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"Pointless" threads
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Post by
165617
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
Malgayne
I'm impressed. Few users have the perspective that you do on the situation, though obviously as a Community Manager
I
am expected to have that perspective. But I came to ask because I wanted one of two things to happen—I wanted either for you guys to understand the difficulty of the issue I was facing (rather than simply assuming that the answer was obvious), or I wanted for you to provide me with some insight I hadn't yet thought of.
Like Blizzard, we do ultimately make the decisions here. But also like Blizzard, that doesn't mean we don't want to hear what you have to say.
Post by
165617
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Post by
393249
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Post by
165617
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Post by
Adamsm
Why did my name get tossed up there? So what if I have a high post count, I've only ever made one thread here in randomness, and it quickly descended into comic discussion. Also, as I've told others, it's Adams, not Adam.
Post by
165617
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
Adamsm
Well lets see, I use the guides here for the year events, I double and triple check quests in the database, I'm active in the L&RP forum, either creating threads there or Open RP's, and yes, I do come here to Randomness to see if a good debate thread has opened up or to post in the forum games I find amusing, or even to post in the RB when some random fancy strikes me..... so I guess I'm not using the forum as it's meant to be used, go figure.
Also, please note, beyond telling Elaus to search for some topics, I make a post and leave his threads alone; some of what he does is amusing, but the guy himself has admitted a few times to be an actual troll.
Edit:
Until you mentioned my name, this was all I said in this topic.
Post by
340720
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Post by
Squishalot
Malgayne asking should we do X and those people with large post counts getting wut they wanted simply because they are always on the forums.
It makes sense to consult the users, because if Malgayne and the others tried to railroad us down a path that the users didn't want, they would pack up and go. Malgayne and Wowhead generally benefit from having an active community.
I think it's great for the community to have an input, but yes, Malgayne has the final say at the end of the day. And I don't think anyone doubts that.
Post by
135207
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Post by
MyTie
Malgayne, I heard you pose a possible solution to this sort of problem once. You said that users should be able to downrate threads and posts, getting them locked or vanished or something.
Why not just get one of your lackeys to write the code and be done with it? It's got to be more efficient than having mods hang out constantly like porch dogs.
Post by
563787
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Post by
563787
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Post by
MyTie
It's SUPPOSED to be pointless.
I couldn't disagree more. The point changes, often randomly, but it does need to have a point. Why come here if there is no point? Why post in a thread if there is no point?
Why make a thread if there is no point?
Random =/= Pointless
Post by
107106
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Post by
282759
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Post by
150529
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Post by
pezz
From the Randomness rules thread:
The Wowhead Randomness forum is a community which is intended to offer people a chance to get to know one another outside of the context of World of Warcraft.
The purpose of a post should be to encourage a conversation, and threads that are not in line with that criteria will be locked or deleted
—regardless of whether it's because they don't make any sense, or whether it's because they were never intended as conversations.
Bolding mine.
So unless I've seriously misunderstood something, the goal of the randomness forum is to be a place that fosters conversation which is not necessarily related to WoW. Let's ignore all of the other rules for posting on Wowhead - there's no argument about whether threads that are blatantly against front page rules should be moderated - and focus on this aspect only.
This leaves two moderation philosophies. Do we (speaking for the mods just because I can't think of a less awkward way to phrase this) 1) Remove/lock/generally moderate all content which fails to foster discussion, or do we 2) Remove/lock/generally moderate all content which hinders discussion? Under the first standard, someone like Elaus would probably be banned. There's a lot of threads which were a waste of space and the only responses were 'stop posting.' This obviously did not foster discussion. Forum games would also be almost entirely deleted and banned. Under the second, it would probably be ignored. After all, you don't have to read those topics.
However, I don't think the second standard, which many people have been arguing for, is as cut and dry as it seems. If I have to wade through two pages of stupid +1 forum games and vapid, twitter like threads to find something worth discussing, am I as likely to take the time to find threads worth posting in, and threads where I can post something thought provoking / have my own thoughts provoked? No, I probably won't bother trying.
What that is is seemingly innocuous and easily-ignored topics detracting from the level of discussion on these boards. This, to me, represents a clear contradiction of the stated goal of Randomness - fostering, or at least not detracting from, conversation.
If I see a front page covered in +1 games and twitter style threads, I will spend less time on randomness (and consequently contribute less to discussion) than if I saw a page full of interesting topics. It's as simple as that.
It's not so simple a matter of 'just ignore that stuff.' It covers the entire front page, and makes it a chore to find something worthwhile. Hence I think it needs some moderator attention. However, I agree with the points that excessively splitting up Randomness will hurt the board. The theorycrafting forum is a ghost town because there's simply too few people here who are interested in it.
I think there are two ways to alleviate this problem. The first is to have mods flag forum games somehow, such that people could click an option to cause them not to show when browsing randomness. Hence, anyone who cares will still see them all when they come into randomness, but the rest of us can simply turn them off. We weren't posting in them anyway, you can't claim that making them invisible to us will cause them to die out.
The second thing that I would like done would be a report option specific to randomness: where a person could flag something as 'move this thread to the recycle bin, please.' The very existence of short threads that offer no fodder for thought doesn't bother me, and shouldn't bother anyone, but the sheer amount of space they take up DOES detract from the quality of these boards. Giving them their own catch-all topic would make them a little more compact without making a different forum.
And a minor point to Malgayne: You're worried that moving forum games or making them not count for post counts will upset people. If I ran a forum, I would never, ever, ever worry about changes that would only annoy people who spam to get their post count up, and only annoys them because it makes it harder to spam to get their post count up. They are not what makes a forum successful. Ever. Do not cater to these people.
Post by
150529
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