Question on ban announcements

[Gob]

Wait did I make the p3nis thread?

 

[GIMH]

can't, CW isn't a public authority you ignoramus

I meant a GDPR request sorry

 

[Burgey]

Nah it was Daemon. He seems to have become a bit obsessed over the subject since Shri called the effectiveness of Daemon's own utensil into question a week or so ago.

 

[sledger]

I meant a GDPR request sorry

Haha I techically have one that is still outstanding from years ago

should report James to the ICO again

 

[GIMH]

Haha I techically have one that is still outstanding from years ago

Thatsthejokedotgif

 

[Spark]

If you really wanted to police quality your efforts might have been better directed at the half-dozen (conservative estimate) poundland Burgeys who infested the World Cup Final thread on Sunday?

I'll respond to the rest later (you do bring up good points tbh) but as to this: the simple answer is that I didn't watch the game and wasn't on the thread, I was busy playing the new God of War game instead. I did very briefly look back in the thread the following day and it did seem pretty bad but unless it's egregious it's near impossible to moderate tour threads after the fact. You have to be in them at the time imo.

 

[Daemon]

I'll respond to the rest later (you do bring up good points tbh) but as to this: the simple answer is that I didn't watch the game and wasn't on the thread, I was busy playing the new God of War game instead. I did very briefly look back in the thread the following day and it did seem pretty bad but unless it's egregious it's near impossible to moderate tour threads after the fact. You have to be in them at the time imo.

Seems like some of us got lucky no mods were online

 

[OverratedSanity]

The posting in that thread was exemplary. I , as someone who read that entire thread,would like to assure Spark that no one deserves any infractions. Much like England didn't deserve to win their two world cups.

 

[GIMH]

We've won three

 

[Spark]

What is it you expect? End of the day many of the people who post here regularly have been doing so for over a decade. It's going to be contemporary discussion and then reaching for new topics. It's not like the topics you dislike are knocking others off the front page and therefore killing other 'higher quality' discussion. Outright spam, sure, kill it. Someone starting a thread saying 'Root V WG Grace' and then 'Who was better?' as an OP, you've no place commenting on or policing in a moderator capacity IMHO. There's a time old principle that threads with no mileage in will just die off with very few replies. If they get many replies, actual replies and not spam, then clearly there's a discussion worth having. In busier times on CC, threads with fewer replies would die off more quickly because the board was busier. These days we split things out to subbies more, which I think is the right thing to do, but there's going to be a knock-on.

First, I have to reiterate that the context of this discussion is threads, many of them, with OPs that have, for all intents and purposes, no content whatsoever. The thread that got slippy banned is an egregious example, but it's not hard to find many others within the last week alone. So that's why I found your response bizarre; you were criticising a position I never took which is that OPs should have a stringent quality filter applied to them. No, I'm just asking for some basic standards with regards to substantiveness when people make threads.

You say that it'll naturally filter out as no one responds to them. Fine. So now we have a front page and a second page and a third page that is littered with zero-content threads that no one has responded to because there is nothing to respond to, just strewn around like so many fallen leaves in autumn. Is this really a healthy way for the forum to proceed? I genuinely want this to be something people think about, whether this is actually the direction people are happy to see CC go in. Do people go in and see a thread where people see random non-sequitur comparison threads between two players who are often only vaguely comparable at best (I see there's currently a comparison thread between Shane Warne and... Michael Holding - ????? - with a zero content OP) when the OP has not even gone to the trouble of saying anything to lay the groundwork for the discussion or explain why this would be an interesting topic of discussion, or literally anything to try and make the topic a worthwhile one. Like, you say "outright spam, sure, kill it" but genuinely, what exactly is the feature of these threads which makes them distinguishable from actual spambot threads? Frankly some spambot threads are even better than these. This is the level of posting that annoys me and concerns me with CC right now. I really don't want to get prescriptive and set actual hard standards, that's not my intention at all, but seriously a single sentence would suffice. Not just, "discuss", which is the worst possible OP IMO. Like, what are we discussing? Their records? The teams they played in? The colour of their hair? The average temperature on the days they played? The rendering of their names in different fonts? Please, give us something.

