Category: Zone BBS Suggestions and Feedback
From time to time, sight staff have asked, many users have asked, and many members have agreed to use search before posting a topic they think is likely to be a duplicate. most people understand that not duplicating current topics is a good thing, because it helps keep the sight less cluttered, it doesn't fragment conversation, or create confusion. In reality however, laziness trumps the desire to do the right thing. Then, multiple topics about a generally vague subject like iOS games stack up, and people get frustrated. I understand that a lot of people don't think this is a big deal. On one level its really not. On the other hand, I know several users that refuse to check the boards because they don't feel like dealing with the duplicate topics, among other issues.
this is why I believe that creating a disincentive to counteract peoples human laziness would be a productive step to take. this is by far the least regulated forum I know of. In a lot of ways, I think that's benefited the sight. But its a negative as applied to clutter on the boards.
Problem is, i'm not really sure what a fare punishment should be. a temp ban seems a little extreme, but i'm not sure what other options are available. Considering its not possible to prevent people from posting new topics for a period of time.
Maybe a 3 strikes kind of system and then a temp ban?
Maybe i'm actually one of the few that cares about this kind of stuff who actually visits. If so, let me know. If you agree, do likewise.
Either way, lets have some input.
thanks for reading.
I visit the boards allot. I guess it may be a big deal to some but it really doesn't bother me. I sort them by most recent and just skip past the dupes or the ones in which I am not interested. It's just really not that hard.
As far as I know there is no way you can ignore board topics that have a specific name, and I agree this can get annoying. Recently when I was bored and had nothing better to do, I read a poster's topics who got a lot of grief from other users for good reason as he was extremely antagonistic, but I will not bring up his name as that is not the point of this topic or what my point is. Anyway I noticed that he had SEVERAL topics that ALL had the same name. I did not read through all of them but I am assuming they had the same purpose other than to annoy the users of the zone. Quite frankly it is immature and it is not a lot to ask for someone to create one topic and leave it at that, and even create a worthy topic that has a point. With that said, I agree people need to seriously stop being lazy and try to find a topic before they go ahead and create one, as the question they want answered or the advice they would like to receive might all ready exist. It does not require lot of effort nor a high level of intellegence to find the form field box that says search boards edit, which you can do by pressing the letter e. I do not mean this in a bitter or rude way as I'm sure there are people who do not know this or would consider trying to find a topic first, as I have done when I was a new user myself. But please take this advice and the time to see what you can find first on here, Google, YouTube, etc. After this has been posted there is no excuse.
If someone decides to antagonize and abuse their privelege of posting to these boards, something needs to be done about it. We don't need the boards to fill up with clutter and I feel the job of the community leader in which you can clean the boards should be used more often, if it is not. It's hard to say how often it is done as there is a crap ton of stuff on these boards.
yeh, I agree with prev posters;totally not a big deal. Don't forget, sometimes threads are locked so people want to start another thread so they themselves can comment.
ah, should have clarified that if the topic was locked, you're free to make a new one, as I see things.
I just don't understand the need for so many iPhone games topics, where the conversation is nearly identical on each one, where someone being a little less lazy could have fixed the problem.
James and others are right. it's totally ridiculous to have numerous similar topics, that all usually mirror one another.
just as some of you say it's really not that hard to skip over them, it's really not that hard to check whether a topic has already been created or not.
I agree with you James--Wholeheartedly. But I dont' see this being enforced in any way--especially these days, when the site's admins and cl's are not frequent visitors. I think that at this point, the site has a few much more pressing issues than this one taht need to be taken care of first. But somewhere along the way, I think this is a decent idea and may be doable.
