Be Excellent To Each Other

Right...

I'm not saying that I don't like you lot, I do.

Why do we need new users? Seriously? There is a limit to the size of community that can be sensibly supported through a web interface like this. There has been much opposition to the idea of subforums on the well-reasoned grounds that it splinters the community -- but I contend that sheer volume will splinter the community more effectively than anything else.

I have a good sense of the personalities of most of the posters here, despite only reading 20% or so of posts, and I like it that way. Double the userbase and that would be hard, double it again and it'll be impossible. In summary, I'd rather live in a village than a city centre.

I like to feel at home, but there's a serious possibility of becoming inbred. You're never going to learn anything if you speak to the same people all the time.

edit: And more to the point, 200 people can only discuss so many things before they start repeating themselves. And, in this context, making four or five threads on the same fucking subject. If we had more people, we wouldn't necessarily have more threads, we'd just have more input in a larger variety of threads.

...

Maybe so.

The mods were voted for democratically, and they do appear to be doing their best to try to deal with things. I think there have been things going on unseen, since there's been a lot of talk of PMs exchanged and unpleasentless and so on and so forth.

May I ask, and I don't mean this in a sarcastic manner at all, what you did expect or would like to see on Beteo? The drama of this week aside, I quite like it, but if we can do other things that more people like in addition, I'm all for it.

I think a regular flow of new members is no bad thing though and hopefully once the main site itself is ready, that will encourage people along to it and then to the forum. GJ and I are members of a particular forum that deliberately hid itself from google etc so no-one new came along and the whole thing went stale because it was the same people having the same discussions.

Now CUS has been banned?

Seriously, fuck off.

This is mental.

I want to talk about video games with people who know a lot about video games. I'd also like to talk about other stuff with intelligent, informed folk. Like WoS.

I like the way things are. Not the last couple of days, but I think that, really, it has been very good if you look at the ratio to great happy things to people being upset.

I think that the modding decision was probably the right one if it wasn't known at the time that users could set PM receipt rules, but I think that a quick email to CUS before it happened, if one wasn't sent, would have just made things a bit less angsty and CUS could have emailed Grim... back and discussed this in private rather than having to come on and demand an explanation, which affects the mood of the whole board. I think that Grim.. and CUS perhaps could have come to an agreement themselves if things had worked out to the best.

I don't understand how you can like things how they are. I used to genuinely learn about things on WoS. From interesting and informed people. Now I just find out about what slippers someone has bought or that another argument has started behind the scenes.

edit: the slippers thing isn't a personal dig, it's just an absolutely perfect example of the point I'm trying to get across.

Like how WoS used to be, I mean.

Also, no H in Jonny.

I can see what you're saying. As a countpoint, I was a regular for years in the alt.digitiser newsgroup, which I don't think ever had more than 40-50 regular posters and (as I think the other a.d refugees here can attest) was healthy and vibrant for many many years. Seems to me the trick to keeping the conversation flowing is more about pointing the forum out into the world (new games, news articles, new albums coming out, etc etc) than it is new people.

Completely agree with this, although I'd still like more people as well. But it isn't happening, just loads of nonsense threads instead. And yeah, maybe I should start a thread or two, and perhaps I will. But I don't want to be the only one. I try to start a thread when it's actually worthwhile.

A communal agreement on what's worthwhile talking about is basically what a forum is.

I get the feeling that might tail off over the next week..........

There is still good stuff in here, I thought similar thoughts to you at first, and this place is still evolving but it's trying to get it right. I think personally it would be better with one person in charge, and less of the prevaricating that happens, but then so be it.

I'm still active on WoS too, and I find that the 2 forums together make up 90% of what the old WoS was on it's own, but if this heads in the right direction then eventually it will usurp what was there before.

Malc

Well yeah, but come on. You know what a nonsense thread is, and there are plenty of examples to see.

http://www.bepassiveaggressivetoeachother.com, more like.