A CC where every second thread is "Imam-ul-Haq vs Tim May, discuss" would IMO be pretty **** and really unappealing for new posters coming into the forum for the first time. Some discussions obviously motivate themselves and don't really require further elaboration, usually because a lot of posters have emotional investment in the debate already and were just looking for a reason to get on. But not every discussion can be like that, and when that's the case, then yes I do expect that the OP goes to a minimum - I repeat, minimum - effort to try and make the discussion a worthwhile one. I do not think just leaving them to litter the first few pages of CC is good for forum health. This alone would convert a huge portion of these crap threads into ones that might actually generate discussion and posting, which after all is the whole goal here.

I've seen people suggest a sub-forum and while I'm personally not really convinced, I'm open to the idea. But this isn't a player comparison specific thing, it's more a broader thing that I really do think that CC in particular would improve if people put a bit more thought into their OPs.

 

[GIMH]

I mean you can say that's not your position, which I accept, but it's certainly how your post read to me. But I certainly didn't blow a gasket!

I'm not convinced on the subforum route either. I think we get it just about right at the minute and forums that have a million subforums are not enticing to new users who have NFI where to post what.

I guess the way I look at it is, do the player comparison threads put people off joining here? Do they prevent other discussions from taking place? Do they cause poor forum atmosphere?

I just see them as kind of there. I ignore most of them so I am with you that they aren't exactly great. But I don't really see it as a big deal?

 

[CricAddict]

First, I have to reiterate that the context of this discussion is threads, many of them, with OPs that have, for all intents and purposes, no content whatsoever. The thread that got slippy banned is an egregious example, but it's not hard to find many others within the last week alone. So that's why I found your response bizarre; you were criticising a position I never took which is that OPs should have a stringent quality filter applied to them. No, I'm just asking for some basic standards with regards to substantiveness when people make threads.

You say that it'll naturally filter out as no one responds to them. Fine. So now we have a front page and a second page and a third page that is littered with zero-content threads that no one has responded to because there is nothing to respond to, just strewn around like so many fallen leaves in autumn. Is this really a healthy way for the forum to proceed? I genuinely want this to be something people think about, whether this is actually the direction people are happy to see CC go in. Do people go in and see a thread where people see random non-sequitur comparison threads between two players who are often only vaguely comparable at best (I see there's currently a comparison thread between Shane Warne and... Michael Holding - ????? - with a zero content OP) when the OP has not even gone to the trouble of saying anything to lay the groundwork for the discussion or explain why this would be an interesting topic of discussion, or literally anything to try and make the topic a worthwhile one. Like, you say "outright spam, sure, kill it" but genuinely, what exactly is the feature of these threads which makes them distinguishable from actual spambot threads? Frankly some spambot threads are even better than these. This is the level of posting that annoys me and concerns me with CC right now. I really don't want to get prescriptive and set actual hard standards, that's not my intention at all, but seriously a single sentence would suffice. Not just, "discuss", which is the worst possible OP IMO. Like, what are we discussing? Their records? The teams they played in? The colour of their hair? The average temperature on the days they played? The rendering of their names in different fonts? Please, give us something.

A CC where every second thread is "Imam-ul-Haq vs Tim May, discuss" would IMO be pretty **** and really unappealing for new posters coming into the forum for the first time. Some discussions obviously motivate themselves and don't really require further elaboration, usually because a lot of posters have emotional investment in the debate already and were just looking for a reason to get on. But not every discussion can be like that, and when that's the case, then yes I do expect that the OP goes to a minimum - I repeat, minimum - effort to try and make the discussion a worthwhile one. I do not think just leaving them to litter the first few pages of CC is good for forum health. This alone would convert a huge portion of these crap threads into ones that might actually generate discussion and posting, which after all is the whole goal here.

I've seen people suggest a sub-forum and while I'm personally not really convinced, I'm open to the idea. But this isn't a player comparison specific thing, it's more a broader thing that I really do think that CC in particular would improve if people put a bit more thought into their OPs.

How about making content in opening post of a thread mandatory and having minimum number of characters, say 30 or 50? I am sure that is possible to do in the system.