If there's a duplicate board, and a community leader is to do something about it, what, exactly, should the CL do? If a duplicate doesn't have any replies yet, the answer is simple enough. delete the duplicate board and refer the creator to the appropriate original. If all the duplicates have posts in them, it becomes a bit more complicated. If we delete the latest one, then we'd either have to delete all the comments with it or somehow put the comments in to the original board. I don't think we can actually pick up a whole post and slap it down in another topic, so since that's out of the realm of possibility without some coding updates, a CL would have to basically summarize the comments, or copy and paste each comment, along with the name of its author and slap it down in the original board, providing it hasn't been locked. At the moment, scott and I are the only community leaders that log in. If we had more help, we could easily figure out which person does which task best and divide it up from there. as it stands, the two of us are all over the place. We're watching for duplicate accounts, using a system that's far from foolproof. We're trying to explain that we're not parents, so unless someone is breaking a rule, we can't do anything about a simple disagreement between two or more zoners. We're doing the anagram game. It doesn't sound like much really, but when the same 1.5 people do it every day, it does become a bit of a drag. I don't think a site like this was ever designed to run on such low staff.
It's not that I don't agree here. I definitely do. The only thing I can think of is that perhaps it could be fixed so that if someone continues to post duplicate topics, they would lose their board posting privilege for a time. this is another thing that would have to be coded though.
Anthony, I completely respect the challenges of the CL's here, and I do have experience being an admin for other forums. I think how one would handle it would depend on what policies are in place. With the lack of staff we have now, and the way the system is designed, you have the best idea. I know other communities lock topics, and deprecate them to a duplicate topics board. though that would require the admins make a board, or let CL's lock topics, I know you guys can remove them, i'm not sure this is the best option, either. though, I know some communities also do that, rather than relegating the topics.
Ok here comes a freethinker to posit a couple challenges:
There are often arguments as to whether a topic is or is not a duplicate.
Then there is the clumsy search that turned up results that were close but no cigar, at least according to the user.
Once you legislate you must enforce, and somebody must interpret.
I'm not really with you on this one.
In my view many mailing lists and fora are plagued by over zealous moderators and I'm glad this one by and large isn't.
I'm sorry, but if you are so easily upset as to be even slightly effected by the fact that two boards bear a semblance of resemblance to one another, you need to get over yourself. So you find it annoying that people post similar topics. I find it annoying you posted this topic. I find it annoying that people can't frickin' spell. I find it annoying I have to answer the same damned questions over and over in discussions. I find it annoying that I don't have a coffee maker that could prepare me a perfectly brewed cup of coffee the moment I wake up in the morning. Sometimes you just have to put up with things that are annoying.
In addition to the fact that you just need to pull up your big boy panties and get the fuck over yourself, let me toss this little tidbit for you to chase after. There is no such thing as an identical topic. Sure, there are similar topics like the IPhone games topics where someone asks what people's favorite game is, and someone else asks what the favorite action game for the IPhone is. But guess what poindexter, those aren't the same question. One is general, one is specific. Its like if I asked you what your favorite type of clothing is, then asked you what your favorite pair of jeans is. Similar questions, not the same thing.
Another tidbit for you. Not everyone wants to go digging through hundreds of board posts to find an answer to a question that may or may not be in there just to keep you from having to hit three key strokes at the most to skip over a board post you don't want to read. Sometimes its just easier to type up a new board post and have people answer it quickly, then let that board post work its way toward obscurity.
Also, just cuz I like playing fetch with tidbits, especially in the case of the technology based boards, a lot of the answers that were given on similar boards a year ago are now obsolete. If I have an IPhone 5s, I don't want to have to sort through a pile of info about the IPhone 4s to find the answer to my problem. I don't even want to have to sort through info about the 5 or the 5c if I have a 5s.
Last, its a frickin' board post that requires you to, at the maximum, down arrow four times to get past. Four key strokes at the absolute max. That's not even considering that it requires half that to skip it by using short cut commands. Are you really so fucking lazy and bitchy that you are going to complain that you might have to hit four key strokes? Seriously? I was under the impression you had to be thirteen to get on this site, guess I've been proven wrong there.
You mean your coffee maker doesn't make good coffee? Boy, you need to buy a better one. Oh, and there is the human factor!
I personally don't have a problem with it, but I do know exactly what he means.
"how do I delete apps from my iPhone?"
That question has been asked several times. Same with Skype questions.
It doesn't bother me, and if the CL's can catch it fast enough they can move the question.
