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Ahtman wrote:I think that OT should just be turned into a soapbox for me to post my highly refined and researched opinions. There will be no discussion, just me posting and everyone basking in the opulence of my honeyed words.

Oh? Maybe you need a LiveJournal?

Ahtman wrote:I think that OT should just be turned into a soapbox for me to post my highly refined and researched opinions. There will be no discussion, just me posting and everyone basking in the opulence of my honeyed words.

Wait, its not now?

Chibi Bodge-Battle wrote:let me get this right- you guys won't stick around a gaming forum if it is just about gaming?

I can imagine a wargaming club where everyone is sitting about talking about their recent purchases, when one fellow says he was finally able to start on a new Eldar army thanks to his tax refund. Another poster comments that he also likes the new discount for families, before someone tells them to be quiet because they're not allowed to talk politics. The hell with that place.

The idea that a community is too childish to be able to discuss a subject is a community I'm not sure I'd bother with, to be honest. The thing is you get plenty of obnoxious posts and nonsense of the rest of the forum, and while people can quite rightly that that stuff is at least related to the board's focus, the issue is poor posting habits, not the subject of the posts.

Seriously, the concept of banning areas of discussion because the mods are too limp wristed to apparently enforce the rules that would guide those discussions is flabbergasting to me. Since we have a few more mods in here now I'd like to ask again, maybe to Red or Fraz. Why has fateweaver, or the green git, or green bow fly, or hell even myself not been banned? Permanently. I don't mean the little week long or 3 day affairs. I mean why are they still allowed to post here when they have repeatedly shown a relative incapability to post civilly time and time again.

Do people ever get banned here at all? I mean, I know stelek got thrown out, and thats the one and only high profile troll banning I'm aware of at all in this forum. Is it simply because people that troll off topic are of a lower priority than those in army lists or news? There is a serious gap in the severity of moderation between off topic and the other forums, and if thats because of the areas of discussion than I simply don't understand the reasoning.

Well, I'm trying to ban people left and right. But the system's appropriately Imperiumesque. So much paper work.

mattyrm wrote:

ShumaGorath wrote: Not to name names, but if posters who act similar to fateweaver and the green git were simply disallowed from discussing politics the threads themselves would be conducted far more civilly.

Lol.

See... now I've long since plonked the indoctrinated young skulls full of mush and there you go quoting one.

It is flattering to know Shuma still has a hard on for me. Love you too Shuma.

Ahtman wrote:I think that OT should just be turned into a soapbox for me to post my highly refined and researched opinions. There will be no discussion, just me posting and everyone basking in the opulence of my honeyed words.

I'd sig this, but it loses some of it power when not coupled with the look of Mudd's face.

Plus, I think I'm out of room on my Sig...

The Green Git wrote:

mattyrm wrote:

ShumaGorath wrote: Not to name names, but if posters who act similar to fateweaver and the green git were simply disallowed from discussing politics the threads themselves would be conducted far more civilly.

Lol.

See... now I've long since plonked the indoctrinated young skulls full of mush and there you go quoting one.

It is flattering to know Shuma still has a hard on for me. Love you too Shuma.

Huggles!

JohnHwangDD wrote:

Ahtman wrote:I think that OT should just be turned into a soapbox for me to post my highly refined and researched opinions. There will be no discussion, just me posting and everyone basking in the opulence of my honeyed words.

Oh? Maybe you need a LiveJournal?

Or a Blog.

Something with a catchy name like YesTheTruthHurts.com...

ShumaGorath wrote:

The Green Git wrote:

mattyrm wrote:

ShumaGorath wrote: Not to name names, but if posters who act similar to fateweaver and the green git were simply disallowed from discussing politics the threads themselves would be conducted far more civilly.

Lol.

See... now I've long since plonked the indoctrinated young skulls full of mush and there you go quoting one.

It is flattering to know Shuma still has a hard on for me. Love you too Shuma.

Huggles!

I did that one for ya too GG so you could see it.

And me and Shuma arent exactly buds, but you know.. credit where its due, that was pretty funny.

To be honest I've started to post less and less in the OT(relating to religion). This is largely due to the mere fact that I view most of it as a complete waste of time. I have learned a few things there and I hope I have educated a few as well. But there are inevetably the people that enjoy using inflammatory language and insults, especially when targetting religious people. If it was about having a reasoned discussion than I would be all for it, but people just cannot seem to control themselves.

Not to mention that it seems that every 5th post is from someone on my ignore list. Sometimes I'll get 4 or 5 in row where the ignorees are having a conversation among themselves. :-)

GG

Wait a minute... people are being donkey-caves on the internet?

As others have stated before, I just want to say that I like to think that the OT board (and its P&R topics) is great as an outlet for trolls. Take away the P&R boards, and they just might start filtering into other boards. I wasn't there for it, but a similar thing happened before - too many people were asking rules questions in 40k Discussions, so YMDC was created. Take away the OT board, and the trolls will find another place to post.

Now, obviously this isn't about taking away the OT board, but some people think that it's the next logical step if things keep getting bad. Personally, I love the OT board. Sure, I've noticed that the same threads pop up every couple of weeks (Metalhead threads seem to be constantly coming back for more) but it definitely has provoked some great discussions in the Music threads, and I know that all the threads out there are helping people become more diverse in music choice.

