This is something that's been bugging me for awhile, and I've hinted at, but it's become an outright annoyance as of lately.
This one threads alone, I believe, are in a way, responsible for the slow decline for the quality in forum content. They're cheap and easy ways to spout off an opinion where no one can really see it or discuss it unless they just HAPPEN to be on that page. A glorified chat box, if you will. Basically, why put the effort into a well worded post with a point when you can just lazily throw it in the other thread? Off-Topic section basically boils down to "share something pointless about your life"
Hell, now we even have an "Confessions" thread. Nothing against these creators of these threads, but these threads are killing molten forums (or atleast off-topic section).
I'd like to see some quality discussion happen. This is difficult to do when you're not on all the time to catch the exact page it pops up in on the Pointless/Confession Threads. However, the front page of X Subforum is an easy way to catch these conversations and read the original opinion and post and respond accordingly.
At one point I thought these threads were weeding out low quality content. I no longer believe this. I now believe they promote low quality posting and discussion, and I think it's long overdue that they are locked
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Member
Rant: The Pointlessness
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Banned
The forums have plenty of serious and well-mannered discussions, you just don't notice them as much because they're much fewer in number than all of the ****posting that goes on.
Also, who exactly are you to talk about the lack of quality forum content? You're the one who consistently posts your extremely weird sexual fantasies on every thread you can find.
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Member
This I can agree. Although the "Share Pointless about your life" works entirely like a chatbox thread which doesn't restraint ****posting. I mean...it's GREAT that those threads are active. But I think if we nudged people into making threads, we could achieve something more substantial. I'm not saying deleteing these threads will magically solve the issue. It will force people to make actual threads for their thoughts. Nothing more.
Also... Time has changed, I'm not like that anymore.
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Banned
Just last week you were posting about your furry fetishes and thought of Jyx and Grace making out.
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Member
Which seldom happens nowadays. Come on Shiina... You're better than this.
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Banned
One would think.
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Member
Isn't there a community manager or something like that for the forums? I wouldn't mind posing a few suggestions. Perhaps a community event of sorts where members are encouraged to post discussion threads. One is selected by staff every week and spotlighted on the main website as well as stickied for the week.
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Banned
Send any ideas like that to Arlequina or Sapphire.
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Member
Worst idea: the post
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Member
How so? Please explain your reasoning.
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Member
This is actually a good suggestion. I really hope mods would partake in improving the forum community aside from moderating.
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Banned
The problem with it is that the mods are **** about us not offending anyone, and we're all quite blunt people as you may have noticed. We're basically not allowed to discuss religion or politics or evolution or anything like that because people's butts will be sore.
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Banned
So...you would have the "Share something pointless about your life" thread closed? Son, I gotta ask you. Do you wish to die?
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Member
I think encouraging people to post and make new threads is really important, and if there were some guarantee that locking these threads would do that, then I'd be all for it. But when those threads are just about the only source of activity, locking them might also bring the risk of just making things even quieter. That's up to the users, of course, to make threads when there aren't any and to say what's on their minds... but since I don't know what's on everybody else's mind, I can't really say for sure what would help vs what would make things worse.
Personally, I use those threads a lot because I feel like that's where my statements belong. I don't want to hold an entire discussion about every little thing I'm thinking of; sometimes it really is best just to have a place to dump brief statements. When I have something I do feel needs or warrants more depth and discussion, that is when I make a separate thread for it. I've been to plenty of other forums, many of which do not have threads like those, and the ratio of quantity to quality tends to be really skewed in favor of quantity. I'm a stickler for organization, and leaving people to make a thread for every little stupid thing that comes to their minds tends to make a huge mess. Simply not allowing the little things at all, however, makes a forum really unwelcoming and boring. Sure, you might have comparatively more "big" discussions, but without the smaller ones, there's no sense of real user interaction--which is already something I'd be wary of on this site, given the whole "no outright general chat threads" thing.
I'm not really sure what an optimal solution to this issue would be. Maybe I'm just being a dumb butt and locking those threads would be fine and actually help... but I can't say I wouldn't miss them.
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Member
Hey, where is the American flag?