Maybe, but just because Grim... has mod power doesn't mean that you couldn't come to an agreement. yes, if it came to the fact that you couldn't have reached a conclusion then his decision would over-ride yours. I know that you were asked to stop and refused, which is your choice, but if Grim... emailed you to let you know that your PMing privileges had been removed only temporarily whilst the people that asked not to receive your PMs had that sorted out for them then at least you might not have been in the dark as to what happened and you could have emailed Grim... back to say your understood, or to disagree - however you felt.

But if people weren't posting in them, they wouldn't be here, and if people want to post in them, they aren't nonsense, surely?

I'd be happy to call those sorts of threads inconsequential, but not nonsense.

Indeed you have a strong point, but you can't improve something just by dicking on the things you don't like. Make a thread. Tag it serious, and I'll come and have a serious on-topic chat with you. Willingly and enthusiastically.

The Child Porn thread (for the first 5 or so pages at least) and the Scientology thread have stayed remarkably on target I think and I figured we were all calming down - I hoped Dr A might come back even.

But then we all go crazy again. Mods not being transparent enough, and not actually being mods because of years of being "one of us."

CUS being... CUS basically and.

It's tiring of all this.

Why people want to post in them is beyond me, but perhaps it's something to do with trying to be funny? For example posting the same picture over and over again, or stupid one line replies. It's like showing off to your friends in school for want of a better analogy.

Spot on. I'd love to make a thread and have an on-topic chat with you, but I fear someone would post a picture of that Sparrow woman or start a haiku competition in it.

If that happens in a thread marked with a "serious" icon, a moderator will clear the topic up for you if you ask.
We always have done.

do you think we could merge this and the pinned CUS thread? or just close this thread, as it's awkward flitting between the 2.

Thanks

MAlc

But you shouldn't have to. This place has gotten so out of control with posts that only seem to be made for the sake of adding to a post count that people think they can just talk about any stupid thing anywhere, shitting on topics for fun.

Remove the post count?

More to the point, if you just ask people politely to keep it on-topic people would. There is a general consensus rule here that some off-topic silliness gives the board spice -- I agree with this view -- but there is plenty of room for serious on-topic threads. If you start a thread, just ask people to keep it on-topic for that one thread. I don't believe anyone here wouldn't cheerfully comply.

But they wouldn't have to. I have a 7 page thread on scientology, and apart from slight diversions that I instigated/approved it's been perfectly on topic and perfectly sensible. A polite request sets the tone, and the mods are there if that tone is ignored.

I'm not denying that telling people off for going off topic works. What I am saying is that this forum has set itself up in a silly climate, and people seem to be predisposed to posting something stupid until they're told to stop, rather than thinking about it, and deciding if posting something stupid would be worthwhile at all.

The difference between here and WOS is that here you're banned for persistently causing trouble, not for disagreeing with the Admin or daring to bump a thread where someone asked a perfectly civil question in the hope of getting an answer.

Incidentally if you know the incident to which I refer, notice that after a post "promising" an answer, said thread has died again and the situation remains. PM me for more if you care...



You could have stood in that election. I did, and indeed I wanted to vote for you (as indicated when we discussed the concept of a forum like this in PMs on RG).



It's considerably more sensible than WOS where the only new topic of consequence this week is "I don't want the eurovision because I'm not gay" which is rather pathetically juvenile.

Christ alive, mate - how many friends do you have in real life?



Or we'd end up like RLLMUK, of course.

Some of the most interesting discussions I've ever had on webforums have been where things have gone wildly off topic.

I really DGAF, to me the moderation seems fine and stuff.

This 'five threads on the same topic' thing is silly. There's the one, big, mafia thread, and after Grim.. got killed I started the Ode to Grim thread which went all poetry immediately and didn't discuss the game at all. The only other one is the 'Kudos Craster' thread, which is just saying thanks to Craster for setting it up.

Grand total of mafia threads: 2. Hardly stupid.

But yes, everything is fine to my eyes. perhaps it's because I realise internet != real life and so I don't let it bother me.

