Forum Moderation of the English forums : and my contribution to this community.

To: Marcel, Rudiger, OMSI Forum Moderators, and the OMSI Community Members,

Hi all,

I feel that in the English speaking forums here at OSMI, there is a total lack of appropriate Moderation by the Forum Moderators that were appointed.

It seems that all moderation and interaction by Moderators takes place only in the German speaking forums.

As a result, we have the following problems in the English speaking forums:-

- We have trolls and flamers who have no objective other than to create conflict, and offer no other contribution to the OMSI community.

- We have offensive images, such as the two images of Hitler that are currently displaying in these forums.

- We have requests and questions that go unanswered.

I have taken the decision to retract my own maps, add-ons and contributions, from this forum, until such a time that we are provided with a better standard of moderation.

I have invested over 200+hours on FREE OMSI add-ons, some of which are not yet released. Almost 2,000 (that I know of) have downloaded my "Spandau Modern" map, and in the first 2 hours of offering the link to it by email, I received no less than 105 requests. I am not "blowing my own trumpet" here !!!! ..... the reason I am saying this, is because those of us investing effort and work to make this a good community for us all, deserve some moderation to ensure that flaming and trolling does not prevent creations and add-ons from getting out to the members of the community.

I will not be partaking in this forum, nor making my current add-ons, or my "337 Falkensee Extension" map (once completed) available until such time that we can see an appropriate standard of moderation and support in the English speaking forums of OMSI.

Kind regards,

David.

omsi.addons The home of 100% free add-ons for OMSI

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I would be happy to moderate this forum, i've done moderating before. And no one will get past me, let me tell ya.

We could do with some English moderators urgently.

Mike schrieb:

I would be happy to moderate this forum, i've done moderating before. And no one will get past me, let me tell ya.

We could do with some English moderators urgently.

With all due respect Mike, not people who state "we won the war" (different thread), on a German provided forum.

Well, it's what we all say down the pub.

Seriously though, you're right. And for a Northerner, you speak alot of sense (Yus, that is a compliment)

The problem is, people are taking this far to seriously, it's a game after all. Doesn't affect anyones life (outside of a computer screen).

If you want my honest opinion, you shouldn't of said anything and left the download up, let them argue, you're a bloody good worker and you've made a damn good effort. Better then the majority could ever do.
But, that's just me.

Please keep up the good work, it is very much appriciated.

Much oblieged,

Mike.

Well said. It's a sad state of affairs. On my website, anything like that would have been pounced on and removed within minutes of it appearing.

Happy to help as well if need be.

Hi to David Rogers and all,

as one of the aforesaid moderators, I'll regrettably have to admit to having neglected the English part of the forums a little bit. The causes for this are lack of time (I don't think that it is humanly possible for anybody to read every single new post on the forums every single day), and one of my native languages being German. These two facts combined result in me beginning with the German part of the forums when skimming through new posts, and quit doing that because of lack of time – sometimes before even reaching the English part.

But you are absolutely right, David, this is no excuse for disadvantaging the English forums. Therefore as of today I will always read the forums beginning with and trying to concentrate more on the English part.
Nevertheless, help from you all is needed as well if we want to speed up the whole thing. So please do not hesitate to send me* PMs when encountering any offensive, obscene, inappropriate, illegal or any other content you aren't comfortable with! That way, I will always find such posts faster, and sometimes even can react immediately, as I'm getting PMs on my phone instantly, so when time allows it, I can purge the forums or respond appropriately as needed.

The offensive thread with the dubious image has been removed by me, but again – even after you mentioned it in your complaints, it took me some time to find it. Please write a PM to me next time with a direct link, so I can take care of it more efficiently.

Thank you for your understanding and hoping things will now turn for the better,
benkda01

P.S.: Again: if anybody wants to speed up the purging process, he or she can and is welcome to send me the link(s) in question or even a list of links.



