I for one would welcome a more friendly tone to Pinside. Key is *friendly*; not looking for PC.
Quoted from robin:1. Pinside is first and foremost a pinball site.
2. It's also supposed to be family friendly.
1 > 2
Big thumbs up from me.
Some observations: We're now a pretty large group. And we have lots of types of people here. Some people fall into more than one group, which gives them variable amounts of leeway with rules here.
The good parts:
The lurker, or perhaps the first time reader. One who hasn't contributed text, data, or cash to help pinside. I'm sure there's a ton of them here, considering how often Pinside links are #1 to any pinball question you can ask of the search engines.
The average joe, which.. I'm a part of. I'm relatively new to the hobby. I have some clue, but could use a lot more. I find a lot of technical value in what is on Pinside still. I help where I can; but I won't be well known for it. I'm pretty sure this is the second biggest group by headcount; but perhaps a lower ranked group by post count.
the helpful - those who take the time to explain how things are done. Those who take time to help a noob understand what might be broken, and spend 10x the time talking the noob through things, helping people learn to fish. Chris, Zaza, Vid: wow. What assets to the preservation of our hobby.
the moderators - who have a thankless job, and I appreciate what they have to go through. I suspect more moderators are needed; and I also expect that the rules need to be made super clear; and applied super consistently. And let anyone who dislikes the rules, find a community with rules that match their own values.
Then, in increasing levels of negativity:
The pornsters, who love to share their collection of art. I'm confused how they mistake "pinside" for "pornhub". There are totally places for the material that gets posted; the Internet would not be the commercial success it is without it . I'm not offended by the material; I just don't think this is the place for it. Today's pinside is far less family friendly than any pinball collection I've seen. And I'm certain we have have effectively discouraged multiple social groups from participating here. If we merely stopped going out of our way to be offensive, it'd be easier for them to participate and develop a thicker skin over more minor differences.
The burned, who preordered and have been disappointed by (let's generalize, not argue here!) poor business practices. I think Pinside has been a valuable place for people to communicate. I get that some of the talk around these issues can be bitter. People need to blow off steam. But I'd hope that at some point we can say what needs to be said - just once or twice or thrice - and move on. I'm guilt of it myself, and will do my best to stop bagging on STI.
The manufacturers, who are now getting tons of tough questions due to the various recent failures. As they should. However, this also brings out the <b>axe grinders</b>, who won't let up. I'm not sure how healthy this is for anyone. It doesn't help that the manufacturers, in some cases, fail at basic PR. They don't stay positively engaged enough to build up karma to be granted immunity for the once in a blue moon unfortunate post. And they don't know when to stay quiet, because there is no other positive outcome for the conversation at hand. At a time with all the failures going on, it would behoove some folks to take PR101. Or outsource it, let someone else work with the community.
The grievers, who exist simple to make the rest of us miserable. These aren't the people who are "Sorry, I was pissed yesterday, let's talk rationally today.". These are the people who instead go out of their way to provoke. This is what they do for fun; and we fall for it. The ban hammer works only barely; it is too easy to make a new account. And the ignore button barely works when you bring up a thread, and the remaining half of the posts you see are replies to the people you've ignored.
This last category is the one I have the most problem with; they create the most negativity here. Not just transiently but consistently and pervasively. I wish I had an answer on how to address it that didn't penalize potential new members, who found us with a web search for help on their new-to-them machine.