Splitting General Chat

[Shira]

I was thinking... you know all those "This or that" games, and newbie threads birthday threads and threads which ask "Which do you prefer" (like muffins or cupcakes" stuff like that which only require 1-sentence answers-- why don't we put that in a separate forum? We could also allow "We're leaving" "We're back" threads there... what do you think? It might seem a bad idea, but I get really fed up seeing all those threads... would it be a bad idea? general chat is pretty much overflowing.

[Agent Proto]

A Subforum for General Chat? =o

[Sakura Yume]

<font color=#AFEEEE>I think that could be an idea but I don't think we need to bring back the I'm back threads. Those are just... so unnecessary seeing as we can tell when people come back...

[Daryl]

I see your point, but personally don't see the need to split it up. You can choose which threads to read or to pass over.

[Shira]

*feels stupid*

You can close this now.

[Daryl]

Don't feel stupid. It was a valid suggestion. :)

I'll leave it open in case others have opinions to express.

[Loony BoB]

I actually think that's a friggin' awesome idea - although it'd be annoying, I'd *love* to have all those threads pushed aside into a little hole sometimes >=P

But to be honest, if I had to make the choice, I'd say no. General Chat is General Chat... we once tried to make 'another' GC, and it ended up the Archived Daily Grind xD

[Shlup]

I like BoB's answer. It sounds like a good idea, but then it sounds like a hassle too. I'd just have another forum I'd have to go through.

[Bannor]

Maybe we could set it apart into to forums then. The spam on and the non-spam on. well seriously maybe we could have a forum devoted entirely to b-days, new people threads and uh maybe good bye threads?

[Calliope]

yes! we could call it "general spam"!

[The Man]

First of all, yes, I&rsquo;d absolutely agree with the argument that General Chat is overflowing. In fact, it&rsquo;s actually quite intimidating, and if I go away for two days, I&rsquo;ve sometmies got three pages of new threads in GC to look at. That said, I don&rsquo;t think splitting it would be that great of an idea.

First of all, who on earth wants to go back through all those old General Chat threads (there&rsquo;s got to be thousands of them) and separate &rsquo;em? That&rsquo;s a rather large problem, I think. I suppose we could just start a &ldquo;General Spam&rdquo; forum, as Nicky has already dubbed it (it is a pretty catchy name), now, and only start worrying about separating the new threads, but&hellip; it wouldn&rsquo;t be particularly consistent, and I don&rsquo;t think most people would have a clue as to in which forum they are supposed to post a given type of thread without any sort of precedents. I can also see moderators and administrators, no matter how mature they are (and yes, they&rsquo;re all highly mature) disagreeing about where some threads would belong for the first few weeks of the new dichotomy, as I&rsquo;m sure it would be absolutely impossible to define such a dichotomy in inarguable terms.

Yes. General Chat is huge. In fact, it&rsquo;s a monster. But I think it has to be, by its very nature, and I don&rsquo;t even think that separating stuff like birthday threads would be a good idea even if somebody on the staf wouldn&rsquo;t have to go through the onerous task of separating the old stuff by hand &mdash; honestly, how many people would actually post to newbie threads, birthday threads and &ldquo;I&rsquo;m leaving&rdquo; threads (which magically became legal) if we set those aside in their own forum, anyway?

Having said that, it might be a decent idea to re-legalize things like &ldquo;This or that&rdquo; threads and &ldquo;I&rsquo;m back&rdquo; threads and suddenly give them a new forum (no one would have to worry about separating threads if that were done, since all the ones up to this point have been closed), but I don&rsquo;t think the administrators like those very much, and frankly, who really wants to use up all that extra bandwidth for stuff that a lot of people don&rsquo;t even like at the moment?

Ultimately, none of this is our decision. Perhaps the staff, if they think any of this is a good idea, should hold a poll on GC, which a lot more people who&rsquo;d care about the issue would be viewing. Then again, it&rsquo;s the administrative staff who are going to have to wade through thousands of GC threads and separate them, and it&rsquo;s the administrative staff who are going to need to pay for the extra bandwidth of a new forum. Ultimately, I think it should probably be their choice.

