quote:
Tarquinn's account was hax0red to write:
I blame flameball.
Or the effect it's had here in that we have no freedom to argue effectively.
quote:
Faelynn LeAndris said:
It's the constant flamefests and pissing contests that have driven people away for most of the time here, while catering to those who revel in it. To those who dont feed off the hatemongering (And even some of those who do, as long as its not them.) they fear posting anything these days. Cause being harped on gets old, being ripped into gets old.
Muh?
I don't revel in it, and I'm never afraid to post anything I want to. I do not fit your little box of rules, sir!
You mean we've discovered that Smurfville is boring?
Who'd a thunk it?
--Satan, quoted by John Milton
We just need to add a little
That'll make it interesting! ^_^
quote:
From the book of Mr. Parcelan, chapter 3, verse 16:
Or the effect it's had here in that we have no freedom to argue effectively.
I've not seen someone banned or reprimanded for politely making a point (y'know, the things involved in agruments?) in here. Arguing effectively =! pretending to be cool by using 'cock' a lot.
quote:
Gikk's account was hax0red to write:
Gargamel looks like a child molester.
quote:
Shazorx / Modrakien had this to say about Knight Rider:
I've not seen someone banned or reprimanded for politely making a point (y'know, the things involved in agruments?) in here. Arguing effectively =! pretending to be cool by using 'cock' a lot.
No, but the minute things start to get a little heated, a busybody mod throws himself on the train tracks and brings everything to a halt.
Cock.
quote:
Mr. Parcelan got all f'ed up on Angel Dust and wrote:
No, but the minute things start to get a little heated, a busybody mod throws himself on the train tracks and brings everything to a halt.Cock.
I see what you mean, but by that point the debate has mostly descended into name-calling anyway. Perhaps a solution would be to allow mods to move threads to flameball instead of locking them in case they get too bad for main, those that want to can continue fighting there beyond that point. Applied only to cases where the topic was something acceptable in main and only got derailed of course.
quote:
There was much rejoicing when Shazorx / Modrakien said this:
I see what you mean, but by that point the debate has mostly descended into name-calling anyway. Perhaps a solution would be to allow mods to move threads to flameball instead of locking them in case they get too bad for main, those that want to can continue fighting there beyond that point. Applied only to cases where the topic was something acceptable in main and only got derailed of course.
Well, of course the fights in Flameball will mostly degenerate into Flameball. Flameball, while delightful at first, is a failure. Where there are no rules, people will take advantage of them.
What was, at first, a nice place to speak one's mind and engage in flameplay that many would scream bloody murder at has become a place for people to spam, post porn and every other board activity that would be associated with the common troll.
I like your idea of moving namecalling threads and so forth to Flameball, but there needs to be some more leniency in the fights that will no doubt occur here.
quote:
So quoth Mr. Parcelan:
Well, of course the fights in Flameball will mostly degenerate into Flameball. Flameball, while delightful at first, is a failure. Where there are no rules, people will take advantage of them.What was, at first, a nice place to speak one's mind and engage in flameplay that many would scream bloody murder at has become a place for people to spam, post porn and every other board activity that would be associated with the common troll.
I like your idea of moving name calling threads and so forth to Flameball, but there needs to be some more leniency in the fights that will no doubt occur here.
Ah, my bad, thought you were talking about fights in main getting locked not the editing in flameball. If you're referring to that once sticky thread in Flameball, I'd call that more than 'a little heated', good examples of 'heated' debates that would probably fit into Flameball (well a Flameball without the spam and all) would probably be the old Kanid vs Bloodsage threads. The one thread I've seen edited by a mod in FB was something that would probably even fall under the 'illegal' clause of the Flameball rules technically.
it's kinda sad.
I hope that we can all figure something out.
No, Really. Bite me.
1.) We no longer have a "central topic" for the boards. It used to be EQ, then it became the comic, then it just sort've disappeared altogether. I'm not saying it needs to be either of those things, or anything really. What I am saying, though, is that it provided a common ground for people who enter the boards as newbies. People could read the back issues of the comic, and come in knowing something about the way things here at least slightly worked. You can't come in here and talk about the newest patch having screwed some character class, and have everyone express an opinion on it. There are no common grounds, so much as a dozen little "niche" positions - most of which have been filled by already-present members.
