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Frazzled wrote:

Manchu wrote:

Kanluwen wrote:"X universe vs Y universe" or "Y universe took Z from X universe!" threads need to be kicked to off-topic or just locked immediately and the poster warned.

This sounds harsh but it's true. Such threads have no place in either 40k Background or 40k Discussion.

Why?

These topics are not really about 40k. As noted, they are really about sci-fi tropes in general. If I post a thread about how the Judge Dredd character has influenced 40k's background, that fits: it is a discussion of the background of 40k. If I post a thread about whether Judge Dredd could beat up an Inquisitor, at least half of the thread becomes talking about how cool Judge Dredd is--i.e., something that has nothing to do with 40k. Furthermore, the discussion about 40k that such threads contain is all from a generalist perspective: a universe in which BFG ships and the USS Enterprise can coexist also has nothing to do with 40k.

Dashofpepper wrote:

Mr Mystery wrote:Having read this? Yes I'm afraid.

It's descending into a lot of cock-waving, mostly from people who always seem to feel 'they know better'.

How depressing. If you don't like how this site is Moderated, then go join a different one, surely?

Looking through your post history (Tomb Stalker Hoax, how to deal with RL bullies, why job hunting sucks, why drugs are produced.....) I see that you don't possess the shared experiences of those of us who try bringing useful content to Dakka. How the moderators moderate is a tangential point to Dakka's downward spiral, brought on by the segue into the fact that they moderate tone and behavior but not content.

The answer isn't the people who care about Dakka to leave Dakka - its for people like you to stop increasing the noise ratio...OR for moderators to moderate content, OR for additional moderators to be formed to start policing out the garbage posts so that relevant content can be read without an extensive search through posts like "Who's Primarch is the best in bed?" "Would Master Chief beat a Space Marine in a fight?" "Wakkawakka, lets fake a release rumor!"

Stop stop stop being such a bully. You are an elitist.

Frazzled wrote:

loki old fart wrote:start the post ranking system,
Then take your highest quality posters and give them the opportunity to mentor newer younger posters.
When someone posts a poorly written post, the mods can pm them and suggest mentoring to improve their posts

just a thought

if we had 30 mods we could do that. But of course I wouldn't want to be on a board that had "mentoring." One person's mentoring is another person's thought control.

If a new poster makes a post, with poor or low content, is it better to ?
A delete the post (censorship)
B lock the post (censorship) again
C allow people to deride, insult,belittle the poster.
D Suggest in the nicest way he speaks to (insert name here), who can help them put their point across.

loki old fart wrote:start the post ranking system,
Then take your highest quality posters and give them the opportunity to mentor newer younger posters.
When someone posts a poorly written post, the mods can pm them and suggest mentoring to improve their posts

just a thought

Problem is that some of the people here who post crap are content to just keep posting it.

After all, they know they'll get attention if they post crap. Look at 40k Proposed Rules sometime, and a certain self-proclaimed "Rules Spammer" there.

Kanluwen wrote:

loki old fart wrote:start the post ranking system,
Then take your highest quality posters and give them the opportunity to mentor newer younger posters.
When someone posts a poorly written post, the mods can pm them and suggest mentoring to improve their posts

just a thought

Problem is that some of the people here who post crap are content to just keep posting it.

After all, they know they'll get attention if they post crap. Look at 40k Proposed Rules sometime, and a certain self-proclaimed "Rules Spammer" there.

Or YMDC and the self-proclaimed "Resident Troll" who openly admits to delibertly starting some of the biggest flamefests in Dakka History, just for the sake of doing it.

jp400 wrote:

loki old fart wrote:start the post ranking system,
Then take your highest quality posters and give them the opportunity to mentor newer younger posters.
When someone posts a poorly written post, the mods can pm them and suggest mentoring to improve their posts

just a thought

The problem with this, is that it will be abused from the start.

You have users who's friends will +1 each others post count non stop so they can reach "l33t status!11!!1"
ect ect ect

But the mods still get to choose the mentors
so to reach elite status will require being a sucessfull mentor. Not post count

quantity will be meaningless.
Quality of posts, politeness etc will be what counts

In a perfect world, that would work. Though, I still feel that it would be abused pretty quickly by semi crafty users here.

