Question about Board Policy

[Sanvean]

I must admit one of my pet peeves. Someone posts a serious thread asking for information or feedback. A discussion gets started, goes for a little bit....and then is promptly derailed by someone and goes into a mess of rolfmaos and n00bs and mansa can dance (not to pick on Mansa, but picking this as an example of the inter-player kidding that goes on), etc.

The reason I get so annoyed about this is because there's a forum for OOC chatter in which people are welcome to post that sort of stuff. It's also (imo) rude and essentially says "I care so little about this discussion and/or the other posters that I'm going to shit all over it."  

However, I don't mind letting this slide if it's what the player population in general prefers. So - how do you feel about it? Should the staff be more active in policing the board and keeping this down?

I'd also like to ask the constant de-railers to think before they post crap.  I don't mean to sound overly cranky, but please. Just think about whether it actually adds to the discussion or not.

[Bestatte]

I'm one of the people who derails, and/or contributes to derailing threads, so I'll apologize up front.

Sometimes our discussions get heated, and it looks like they're headed toward a flamewar..and I think that's when someone blurts out with something silly. As a way to release some of the tension and get people to relax.

But I'm all in favor of tightening the reins on the silliness, as long as it's not too restricted or forbidden outright. I'd hate to see the IMMs feel the need to spend time pulling posts when they could be doing other things. LIke making my steel katana <grin>

[Anonymous]

I've done it plenty.  I'm more inclined to do it in a thread where someone is blowing off steam or the thread looks to be heading towards a big angry meltdown.  I don't get mad when people do it in my threads.

I'd rather see levity in a thread of mine than any number of more common responses that can be simplified as STFU.

Maybe I'm just used to other discussion boards which are nowhere near as coherent and have topics that will dissappear off of the front page in 30 minutes or get overrun with 5 pages of off-topic stuff.

[ShaLeah]

I wouldn't be opposed to a stricter form of policing but I think keeping up with all the GDb sections would wear anyone out, I do, however, think that some kind of change is needed, stricter policing might be the answer.

Would it be completely out of the question to consolidate the GDB into fewer sections?

Staff Corner
OOC
General - I think general/world/roleplay and such can all fit into that
Help Wanted - for people seeking roles or seeking someone to fill a role or needing NPC's and the like, newbie help

Just an idea.


She who thinks the amount of IC information  given out on the GDB seems to be growing like fungus.

[Rindan]

I personally greatly dislike it.  The occasional joking quip about how vile AC's posts are or how Halaster likes to kill all the mortals at the end of an idea doesn't bother me much, so long as it is just an aside note to something productive.  However, when people start posting just to be silly I don't particularly like how it can crash an otherwise productive thread or ruin something that might be archived back to for future use.  Hell, I just don't like having to spend time skimming through a thread to find the people being serious.  I am not sure I can say much more then that, other then to say that I don't like it.  I would appreciate it if people stopped.  There is an OOC thread where anyone can post whatever tickles their fancy.  

I'll likely never post on a thread telling people to shut up and wouldn't state my opinion on it unless asked, but I would appreciate it if the silliness during serious discussions was kept to a minimal.  To me, it is like when you are talking with a group of people about a serious issue and one person keeps trying to make fart jokes in a desperate bid for attention.  It is annoying if nothing else.

When people ask me, "Did you read the latest on the GDB?" generally I ask them for the direct URL.  And this about the only time I ever look at the GDB.

Why?

Because I don't like reading through 20 posts of, "HAHA, yOU SUXX0r" or wildly off-topic (no-topic) posts that should probably be in PM or e-mail or the OOC forum or even just spoken aloud and that's it.  Seriously, when I'm reading a thread on kick in the code forum I don't really care to scan over 5-10 posts of personal chatter before I get to the next post that is about kick.

If the players would like staff to read the GDB more they could restrain themselves on posts of this type and increase the signal to noise ratio.  Right now there's so much white-noise I don't bother unless directed to a specific post by someone else.