Here is a good way. Us that post on the boards often could simply say, this topic has been created, and give the link. That would stop more posting to that specific topic.
hahahaha. I think it is funny that post 12 is telling you to get over yourself james. he was just asking the question dude, there was no need for you to go off like that. jesus!
now referring to the point that james was asking about, I don't really mind too much about people not looking to see if there is already a topic that answers their question. you don't have to click on every board you know. if you don't like the look of something, just leave it alone. people may feel that they want to ask a question in a particular way, maybe they feel that the original board topic doesn't address the issue they would like to know about, and to be honest its not all that important.
I'm lost here... I don't see a post where James went off in regards to SilverLightning's post, unless it was here before and someone removed it...
He was commenting about me going off, not james.
I'm sorry, but this is laughable. Punishment for duplicate or similar topics? What the hell kind of heavyhanded authoritarian bullshit is this? And over what feelings, annoyance? I wanted to be exact and clear about what annoyance was so I looked in the dictionary, and it said annoyance is irritation or slight anger. So punishing people because their making duplicate topics causes you slight anger? What in the polyunsaturated fuck? This is like, OK, let's say your arm itches. It's irritating, it's uncomfortable, so what do ya do? Take a nicely sharpened axe and with one swift blow you cut off your entire arm for itching. Certainly got rid of the itch but whoopsie, ya done amputated yourself and it's going to be mightily interesting trying to type as well as who knows doing whatever else. Call 911 and get that sucker re-attached if you can and do it pronto! My point being that I think punishing people for making similar topics is annoying, yes, but annoyance is far from the worst thing a human can feel, so I'm afraid this time it's on you to pull on your iron underwear, cowboy up and try not to let the world bug ya so much.
Righto.
James, I don't really think punishment would be the way to go. Deleting truly duplicate threads would be nice, and if it's being done to excess then I'd support the suspension of the offender's posting privilege for awhile. Cody did make one good point when he said that most posts aren't truly duplicates, and that even if there's a lot of similarity, there's also a good possibility that you'll find new info in a new thread. I think deleting duplicates before they spread is a good starting-point, see where that goes.
Cody, grow the fuck up. If you don't think it's a good idea, cool on you. Say so by all means. But all you did by exploding this way is 1. make yourself the center of attention, which you seem to adore doing and 2. attempt to insult another user in multitudinous and rather immature ways. Frankly, I get annoyed when I see a supposedly intelligent individual resort to swearing, personal insults, gross oversimplification, bad analogizing and deflection in order to make themselves and their points look more impressive. The odd person might get a laugh from your performances, some are more humorous than others, but on the whole I don't think the community is impressed. Continue to use it for your egotistic personal platform if that's your whim; just don't expect to do it without resistance from those of us who wish you'd either shut up or leave.
I would love to see you actually manage to disagree, disprove or even argue with someone without being insufferable.
All this brings me sorta back to the topic at hand. If we're going to get up in arms about duplicate threads, what about seriously off-topic posts? I'd argue that this can be a bigger deal than duplicate posts. If a thread is ninety posts long and twenty of those posts are taken up with bickering, but my answer comes late in the thread, I have to skim, or wade through the bullshit to find what I'm after. Despite having been a part of such digressions myself from time to time, I'd welcome slightly tighter regulations, if only so that wars weren't started in threads where opinions, advice or help was wanted. I've spoken to my fair share of people who won't post too often here with questions because they don't want the associated drama if one of our resident trolls decides to tear them a new one for daring to do so. That's bad for a community in the state the Zone is currently in.
Yes, there's absolutely no irony in saying you'd like to see punishments for off topic posts in a post where three times as much time was spent talking about how I don't live up to your ideals of what a good argumentation is than was spent addressing the actual topic. Not a bit of irony in that you hypocritical prig.
Let me make something perfectly clear just in case there's someone who doesn't realize it yet. I don't give a shit about how people feel about what I say. You want me to be civil and well-behaved, give me a reason to be that way. Don't put up posts like this where we bitch and whine like we're four years old and someone else isn't letting us make up whatever rules we want to while playing hopscotch.
So there are people who don't want to post on here because they're afraid of people tearing them a new one. Good, we're better off without the posts from prissy little piss-ants like that. News flash people, no one gives a shit if you're offended. When you get off this site and go out into the real world and start interacting with people who aren't separated by miles of fiberoptic cable, you'll realize that there isn't anyone there to wipe your nose for you. The world, and every inhabitant there in, doesn't give a shit about you. I don't, James doesn't, and certainly SW doesn't.
