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Toast
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
Ok, I'm not entirely sure where this kinda stuff should be brought up, but this seemed like a reasonable place. The topic at hand is, for those who haven't guessed, the G&T "everything in one thread" policy.
On the one hand, the reason why it exists is fairly clear - to prevent "unnecessary clutter" and have a definitive thread on a subject. However, it can also be a terrible pain in the arse. A couple of reasons for this:
1) Given that a large chunk of the forum is in the US, those of us in Europe and on normal timescales tend to sit around all day waiting for shit to happen, the thread progressing a couple of pages, go to bed, and then in the morning find fifteen new pages to read. The morning sweep is bad enough as it is without monster threads to deal with.
2) "But it's all interesting information". Oh, come on. This is G&T - a fair amount of it (rising to "most of it" on slow news days) is chat. Chat's good when it's really funny, or when you're taking part. It's a PITA when you have to trudge through five pages of it in the morning, knowing that the conversation has moved on and you're not going to be able to make relevant replies anyway.
3) "So don't read the thread then." With most big threads, I don't, because it's the lesser of the two evils, but that means missing out on a lot of major developments. I wanted to keep up with the HL2 stuff and the DS stuff but timezones, real life and finite hours make it pretty hard to do. It'd be a fair comment to say that I'm often not interested in all the little details, so it generally doesn't bother me that much that I'm missing out on the minutae which really don't deserve their own thread. However, the huge official threadness means that, apparently, no-one's allowed to post anything about that subject outside the official thread. Case in point is the "Halo 2 gone gold" thread, which everyone's descended on like a pack of wolves. Granted, no-one needs threads detailing every little snippet from Bungie, but for those of us not keeping up with the official thread it'd be nice if those kinds of thread, where the news is actually new and interesting, were tolerated and ideally encouraged, as it'd allow people to keep in touch with the big issues without trawling through the little stuff.
As it stands I'm having to keep up with a lot of news through Evil Avatar (which I don't really enjoy, because the editorialising is horrible, and it finds it even harder to stay OT with the news than G&T), but it really would be a lot nicer, for me at least, if unofficial rules were changed so that news that is worthy of its own thread is not swallowed up just because there's a huge cesspool which happens to be attached to the topic already.
So, yeah.
On the one hand, the reason why it exists is fairly clear - to prevent "unnecessary clutter" and have a definitive thread on a subject. However, it can also be a terrible pain in the arse. A couple of reasons for this:
1) Given that a large chunk of the forum is in the US, those of us in Europe and on normal timescales tend to sit around all day waiting for shit to happen, the thread progressing a couple of pages, go to bed, and then in the morning find fifteen new pages to read. The morning sweep is bad enough as it is without monster threads to deal with.
2) "But it's all interesting information". Oh, come on. This is G&T - a fair amount of it (rising to "most of it" on slow news days) is chat. Chat's good when it's really funny, or when you're taking part. It's a PITA when you have to trudge through five pages of it in the morning, knowing that the conversation has moved on and you're not going to be able to make relevant replies anyway.
3) "So don't read the thread then." With most big threads, I don't, because it's the lesser of the two evils, but that means missing out on a lot of major developments. I wanted to keep up with the HL2 stuff and the DS stuff but timezones, real life and finite hours make it pretty hard to do. It'd be a fair comment to say that I'm often not interested in all the little details, so it generally doesn't bother me that much that I'm missing out on the minutae which really don't deserve their own thread. However, the huge official threadness means that, apparently, no-one's allowed to post anything about that subject outside the official thread. Case in point is the "Halo 2 gone gold" thread, which everyone's descended on like a pack of wolves. Granted, no-one needs threads detailing every little snippet from Bungie, but for those of us not keeping up with the official thread it'd be nice if those kinds of thread, where the news is actually new and interesting, were tolerated and ideally encouraged, as it'd allow people to keep in touch with the big issues without trawling through the little stuff.
As it stands I'm having to keep up with a lot of news through Evil Avatar (which I don't really enjoy, because the editorialising is horrible, and it finds it even harder to stay OT with the news than G&T), but it really would be a lot nicer, for me at least, if unofficial rules were changed so that news that is worthy of its own thread is not swallowed up just because there's a huge cesspool which happens to be attached to the topic already.
So, yeah.
Toast on
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b) it's G&T, remember, and
c) where? In the thread? That I can't keep up with because of the amount of chat going on?
Was there some edict about sticking your head in the sand that I missed?
Unless, of course, you think that bitching about the one thread rule will accomplish something while the mods cockslapping a few threads back into shape won't, I'm not sure where the ostritch syndrome or impotent carping references come in.