-the Shade of Nessalin

[flurry]

I find all that stuff pretty obnoxious, and there's definitely been a few topics that seemed like they had potential until the cliquey jokes or dismissive sarcasm took over.

It also makes it harder to find information when searching back through threads.  

And I think it could turn off people, especially newbies, from participating here.

[mansa]

As I am one to goof off, to be made fun of, (Hey, I'm Canadian.  I can take it.  Now I'll just go cry icicles in my igloo), and make certain threads disentangle into messes.  Sorry.



But, I remember one post, a long time ago.


On the old GDB, there was a heated discussion.  Someone was getting pissed off at someone else.  Then, someone posted this statement.


"Woah, Buddy.  Calm down.  Here.  This is what I invision:

It's a nice, small coffee table.  You and I are here, each with a coffee in hand, relaxing in two couches.  The steam of the coffee is slowly filtering off.   We each take a sip, and then one person speaks.  We take a moment to consider what we've just said, and then take another sip of our coffee.

That is what the GDB should be.  I'm drinking my coffee right now.  So should do.  Take a moment to look over what you want to say.  Maybe spellcheck it.  Then post it.  Then take another sip."



So.   I think it's good advice.   I'm going to be doing that now.   Checking which thread I am in.   If it's not in OOC, then I'll probably save my non-witty remark for another day.

And....basically it's only Halaster who makes the claims, "Dance Mansa Dance!".  So blame him.

[marko]

I've been contemplating writing a post about this very matter for the entire day.  I find the 'cute' little comments to be annoying and bothersome.  For the most part I've stopped reading most threads simply because I do not want to read all the 'colour commentary.'

There is an OOC forum for that - leave it in there.  The comments never help in furthering discussion as they simply degenerate it with mindless drivel.  They clutter the discussion while making the player base look stupid and "elite" (the only people who understand the babble are those participating).  Therefore, in my view they have a detrimental effect and no positive aspect.

[creeper386]

Most people well say I just fill the board up with useless posts. I don't really care about that, but I don't really see mass loads of IC information. Nor do I really see alot of posts along the lines of, "HAHA, yOU SUXX0r," or, "mess of rolfmaos and n00bs and mansa can dance."

The most common derailment is when people start talking on a subtopic of the original topic, and it becomes no longer about the main topic. This is something thats going to happen, and most the time isn't a purposeful thing.

And it's unlikely that even a stricter policy is going to due much except waist staff time deleting alot of posts. Something such as, "Can't post in any serious thread without being completely on topic." Isn't going to work out to well. People well still auto-respond to something specific they read. Even if it's not concerning the topic. It's unlikely to change much except make people not want to really communicate on here at all.

Yes, things could be kept to the OOC area alittle more, but is everyone supposed to make a quote and go to the OOC area and respond to something with a new thread everytime they want to speak of something that isn't on topic? I find it not that good of an idea to say, oh you guys should talk through instant messanger, as thats an area where people are more likely to slip up. When they get to talking about things and then bragging and blah blah blah.


But then, I also don't see how there is a massive problem on it to say everyone should basically take the chatter of the GDB or make sure to start a new thread every time. SHRUG.

EDITED SO NOT TO ADD WORTHLESSNESS

I'd like to say, for the most part I don't want staff to spend time monitoring the boards and deleting things except what they already do. The staff may be in control of things but I think it's doesn't look good when they start policing what can be talked about, when it isn't causing problems with other players(Flaming, harrassment and such) Or isn't IC information and such. So, I honestly would say that having other players policing the board would be complete and utter bull.

Creeper[/b]

[John]

I don't mind one or two light-hearted posts in a 2 page thread or a little "side comment" at the end. But when it takes over the entire thread then I get fairly annoyed.

I don't think it should be the Imms jobs to police the boards though (except for IC info). They're busy enough and I'd rather their time be spent making scripts then deleting "ROFL! Poo! LMAO!!!!1111111111111oneoneoneone" posts.

