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My old argument regarding OT is that Dakka is more than an information archive; it's a living community. So imagine that you were playing at the FLGS and you decided to go out for a smoke. Considering it bad form to discuss politics or religion in the store, you chat it over outside. And then a store employee comes out at tells you that you're not allowed to talk about that? I know it's not a perfect metaphor: to work properly, you'd need fifteen guys who don't know or care about each other, all claiming to know exactly how the world could be saved if only every one would subscribe to their views or simply obey them, willing to shout at each other for hours on end. Okay, I can see someone stepping in and telling those guys to get lost.

But let's say Yak gets rid of OT. What really changes in Tactics or the Army List forum? What changes in 40k Background?

Dashofpepper wrote:
How many painters and modelers have stopped posting content because their efforts are met with, "Looks bad, not enuff highlights and ...blah blah blah." Who don't post pictures of their works, or tutorials because they get buried under a spam of other posts asking questions that CTRL+F on the FIRST PAGE could have answered for them? The same is true for pretty much every other section of Dakka.

I really think that we should have a seperate forum for suggesting which posts should be put up in the hall of honour which is the article section.

Here are just a few gems:
The stripping article:
http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/238756.page
The lava board article:
http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/243963.page
The IG battle reports (not on this site yet brilliant)
http://ailarian.com/folera/articles/index.html

Dashofpepper wrote:Killkrazy is trolling with mocking replicas of this thread here in Dakka discussion,

WarOne wrote:

Dashofpepper wrote:I think that A new generation of moderators are needed.

Sounds like you would like to volunteer.

Maybe you could replace Frazzled - trolling bastard that he is. He must have compromising photo's of Yak to have kept that job. However, as mod you will only be allowed two sentences with a mx of 120 words to explain your point.

Just ban Captain Solon. Problem solved.

It seems there are some users who are not happy with the way things are.

The message I am getting is that you don’t like newbies making stupid comments and threads, and you don’t like not being allowed to call them stupid n00bie jerks.

The thing is, newbies have always been around, and they are worse on forums which deal with 40K and attract a high proportion of teenager boys just getting into the game. As the forum grows, it attracts more newbies.

That said, the same issues of recycling threads, ignoring stickies, the Search system and Articles, happen on all forums. It is normal human behaviour.

Despite that, the management are not going to allow you to shout insults at other users, no matter how stupid you think their ideas are. DakkaDakka isn’t that kind of forum any more, if it ever really was.

There are other ways of addressing these issues, though.

1. You can ignore ‘stupid’ threads. Instead of getting angry, I just don't bother to look at ‘40K vs Halo’, etc, any more. Problem solved!

2. You can post more ‘good’ threads. Signal/Noise ratio is a two-way street. When there was a rash of complaints about YMDC, I encouraged people to “reclaim the streets” by posting more -- politely, of course.

3. You can argue with stupid users providing you present your counter-arguments calmly and rationally. It is not necessary to shout at people, and generally it is icounter-productive.

4. You can wait a while. The swarm of ‘40K vs Halo’ threads happens every year in the summer holidays, and it subsides once the youngsters go back to school.

5. You can complain (Yellow Triangle) about ‘bad’ threads. The moderators’ opinion of what should be done is not necessarily the same as yours. See the points made above for some reasons why. It doesn’t mean that moderators ignore your opinion, however we won’t necessarily take the action that you feel is appropriate.

Finally I think you have to accept that DakkaDakka is an open forum. It isn’t designed to cater to a specific tight group of serious tournament players. It is a forum where everyone interested in wargames can discuss their particular area of interest -- painting, modelling, fluff or tactics -- so long as they are polite to each other. If you want something with a more specific focus, blogs are good because all comments can be moderated before posting.

The little yellow triangle is for decorative purposes only.

you keep pressing the panic buton.
nothing happens.

people stop using useless pretty yellow triangle and address the issue themselves.

Problem escalates in flaming

After much arguing of the toss and bad feeling, Mod comes in and closes thread.

People on other forums look at Dakka and think Dakka is a bag of addled adders.

Which I believe was Dash's point in the OP.

Just a quick question on reporting posts/threads... if you consider a post or thread to be spam (ie I just saw a poll where both the answers were the same and there was no real discussion in the posts that followed), should you report it?