Moreover, reducing the chat is not in and of itself a solution to the whole problem, as it still keeps the "official threads" as a mire of information of various degrees of authenticity, relevance and interest. As is probably not unexpected, I feel a solution of the kind I outlined would be a simple and elegant answer to the issues raised, producing (hopefully) the minimum of disruption and a quantifiably better forum experience for G&T. I simply do not understand why your answer to this appears to be "there is no problem, and if it is it's your fault, and if it's not that's tough", which is the way you're coming across, intentionally or not.
If you want to get rid of the rule, Im not too keen on that idea. I make exceptions to it all the time, but it is a good rule of thumb. The G&T mods are good guys, and my guess is they probably stop by and give their take on things.
2. "Normal timescales" is kinda insulting.
3. You approached the matter in a condenscening manner.
4. You can ask a mod to intervene and attempt to keep it on topic. Saying "it's G&T" means absolute jack shit. It is supposed to stay on topic, hence being an "on-topic" forum. Thread hijacking should not be a kosher activity.
5. Learn to skim.
6. 7 threads about one topic, having to check each damn thread for new info, and trying to talk in all 7, OR have everything you need in 1 easy accessable place that is less cluttered than you think.
8. Have you tried talking to a G&T mod?
9. Have you done anything about your 'problem' except make a thread here?
Doc: That's right, twenty five years into the future. I've always dreamed on seeing the future, looking beyond my years, seeing the progress of mankind. I'll also be able to see who wins the next twenty-five world series.
I'd say you and bone daddy are doing a better job than him on that one.
I respond to the tune of the original post.
And you're one to talk.
Duck tends to cut people with sarcasm and or brutal insults.
You tend to react in a much more "I'm better than you" attitude, one that you unfortunately picked up from Tube. But the difference is that at least Tube does it in a clearly tongue-in-cheek manner.
On the thread topic: just tell the G&T mods to crack down and do their job. If they aren't, then send deni a PM, and give him examples of how they are not doing their job. The purpose of G&T and the on-topic forums is to have serious and intelligent on-topic discussion. And yet I agree with you, Toast, when I've tried to look for info in that and other on-topic forums, often I'm deluged with the same kind of crap that you're talking about. So I'll back Toast on this one. Just take it up with the mods, and if nothing happens, take it up with deni. You're right, it needs to be cut down on, and it's retarded.
Like, etymologically
Doc: That's right, twenty five years into the future. I've always dreamed on seeing the future, looking beyond my years, seeing the progress of mankind. I'll also be able to see who wins the next twenty-five world series.
I think this is the real solution. It doesn't matter whether there is a single "monster" HL2 thread, or 20 HL2 threads for each new development, if you want to keep up on the news, you need to just skim the threads to find the stuff that interests you.
Now if quickly summerising the forums isn't enough benefit for you. Skimming is useful in all stages of life. Got an exam, skim the notes. Got a goverment report to read, skim it.
Discussion of computer games can be taken from many different angles. Some like to discuss the graphics, others the musical score, some like to bitch about the control interface whilst others want to poo-poo the gameplay. Sometimes the discussion on all of these is minor enough to all be squeezed into one thread but other times, when several elements of a game are meaty enough confining them all to one thread can cause it to grow to indegestible levels in one sitting. On page three there might be an interesting discussion of the merits of including inverted controls for vehicles in x-fps but by page thirteen the conversation may have move on to the controversial inclusion of marsupial targets.
Despite both being encompassed in the over-all category of 'Things to do with x-fps', would it not be fair - in the interest of sustained discussion - to allow for two or three threads per game if the depth of discussable elements allows it?
This could even be moderator controlled - say 90x comes in one night to discover a thirty page long thread on x-fps with discussion jumping back and forth between the inverted control scheme and the marsupial debate he could split the thread up into three threads, "X-FPS, Inverted control discussion", "X-FPS, Marsupials" and "X-FPS, General Discussion". At least this way information is easily categorised for skimming and it would allow people to keep up with the discussions regarding a game which they find most interesting (because lets face it, not everybody gives a shit if an FPS has marsupials or not).
If things get beyond a certain size - say five or six justifiable and sustained threads then a Hot Topic forum could be considered.
Maybe. I know I start ignoring a fair number of threads based purely on the fact that I know I'll be pecking through a lot of crap before I find any meat.
I have never seen a thread with two conversations in it split successfully.
Ever.
My sweet, untouched Miranda
And while the seagulls are crying
We fall but our souls are flying
I have.
Am I being condecending? If so I apologise, it's completely unintentional. I was concentrating hard on trying not to imply the G&T mods were doing a bad job, because they're not. Why it's being interpreted as condecending by people it's not even aimed at is something of a mystery, but... whatever.
Did I approach the mods? No. Why? Should I have? This isn't a question of the mods screwing up, it's a discussion of whether the policy that's evolved in G&T is the best solution or not. I'm a big fan of big changes being discussed in public, certainly where there's no reason for them not to be, and figured that this would be the best place to do it.