Perhaps getting a handful of players to police the boards would be a more desireable solution (as it seems most people want a lot of the silliness to stop). After all, when I have the time I read nearly every single post and I imagine a fair few other players do as well. So why not have them delete the 6 pages of "erdlu humping" posts while they're at it? Minimal effort on everyone's part

Or what would be even better, is if people just stopped posting them in the first place

As has been pointed out, people tend to joke around after people's tempers start flaring. So if people posted calmly instead of "stop going on the fecking wrong topic. This is about kicking, not about foot-gear offering stat enhancements" then there would be less joking

[Lazloth]

I like the current flow of the board.  Its primary purpose(s), that I can gather, offer (a.) an accessible clan area and (b.) a forum for Idle OOC chatter and discussion about the game.  I can buy the we stopped reading X thread due to the crap in it undercurrent, but can probably count on my fingers the number of changes to the game that were spawned from GDB discussion.  As such, I have to believe it's just a nice template for what-if conversations, so ultimately, what harm do degenerative threads do?

It's your game and it's your forum.  I won't say I'll be happy if it changes to a heavily policed place, as I lurk throughout the day when not playing; of course, I won't be crushed.  Not for nothing, but I think ShaLeah's suggestion about reducing the amount of areas is a good one.

[John]

can probably count on my fingers the number of changes to the game that were spawned from GDB discussion.

I remember back on the old forum a habit of Sanvean's and the other Imms were to say "we've read this idea and are going to act upon it", especially just before the forum was changed to this one. So I think the changes spawned from the GDB (at least the old GDB) are greater then they seem at first

I personally would like to see that practice picked up again but with a significant portion of the Imms not reading the forum or getting sick of reading the forum, I can't see it happening again

[My 2 sids]

I'm actually going to gasp  :shock:  agree with ShaLeah here.  I think having fewer boards, perhaps not using her exact categories, would help.  The boards that I see going off topic very quickly are the ones that seem to be placed in the wrong category, so fewer categories might help to stop such confusion.  

As to how much policing... I'd rather staff and other people (whose jobs and titles I don't understand) be able to focus their time on other things.  The players here are perfectly capable of policing the boards enough to stop junk posts, they just have to realize it.  Come on people, just ignore these type posts or say something to the effect of "stop posting like this" and people will get the message.  

"The reason I get so annoyed about this is because there's a forum for OOC chatter in which people are welcome to post that sort of stuff. It's also (imo) rude and essentially says "I care so little about this discussion and/or the other posters that I'm going to shit all over it."

I think once players realize they are doing this, it is my hope they will stop.

[Twilight]

I think the board format is one problem that contributes to this phenomenon.  The board is linear.  It doesn't lend itself to a single post that can have several different sub threads, with little icon thingys to indicate if a post is on the main topic, on a tangent topic, or completely off topic.  However, I suppose we must work with the format we have.

The totally silly posts that derail threads I greatly dislike.  The witty comments within an otherwise on topic post that might be slightly off topic or whimsical I tend to greatly like.

However, if off topic stuff is discouraging people like Nessalin to read the posts, the people who can read out ideas and then implement them, the people who can really make a difference, then what are we all doing posting here?  I come here to express and get views on the game world, and to suggest and discuss changes to the game.  Unlike Lazloth, I think a lot gets implemented from ideas that start here.  I know posts I have done eventually resulted in things in game.  However, they weren't always what I posted about.  For instance, I posted about magicker subguilds at one point, and the conversation morphed in that thread to adding in more subguilds and what they might be, and we ended up with thug, nomad, etc. out of that.  So, while we might want to discourage completely off topic posts, I don't really see why we would want to discourage morphing of topics, or discussion of subtopics, as these can be useful in and of themselves.

[Anonymous]

The totally silly posts that derail threads I greatly dislike. The witty comments within an otherwise on topic post that might be slightly off topic or whimsical I tend to greatly like.

Twilight brings up a good point.  Can we quantify what upsets people?

In a topic about elves not riding kanks someone quips in 'That's not all I hear elves won't ride.' or something and we either groan, chuckle or laugh.

