Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

You're pretty much useless warspawned. Go back to whatever ass crack in the internet you climbed out of and leave the real posting to us.

I prefer the term 'mostly harmless' myself

At the very least, you're a human like the rest of us and I think we can all meet on that point.

I don't know about that either

I have just come back from a few months break. And I do not believe that the content quality has dropped at all.

It's not the same as it used to be, although I'm not sure if that is bad, good or a bit of both. I'd probably plump for the latter.

I certainly remember some of the flame fests on the old Dakka when two (or more individuals) disagreed with on another, although, it was often funny. Not because I laugh at people in anger, but rather, often there was this cool wit between the two rivals, an arsenal of put downs that would make me chuckle. Almost some kind of gentlemanly combat of ideals, obviously it could turn nasty, but I remember more of the half serious put downs and comments more than anything else. I still see that often today, and several posters have a habit of making me chuckle quite heartidly in OT and around the boards.

Of course to new users, that may seem overly hostile, but I don't think it was as bad as some folks think it was, as I probably wouldn't have stuck around this long if it had been. The Mods have always been good here in my opinion, and I have a lot of respect for them.

I've been on quite a few sites, most have had Modding issues in my mind, some it can vary board of board, such as Neoseeker, its a mostrous thing, so many forums, that Mods are focused in one area, and there are few 'cross-forum' Mods. On one Neo board you can say something and your fine, and another your banned, its all down to the Mods of each board, a very odd place, I don't go to much anymore.

Warseer is too strict in my view, a good example was a few days back where someone tried to start a thread about one part of Games Day so folks could discuss that one issue, but it was locked as the 40page plus and growning Games Day thread was already covering it. Thats just poor form, being a Mod on a fair few sites now, I'd welcome that kind of initiative from the members, not stamp on it.
I've never got that feeling here on Dakka, in fact I'll be honest and my current modding style is probably a combination of Alpharius, Fraz and Waaaagh_Gonads, I'm not sure if thats a good thing, or some kind of abomination though.

There are several others I can think of, and none of them have kept my attention as this place has, mainly due to the tone of the board, Mod issues or a less mature crowd. I still come here nearly every day, and I love the place.

More members means more problems, and I think thats the issue, thats not really a negative issue though, as it stimulates more conversation overall. You're going to get excellent new posters, as well as poor ones, and you just need to be more willing to accept you will see the odd thread you wish you hadn't opened. I'd rather have increasing numbers than decreasing for certain though, as even the vets among us can sometimes decide todays the day and hang up the gaming boots. New blood is always going to be important, and I think we just need to adjust to an evolving gaming populace.

The odd polite nudge in the right direction now or then couldn't hurt em mind.

Personally, I started browsing this forum around March 10, and have found that the content did drop.

The big issues I see have been outlined before:

- the search engine needs to be fixed
- posts need to be deleted if inappropriate or moved to the correct folder/sub-section

I am coming for Dakka for the Tactics, Army list, 40k General Discussion, P&M and blogs. Some of it is for my gaming experience (most important), the rest is for the beauty of the hobby.

Posters like DoP and Gwar are what are making me stay around here.... as long as they are not too zealous and that one of their nemesis show up to just disturb everything.

There should have been another section in the polls... between "worst ever" and 2nd pick in that list....

Does anyone think there is a legitimate reason to allow the posting of polls in tactics? It seems to me that any tactical question should be answered with at least a couple of sentences rather than by voting.

I haven't noticed much changes since i first joined. There has been some new forums introduced, i.e. tournament disussions, but i have never looked in this thread as i have never attended in a tournament and aren't interested in competitive play.

I don't really post my own army lists on Dakka, except perhaps when im starting out with an army, as im quite stubborn on some things, and a 'pondering session' or playtesting can often iron out any problems.

However, contarary to what others have said, i think the tactics forum is very good. I've learned a lot of things and many difficult queriers of mine are normally sorted out quickly.

So dakka may not be perfect, but it hasn't got any less or more perfect since i joined.