2.) New blood is scarce, due to the learning curve. Yes, this board has a learning curve. I RARELY run into another with so much proper English and non-nonsense postings. The rules are also a lot different, which compounds the general mannerism distinctions. And, well, even *I* will crucify people who break the traditional manner in which people are "supposed" to act here.
It makes people scared to post, really, when there's a book of regulations you must follow. I don't know whether it's a good thing that we've cut down on the volume of new entrants. All I know is that the last major influx of distinct people into here has been the "Goth squad" - and they're STILL being resented by the old guard of the boards.
3.) There's not much forgiveness for errors. Anyone remember Paul555? How many chances did we end up giving him to be a member of the boards? It was a really huge number, if I remember correctly. Nowadays, errors in judgement get you ostracized, if not thrown out, pretty much immediately. I can also say that I've been party to this. Furthermore, I don't exactly know if it's a bad thing. It keeps people from consistantly trolling the boards, and makes sure that the people who don't get punished essentially are either innately nice or - at the very least - responsible enough forum-goers to have read the rules.
4.) We tend to jump extremes. Think about it - flamefest to banfest and back, for years running. People who came for tame discussions got chased off by the flaming, people who came for the flaming mostly got removed by the banfest. There's not much left after that, really. The lack of much of a middle ground in either situation removed a lot of potentially-interested forum-goers.
5.) We've come to decisions, or at least agreements, on most arguments. And we've seen, if not done, most forum-typical things. When was the last "KEEP THIS THREAD GOING" made? Who would respond with much beyond a shrug if someone made one? What would be the point in making a "what do you believe in" thread, if we basically know what everyone's going to say?
We haven't run out of things to do, but we've grown rather jaded with the things we've found now. We're not exactly "getting to know each other" anymore. It's like getting together with a bunch of old friends and hanging out at the mall now; you've seen everything, you know much of what's going on, and it's more a matter of "you've been doing it for awhile" than anything spontaneous or new. People don't really NEED to post things anymore, since hell - they've been posted here before. It's more of a process of "catching up with people" or "announcing new events to old friends" than anything else. The solutions to this may differ by the person, I suppose, but it's pretty much there.
6.) We cut off most of the trouble-makers. Think about how many posts have been made on the value of timelines, or the problems with posting extraneously to improve your post-count, or what have you. Most of the longest-running conversations have been built around people pissing other people off, people defending other people, and so on. This is not to say that the flamefests were good. Far from it, as that did a pretty good job of kicking out the troublemakers as well. But those people who annoyed others, and the conversations stemming from it, managed to provide a large amount of interesting fodder for talking. By cutting out the "Delidgammond's latest freaky photo" threads, and the "furries flirting with people" threads, and the "godmoding" threads, and all the other threads that some people hated with a passion... well, you've cut out a whole lot of threads there. I'm not defending any of those people I just listed. All I'm doing is pointing out that, by removing them, we removed a lot of the random stupidity that kept things going. And speaking of which:
7.) We're less silly. Really. We are. Jobs, and college courses, and real-life things tend to do that to people. But you see less silliness altogether. Less random postings of some stupid picture, less tongue-in-cheek responses, less of all those sorts of things. This is pretty much a given. We've all grown older, and some of us have even (*gasp*) matured. Which means there's less random frivolity about. And random frivolity used to make the boards go 'round.
=+=
I wouldn't imagine there's any one solution to this. Bringing back flaming won't solve any more than one major problem. In fact, there are people for and against the results of "fixing" pretty much every thing I said up there. I don't even agree with some of them. It's just thinking. But there you go.
quote:
ACES! Another post by Drakkenmaw:
Ponderings on why board posting has gone down so much.1.) We no longer have a "central topic" for the boards. It used to be EQ, then it became the comic, then it just sort've disappeared altogether. I'm not saying it needs to be either of those things, or anything really. What I am saying, though, is that it provided a common ground for people who enter the boards as newbies. People could read the back issues of the comic, and come in knowing something about the way things here at least slightly worked. You can't come in here and talk about the newest patch having screwed some character class, and have everyone express an opinion on it. There are no common grounds, so much as a dozen little "niche" positions - most of which have been filled by already-present members.