I don't see post count as being an issue, for exactly the reasons you describe.

No one with any sense is going to ascribe intelligence or validity to someone's posts based on the fact that they have nothing better to do than feth around on a message board.

Yes, I realize how ironic that is given my posting history this month. I'm in between work and school! Give me a break!

It works like this

poster A posts utter gibberish, nobody is going to vote his post up accept his mates

Poster B posts a quality post, but is offensive bulling etc, so his post might get voted up.

Poster C posts an average post but is polite etc.

Poster D posts a great post, loads of content. well thought out and polite.

A gets offered a mentor
B gets credit for his posts quality, but asked to be more considerate
C gets oportunity to mentor as does D

mentors get icon next to avatar to denote status

To give people something to aspire to

BloodThirSTAR wrote:

Dashofpepper wrote:

Mr Mystery wrote:Having read this? Yes I'm afraid.

It's descending into a lot of cock-waving, mostly from people who always seem to feel 'they know better'.

How depressing. If you don't like how this site is Moderated, then go join a different one, surely?

Looking through your post history (Tomb Stalker Hoax, how to deal with RL bullies, why job hunting sucks, why drugs are produced.....) I see that you don't possess the shared experiences of those of us who try bringing useful content to Dakka. How the moderators moderate is a tangential point to Dakka's downward spiral, brought on by the segue into the fact that they moderate tone and behavior but not content.

The answer isn't the people who care about Dakka to leave Dakka - its for people like you to stop increasing the noise ratio...OR for moderators to moderate content, OR for additional moderators to be formed to start policing out the garbage posts so that relevant content can be read without an extensive search through posts like "Who's Primarch is the best in bed?" "Would Master Chief beat a Space Marine in a fight?" "Wakkawakka, lets fake a release rumor!"

Stop stop stop being such a bully. You are an elitist.

Stop stop stop telling me what to do. You are a bully. And....uninformed.


On topic....post counts serve no purpose. I wish they would go away. I think that would ease up on the garbage quite a bit too.

Dashofpepper wrote:
Stop stop stop telling me what to do. You are a bully. And....uninformed.

Since im uninformed too, i tried to look into the whole army list advice thing. Since i really needed some advice on Eldar anyway .
Well i made a thread in the 40k army list part of dakka and actually got very good advice i think. My thread didnt get flamed or became a place of struggle between to religious factions warring for controll over all Eldar list building.
Maybe thats an exception but im quite positively surprised AND also think i learned something about how Eldar work ingame.

You can easily find my thread i believe (its still on page one) and read it. Maybe you also have something to add too ^^.

Cheers

Dashofpepper wrote:

Frazzled wrote:I'm not seeing how you would mod out the posts though.

topic on plasma cannons. Somene says PCs are cool. Somoen says PCs suck and provides an excel sheet. Somoene says PC's are too expensive and cites orks.

Are you going to delete the first post?
How are you going to quantify what is or isn't a good post?
How are you going to sift through all the posts in the Tactical?

I'm presuming you're just screwing with me at this point to get me to repeat myself, so I'll just link where you asked me this earlier.

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/270/319323.page#1972543

And my earlier response to when you asked the same question: http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/120/319323.page#1970541

And your answer wasn't very good. At best it is an outline. Nothing in your answer gives what is a bad post, or what is a good post. You give examples, but no quantifiable data to say what is good and what is bad. You also seem to be trying to avoid his question.

jp400 wrote:

Heffling wrote:In my opinion, Dakka has the best support of any of the 40k related websites I read, has the most supportive members of the hobby, and a very friendly environment.

The moderators here are volunteer, and I think they do an excellent job. When you consider bang for your buck, it's out of the park.

So, rather than complain about any small details that may be bothering me, I'd like to thank the Mods for their hard work, and ask them if there is anything I can help to do to improve the community here.

