I proposed an idea to Wo and Curt in the mod only thread that I meant to implement last week but have not had the time. I will try to do it this weekend or earlier, perhaps at work tomorrow I will be able to do it. I am not going to get into details right now, but it is a little forum experiment I wanted to try and see how it goes. Wo and I talked about it and I think it's worth a shot even if it falls flat on its face lol.
quote Fatal Error
For the record, graphics requests wasn't even a discussion forum, nor does it exist anymore anyways. That said, by nature it does not compare to TL.
I was and am all for eliminating the circular discussion topics. The forum isn't any different than it was during those times; all you saw in the activity was an illusion and nothing more. Two or three threads maintaining all discussion between the same core of 5 to 10 members. That is all it was and it gave the illusion that this was actually an active forum, when really it wasn't. The threads were stupid, went nowhere, and just served as a means for people to bicker back and forth endlessly. That is not what the forum was designed for. It is all nice to say that it "expands your mind" to take part in such threads, but honestly that is just a load of bullshit anyways, because none of the participants expanded their perspectives or thought outside of their little boxes at all. After literally years of dealing with it, it made more sense to just shut them down altogether.
This is one of the things we have been trying to say, to be honest. Tedious and endlessly circular debates push people away OR WORSE they intimidate people into polarizing their opinions to one side or the other, often allowing very little middle-ground.
quote Fatal Error
I dont agree with seeking out threads and destroying them if they dont meet an arbitrary set of rules for opening posts or if they loosely fall into the category, but the fact is that most (if not all) of those threads inevitably fall into a closed loop of mindless repetition and when that happens they deserve to be closed.
Well I think you would be 100% correct if we tanked the threads based on the first post and that was that. What you may be missing, however, is that we are more than willing to re-open the thread once the OP is edited, which I believe is more than fair. So say you create a thread and it is a great potential topic but your entire OP is nothing more than a link with one sentence that basically says, "Discuss!" Then that thread would be temporarily closed and all we would ask is that you edit the first post. Now maybe this seems restrictive to you, but have you considered the fact that if the thread creator has NOTHING to say about their own topic then perhaps the thread deserves to be closed? Hell, there is one thread on the first page that I closed and told
The Hobo in PM (when he asked me about it) that if the original thread creator cannot summon the will to write more than a perfunctory thread opener that he (or anyone else, for that matter) can re-create the thread. Look, if you don't agree with this policy, I respect that. BUT the way people are making this sound (or perhaps the way they are interpreting the policy) makes it sound draconian, like once we close this thread with a vacuous first post that's it, the end, soyonara, see ya, and it is never to be opened again! That would suck. All we ask is that people don't create what I like to call Drive-by Loungin' threads, where they swoop into the forum in an attempt to act like an intellectual catalyst and get other people to do their dirty-work for them. Honestly? Take a friggin' minute and write out a lousy paragraph! lol
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Robotbear, <sigh> I don't even know what to tell you and WELCOME TO MY WORLD! lol Not for anything, but I am flat-out amazed that only a very few people actually get what we are trying to say here regarding the circular threads. The most frustrating part is that people are flying in here to argue the policy and not even attempting to address the MAJOR points of the reasons why these policies are in existence. We have a few members here who have this erroneous concept of what they think we are trying to say and now that it's in their teeth, they won't loosen their clenching jaws long enough to even consider the main point.
The real irony is THIS IS PRECISELY WHAT THOSE CIRCULAR THREADS ARE LIKE!

or maybe

would be a better smiley.
Seriously, it is amazing to me that you and I have reiterated the main points of our arguments, and your last post sums it all up, yet NOT ONE of the detractors has even acknowledged the issues which are the backbone of the position of the mod team in this forum. It is so obvious, I don't even wish to reiterate it, because no matter what we say, the argument from the other side completely IGNORES what we have made so painfully obvious that it makes me realize that some people just want to argue and not even make a small attempt to open their minds. They have this one little tangential piece of the argument in their heads and they are NOT seeing the bigger picture. In truth, I would respect the position of my opponents in this discussion more if they AT LEAST made some attempt to argue against the actual facts of our position and not seem as if they are knee-jerk reacting to what they are misinterpreting our position as.