2.) New blood is scarce, due to the learning curve. Yes, this board has a learning curve. I RARELY run into another with so much proper English and non-nonsense postings. The rules are also a lot different, which compounds the general mannerism distinctions. And, well, even *I* will crucify people who break the traditional manner in which people are "supposed" to act here.
It makes people scared to post, really, when there's a book of regulations you must follow. I don't know whether it's a good thing that we've cut down on the volume of new entrants. All I know is that the last major influx of distinct people into here has been the "Goth squad" - and they're STILL being resented by the old guard of the boards.
3.) There's not much forgiveness for errors. Anyone remember Paul555? How many chances did we end up giving him to be a member of the boards? It was a really huge number, if I remember correctly. Nowadays, errors in judgement get you ostracized, if not thrown out, pretty much immediately. I can also say that I've been party to this. Furthermore, I don't exactly know if it's a bad thing. It keeps people from consistantly trolling the boards, and makes sure that the people who don't get punished essentially are either innately nice or - at the very least - responsible enough forum-goers to have read the rules.
4.) We tend to jump extremes. Think about it - flamefest to banfest and back, for years running. People who came for tame discussions got chased off by the flaming, people who came for the flaming mostly got removed by the banfest. There's not much left after that, really. The lack of much of a middle ground in either situation removed a lot of potentially-interested forum-goers.
5.) We've come to decisions, or at least agreements, on most arguments. And we've seen, if not done, most forum-typical things. When was the last "KEEP THIS THREAD GOING" made? Who would respond with much beyond a shrug if someone made one? What would be the point in making a "what do you believe in" thread, if we basically know what everyone's going to say?
We haven't run out of things to do, but we've grown rather jaded with the things we've found now. We're not exactly "getting to know each other" anymore. It's like getting together with a bunch of old friends and hanging out at the mall now; you've seen everything, you know much of what's going on, and it's more a matter of "you've been doing it for awhile" than anything spontaneous or new. People don't really NEED to post things anymore, since hell - they've been posted here before. It's more of a process of "catching up with people" or "announcing new events to old friends" than anything else. The solutions to this may differ by the person, I suppose, but it's pretty much there.
6.) We cut off most of the trouble-makers. Think about how many posts have been made on the value of timelines, or the problems with posting extraneously to improve your post-count, or what have you. Most of the longest-running conversations have been built around people pissing other people off, people defending other people, and so on. This is not to say that the flamefests were good. Far from it, as that did a pretty good job of kicking out the troublemakers as well. But those people who annoyed others, and the conversations stemming from it, managed to provide a large amount of interesting fodder for talking. By cutting out the "Delidgammond's latest freaky photo" threads, and the "furries flirting with people" threads, and the "godmoding" threads, and all the other threads that some people hated with a passion... well, you've cut out a whole lot of threads there. I'm not defending any of those people I just listed. All I'm doing is pointing out that, by removing them, we removed a lot of the random stupidity that kept things going. And speaking of which:
7.) We're less silly. Really. We are. Jobs, and college courses, and real-life things tend to do that to people. But you see less silliness altogether. Less random postings of some stupid picture, less tongue-in-cheek responses, less of all those sorts of things. This is pretty much a given. We've all grown older, and some of us have even (*gasp*) matured. Which means there's less random frivolity about. And random frivolity used to make the boards go 'round.
=+=
I wouldn't imagine there's any one solution to this. Bringing back flaming won't solve any more than one major problem. In fact, there are people for and against the results of "fixing" pretty much every thing I said up there. I don't even agree with some of them. It's just thinking. But there you go.
tl;dr
quote:
3 months wasted painfully thought these words up:
tl;dr