Well since we only want thoughtful posting from now on, I thought I'd do my part.

/Sticky and /thread or gtfo

Seriously, this thread did not need to be made.

I had so much multi- post here it just wasnt funny. No way was anyone going to wade through that text wall.

I stopped coming to Dakka because it was just uneven. Moderators are rude and demand that others watch their P's and Q's. It's bs. Dakka exists to attract the numbers to make the traffic, period. Quality and thoughtfulness stand in the way of that, since they inherrently involve filtering. Filtering reduces flow rate. Reduced flow rate cannot be tolerated and therefore filtering goes out the window.

Dakka HAS changed. For those of you thinking about ways to make it better ala Reecius' conversation with Yak, I heartily suggest you start in YMDC. If you cannot take that back, you are just fooling yourselves anyway. OT should be anything goes, just as the name states; let it circle the drain since that is what it is there for. Just a suggestion, you do as you like.

Someone know a better forum I can visit? Dakkaseer just doesnt cut it for me as a go-to forum anymore. I use the crap out of the ignore function, but it doesn't let you ignore stupidity, just users.

Reecius wrote:I was talking to Yak about it and he made a good point. If you feel the quality of content has gone down, then make an effort to improve things or stop complaining.

Touche.

Thats works until you're told that contributions you make are not enough to be considered contributions and its really money that matters.

Thats on record.

Ultimately, Yak's assertion is only half correct and half cop-out excuse.

grizgrin wrote:
I heartily suggest you start in YMDC. If you cannot take that back, you are just fooling yourselves anyway.

Yep, carry this in there these days though.



Trolls can't regenerate fire based attacks and one of them has been using that board as it's personal sandbox for a while.

Hellfury wrote:

Reecius wrote:I was talking to Yak about it and he made a good point. If you feel the quality of content has gone down, then make an effort to improve things or stop complaining.

Touche.

Thats works until you're told that contributions you make are not enough to be considered contributions and its really money that matters.

Thats on record.

Ultimately, Yak's assertion is only half correct and half cop-out excuse.

That touche made me lol. This place is here to make money. Kinda ironic that the owner is telling the proles to fix his income source, until you realize what the money trail looks like. Oh, I admit that this place is Yak's and his solely; he bought it. I am not going to sit here and say it should be this, that, or the other. It's not my place. I am a prole here, just like everyone of you. However, if I DO post here, it's going to be with my eyes wide open to what this place is and what it exists for. And it's not to be the best 40k forum on the net. That's like believing that the Hardee's down the street exists to bring you tasty foods, or that Home Depot exists to empower you to be able to improve your home, or that MicroSoft exits to bring you helpful software.

Dashofpepper wrote:So "lawl, every1 nows dat Loganwing are the lamez for n00bz" is perfectly acceptable content, while "Holy Mephiston on a stick, please do not return to Dakka until you graduate 3rd grade and get get screened by my pet monkey for intelligence" is unacceptable.

Neither of those are acceptable content. And either one would warrant moderator attention.

Thus content-less posting has become acceptable, while those unfuriated over the wash of drivel and garbage can't call it such for fear of offending someone.

Expecting people to act with a modicum of common courtesy isn't actually exclusive to Dakka. Is your hobby really such a serious business that calling some 12-year-old an idiot for starting a thread you personally don't approve of becomes acceptable behaviour?

How many painters and modelers have stopped posting content because their efforts are met with, "Looks bad, not enuff highlights and ...blah blah blah."

Good question. How many is it?

Because, again, we police that sort of thing when we see it.

Who don't post pictures of their works, or tutorials because they get buried under a spam of other posts asking questions that CTRL+F on the FIRST PAGE could have answered for them?

Tutorials shouldn't be getting buried under questions, since there's a special, dedicated section just for them, where question threads aren't allowed.

How many tactical articles will never be written because those small gems get quickly buried in the offal of "Which Space Marine chapter is best?" polls and threads, and the authors decide that the effort isn't worth it?

Shouldn't be a problem for the same reason as above... those two threads would belong in different sections.

The simple fact is, the mods don't read every thread. If you're seeing posts that are in the wrong place, or are in breach of Dakka's rules (which include standards of grammar and spelling) then hit the yellow button and let the mods deal with it when they can.