This is not just about levels of "chat" in threads, and reducing them is not going to solve all the issues I'm seeing (or imagining or whatever). I take alpha's point that there are ways of enforcing things without going over the top, but equally I'm unsure of how thin that line is, and I'm not sure that strict (or strict-ish) enforcement is desirable anyway. In a big thread for all the interesting minor stuff (a concept which I still fully support), chat keeps the thread running and current, so that it doesn't disappear, and I'm sure plenty of people enjoy doing it. My main issue is with things which qualify as "big news" being stuffed in there with them; if the news is important enough to justify a thread of its own, which for example a "gone gold" announcement or something of similar magnitude may well be, it's probably going to generate an interesting conversation of its own, about that particular topic. If it's placed within a 100% chat-free thread covering all information on that game/piece of hardware/whatever, it's still going to be intermixed with discussion about, for example, what some developer said about some guy on some website, or whatever.
Is there really any harm in having several threads on the same general broad subject but each covering a specific topic on the front page? If there's that much newsworthy stuff happening on that topic, what's wrong with it getting more coverage?
On the subject of skimming, yes, I am reasonably adept at it, at least in the academic sense. It does help, but it doesn't mitigate the problem entirely. For one thing, there's still a lot to skim, and for another the "interesting" stuff is generally mixed in fairly tightly with other stuff so it's not as if you can skip whole posts because the first line is OT. For other reasons, I think what I've said already in this post is kinda relevant too.
"Normal timescales" is insulting? Well, if you're trying to read insults into it, sure, it could make it look as if the implication is that anyone outside the EU runs in an abnormal timezone (and it's not as if the same assumption is made every day about the US after all). What it was actually supposed to mean, on the other hand, is "people who aren't, for example, on night shifts and browsing at 4am local time in the EU".
As to the "having to check 7 threads" thing, the point would be that anything which wasn't covered by the thread's title would belong in the main thread. If you see a thread called "HL2 finally gone gold", you wouldn't be checking there for news of when TF2 was coming out because it'd be OT.
If the mods did that in G&T with some authority, I'm sure it could work. It doesn't matter so much in the anime thread because it's in SE++ and so it doesn't really have to stay on topic (thought it does a remarkable job of it with so little moderation), and in G&T, well, they're all spineless anyways so it shouldn't be much trouble. :P
Maybe you need more G&T mods?
Seriously, when it gets down to it, what I'm asking is this: G&T policy is changed slightly so that, while big threads for the little stuff stay as they are, major bits of news or otherwise new info are allowed their own thread even when there's already a thread for minor topics on that subject.
Are there any problems with doing that?
Doc: That's right, twenty five years into the future. I've always dreamed on seeing the future, looking beyond my years, seeing the progress of mankind. I'll also be able to see who wins the next twenty-five world series.
Doc: That's right, twenty five years into the future. I've always dreamed on seeing the future, looking beyond my years, seeing the progress of mankind. I'll also be able to see who wins the next twenty-five world series.
It was tried and it failed.
CUZ THERE'S SOMETHING IN THE MIDDLE AND IT'S GIVING ME A RASH
Exactly right.
CUZ THERE'S SOMETHING IN THE MIDDLE AND IT'S GIVING ME A RASH
Either that or it was so hidden and inconsequential that I never noticed it. :P
Maybe there just wasn't a need for such a thing back then?
"Back then" was like a year ago, and no one used it. Now that this side of the boards gets half the traffic it did then, it'll fail extra good.
CUZ THERE'S SOMETHING IN THE MIDDLE AND IT'S GIVING ME A RASH
That's the reason, for example, that I think say a DS or an HL2 Hot Topic subforum won't work. It works for MMOs, and stuff like PAX, because there's a self-contained group of people with enough interest to keep it going, and enough going on to keep things active. If the DS or HL2 got a Hot Topic, I don't think there would be enough content to fill it, people wouldn't check it very often because there wasn't much going on, and because people ain't visiting it, there's not much going on. The whole thing falls over and dies.
[edit] "Accumulated forum knowledge" is a whole different ballgame, because it's a reference source: the content is essentially static and people go there as and when they need to. "Hot topic" threads are there specifically to encourage discussion: the content is by necessity constantly being added, and people go there to keep up with stuff.
Thank you for putting more eloquently what I wanted to say.
It SEEMS like there's enough interest to sustain a game on forum, but there really isn't. The sum of all current game on threads makes for like five active threads across the on topic boards in total. The place was and would be deader than linksville.
People should just use G&T for that. If you're afraid of G&T because you only post in AC or D&D or wherever, that's all the more reason to buck up and go exploring.
CUZ THERE'S SOMETHING IN THE MIDDLE AND IT'S GIVING ME A RASH