Or, alternatively, in a topic about elves not riding kanks someone quips in with a comment about how they have a cousin who is a hairdresser and therefore they are A WILD AND CRAZY GUY.

I don't mind either, but I don't want to ruin someone else's fun by stomping all over their thread.

[Northlander]

Hmm.. Well.. How about we club on this:

In forums other than the OOC forum, where anything goes, we'll only allow silly things if they are inside posts that are otherwise on topic.

That's individual posts, not threads. So you can type up a proper text and then put in a little something about mansa's disability or the greatness of capitalism but you can't write a post solely on the topic of mansa's disability and/or the greatness of capitalism. Unless it's the OOC forum, where everything is already nonsensical enough to disturb a texan.

That's where the British stand.

[Sanvean]

I can buy the we stopped reading X thread due to the crap in it undercurrent, but can probably count on my fingers the number of changes to the game that were spawned from GDB discussion.

I disagree. From my vantage, a huge amount gets influenced by GDB discussion. The topic, in fact, came up because I was going through a thread sorting good ideas from the bad in order to figure out some changes to Red Storm. Nessalin has made a lot of changes based on suggestions from the Code forum.

The idea about not making posts that consist of nothing but silliness in non-silly forums, but making sure you have some content there as well is a good one (imo).

I don't want to have to police the boards. It makes people feel resentful and censored, it's time that I would rather use for productive things, and it makes me feel resentful that I have to do it. Treating people with courtesy would go a long way towards making it better.

[Carnage Lazy to Login]

Yeah, it's a pain in the ass when you're having a serious discussion and crap breaks out. I don't necessarily mind threads getting derailed, as long as it's pertinent to the game and the discussion is pretty much finished although I would prefer it be done in a separate thread.

[Anonymous]

One other thing that inhibits discussion and clutters thread is some of the just plain nasty and sarcastic but superficially on-topic responses.

I'm talking about things like this:

Person A: One problem that I see is this...(explains problem).

Person B:  Oh yeah!  What a TERRIBLE problem.  Oh woe is me!  Thank you for finally bringing this crucial issue to light.    Sorry but I hate your idea.

[Barzalene]

I find that the joking and tangents are far less objectionable than the nasty meanspirited posts that occur.

[samsara]

I go further then him, but honestly I just skim the GDB. I probably click the mark all as read more then anything else here. Often I can tell by the title or maybe a quick peek at the first one or two posts in a thread if it's something I'm at all interested in. If I'm not, chances are I'll never read the thread again, regardless of how many more replies get posted to it.

I feel my behavior has been driven by a few different things. One is the descent into silliness and brevity that is being discussed here. Another is that many of the posts fall into a pattern of two people going back and forth with occasional interjection by others. Yet another is the fact that many of the posts are generally by the same subset of people, over and over again. I understand this is what a board is for, and that some folks have a tendency to be more verbose and courageous then others. But after a while I find myself skipping or skimming their posts, even the well written ones and find myself looking for posts from seldom seen names or new names, and new ideas. It sometimes feels like the GDB has become a place of selected socialization, a place to assert that one has a greater knowledge of the game, or one's ideas are better, and less a place for discussion by everyone, and a place for new ideas.

[Carnage]

To elaborate on my previous post (Carnage Lazy to Login).

There's the "who's got big balls" post. If it broke down into a discussion over whether or not muls have genitals I wouldn't mind. If it broke down into a stupid playful banter like someone going, "hey baby, how about you come and see" and then another going "haha, yeah right. Actually, I think you're cute" and someone else chiming in "yeah, me too. We should all get together" followed by person one going "Sure, where at?" is crap and shouldn't really be there.

I don't think deletion of the posts is necessarily in order as I'm heavily opposed to any form of moderation like that, but a simple private message warning the person is fine.

[Bakha]

I read a discussion board pretty regularly that is much faster (probably 250-300 posts an hour) than this one. So, I don't mind it, personally, so much. I actually enjoy some of the personalities that people develop and the inside jokes that form on discussion boards.