Just keep in mind that the mods, as human beings themselves, won't always agree with your opinion of a given post. and even if they do you won't always see a visible reaction, since so much of the moderation here is done by PM or email.



Ultimately, Dakka is here to discuss the wargaming hobby. Exactly what topics of conversation within that hobby are popular is not a moderation issue... it's down to the posters. If the posting community is more interested in discussing the size of Leman Russ's boots than the tactical finesse required to win with Orks, then that's up to the posting community. If you would rather see more 'mature' discussion, then ignore the threads you don't like, and engage in more mature discussion.

I'll agree that the P&M section is gratuitously elitist.

Some of the rules 'discussions' depress me. There was one about using an oddity in the 40K rules that means you start a vehicle turned 90° and then turn to face the enemy before moving effectively means you get to move forwards an extra 2". You'd have to be a total douche to play the game exploiting such things to get such a small advantage, yet it went on for pages and pages as though that's a reasonable way to play the game.

Reecius wrote:Yeah, Yak has said that he thinks the atmosphere is much better here now than before.

Us Old Timers just like the way things were, even if it did get downright hostile.

I learned so much hanging out here listening to the old Tournament champs. Now some of the stuff I read in the tactics and list sections is so bad that I am sad for the new players who come here to hang out. They will read advice that will actually make them worse players!

And what would you do about it? Part of what made Dakka strong was its laissez faire attitude.

On a personal note its enjoyable to see that several of the complainers would be the first against the wall if we did clamp down.

Frazzled wrote:

Reecius wrote:Yeah, Yak has said that he thinks the atmosphere is much better here now than before.

Us Old Timers just like the way things were, even if it did get downright hostile.

I learned so much hanging out here listening to the old Tournament champs. Now some of the stuff I read in the tactics and list sections is so bad that I am sad for the new players who come here to hang out. They will read advice that will actually make them worse players!

And what would you do about it? Part of what made Dakka strong was its laissez faire attitude.

On a personal note its enjoyable to see that several of the complainers would be the first against the wall if we did clamp down.

Including yourself?

Reecius wrote:hahaha, favorite Primarch Finishing Moves! Fatality!

That is good gak.

Yeah, they need to allow the gloves to come off in the tactics section a bit more. I guess if Dakka is purely a moneymaking venture now, then it is what it is.

If you make a competitive only board, Plonius, count me in.

The only rule: Know what the feth you're talking about and back your assertions with facts, not opinions.

Whats funny is the reports don't come from the tactics section. Its rare we get reports from there. We get reports in YMDC all the time however, and conflict is high. If you're proposing make tactics like YMDC that would be...stupid, just stupid.
You can say someone's tactics are crap, just be polite and attack the points, not the person.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Nurglitch wrote:

Polonius wrote:Well, the atmosphere is better, which is great if we're basically creating a 4-chan board that tangentially discusses 40k.

I've toyed around with the idea of starting a dedicated, competitive 40k board, especially during my exile. I think that it's simply likely that the discussions I want to can't happen in a complete free for all.

Actually I think that this is a good idea. I'd rather visit a properly moderated forum. There's got to be other people that feel the same way.

Don't let the door hit your ass on the way out Nuglitch.

Reecius wrote:Dakka used to be the school of hard knocks. Now its a place I can talk to friends in a limited context and ignore 90% of what goes on.

True story.

Hellfury wrote:

Frazzled wrote:

Reecius wrote:Yeah, Yak has said that he thinks the atmosphere is much better here now than before.

Us Old Timers just like the way things were, even if it did get downright hostile.

I learned so much hanging out here listening to the old Tournament champs. Now some of the stuff I read in the tactics and list sections is so bad that I am sad for the new players who come here to hang out. They will read advice that will actually make them worse players!

And what would you do about it? Part of what made Dakka strong was its laissez faire attitude.

On a personal note its enjoyable to see that several of the complainers would be the first against the wall if we did clamp down.

Including yourself?

Hell yea, me too. OF course I was a dick before I became a mod, and will be one after. Whats interesting is that there are complaints about me on here, but unless we've tangled in the OT, we've probebly only interacting on the Mod front. Again, interesting.

I'm seeing people complain that there needs to be more moderation, but that the mods are bad guys in moderating THEM. Interesting, and joyously human.

