Is the word "user" negative?

[sunshinenbrick]

I completely agree that time is needed and I by no way was implying to inject it into the community (especially right now! :D)

 

It's just I have been following many discussions over the past couple of days trying to play neutral and challenging some of the rhetoric. I was trying to think of a way to reward collaboration and give people a stronger feeling that they can contribute. Both between "authors" and "users".

 

The endorsement system and donation system tend to work for the most part for authors but there is little to reward anyone else. That is why perhaps people can EARN higher states of membership like Supporter... an endorsement system for helpful and contributive "users", for example.

 

Just a thought.

[Impulseman45]

Yes, but I was one of those hungry caterpillars, and I have now transformed into mod author butterfly. One that was a bit taken aback by all the things that were leveled at the more senior mod authors for making a choice to try something out. It was stated that it was an experiment, when that obliviously went very wrong. It gave me great pause to stop and think if I personally wanted to continue doing anything with the way people were carrying on. I personally am going to move forward and think everyone should as well. So in the end we can't simply draw lines in the sand say that there are users and there are mod makers. The lines are so much more blurred than that. Just my 2 cents.

[Harbringe]

My take on the term user and the start of all this . So when this first broke I was on Reddit and I perused the posts to get idea what was going on and gauge reaction and as it was Valve announcing this then went to Steam and perused there , then thought these people are crazy , go somewhere sane like the Nexus . So it takes me a day and a half even to get caught up on what people are saying and yes it was certainly more civil than what was going on outside the Nexus but still when heard a few voices refering to modders as greedy or turncoats or whatever was just disgusted , not once have I thought the people who tried this out were betraying us in any sense and I'm actually against the idea of paid mods , then its the inverse where as a user I'm being referred to as entitled or spoiled when I know that I have never felt that I was entitled to anything , I always thought that as a user my contribution was learning the tools , fully reading the readme's so as not to waste a modders time , playtesting their mods and if I discovered a glitch or even something unexpected pass that along or if when perusing a mods posting (yes I would even take the time to read those) ran across someone having an issue and could go hey I know that problem , heres how to fix it , I would just so the modder would have one less thing to deal with . I always thought thats what a community is , thats just what you do or least thats what I learned when I started with Morrowind , but maybe thats just old school . So when I'm hearing words that basically say no sorry that doesn't count because your just a user . It was like then what the hell have I been doing , it was like a visceral gut reaction and when you couple that with thoughts that with paid mods am I gonna be able to play this game (afford) in the way that I love. That sickening feeling was just woah.

 

And I think that is really the essence of what happened this weekend , it was instinctual reactions from both sides , first the users who thought they were loosing something , then the modders when Bethesda decided against it.

 

Oh and by the way when I say it took me a day and a half to get caught up here on what people were saying , thats because I read every post , literally every word.

Edited April 29, 2015 by Harbringe

[Rebel47]

Speaking from my own perspective this is my thoughts on this.

 

 

The term "user/users" is not nor should be seen as a negative one, it's intention (one would assume) is not to set a feeling of anger at being labeled as such but to describe the activity of which you are partaking in while accessing the site, I believe the recent illustrations we have seen of the misuse of the word have sparked some concern among some people but overall the feeling is that this term is not what is at the forefront of people's mind. (at least that's what I've witnessed through my perspective)

There is always room for improvement in anything we do either individually or as a community, but trying to incite a change of a name now or when the dust settles is just going to exacerbate the situation in people's minds and this is the last thing we as a community need, change will happen when it is needed but I think this might be the equivalent of using a band-aid (plaster if your English) on 3rd degree burns (excuse the poor analogy).

Edited April 29, 2015 by Rebel47

[sunshinenbrick]

@ Rebel47

 

I agree that the changing of a name is not a simple fix all solution as there are many degrees of modder, from the "noob" starting out downloading mods and loving it to the people who probably don't play the game anymore and are able to create content that rivals Bethesda themselves. My topic was to get the discussion going on how we come to appreciate that a community is made up of people of a very wide range of skills and abilities and that there are many things one can contribute that may not be something you can download.

[Rebel47]

-EDIT-

 

The initial reply was not directly aimed at the discussion in hand and has been removed/edited

 

My new reply will follow below

 

There is some truth in the fact that the use of the word "user" can have negative effects on a person or individual but until a positive and neutral alternative arrives there is little to do.

 

While I agree that sometimes certain words can be demeaning it's mostly down to who says it and how they are saying it, words only carry the conviction of the people who spread them,

I do not dislike the term "user" as it describes someone who uses something, it can also be described negatively as someone who is a *use 'em and lose 'em' person ergo someone who uses something for personal gain but never gives back, a leech if you will.

 

since the terminology "users" is not in a descriptive form: I.E it's not a readable text entry on anyone's profile then it's not a highly visible problem. There is very little to replace "user" with as there is not many words which remain true to understandability while explaining themselves in such an explicit way.