Note, I will be joining the ranks of the DCM on my next pay check in about two weeks. I've just had to get a few personal things taken care of first. So I am quite willing to put my money where my mouth is.

While well worded, you really have not been her long enough to quite get a firm grasp at what most of the posters here are trying to discuss I think.

I agree with him and I've been here a while. I don't do lots of 40k posting because honestly there's nothing new to talk about in 40k except when updates come out. Beyond that, we're not reaching any new "groundbreaking concepts" or anything of that nature, we're rehashing old stuff in often the same ways. Painting threads are fun if you feel like getting told your projects aren't fluffy enough or they're too bizarre to warrant any percentage of actual useful commentary. Overall though, I like it here and to be fair I contribute very little except light-hearted commentary and an interesting topic of discussion that otherwise wouldn't pop up round these parts every once in a while. The mods are some of the best of all the forums I use. I think people take stuff way too seriously in general and I have no idea why this thread even needed to be made.

Dash, not to be inflammatory but as someone who has watched your rise to the social elite of Dakka, I have to say you're coming off as a tad elitist.

Yes, I understand that there are tons of "garbage" threads, but who are we to judge? Why should these be banned, they're just as legitimate as topics about the metagame and tactics, and even those ragethreads like religion. I respect you as a gamer and a hobbyist, but IMHO this is getting a bit out of hand...

And on a broader note, I notice that Dakka is resembling Renaissance Europe more and more. The Machiavellian elite are constantly arguing against one another as their ideologies clash while the average poster isn't really affected. Whether or not this is good or bad is really not something I'll get into, but it is, to me, an interesting comparison.

Again, I guess why not carve out some fiefdoms for the elite? A forum for discussing competitive tactics, a serious background forum, etc?

Allow people to post what they want in the main forums, but have some more serious ones available for those that want it?

Well, there is the DCM board . . .

Way Worse, i used to come here for News and rumors and now theres 14 pages of "ohhh i wants" between pictures of new items. One post per item or group of items was way better. Also i dont remember all these silly polls either. Another thing is the painting and modeling section is slowed, like 5 threads on the first page will be a picture, the rest are "hey i'm gonna convert this guy into luke from starwars....as soon as a i get some money, so thanks for reading these sentances." Annoying crap and one of the reasons i rarely go into the forum. Honestly i used to check this forum like 3 times a day, now i feel i can skip weeks and not miss a thing.

Well, now Polonius, that delves into whether or not there is an elite within Dakka, but that's a different topic and for the sake of the thread I suggest we don't go there.

However, I do agree with Manchu, if you do indeed support this site, and believe yourself to be of elite status, why not pitch in and gain access to the DCM forums, where the supposed "commoners" can't spam primarch sexual prowess threads.

I dont' mean elite in the sense of a higher class. I mean that when people want to post threads that are well though out, and expect the same in terms of replies, there are places for those kind of more serious discussion.

Which brings up the question of what a well thought out post is, but again, a different subject.

I can see where you're going with this though, and perhaps the tournament thread should be expanded to involve this serious type of discussion? I.E. A tournament list sub-section within, or maybe allowing those type of things to be posted there.

Which brings me to another point, what sort of topics are considered serious? P&M blogs? Background? etc.

Polonius wrote:I dont' mean elite in the sense of a higher class. I mean that when people want to post threads that are well though out, and expect the same in terms of replies, there are places for those kind of more serious discussion.

I echo the DCM board. When I started work on my Adepticon Display last year, I threw it up in the DCM forum....and received a ton of great feedback. They really helped me with their perspectives....and you're helping out Dakka at the same time.

Cryonicleech wrote:Dash, not to be inflammatory but as someone who has watched your rise to the social elite of Dakka, I have to say you're coming off as a tad elitist.

Yes, I understand that there are tons of "garbage" threads, but who are we to judge? Why should these be banned, they're just as legitimate as topics about the metagame and tactics, and even those ragethreads like religion. I respect you as a gamer and a hobbyist, but IMHO this is getting a bit out of hand...