Peace
The Man

[Shlup]

And, of course, The Man says everything that the rest of us are too lazy to type out. I agree.

Oh yeah, and:


...and “I’m leaving” threads (which magically became legal)...

XD

[Griever]

I see your point, but personally don't see the need to split it up. You can choose which threads to read or to pass over.


Yes but sometimes a few idiots don't mark their subjects properly. (Now i'm sure i've probably done it in the past but no-ones perfect)

I think it's a great idea.

[Endless]

We discussed the use of a forum for the "I'm new" threads mainly, and the idea that rised is that it would end in a spam forum where nobody actually cares about who is posting what. Also, having a spam forum won't stop spam elsewhere. Spam calls spam, I saw that at other boards, and the result isn't pretty, unless you make very strict rules and enforce them.

I mean, having some games like "this or that" every once in a while is okay, but if people just want to spend time, they should better go out and play football/basket/soccer/whatever. Or find another board made for spam. Or something. We got rid of post counts more than a year ago to prevent spam, I'd find it not very clever to make a spam fest forum :p

[Crunchy Beverage]

Those are just... so unnecessary seeing as we can tell when people come back... - SakuraYume

What's the difference between newbie threads and I'm back threads, eh? We can tell when someone's new. I see this 'n00b threads are allowed, but returns aren't' idea to be a double-standard. Double-standards p*ss me off.

[The Man]

Newbies often feel intimidated by the huge numbers of forums and threads here, and most of them probably don&rsquo;t know the ropes. Encouraging such people to post is viewed as a good idea by the administration, as otherwise there would be no &ldquo;next generation&rdquo; of EoFFers. Those who are returning, however, should probably already know how the forums work and shouldn&rsquo;t need a new thread to announce their return or to receive encouragement to post. It&rsquo;s not a double-standard, really; we should consider it a huge and helpful courtesy that newbie threads are allowed at all.

Besides, if you&rsquo;ve already made a name for yourself, people will notice when you&rsquo;re back.

Peace
The Man

[Dr Unne]

I'm back/leaving threads were disallowed because people were making them when they were leaving for one or two days, and there were a billion of them. There aren't nearly as many newbie threads as that.

I'm in favor of leaving everything the way it is. Why bother changing stuff unless it's a huge problem? Things that have been the same since the beginning of EoFF should stay the same. They brought EoFF this far. "If it ain't broke, don't fix it", as my parents would say. Oh, the joys of improper grammar.

[Shira]

That's true, it's not a big problem, so it might as well stay the way it is... Oh, and why don't we make a rule then is only make a "I'm leaving" thread when you're sure you're gonna be gone longer than ___ weeks/months/years?

By the way, I thought you refused to read my posts... (http://www.eyesonff.com/forums/showthread.php?postid=302216#post302216)

[Calliope]

what about the ffi forums? squallens and robbo have a spam forum...with disabled post count! it allows spam but doesn't reward it! genius! it must have been squallens' idea...silly aussies...

[crono_logical]

Except that Squally isn't the Australian one, It's Robb that is :p

I don't know, it might work at their boards, but at a place as large as this one, it might be a huge mess if anything (well, that's the point of spam, but meh :p ) Could house a lot of concealed flaming and such if it's gets that large which wouldn't exactly be nice :p I don't think a spam forum is needed at a place like this, the difference between board sizes being one of the reasons :)

[Sakura Yume]

<font color=#FFCCFF>
What's the difference between newbie threads and I'm back threads, eh? We can tell when someone's new. I see this 'n00b threads are allowed, but returns aren't' idea to be a double-standard. Double-standards p*ss me off. </font>

<font color=#AFEEEE>CB, each person has been entitled to <b>1</b> newbie thread. If I'm leaving/back threads are allowed just think of the holiday season (which was when they were banned first I think), we'd be flooded in I'm leaving/back threads as each person would therefore be permitted more than 1 thread.

[Calliope]

Except that Squally isn't the Australian one, It's Robb that is

i know, i was implying that the fragile australian brain cannot come up with such an idea as the disabled post count xD

but yeah i get the concealed flaming point thing though.