 

[Spark]

How about making content in opening post of a thread mandatory and having minimum number of characters, say 30 or 50? I am sure that is possible to do in the system.

This is actually the exact kind of thing I'd like to avoid doing tbh. Hard barriers to entry would just annoy people and be even more off-putting. I really think this is just something the forum has to find a way to self-police and actively discourage people from making no-effort threads.

EDIT: Not least because "no content" and "very short" are not the same thing. You can make a very short OP which generates dozens of pages of discussion. You could write paragraphs and paragraphs and say nothing worthwhile at all. It's about substantiveness, not length necessarily (though yeah one word OPs are invariably egregious)

I mean you can say that's not your position, which I accept, but it's certainly how your post read to me. But I certainly didn't blow a gasket!

I'm not convinced on the subforum route either. I think we get it just about right at the minute and forums that have a million subforums are not enticing to new users who have NFI where to post what.

I guess the way I look at it is, do the player comparison threads put people off joining here? Do they prevent other discussions from taking place? Do they cause poor forum atmosphere?

I just see them as kind of there. I ignore most of them so I am with you that they aren't exactly great. But I don't really see it as a big deal?

Forum atmosphere is actually the core of my whole argument; it's just a very different kind of "forum atmosphere" from what we usually talk about.

The reasons I'm not really convinced about a subbie is because (1) forum segmentation is risky at the best of times, I don't think this merits it and (2) it's not a "player comparison thread" specific problem though that certainly is what comes to mind when I try to think of examples (beyond slippy threads).

 

[Victor Ian]

First, I have to reiterate that the context of this discussion is threads, many of them, with OPs that have, for all intents and purposes, no content whatsoever. The thread that got slippy banned is an egregious example, but it's not hard to find many others within the last week alone. So that's why I found your response bizarre; you were criticising a position I never took which is that OPs should have a stringent quality filter applied to them. No, I'm just asking for some basic standards with regards to substantiveness when people make threads.

You say that it'll naturally filter out as no one responds to them. Fine. So now we have a front page and a second page and a third page that is littered with zero-content threads that no one has responded to because there is nothing to respond to, just strewn around like so many fallen leaves in autumn. Is this really a healthy way for the forum to proceed? I genuinely want this to be something people think about, whether this is actually the direction people are happy to see CC go in. Do people go in and see a thread where people see random non-sequitur comparison threads between two players who are often only vaguely comparable at best (I see there's currently a comparison thread between Shane Warne and... Michael Holding - ????? - with a zero content OP) when the OP has not even gone to the trouble of saying anything to lay the groundwork for the discussion or explain why this would be an interesting topic of discussion, or literally anything to try and make the topic a worthwhile one. Like, you say "outright spam, sure, kill it" but genuinely, what exactly is the feature of these threads which makes them distinguishable from actual spambot threads? Frankly some spambot threads are even better than these. This is the level of posting that annoys me and concerns me with CC right now. I really don't want to get prescriptive and set actual hard standards, that's not my intention at all, but seriously a single sentence would suffice. Not just, "discuss", which is the worst possible OP IMO. Like, what are we discussing? Their records? The teams they played in? The colour of their hair? The average temperature on the days they played? The rendering of their names in different fonts? Please, give us something.

A CC where every second thread is "Imam-ul-Haq vs Tim May, discuss" would IMO be pretty **** and really unappealing for new posters coming into the forum for the first time. Some discussions obviously motivate themselves and don't really require further elaboration, usually because a lot of posters have emotional investment in the debate already and were just looking for a reason to get on. But not every discussion can be like that, and when that's the case, then yes I do expect that the OP goes to a minimum - I repeat, minimum - effort to try and make the discussion a worthwhile one. I do not think just leaving them to litter the first few pages of CC is good for forum health. This alone would convert a huge portion of these crap threads into ones that might actually generate discussion and posting, which after all is the whole goal here.

I've seen people suggest a sub-forum and while I'm personally not really convinced, I'm open to the idea. But this isn't a player comparison specific thing, it's more a broader thing that I really do think that CC in particular would improve if people put a bit more thought into their OPs.

