hadn't been approved. I don't know if that's the case or if it was more trolling, but if it is then it would be best to clear the backlog and get new registrants up quickly. Give them another option besides Steam.