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So I've just come from a certain part of Dakka with a question: Is YMDC broken?

There are two kinds of posts in that forum, I think everyone will agree:

1. A rules question that can be answered with the RAW & makes sense; the person asking is simply too lazy to look up the rule or forgot their rules, or too lazy to try and figure it out on their own. These tend to be quick, need-to-know ASAP questions.

2. A rules question similar to the one posed above except the RAW doesn't make sense. The post generally devolves into a flame war between the RAW and HYWPi camps. People get banned/suspended. These tend to be long, "what-if" or "I found an inconsistency" questions.

I think this has proved time and again to be a problem, and that the MODs spend too much of their valuable time locking threads where no one side can ever win or come to greater understanding, simply because the believe the way they look at rules itself is the right way to do so.

I thought of some ways to perhaps accommodate both types of questions, like splitting the forum apart or putting a "fast answer" section somewhere else, but I want to see if anyone else thinks that this is a problem worth fixing first.

Kitzz wrote:1. A rules question that can be answered with the RAW & makes sense; the person asking is simply too lazy to look up the rule or forgot their rules, or too lazy to try and figure it out on their own. These tend to be quick, need-to-know ASAP questions.

These aren't always (or even usually, I think) down to laziness. GW's rules are a huge, sprawling, and for many confusing mess. Quite often people have looked and just missed the relevant rule, or been unable to figure out where to find it.

2. A rules question similar to the one posed above except the RAW doesn't make sense. The post generally devolves into a flame war between the RAW and HYWPi camps. People get banned/suspended. These tend to be long, "what-if" or "I found an inconsistency" questions.

That's rather a lot of exaggeration.

Yes, the less clear subjects tend to sprawl out. But they're locked far more often because the topic has been beaten to death and is wandering off topic or going around in circles than because they have devolved into a flamewar. ]

You know...I see your point here, which is a major reason I avoid that portion of the forums unless it involves an army I play. Personally I think there just needs to be a limit to the constant back and forth that occurs in those threads.

I could see being able to make a valid point to an OP's question, then being allowed one rebuttal to either defend their position or change their mind. However this would never work as there are too many people here that have to get the last word as they believe that wins the argument.

Is News & Rumors broken? There are all manner of not-N&R posts there, 'most of the posts' degenerate into flame wars and locking.

Is 40k Background broken? We see wildly inaccurate posts there, and that's only when we aren't getting someone's latest fiction piece posted there by 'accident'.

Is 40k General broken? We have all of these... well, I'm not going to step in front of the slavering mob that formed last time I spoke out about how I feel about the "What 40k whatever are you?" and "matser chef crossover" threads.

Is 40k Tactics broken? "RANDOM WEAPON are awesome." "No they're worthless." "No, they're the greatest thing ever!" "No, they're bad and you're Hitler for suggesting otherwise!"

Is O-T broken? Heh. Not going to touch this one.

My point is there's issues with every section of the forum. I'm a fan of improving things, but I think if you're going to do that, you shouldn't draw the line at YMDC.

daedalus wrote:Is O-T broken? Heh. Not going to touch this one.

Broken? No, but it's, erm... "sickly".

Yeah, let's go with that.

If someone didn't understand a rule how would they know which of your sections would be the most appropriate to post in?

Bangbangboom wrote:If someone didn't understand a rule how would they know which of your sections would be the most appropriate to post in?

Well, I'd imagine that they'd post in General, because none of the other sections fit. Of course, then we'd have people asking if General was broken, suggesting that the rules questions foster ill will and clog up General Discussions, which would result in some sort of "Rules" section to be created. They could try giving it a name, maybe something that's sort of a play on the whole Ork theme the site has. Maybe "You Make DA Call"

Honestly, I don't think we should ever remove any section of the forums. If anything, we should add more. Except OT, mods can yank the stopper and drain that cesspit anytime they want and it'd be fine by me.

daedalus wrote: Except OT, mods can yank the stopper and drain that cesspit anytime they want and it'd be fine by me.

The thing is, it has to drain to[ somewhere else... While the OT forum keeps all the nonsense more or less contained, it's not oozing into the rest of the forum so much.

insaniak wrote:

daedalus wrote: Except OT, mods can yank the stopper and drain that cesspit anytime they want and it'd be fine by me.

The thing is, it has to drain to[ somewhere else... While the OT forum keeps all the nonsense more or less contained, it's not oozing into the rest of the forum so much.

What, you mean the old style of Wastelanders gradually taking over a subforum is a bad thing?