*(I don't want to speak in the name of the other moderators before converging and discussing this)

Zitat :

- We have trolls and flamers who have no objective other than to create conflict, and offer no other contribution to the OMSI community.

- We have offensive images, such as the two images of Hitler that are currently displaying in these forums.

i Agree with these 2 things but remeber it dose tend to get a little heated in a debate as in any other forum hehe


It dose need to be moderated abit more

Zitat :

If you want my honest opinion, you shouldn't of said anything and left the download up, let them argue, you're a bloody good worker and you've made a damn good effort. Better then the majority could ever do.
But, that's just me.

Second that aswel.

Before the English section of the forums was created back in 2009, there were a lot of English topics which were posted in the German section (Back then it was both English and German), it would be nice, if those threads were moved to their proper locations.

Couple of thoughts.
1) This forum is borked and PMs doesnt work
2) You can't report posts like on normal forums
3) You can't post a link to a specific post. Only a thread.

Skiv schrieb:

Couple of thoughts.
1) This forum is borked and PMs doesnt work

PMs DO work!

Skiv schrieb:

2) You can't report posts like on normal forums

True. Unfortunately we can't change anything about that, the hoster doesn't offer any possibility.

Skiv schrieb:

3) You can't post a link to a specific post. Only a thread.

You can!
https://omnibussimulator.forumieren.com/t3004p15-update-2603-2340-uhr-neue-repaintsmeine-ersten-repaint-versuche#48564
I posted you a link to the red post, it should work!

benni schrieb:

Skiv schrieb:

Couple of thoughts.
1) This forum is borked and PMs doesnt work

PMs DO work!

Skiv schrieb:

2) You can't report posts like on normal forums

True. Unfortunately we can't change anything about that, the hoster doesn't offer any possibility.

Skiv schrieb:

3) You can't post a link to a specific post. Only a thread.

You can!
https://omnibussimulator.forumieren.com/t3004p15-update-2603-2340-uhr-neue-repaintsmeine-ersten-repaint-versuche#48564
I posted you a link to the red post, it should work!

1) I dont see an option to send a PM
3) How on earth did you do that? ;P

Dear Benkda01,

Thank you for your reply and your honesty regarding the situation.

Please understand that my motivation in raising this problem is simply that I am more passionate about OMSI than I have been about any transport simulation from the last 20 years.

I love this program. But the community will only flourish (and make OMSI more successful for Rudiger & Marcel) if there is an effort to provide appropriate moderation of the forums.

I sincerely hope you mean what you say about moderating here more often, but also that you will raise this issue with Marcel & Rudiger (who we rarely see in the English speaking forums). I believe they made an error of judgement when deciding against having some moderators who hold English as their first language and/or who would put focus on the English forums.

This is not about German vs English people; it is simply the fact that 7,000,000 across the world speak English as a first or close second language, whereas around 85,000 people speak German as a first or close second language. I mean nothing politically in saying that, it's just a fact. And it's that fact that makes it odd that Marcel & Rudiger would neglect the English-speaking community, as that is the area where huge success could come for them with this simulator.

I am not trying to personally get a job as a Moderator here ; I admit I did originally apply to M+R but I am no longer interested in that responsibility. However somebody who understands the nuances of the primary English-speaking world, should be moderating the forums.

I no longer wish to penalise my fellow OMSI friends and users, so I will be restoring unlimited links to 'Spandau Modern' and my other contributions to OMSI with immediate effect.

Here's to the future of OMSI. Please, if you could attract Marcel & Rudiger's attention to my post here, I'm sure I'm not the only one who would appreciate seeing their views on this.

Kind regards,

David.

I still say we should have a united forum, not a double one.. and it all be in English. As pointed out already, English is an Internationally recognised language no? Google forums are visited by every country in the world, but you are only allowed to type and respond in English, as many many many other international forums...