Of course, the GDB has more of a purpose, in that it's also used to shape a game, i.e. the signal is actually directed somewhere. My other heavier-trafficked discussion board has no other purpose than discussion of a football team. Signal to noise ratio doesn't really matter, as the signal isn't going anywhere, if you will.

My main, and this is a serious one, pet-peeve is when a newbie asks for help and people jump in with their cute little comments about, "Hey! Just go up and kiss a templar" or "Kill 30 gortoks and you'll get steel chainmail" and idiotic responses with other people griping at the people that posted the joke post, until the whole thread devolves into a 30 post rant from which the newbie might, maybe, be able to find the answer to the initial question, provided that s/he can sift through the noise. It's not that the newbie can't tell you're joking (although it's possible they can't). It's just that it's extremely disrespectful to the new player and sends them a mixed and negative message about our community. The game is hard enough to get used to without people on the GDB trying to mess with new players.

I would hate to see the staff jump in and start policing the board. It would really be a bummer of a job for someone, as board-moderation tends toward a full-time, exhaustive job. I think a better solution would be to post up the expectations of the staff and community for this discussion board for all to see. Once that is done, when people break those expectations, they can be pointed to the posted rule list. I think this would help the community become self-policing.

[Stroker]

On the other hand, the only reason I even read the GDB is to engross myself in the swarm of comical and derailing posts that are being discussed in this thread.

[Impska]

While random remarks that are meant to be funny can derail a thread, personally, I don't mind that sort of thing. I generally laugh at Dirr's one-liners and skim over everyone else's. There was about a week of harsher GDB policing, I seem to remember, and most people at that time burst out in agreement that they didn't like "GDB censorship". While they might say now that yes, logically, the board would be better if it had stricter policing, when it comes to their posts being deleted, they're going to say "What's the big deal?"

And though I understand that many staff members don't have the time to read the GDB as it stands now, will those same staff members -really- have time for it without the babble?

I find posts that include sentences like "'nuff said" or "I'm right, so end of discussion" to be far more annoying on the General DISCUSSION Board. Posts like that have no place in mature debate. Nor do dumb one-liners, but those are far easier to scroll past.

I could see how solid policing of Newbie questions/threads to make sure those don't get derailed would be quite understandable. I'd be in favor of that.

Finally, I'd like to see Helpers taken off the reply list for the Ask the Staff forum. While half the time they do answer questions correctly and concisely, often they do not, instead offering opinions, indirect or incomplete answers and occasionally even wrong answers that rack up a reply count and often seem to cause actual staff members to skip over the question. I have every respect for a Helper's ability to help new players, but questions on the Ask the Staff forum are often more complex than that, and Helpers neither have all of the answers nor the authority to respond to questions regarding policy, interpretation of helpfiles, etc.

[Twilight]

I'd like to agree with Impska regarding the Helper's posting in the Ask the Staff forum.  I've found myself post there just because I don't ever look to see what forum a message is in, other than to skip all the OOC Forum ones, when I wouldn't have posted if I knew what forum it was.

[jhunter]

My main, and this is a serious one, pet-peeve is when a newbie asks for help and people jump in with their cute little comments about, "Hey! Just go up and kiss a templar" or "Kill 30 gortoks and you'll get steel chainmail" and idiotic responses with other people griping at the people that posted the joke post, until the whole thread devolves into a 30 post rant from which the newbie might, maybe, be able to find the answer to the initial question, provided that s/he can sift through the noise. It's not that the newbie can't tell you're joking (although it's possible they can't). It's just that it's extremely disrespectful to the new player and sends them a mixed and negative message about our community. The game is hard enough to get used to without people on the GDB trying to mess with new players.

AND

I find posts that include sentences like "'nuff said" or "I'm right, so end of discussion" to be far more annoying on the General DISCUSSION Board. Posts like that have no place in mature debate.

I agree wholeheartedly with these statements, I don't think the game benefits from these things at all.
Nothing bugs me more than to be reading through a good discussion of an interesting topic and be bothered with someone's -bullshit- of poking fun at a good question posted by someone who is new to the game, or those who begin borderline flaming in a pathetic attempt to act superior, when in fact, it just shows how ignorant they are.
IMO, there are some people who seem to always be attempting to post in a way that is -not quite- flaming, just to see how far they can go to be insulting to others on the board and get away with it.