Oh sure, some people will bleat and hem and haw about how someone else is being a meany-pants, but that's all they'll ever do. In the end they don't care enough to actually put skin in the game. People like SW and all the other people who complain about the shit that goes on on these boards and this site are all like that. They bitch and whine and complain, but in the end they still sign on here to check the boards and get their daily dose of anagrams. James will bitch about repeat board posts, but he'll still read them even when people ignore his pleas for punishments. SW will bitch about how I'm being mean, but he'll still engage. Its all empty bluster, that's all it ever is.
You want evidence for that claim, take a look at all the social movements you can think of. It was all done by people who had no choice but to put skin in the game. Women's rights was done by women. Race rights was done by blacks. Why do you think we have blind people who fight for the rights of blind people? Everyone looks out for themselves. The sooner you start doing that the better.
Yes, part of the reason I posted this was out of annoyance. It didn't make sense to me why people wouldn't bother looking threw the current topics first, if they had the time, before posting a new one. where in many cases the old topic that wasn't locked has the answers people need. And yes, while i'll admit that topics are not all 100 percent the same, many of them start with the exact questions. Its not a difference of weather you like action iOS games vs liking all games. In many instances someone is asking the same exact question, of "what iOS games are your favorite?" or "Which iOS games are the best?" If a topic is unlocked that's already traveled down this road, why not find it, contribute your ideas there and keep the discussion going? Naturally if you want to know something about your current phone, post a new topic about it. Its unrealistic to assume you'd go looking back threw topics about your iPhone 4, your iPhone 4S you had years ago, or even the new low end iPhone you don't have. I get the point though, people don't think instituting some kind of punishment or warning system, or encouraging users to think before they post is a good idea. that answers the question, in a mostly mature way. I did consider from the start that this could be considered heavy handed, or that it may annoy people. I also considered that some people may not care about keeping the boards a little cleaner, or creating better conversations over all, by encouraging people to seek out their answers first.
cody, I think you're angrier that I made this suggestion than I ever was about the duplicate topics. As a result you acted more childishly than I did. the irony of you telling me to grow up while throwing a tantrum wasn't lost on many here, I suspect. You had good theories, though to demonstrate them you had to drag the arguments about as far from common sense and reality as you could manage. thinking logically, and with clear guidelines, those situations wouldn't have/shouldn't have happened, if things were correctly moderated. So, in the end, you're left with broken arguments, based on theories that relied on over extension. I do see the point you were trying to get at, how ever.
The key to that is that your theory depends on the boards being properly moderated. Nothing on this site is properly moderated. We all know that. We've read enough board posts about people complaining that this or that isn't moderated enough. So why would you look for this to be moderated when you yourself often have contributed to boards decrying the fact that there are few if any moderators to moderate the site?
Look, anyone who still thinks that this site is going to undergo some drastic change where the powers that be, minus a few notable exceptions in the current power structure, is actually going to start caring about this site, let alone actually doing anything to better this site is fooling themselves. Yet, we still slog through board post after board post about how this is wrong about the site, and that is wrong about the site, and how this annoys people and they want it punished, and how that person needs to be banned and the admins don't do anything about it. Then, the next board post is those same people complaining about how nothing gets done around here. If you keep looking at the site and noticing that they haven't made any positive change in years, why would you keep complaining?
At this point its perfectly clear to anyone who uses logic that you either give up on complaining about these things, or you leave the site and go to a different one. The people with the power to make actual code changes that you keep harping for don't give two shits about this site other than to collect the checks from those who still fork it over for a premium. Which they will then bitch about because the games they paid for aren't updated frequently enough.
Its pointless to complain on this site. Absolutely pointless. Its an echo chamber of people who will never do anything about it complaining to other people who will never do anything about it that no one is doing anything about anything. Its old.
So please, for the love of god, either do something about it or for once just shut the fuck up about a problem we all know exists but which is never going to be fixed. This is the site we've got. Its either good enough for you or it isn't. Stay here or leave, stop whining to no one.
that's all true. I should have thought about the long term impacts of posting this topic vs not posting this topic. If i'd been more rational about that, i'd have realized both lead to the same thing.