The pedant in me wishes to emphasise the difference between a topic going off topic and a topic going silly.

So it wrote the sentence above.

But we can't compare it to WoS now, we're comparing it to how WoS was. This forum is supposed to be its replacement.

Couldn't the whole thing about the Mafia threads have been cleared up simply and easily by just creating a temporary sub-forum for it? I assume that all it takes is a few mouse clicks. All the usual arguments against sub-forums would be irrelevant, the players could have made as many threads as they want and CUS would have had nothing to complain about.

But it's not. If it was, CUS would have been gone quite a while ago.

[edit]@Jonarob

I agree, but I'm not talking about somebody making an interesting topic shift. I'm talking about people posting absolute bollocks that can only be directly replied to with further bollocks. And it's absolutely undeniable that this sort of thing happens a lot on this forum.

I'm not even talking about the Mafia threads. Perhaps I was a little OTT by saying FIVE THREADS ON THE SAME THING, but what I really mean is we seem to be having the same discussions in similar threads over and over. And not only that, but people are posting silly, uninteresting and downright pointless replies frequently. I'm all for taking a topic in an interesting new direction, which may be completely different to the original post. This is interesting. But a stupid picture of a monkey picking its arsehole followed by a series of photoshops or similar pictures, or a "witty" one line reply followed by a series of similar witicisms isn't good discussion.

It's like b3ta.

Perhaps they are. However, no disrespect mate, but at the moment you only seem to be popping up on here to complain about the place, so you're hardly contributing to making the place a happy informative forum yourself. I know that's because of how you're viewing the forum at the moment, but still - it isn't helpful.

You're not disrespecting me. That's a perfectly reasonable thing to say, but I am not going to make a difference by contributing a bit more. What will make a difference is if everyone stops talking bollocks most of the time.

Is it? How can it be? We have different posters, who want to write different things, and for good or for ill we have a different moderation schema without a single strong voice deciding what can or cannot be discussed. It can never replace WoS. Even new-WoS can't replace old-WoS, so how can this place?

BETEO needs to be left to find it's own ground. Perhaps it already has, and perhaps you will eventually leave Jonny -- it's unfortunate but it does happen. Or perhaps you will help shape it towards something else by posting some of those topics you mentioned, and then BETEO will become something else again. You can't fix a template in place for something as ethereal as a few dozen strangers talking on the internet. That's like trying to nail jelly to the wall through verbal instructions to a herd of cats. You can, at best, nudge and hope.

I think you will, though. The more "serious" threads that are started, the higher the ratio of "serious" threads to "inconsequntial/silly/fluff" threads (or however you wish to term them).

I have been slightly annoyed that the few threads I've started over the last couple of weeks have almost invariably wandered horrifically off topic and down dead ends, but still. I got over it.

Well even so the moderation is a billion times better. I'll take some silliness over having a post deleted and told to fuck off by the admin because I dared to say I quite liked Forza 2 actually.

Oh and another that was deleted when I pointed out his "Blu-ray vs DVD" test didn't work when he wasn't using a BR but a downloaded internet video of interterminate source to represent blu-ray.

CUS is banned from WOS too remember, as of course am I.

It's certainly unreasonable of me to expect a direct WoS-replacement, but this forum does exist because WoS went to fuck. So perhaps it is reasonable of me to expect some similarities. And I was hoping one of those similarities would be that this place is a place for intelligent discussion with, of course, humour thrown in. But it seems to be turning into a b3ta kinda place where everything is just silly and pointless. And I think that's a shame because I genuinely enjoy talking to you lot.

Well, there's a big wodge of subjectivity right there. Ultimately, isn't *everything* stupid and pointless?

I don't know, I've started one thread, the child porn CGI one. I got a lot of very interesting discussion.

I tried it elsewhere and all I got was some insecure idiot saying "I'm hardly concerned about anime nerds losing their wank material".

A very solid win for this place I feel.