Heffling wrote:
Firstly, I don't think that someone should be judged on length of tenure, but rather on the quality and content of their posting. Dismissing someone because they have only been a member here for four months is elitist and will only serve to chase off new membership. In the long run, this type of attitude will contribute to the death of Dakka.?

except that you're personally attacking me as an example of decreasing quality of dakka over time... in a thread about it decreasing over time... when you have no frame of reference since you're only a member for four months. i'd see no irony if you posted in a thread about painting or modelling or even tactics since none of those are related to your length of membership on dakka. however, when you decide to post a personal attack on me in on a thread about how the site has changed over the years when you haven't even been a member for two full seasons, i do see the hypocrisy in that. if you're as mature as your post claims, you should too. if you feel like the quality of dakka average posting is crap currently, feel free to post about it. just don't claim special knowledge and attack me in the same sentance (violating your own second R).

Let's stay on topic

@KK: What do you think about banning polls in Tactics?

that's a new pic. and i think a different girl too... either way, i've said my peace so no worries here.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Manchu wrote:@KK: What do you think about banning polls in Tactics?

i don't see how banning polls there will help anything. if someone actually comes up with a new novel strategy and wants to poll other dakkites how they think it might work, why shouldn't he be able to? if the OP is crap to begin with or just a poll and nothing else of value, then it can be reported and closed as spam using the normal procedures without the need for additional restrictions.

The problem with banning something is that if users can make good use of it, the positive is banned along with the negative.

Rather than ban them, I would prefer to move crappy polls into General Discussion, on the grounds of their being off topic.

I'm thinking of a poll something like, What is your favourite energy weapon: 1. Plasma Gun, 2. Lascannon, 3. Ion cannon, and so on.

I don't see why people should not make a poll like that if they find it amusing.

I agree it would be off topic for Tactics, and I would expect a user to yellow flag it to get it moved.

I guess my question is, can anyone think of a positive use for polls in the Tactics thread?

Manchu wrote:I guess my question is, can anyone think of a positive use for polls in the Tactics thread?

They can give an overview of the likelihood of certain tactics being used, perhaps.

As in, do not think of them as validation for using a certain tactic, but rather a reason to take a counter to it.

e.g. "35% of the people use that idea I have never seen used? May be worth considering a counter to it in my list for this upcoming tourney."

As opposed to the usual "Is this good" poll. Just because people do not try to use them well does not mean it cannot happen.

That's a good point, inasmuch as the poll question could be "how many people have seen such-and-such build?" but I'm not sure that such information would be at all reliable and thus not very useful (misleading, in fact). Plus, I see it being used more often as "which unit/weapon/build is better," which is totally meaningless as a poll but potentially very cool as a discussion. I can't prove it in any way, but I think the polls don't add anything to the discussions and probably end up taking away from them (lending to superficiality).

Such polls are misleading. Consider Sturgeon's Law and consider what such polls might mean if it is true. That means that while a majority of posters may favour some opinion, that opinion will be more likely to be stupid, and the poll will simply represent the local noise rather than any significant signal.

I think everyone can agree that multi-sentence posts are always going to be superior to clicking a poll button. But even if the only question is whether the polls actually take away from the discussion or have no effect, there is no reason to have them.

Surely.

I could have genericized my response even further to say "Yes, people could write more relevant tactics polls" but I was trying to come up with an example.

Although even that example could be very relevant if the people also posted--and were perhaps attending the tourney or were locals.

Kilkrazy wrote:

Let's stay on topic

15 pages of blather, and this is the best post of the thread so far.

@kirsanth:

That's true. A poll question like "Was such-and-such build overrepresented at Adepticon last year?" is a lot better. But such a question belongs in the Tournaments board and not Tactics.

I appreciate you trying to answer the question with specific examples, however! I'm wracking my brains for examples, too, not just trying to shoot yours down.

I like the tactics forum. What are people expecting Guilliman to start posting there? I mean seriously that and the Army Lists forums are just fine and what I'd expect to see.

Manchu wrote:@kirsanth:

That's true. A poll question like "Was such-and-such build overrepresented at Adepticon last year?" is a lot better. But such a question belongs in the Tournaments board and not Tactics.