My point is, the OT board isn't all bad. I stated in the discussion for the poll that I want to see a stronger fist in moderating the OT boards. Some threads start out good, but turn into flame wars. Don't ban all P&R discussions because of a few flamers and trolls out there, just be a bit harder on the trolls. I'm not saying you should start swinging the Banhammer, but at least some warning PMs or a one-day suspension should be instituted, with harsher penalties if the behavior continues.

Locclo wrote:Take away the OT board, and the trolls will find another place to post.

Listen to reason. We have history to back it up(40K CCG Boards, anyone who's been here longer than Yak's owned the board?).

ShumaGorath wrote:Is it simply because people that troll off topic are of a lower priority than those in army lists or news? There is a serious gap in the severity of moderation between off topic and the other forums, and if thats because of the areas of discussion than I simply don't understand the reasoning.

Frazz has noted before that Off Topic is generally given more leeway than other forums. I have no problem with having different sets of rules for different forums. Heck, the DCM forum has different rules than the public ones. And I'm sure the MOD forum has different than DCM. It's a privately owned product, Yakface can do what he likes.

My opinion is still that, if you don't like Bed, Bath, and Beyond, don't go there. You don't need to picket it. If you don't like the OT forum, or certain topics, don't go there. Don't read them. Trolls lose their power if no one takes the bait. I used to read the OT a lot, and now I don't. And other DCMs have commented that their blood pressure went down after they stopped reading the OT forum.

Dietrich is correct. Some subforums have different leeway than other subforums. Get half as snarky in the modelling forums as is done in the YMDC, for example, and you'll find yourself permanently out on your butt very very quickly.

Safety tip. The Mods guard the modeling forum jealously and some of us are draconian in keeping it free of the trolling/flamewars/nonsense that occurs in other subforums.

dietrich wrote:If you don't like the OT forum, or certain topics, don't go there. Don't read them. Trolls lose their power if no one takes the bait. I used to read the OT a lot, and now I don't. And other DCMs have commented that their blood pressure went down after they stopped reading the OT forum.

But... But... how can you do that when someone on the internet is WRONG!?

Yea but see this is the internet. And people just love to go into topics they don't care for and flame them just cause.
Why I don't know and my proof is Youtube and 4chan.


I however find it very disturbing how much drama wargaming in itself causes both online and off.
Breaks my balls man, breaks my balls.

Shadowbrand wrote:Yea but see this is the internet. And people just love to go into topics they don't care for and flame them just cause.
Why I don't know and my proof is Youtube and 4chan.


I however find it very disturbing how much drama wargaming in itself causes both online and off.
Breaks my balls man, breaks my balls.

Hans brix? oh no!

Shadowbrand wrote:Yea but see this is the internet. And people just love to go into topics they don't care for and flame them just cause.
Why I don't know and my proof is Youtube and 4chan.
I however find it very disturbing how much drama wargaming in itself causes both online and off.
Breaks my balls man, breaks my balls.

This forum should never have people behaving like the imbeciles trolling on 4chan/Youtube.

Simply put:
If you don't bother to put any thought into your posts or arguments, this isn't the place for you.

I did put some thought into my post, not ALOT but enough to get the point across.

However truly you too have seen the rise of "interwebs Drama"?

Shadowbrand wrote:However truly you too have seen the rise of "interwebs Drama"?

You'll be hard pressed to find someone who was online within five minutes of it starting up.

Banning political and religious discussion might get rid of the freeloaders who don't contribute anything to the part of the site which makes dakkadakka a wargaming website (someone that I sometimes am but try not to be, I certainly don't think I'm as bad as some) and don't do much besides use up bandwidth. Then again they are always going to exist if you wish to allow an online community to better act as a community, by allowing them to talk about something other than one subject. And I think that is important too.

Either way, no I wont quit if the off topic forum ceased to exist but I do think it would take more away from dakadaka than it would add.

whatwhat wrote:Either way, no I wont quit if the off topic forum ceased to exist but I do think it would take more away from dakadaka than it would add.

+1. The off topic forum makes it more of a community and less like Advanced Tau tactica, Bolter and Chainsword, etc. I don't mean to bash those sites, I have accounts on both. But, I don't go to either one as much as I go to Dakka!

Shadowbrand wrote:I did put some thought into my post, not ALOT but enough to get the point across.

That wasn't aimed at you, Shadowbrand. I was making a generalized statement. Off and on we get the 4chan styled posts/threads(the "Secret Messages from XXXX Army" ones come to mind right off the bat), and we really shouldn't have those. 4chan crap should stay in that waste of bandwidth of a site.

I come to Dakka first and foremost for the awesome OT forum, either because people and their arguments here crack me up, or to behave like of said people myself.

In all seriousness though, a big forum without OT becomes all business like and loses most community aspects pretty darn fast.

If you want to save the OT, stop putting up threads like this:

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/289162.page

We do this too much:

Yep.

Well that thread lasted long. Lol before I had to go back to class.

On the positive we are watching the evolution of a Mod. While I can't swear it, I think thats Redy's first pic posting to go along with closing a thread.
Its like watching your elementary school tyke graduate to Jr. High.