Once Daemon commented that 'new posts is where it's at' and never having used it, I realised it IS where it's at. I'll look through it and the good stuff is on the first page, while the crap disappears pretty soon.
I understand the desire to keep the forum free from spam, but I really don't experience it as a problem and I HATE spam.
The only problem I have with spam is when I might search for something and then I'm presented with a pile of junk I'm not familiar with. But that is rare and countered by searching better.
Just two cents.

Edit. Agree that some basic effort should be made to create a thread.

 

[Spark]

I've never gotten used to New Posts. I've tried it repeatedly over the years both during the vBulletin days and now on XenForo but for some reason it just isn't an intuitive way for me to browse.

 

[Victor Ian]

I've never gotten used to New Posts. I've tried it repeatedly over the years both during the vBulletin days and now on XenForo but for some reason it just isn't an intuitive way for me to browse.

Yeah, I don't use it too much, but it's where I find new stuff when I need a fix and my watched is empty.

 

[Burgey]

I've never gotten used to New Posts. I've tried it repeatedly over the years both during the vBulletin days and now on XenForo but for some reason it just isn't an intuitive way for me to browse.

haha yeah same.

 

[Lillian Thomson]

People are weary of long opening posts because someone will just post "OK" in response. It's actually at the point where if someone posts more than one paragraph they will "OK" themselves to avoid the ignominy.
Someone will "OK" this post and that's OK. Just filter OK instead of ***.

 

[Spark]

Yeah the "ok" meme, while funny, is one of the worst examples of this forum falling victim to the irony poisoning plague.

 

[RossTaylorsBox]

First, I have to reiterate that the context of this discussion is threads, many of them, with OPs that have, for all intents and purposes, no content whatsoever. The thread that got slippy banned is an egregious example, but it's not hard to find many others within the last week alone. So that's why I found your response bizarre; you were criticising a position I never took which is that OPs should have a stringent quality filter applied to them. No, I'm just asking for some basic standards with regards to substantiveness when people make threads.

You say that it'll naturally filter out as no one responds to them. Fine. So now we have a front page and a second page and a third page that is littered with zero-content threads that no one has responded to because there is nothing to respond to, just strewn around like so many fallen leaves in autumn. Is this really a healthy way for the forum to proceed? I genuinely want this to be something people think about, whether this is actually the direction people are happy to see CC go in. Do people go in and see a thread where people see random non-sequitur comparison threads between two players who are often only vaguely comparable at best (I see there's currently a comparison thread between Shane Warne and... Michael Holding - ????? - with a zero content OP) when the OP has not even gone to the trouble of saying anything to lay the groundwork for the discussion or explain why this would be an interesting topic of discussion, or literally anything to try and make the topic a worthwhile one. Like, you say "outright spam, sure, kill it" but genuinely, what exactly is the feature of these threads which makes them distinguishable from actual spambot threads? Frankly some spambot threads are even better than these. This is the level of posting that annoys me and concerns me with CC right now. I really don't want to get prescriptive and set actual hard standards, that's not my intention at all, but seriously a single sentence would suffice. Not just, "discuss", which is the worst possible OP IMO. Like, what are we discussing? Their records? The teams they played in? The colour of their hair? The average temperature on the days they played? The rendering of their names in different fonts? Please, give us something.

A CC where every second thread is "Imam-ul-Haq vs Tim May, discuss" would IMO be pretty **** and really unappealing for new posters coming into the forum for the first time. Some discussions obviously motivate themselves and don't really require further elaboration, usually because a lot of posters have emotional investment in the debate already and were just looking for a reason to get on. But not every discussion can be like that, and when that's the case, then yes I do expect that the OP goes to a minimum - I repeat, minimum - effort to try and make the discussion a worthwhile one. I do not think just leaving them to litter the first few pages of CC is good for forum health. This alone would convert a huge portion of these crap threads into ones that might actually generate discussion and posting, which after all is the whole goal here.

I've seen people suggest a sub-forum and while I'm personally not really convinced, I'm open to the idea. But this isn't a player comparison specific thing, it's more a broader thing that I really do think that CC in particular would improve if people put a bit more thought into their OPs.

Read this in voice of Master Shake.