I appreciate you trying to answer the question with specific examples, however! I'm wracking my brains for examples, too, not just trying to shoot yours down.

lets say the upcoming DE have a special army wide rule called "the webway wobble" (obviously made up) that seems very powerful at first glance. someone who plays in a DE heavy meta at his local FLGS comes up with a strategy to combat it and posts it. he then asks people via the poll to try it and vote if it actually worked against the "webway wobble". you now have a totally appropriate poll about tactics in tactics that is banned.

@warboss: That's an even better example but I still think the poll offers little to nothing. So many percent voting "Yes" or "No" doesn't actually tell us anything about the power, how it works, how to make it work, its place in the DE army, how it can be dealt with, etc. Furthermore, anyone can click yes or no regardless of actually trying it or communicating about what circumstances they tried it under. If OP relied on such a poll, woe to him. Actually having to post "yes, and it went like this" is the ideal. If I just posted "yes" or "no" in this hypothetical thread, people would correctly surmise that I was either rude or just making something up (or both)--and that's basically what a poll is. In fact, polls really represent exactly what has been complained about regarding Tactics: a lot of superficial opinions with little substantive discussion and debate.

I'm beginning think the only reason we even think that polls convey information is because we are bombarded by them in the mainstream media.

Look inthe first 3 proposed rules pages. How many topics were started by Captain Solon?

If thats what dakka is going to become in the near future, then YES, its going downhill.

In one sense all polls anywhere in the site are meaningless since they never attract more than about 2% of the members to reply.

The true value of polls is in provoking discussion on a specified set of points.

Every year the media comes up with a poll like Top 100 Films of all time. It's nonsense, of course, but it is fun and can make you think about classic films and maybe watch something new.

@KK: So you think that polls in Tactics stimulate people to post thoughtful reflections on their own wargaming experiences and/or reasoned responses to the experiences of others? I'm not trying to be snide, just having a hard time connecting your example to this situation.

Perhaps every Tactics thread should have a Poll that asks simply:

"should this thread be closed?"

Manchu wrote:@warboss: That's an even better example but I still think the poll offers little to nothing. So many percent voting "Yes" or "No" doesn't actually tell us anything about the power, how it works, how to make it work, its place in the DE army, how it can be dealt with, etc. Furthermore, anyone can click yes or no regardless of actually trying it or communicating about what circumstances they tried it under. If OP relied on such a poll, woe to him. Actually having to post "yes, and it went like this" is the ideal. If I just posted "yes" or "no" in this hypothetical thread, people would correctly surmise that I was either rude or just making something up (or both)--and that's basically what a poll is. In fact, polls really represent exactly what has been complained about regarding Tactics: a lot of superficial opinions with little substantive discussion and debate.

I'm beginning think the only reason we even think that polls convey information is because we are bombarded by them in the mainstream media.

i agree with what you're saying but its frankly no different in regards to polls in tactics or in any other forum on the site. if you're using that to ban polls there, then they should be banned EVERYWHERE because they're not different as a poll anywhere on dakka can be answered without posting yet you want to make the same situation banned in one area. can you post a poll about a paint job on a model? sure.. its allowed.. and people can just click yes or no about whether they like it (i realize you can vote on pics in the gallery but just using this as an example) without actually adding any constructive criticism. can you post a poll about a rules question? sure, it's allowed... and people can click yes or no without actually stating their reasons or proof of their ruling. polls are no more or less useful in tactic than any other part of the forum. if the underlying first post containing the poll is crap and spam, the mods should send the OP a message and lock it just like in any other forum. if the OP keeps starting threads/polls about nothing, then escalate the punishment.

Kilkrazy wrote:In one sense all polls anywhere in the site are meaningless since they never attract more than about 2% of the members to reply.

The true value of polls is in provoking discussion on a specified set of points.

Every year the media comes up with a poll like Top 100 Films of all time. It's nonsense, of course, but it is fun and can make you think about classic films and maybe watch something new.

Citizen Kane is always ranked number one because of Orson Welles' character's love for his man sled. Useless trivia... You just got snowmobiled.

@warboss: I'd say we agree. Outside of the just-for-fun stuff, polls have little use.

Polls can help people decide what the current meta is and react accordingly with his own strategies. If not for nothing, the posts within the poll will tell the story of what a person does for his/her tactics and the poll's poster can then use that information to build an army versus what the current trent is (however, it does not account for regional meta, just a sampling of a website's opionions).