Howard A Treesong wrote:Some of the rules 'discussions' depress me. There was one about using an oddity in the 40K rules that means you start a vehicle turned 90° and then turn to face the enemy before moving effectively means you get to move forwards an extra 2". You'd have to be a total douche to play the game exploiting such things to get such a small advantage, yet it went on for pages and pages as though that's a reasonable way to play the game.

'Odd' rules discussions are not exclusive to Dakka. That particular debate you mentioned has raged since the start of 3rd edition on every major 40K forum at some point or another... generally more than once. It's another of those recurring themes mentioned earlier.

Baaaaaaaah. Edited for futility.

For the record: we also get "Save Dakka!" threads every half year or so, too .

Not that there aren't valid points here- but the only way to change most of it is to have more quality posts than crappy ones. So if you know your stuff, post about it convincingly, and let your voice be heard!

Also about the "wild wild west" of Dakka's previous days- I read Dakka in high school fairly often (over 10 years ago now) and honestly I don't think it was better (or even that different). People often hark back to the "good old days" in all sorts of things, but if you were to actually go back, it either wouldn't work in the current climate (read: number of users) or it wasn't that great, after all!

Just my $0.02...

RiTides wrote:For the record: we also get "Save Dakka!" threads every half year or so, too .

Irony

grizgrin wrote:
That touche made me lol. This place is here to make money. Kinda ironic that the owner is telling the proles to fix his income source, until you realize what the money trail looks like. Oh, I admit that this place is Yak's and his solely; he bought it. I am not going to sit here and say it should be this, that, or the other. It's not my place. I am a prole here, just like everyone of you. However, if I DO post here, it's going to be with my eyes wide open to what this place is and what it exists for. And it's not to be the best 40k forum on the net. That's like believing that the Hardee's down the street exists to bring you tasty foods, or that Home Depot exists to empower you to be able to improve your home, or that MicroSoft exits to bring you helpful software.

Regarding money, do you remember when the site was put up on Ebay and he made the balance sheet available for those interested in purchasing the site? I don't know if you contacted him and downloaded the PDF but I did. The profit margin was so low, I'm sure he made the proverbial pennies an hour for the time put in. Now I'm sure the traffic has increased since then (Else people wouldn't be posting that they don't know like all the content anymore due to the number of new members)...but I doubt Dakka is a financial juggernaut.

This isn't directed to your post but as an aside...as an old dude that's been on several forums over my internet life....disagreement with Mods is as natural as the sun rising. In the end, it helps to remember that the Mods don't get paid for their duties and are people who have good/bad days...just like the rest of us =p. It's best not to sweat the small stuff...and considering the root subject matter that brought us all here;



Really, it's all small stuff.

I do believe the sale predated my join date, but really dont know. And I concede your very valid point in that Dakka isn't some cash cow. However, it's not a not-for-profit either.

As far as the pic, too true. Hence my last post, in part at least. Everyone has their limit beyond which Dakka isn't wirth it. Even the most rabid fanboy.

Frazzled wrote:

Hellfury wrote:

Frazzled wrote:

On a personal note its enjoyable to see that several of the complainers would be the first against the wall if we did clamp down.

Including yourself?

Hell yea, me too. OF course I was a dick before I became a mod, and will be one after. Whats interesting is that there are complaints about me on here, but unless we've tangled in the OT, we've probebly only interacting on the Mod front. Again, interesting.

And yet one post above this one I quoted, we have...

Frazzled wrote:

Nurglitch wrote:

Polonius wrote:Well, the atmosphere is better, which is great if we're basically creating a 4-chan board that tangentially discusses 40k.

I've toyed around with the idea of starting a dedicated, competitive 40k board, especially during my exile. I think that it's simply likely that the discussions I want to can't happen in a complete free for all.

Actually I think that this is a good idea. I'd rather visit a properly moderated forum. There's got to be other people that feel the same way.

Don't let the door hit your ass on the way out Nuglitch.

Where's that facepalm emorkon again? Ah yes.



Seriously, James. It might be time to take the mod hat off. Your head has grown to large to wear it.

damn quote formatting screwing me up....grrr....

I look forward to visiting all of these upcoming paradise wargaming Forums that will soon be set up.