And on a broader note, I notice that Dakka is resembling Renaissance Europe more and more. The Machiavellian elite are constantly arguing against one another as their ideologies clash while the average poster isn't really affected. Whether or not this is good or bad is really not something I'll get into, but it is, to me, an interesting comparison.

Elitist? Why? Because I would like thread titles to be indicative of their contents? Because I would like users to post in the appropriate forums for their discussion topics? That's the only thing I've asked for and suggested - and since it won't happen at the behest of users (or I wouldn't have complained in the first place) it requires a power-that-is to make it happen if it is a worthy cause.

I don't want all those "garbage" threads banned, or their authors executed - I just want them out of the places they don't belong in, and a new section called "Watercooler Chat" or something where they can take all those threads....so that when I log into Dakka and go to 40k General Discussion, I can actually READ about 40k, its happenings, and various aspects of 40k. All the "what's the worst weapon in 40k" crap in tactics, and "Who's primarch has the biggest penis" crap in General Discussion and "Was Fulgrim lame?" crap in Background Discussions can all go into the Watercooler board. It can be the grey murkiness between 40k and Off Topic - because it is vaguely tied into the 40k universe, but doesn't belong in the rest of the boards creating empty noise.

No, elitist in the sense that you can determine whether or not a thread is "valid" discussion, or "empty noise". What is empty noise and trash to you might be a valid topic to another, regardless of such factors as "maturity level" or "tactical correctness" and whatnot.

40k General Discussion is a broad category, and I do think that personally those sorts of "negative" posts belong there. So what if someone posts crap? I mean honestly, what a couple of people say and do shouldn't reflect the community as a whole. The sub-forum as a whole is already broad, and it caters to an even broader category of gamers, and I don't think those posts lack any validity.

Well that seems to be the heart of it. The vets here have seen these threads over and over again, but the great majority of lurkers and newbies are seeing it for the first time... its new and exciting to them. Both points of view are valid I think.

The thing is I do agree with Dash that it would be great to filter some of it or funnel it to a place where new guys can still enjoy it, but it doesnt spam the forums with noise for the rest of us with some experience. I can live with it, but I can only imagine how many great threads I may have missed because they got buried under re-hash or bad content... no one's fault really though.

hyperviper6 wrote:Search function is terrible; getting that fixed would be a huge asset. Mods that crack down on pointless stuff are frustrating at the least.

P&M is great if you subscribe but if you don't good luck finding it again with search.

Rumor and news has gone downhill.

There is nothing to really "engage" readers. Even worse with the mods on every thread locking or saying this or that is not how we want it done (written in rude tones) it does even more to disengage followers.

I say loosen up; get some dedicated writers who can engage the community like bols readers. Find more people to write articles in the P&M tutorial section and have some competitions (reviews, painting, conversions & the like).

Also, why not some sort of tracking system for winning/losing games. Give people a reason to come enter tonight’s battles and see how they stack up against other dakka users. Maybe even some sort of fun ranking system like the one that appears under your name.

Hope this helps.

(Edited for grammer)

Wow. This is absolutely how I see it.

See, but I don't understand why they don't belong there. They're about 40k, and lack enough specificity to be placed in any other 40k related sub forum.

However, I took a trip to 40k General discussions, and there were a couple of threads discussing artwork, two or so about trouble selecting new armies, one about what kind of pet you would have in the 40k universe, and other such threads. Would the last one be "empty noise"? It's a rhetorical, and it's really unlikely to prove useful by any means, but is it a valid topic? Personally, I think so.

It is interesting that there haven't been any complaints from the WHFB or historicals people.

That's because there are only two of them!

There certainly are more 40K users.

I'm sure Legoburner could find out the rate of posting in the specific 40K and WHFB forums.

Many of the olde time users have expressed that dakka is worsening.

I feel that its different.

Its much bigger, more easy to use, more pointless OT and ridiculous question posts.

My only disappointment is that the regular users are not more proactive in pointing out the error of the ways of the 'bad' posters. That doesn't mean flame them. It is pointing out the way things are normally done. It used to be a big, big part of dakka and I do miss it.

Also WHFB generates a better breed of player... that is why the WHFB forums rule!