Question about Board Policy

[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.