Skiv schrieb:

1) I dont see an option to send a PM
3) How on earth did you do that? ;P

1.
https://omnibussimulator.forumieren.com/privmsg?folder=inbox

3.
Quite simple thing Copy the url, look for the post ID (you can see it by klicking on the quote-button, e.g. 43214) and add it to the Link the way i did it

This forums is the worst in terms of functionality. Buy some real forum and a host for it and make it a better one.

Also i support the "one language" initiative

Bilingual mods are great and all, but the problem is that they tend to go to their home language, I'm not saying that they can't do as well on the English forum, but usually theres a tendancy to use your own language first, and the translate everything in one's mind. A moderator that has English as a primary language is great, but I'm not saying that English comes first, but its pretty much a preference, since I have been to many many threads and not one mod come in to move some threads (Janniboy did so just today), and other items that would be worth noting.

I'm disappointed that neither of the admins have acknowledged this thread exists by replying to it. Yet they've been slandered by one of the trolls, and accused of 'wishing they'd never released this in English'. While I hope this is not the case, it's still left a bad taste in my mouth, and some sort of statement from them would be nice.

As for the suggestions that the board should become English only, that's equally as bad an option. The English speakers are complaining of being neglected, yet that's exactly what you'd want to impose on the German speakers if adopting English as the boards language, and at the end of the day it's not fair to one group whichever option is chosen. The software is German and we need to accept that German is the primary language.

The board software that we are using is not borked or broken in the slightest. I have changed the board settings to English and as as a result nearly every menu item and feature is shown in English. If anyone wants to know how to do this, I'll change mine back to German, write it down step by step and then forward the instructions to one of the moderators to see if they'll put a sticky post up to change languages.

Excellent post and I agree with you entirely. Especially about switching to 'English only' which I think would be the wrong thing to do.

I share your disappointment also that Marcel & Rudiger have not joined us on this thread to reassure the community that their english-speaking customers are as valued as their home customers.

D.

Now that I have worked out how to change the settings to english it does help quite a bit, so yes maybe good idea to give instructions on this.

There's a sticky thread in this forum now with the instructions.

If anyone else needs help on doing it - there's the link:- Click here

We are currently in the process of improving our moderation. This will be, as we are sure, on neither side's expenses, so the English section will receive proper care and attention. I, for myself, now always start looking at the English section first (for once you've read through the whole German section - which takes quite a while - sometimes you're not keen on doing the very same for the English section again, our time is limited, too).

Concerning a bilingual forum: We will keep both German and ENglish section, only the Addon forum will be bilingual so that everyone can present his/her works there. May I remind you that the OMSI forum used to be completely bilingual and we changed it upon request of the English speaking users? I think this is the ideal solution, as long as either side gets equal attention and that is what we're aiming at.

Sounds good, thanks Rudiger.

I agree that all we really need here is appropriate moderation of the English section. Personally I don't see that anything else needs to change, other than that.

Thanks,
David.

Have to agree that better moderation is needed, from what I have seen recently. Also have to agree about the subtleties of the english language or any language for that matter. I have first hand experience as my girlfriend is German, and although her English is excellent there are many subtleties that she misses. Likewise with many other foreign friends past & present. So I have to say that personally I feel that you need somebody here who has English as their first language, and this is not intended as a slur on anyones language skills, it is simply my experience.

Could you give an example as to when 'the subtleties of English' require an English moderator?

And if you were referring to Rogersgate as a reason that better moderation is needed, I don't agree. The only thing David Rogers wanted was a forum rule against criticism. But the forum rules don't really have anything to do with the people who moderate here.

Indeed, I would say that your post on another forum about V10 is a good example. It is not just about making sure that negatives are dealt with, it is also about ensuring that nobody finds themselves being accused uneccesarily.
Better moderation is not about rogersgate as you put it, as stated elsewhere I have not seen the post's concerned, but there are other examples within the forum as noted at the begining of this thread and as can be seen elsewhere in some threads.