Darkside55
The Freeman
- Joined
- Jun 12, 2009
- Messages
- 12,083
- Reaction score
- 93
Something's been bugging me lately. I've noticed a disturbing trend on the forum that, while it doesn't manifest too often, really sticks out when it does. I'm talking about the amount of fun we're allowed to express on the forum.
Got home today, watched a movie ("Meet the Robinsons," which pertains to time travel, which funny enough is related to this post), and hopped on to check the forums. Some of you might've noticed the "My Avatar" thread, some of you might've participated in it; if you missed it, basically it was a thread I decreed No Man's Land, and we started using it for "whatever."
At first, the thread was a mindless "one-up" monster battle, culminating in a battle between Godzilla, a Borg cube filled with mudkips, and a yeti-thing. Then they all got nuked and we began to rebuild in the fallout.
Rebuilding had to wait though, because someone began messing with the timestream! In order to prevent a paradox, Cortez from Timesplitters, the G-man, Sherman and Mr. Peabody, and Dexter (of Dexter's Laboratory) were off to fight the splitter and prevent history--and the world!--from being unraveled as we know it!
I was enjoying the hell out of that thread. It was developing from a kaiju fight into a cohesive (albeit silly) story, and I was eager to see what'd developed.
But it was deleted. Not closed, deleted. "12 pages of spam." It was starting to come together, and it gets labeled as spam?
And it reminded me of something I brought up to my co-staff here last month, regarding some threads forum member Hydrometeor started. Though off-kilter, they were funny, and people were enjoying them, yet his threads got closed down as spam and he got slapped with "trolling and harassment" infractions. That really burned me up, and I said something about that (though none of you outside of staff saw it), and now I've gotta add this in there.
So it seems to me that the trend of this forum seems to be, "Have fun, BUT NOT TOO MUCH FUN, or we'll come and close your spammy thread." The Louge's motto, "Sit around and talk about anything (within reason!)" seems to only extend to things that're rather boorish. "Within reason" should be more like, "Stick to topics about what you saw today on Yahoo! News, and lets have four frackin' threads about religion vs. atheism where we all argue semantics." That's the Lounge. That's what I see the Lounge as. Oh, and "Rate a member/comment on a member's sig/avatar/members members members" threads; which, while not as bad as the rest of the things, I'd certainly count as more spammy than some things I've seen. Certainly more circle-jerky. Do you guys even remember they locked the werewolf thread for spam? There's no "or not" to affix to the end of that, either.
So what's the line? Where's the set line on what is spam and what isn't? What constitutes on thread being worthy of keeping versus another? Because in my own personal opinion, and I'm sure some of you--hopefully most of you--will agree with me that threads that people are enjoying should be kept open, as long as they don't infringe on any larger rules like actual trolling, harassment, things of that nature. But I mean if you're going to keep threads open where people yell at each other about the differences between agnosticism and atheism for twenty-five hundred pages, ffs, at least let Cortez and Co. fix the timestream. At least let Hydrometeor post his version of the Weekend Web. At least let us decide whether there are really werewolves or not.
I'm just going to throw this out there too: the Lounge regulates itself. Barring thread necromancy, any thread that the members don't find favorable, or any thread that has outlasted its usefulness, will eventually fall off the board due to lack of participation. Even if no mods came around to lock threads any more, they would eventually go away because nobody would bump them. The members regulate their own threads. The fact that a thread is being bumped signifies that the thread is still in use. And if we're going to really call this a place where people can relax and actually LOUNGE, by the word's very definition, we should at least allow a little humor on these boards without "SPAM INFRACTION, CLOSED."
If people enjoy something, let them have it. I think it's high time that both staff and members really looked at what we need to consider as a spam thread, or a trolling thread. We need to really reevaluate the rules here. I spend a large (read: pathetic) amount of time on this forum, this forum, the Lounge in particular; I would at least like the chance to FIX THE TIMESTREAM once in awhile if I want a diversion from reading about why Christians consider homosexuals immoral and trying to explain atheism to someone.
Got home today, watched a movie ("Meet the Robinsons," which pertains to time travel, which funny enough is related to this post), and hopped on to check the forums. Some of you might've noticed the "My Avatar" thread, some of you might've participated in it; if you missed it, basically it was a thread I decreed No Man's Land, and we started using it for "whatever."
At first, the thread was a mindless "one-up" monster battle, culminating in a battle between Godzilla, a Borg cube filled with mudkips, and a yeti-thing. Then they all got nuked and we began to rebuild in the fallout.
Rebuilding had to wait though, because someone began messing with the timestream! In order to prevent a paradox, Cortez from Timesplitters, the G-man, Sherman and Mr. Peabody, and Dexter (of Dexter's Laboratory) were off to fight the splitter and prevent history--and the world!--from being unraveled as we know it!
I was enjoying the hell out of that thread. It was developing from a kaiju fight into a cohesive (albeit silly) story, and I was eager to see what'd developed.
But it was deleted. Not closed, deleted. "12 pages of spam." It was starting to come together, and it gets labeled as spam?
And it reminded me of something I brought up to my co-staff here last month, regarding some threads forum member Hydrometeor started. Though off-kilter, they were funny, and people were enjoying them, yet his threads got closed down as spam and he got slapped with "trolling and harassment" infractions. That really burned me up, and I said something about that (though none of you outside of staff saw it), and now I've gotta add this in there.
So it seems to me that the trend of this forum seems to be, "Have fun, BUT NOT TOO MUCH FUN, or we'll come and close your spammy thread." The Louge's motto, "Sit around and talk about anything (within reason!)" seems to only extend to things that're rather boorish. "Within reason" should be more like, "Stick to topics about what you saw today on Yahoo! News, and lets have four frackin' threads about religion vs. atheism where we all argue semantics." That's the Lounge. That's what I see the Lounge as. Oh, and "Rate a member/comment on a member's sig/avatar/members members members" threads; which, while not as bad as the rest of the things, I'd certainly count as more spammy than some things I've seen. Certainly more circle-jerky. Do you guys even remember they locked the werewolf thread for spam? There's no "or not" to affix to the end of that, either.
So what's the line? Where's the set line on what is spam and what isn't? What constitutes on thread being worthy of keeping versus another? Because in my own personal opinion, and I'm sure some of you--hopefully most of you--will agree with me that threads that people are enjoying should be kept open, as long as they don't infringe on any larger rules like actual trolling, harassment, things of that nature. But I mean if you're going to keep threads open where people yell at each other about the differences between agnosticism and atheism for twenty-five hundred pages, ffs, at least let Cortez and Co. fix the timestream. At least let Hydrometeor post his version of the Weekend Web. At least let us decide whether there are really werewolves or not.
I'm just going to throw this out there too: the Lounge regulates itself. Barring thread necromancy, any thread that the members don't find favorable, or any thread that has outlasted its usefulness, will eventually fall off the board due to lack of participation. Even if no mods came around to lock threads any more, they would eventually go away because nobody would bump them. The members regulate their own threads. The fact that a thread is being bumped signifies that the thread is still in use. And if we're going to really call this a place where people can relax and actually LOUNGE, by the word's very definition, we should at least allow a little humor on these boards without "SPAM INFRACTION, CLOSED."
If people enjoy something, let them have it. I think it's high time that both staff and members really looked at what we need to consider as a spam thread, or a trolling thread. We need to really reevaluate the rules here. I spend a large (read: pathetic) amount of time on this forum, this forum, the Lounge in particular; I would at least like the chance to FIX THE TIMESTREAM once in awhile if I want a diversion from reading about why Christians consider homosexuals immoral and trying to explain atheism to someone.