Edited April 30, 2015 by Rebel47

[Deleted31005User]

I personally don't see anything wrong with the word "user" or "modder", generally a user uses mods and a modder creates them, but it all depends on the person in question and how friendly he is towards others.

The fact of the matter is that most people are users and every single modder is also a user, so we are one big family of users, even Dark0ne is a user! :D

We shouldn't think too much about this stuff, its pretty clear what the words mean and if someone is being unfriendly to you it has nothing to do with whether he is a user, modder, moderator or any other label like that, its all bout hes personality.

 

Everyone who said in the last week that "modders just want money" or "users are greedy and want freebies" have no idea what they were talking about, it's just pure anger and frustration that they were venting through the comments because lets be honest here, its always easy to put people in different camps and start blaming them then to look in the mirror and realize your own mistakes.

Its like little children pointing a finger at each other and blaming one another, nothing more.

Edited May 1, 2015 by Guest

[sunshinenbrick]

@ Ac3s and everyone else

 

Thanks for the responses! I would have to agree there never can be anything wrong with the word "user" as a word in its own right, and maybe all this simply has not been an issue that has entered people's minds till now, as the boat had not yet been rocked.

 

My justification for asking the question in the first place, which has garnered a few views since this happened, was from the incisive approach that the, shall we say far right and far left, seemed to take on the many issues, with a strong sense of immediate "us vs. them" mentality. I (and maybe a few others) would like to try and understand these issues and allow others to contribute to the discussion. This is not the conclusive chapter, as it seems common sense that when the next wave of potential changes come, a number of the 9 million people from BOTH "camps" may, in the heat of the moment, feel misrepresented or unappreciated and therefore feel threatened and lash out, like ANY HUMAN would.

 

Interestingly on the subject of self worth, I tried to donate to a member yesterday for what I thought was a commendable effort in helping the community. The member said, but I have no mods of my own, and was genuinely shocked at the idea of why someone would want to donate to them.

 

I just wanted to throw the doors open as to why exactly we all are here, as for me it is most certainly not just about downloading mods, yet I also, most certainly, do not fall in to the mod "author" camp. As a Graphic Designer/Lecturer, and an aspiring, experimental "modder", troubleshooter, and veteran game emulation enthusiast, I feel I fall somewhere in the middle of all this, as do perhaps the vast majority of people I have had the pleasure to become acquainted with over the years.

 

I only hope for everyone's own sake we can find a cohesion so we can all exist together and not take each other for granted. Ok, its cliche, but 'united we stand, divided we fall'

 

Thanks for reading.

 

SNB

[RGMage2]

:huh:

 

snip - I've been far more annoyed with the new trend for people who only use mods to call themselves modders a term that used to be reserved only for mod authors. But I've learned to let it go, there are far better battles to fight than that one.

 

snip

That does bother me a little bit. I see posts suggesting that a person is modding their game, I read the post to see what they are doing and find out they are not modding at all - only installing mods. It's not a big deal, we just have a different idea of how the word should be used. :smile:

 

"Users" have been called just as nasty things, parasites, screaming kids, idiots, useless, pieces of ****, good for nothing, losers, trolls... the list goes on, this is perhaps not the best way to gain new customers.

I don't like to see anyone disrespected, there is really no excuse for that, but I also must point out that now there are no paid mods, there are no customers involved in this. If no money changes hands then no business has been done, so no one is a customer.

 

I honestly don't think there's anything wrong with being called a mod user. snip

 

Agree, except that we often leave out the first word and only call them users. I'm guilty of this. It's not that I mean anything negative by it, more laziness than anything else, not wanting to type an extra word.

 

If English is your first language, then you know that the word "user" carries negative connotations. I can see people being offended by being referred to as users. With that in mind I am going to make an effort to substitute the word "player" for the word "user". We are all players so it is something we have in common, it is inclusive and not divisive.

 

snip

 

The endorsement system and donation system tend to work for the most part for authors but there is little to reward anyone else. That is why perhaps people can EARN higher states of membership like Supporter... an endorsement system for helpful and contributive "users", for example.

 

Just a thought.

How about a badge for people who donate, that could be displayed under their avatars whenever they post. I might like to have one of those myself. :smile:

[A18718]

I guess the word user can be seen as negative because some users make the silliest of errors and then ask for help, which some mod authors find funny.

 

I myself wouldn't call myself a mod author (even though I almost have 1000 unique downloads on two very simple mods I made) but I think I'm an extremely experienced user/modder person (lol) because I can troubleshoot almost all of my problems, knowing what conflicts and what doesn't, if it's fixable or not.

 

So... basically, when you really look at it, mod authors may see the term user as negative because perhaps they run across some people who make the most weirdest of errors where they just have to sit back and think "gee how did this person manage to get this dumb" but then again... user is just a user and a mod author are users who create mods... Very simple.