[marko]

I agree with Impska on this point.

At times I've seen a helper's post in the Ask the Staff forum as useful but more often than not I've seen the response confuse the original question.  

As such, I'd suggest that the Ask the Staff go back to being imm only responses.  People who are posting there want the 'final word' from the staff about whatever it is they are asking about - they don't want the opinion (whether it be correct or otherwise) of a fellow player.  If they did, they would post in Ask the Players.

As for the structure of the board - I actually like it.  I don't see a need to mess with a good thing.

[Carnage]

Personally I think Ask the Staff should stay the way it is, just give warnings out if people fuck things up. I've seen a lot of questions there that can easily be answered in Ask the Players forum. Usually I post in Ask the Staff for an immortal's opinion/view/information on something and think that it's not too IC and that everyone can benefit from it.

Take my defiler's ash question for example. I was going to mail in and ask about it but realized that things would be best if everyone knew it and could play accordingly. I think that's how Ask the Staff should be: if you would mail in the MUD about it but it's not giving away anything IC and everyone could benefit from it, post it in there.

[Lazloth]

Since the early implementation of granting Helpers access to post in Ask the Staff, I've been against it.  If I or anyone have a [public] question for the staff, I would think that we would like to feel it important enough to receive staff attention.  Players (and helpers) have a wealth of game knowledge, but there is a specific forum for that, assuming a poster is looking for a quick and dirty dialogue.

[X-D]

I've also been against anybody except staff responding to a post in ask the staff, specialy since there is an ask the players forum.

[was optimistic]

Is it my imagination, or has this somehow managed to get worse?

It seems like the cutesy jokes are increasing.    

[spawnloser]

If a joke accompanies a serious post that is on-topic, I don't care.  If the post is in OOC, I don't care.  In my opinion...that's where I've seen most of the jokes as of late.

[flurry]

That true for most of them, yeah.   There are otherwise good threads being littered with completely off-topic (not just off-topic but off-armageddon) jokes though.

I'm not saying those notes should be removed but people should consider that what they find funny others find annoying.   I have a sense of humor too, but I would prefer not to have to wade through a page of one-liners to find the serious replies.

It really makes the GDB unpleasant at times.

[spawnloser]

Oh, completely understood and agreed with.  I'm just saying that a little quip accompanying a serious post is completely fine in my eyes.

[The7DeadlyVenomz]

I think everyone may be a tad melodramatic concerning the amount of bullshit contributed to the GBD. While, granted, there are a number of threads which get derailed for a page or two now and again, 80% of posts are dealing with the subject.

The posts which do not deal with the subject are like paper surrounding those $.25 candies. Not that big of a deal.

[gfair]

I have to admit to posting on the GDB a lot less because of all the side-tracking that goes on, or the number of people that don't "take sips and think" before responding.

But how can this be moderated, other than asking people to do it themselves?  Perhaps a new role for the helpers?

Also, while people are entitled to their own creativity, there are times when I'll look at a post with one or two lines, a huge signature, and a distracting graphic within that signature - that's one reason why I read the GDB less, especially when someone with such a sig is very active in a thread.  Signatures should be extremely short and small for the courtesy of your audience.

I agree with others that Ask the Staff threads should be responded to only by Staff, or those Helpers who prove themselves to be capable of adding to the discussion.

[flurry]

It sucks that people like you are wanting to participate in the board less because of stuff like that.   I find myself feeling the same way sometimes, especially recently.  

I'm not overly fond of the idea of staff using their time to censor the board, but there are a couple people who routinely post offtopic on thread after thread, and it seems to often end the discussion.    :?

[God]

I think that if the general atmosphere of the GDB was to look down on stupid wisecracks instead of go, "LOL!" then we'd see a lot less of it. I'm not in favor of any censorship, though, but I admit that these things are annoying. They have been, for a while.