It's a shame something like maintaining a website isn't as simple as it sounds. But then again, I can see how that is good too. We have a few genuine people who would take care of things if the abilities of the Admins was transferrable to other users, and we've also got those who would probably abuse that ability. I honestly do not know how website maintinance works. The only word I can put to it is coding, and I don't even know how the hell you do that lol. Hats off to IT Computer people who have the patience to deal with these sorts of things because I sure as hell don't have it. Pardon me for getting a bit off topic. But I hope this raises some questions or ideas that I wouldn't be able to come up with due to my ignorance about making and maintaining a website. Maybe there is a way to give a productive, trustworthy, frequent user the ability to do administration work for the site, but if there is I don't have a clue. Until that happens, or unless we miraculously bring back the admins, this topic isn't good for much. All the topics about the anagram problems go to waste.
I'm still back on big boy panties. I've tried to find a pair, but no luck.
Poly unsaturated fuck??? That made reading this whole thread worth while. LMFAO!
Lmfao! Thanks Greg, GOT and Cody for the laughs. Seriously, though, I understand where James is coming from. It personally doesn't bother me, but sometimes it gets annoying when a certan user, for example, posts 20 different board topics a day, and spams the different board categories. such as the Philosophy topics as well as the pointless games. And most of these hardly get replys. In other words, they're a waste of board space. I do agree with anthony on taking their posting privilege for a while. This is not a complaint, because I usually just look at the topics of my interest, but I'm certain that it's annoying for other users to go through similar board posts, or to go into a catigory where one person posts so many topics. That's why we have the search box too, we should start using it.
Holy fuck Cody. I'm honestly curious. Are you actually as angry as you come off in those posts or are you just fucking around? You talk about putting on big boy panties? I mean, take your own advice? Haha nah I'm just messing around, but godzilla made it funny, you just sounded like a dick. Sorry.
However on the whole, you made good points. I have many things that annoy me on this site if I took the time to give a fuck about them, but the fact remains that the few community leaders who give a shit are stretched way too thin already, so nothing is really going to be done about new complaints unless legality is involved. Unfortunate, but true.
Yeah, James, as many have said, it doesn't really bother me that much because I just arrow through or search for what I want specifically. Speaking as a lazy board topic poster though, sometimes it's hard to sift through everything to figure out exactly whether or not my topic has been posted previously. And Anthony brings up good points about the difficulty/awkwardness of moving topics around. Also Cody touched on it - some topics are just ever so subtlely different, so though they may ultimately lead to the same answers or information, they are slightly different in the way they ask, so just inserting posts from a new topic on the same thing would kind of lose the conversational thread, I imagine.
Idealy, it would be good to moderate/clean up board topics a bit because I imagine a lot of this site's wasted space comes down to useless board topics, but as others have said, it comes down to priorities, and basic maintenance of the site is rather more important than filtering board topics haha.
Good lord no Sarah. I debate issues of women's rights and religion in organized settings, ain't no way a board post like this is going to genuinely get me angry. I put up a board post like that so I could avoid people just saying "I agree with Cody", or some other one line response. Get people pissed off and they seem to respond better. Perhaps not quite so well thought out as one might wish, but they at least engage, and that's fun.
James, you shouldn't feel bad for creating this topic, just cause a handful of people slammed you for it, or otherwise disagree.
unlike the topics where people bitch about recurring anagram problems, you aren't saying the admins should jump and fix the duplicate posting issue. you're simply voicing your thoughts, and saying that it would be nice if something were done about it.
and, unlike the people who bitch about the anagram problems, this is the first time I've seen such a topic from you, whereas, they bitch on a yearly basis about that issue, as well as others. there's a big difference between the two, as far as I see it.
So another suggestion when posting, write your post and when you have finished, then write the subject. You might make a clearer subject line at that point.
Some topics start out with general subject lines but do address specific issues, and the casual observer could imagine they were duplicates also.
I just think it is funny that cody can sit here writing about how nobody in the "real world!" will wipe your nose for you or make exceptions for you. in actual fact son if you lived in the real world yourself, you would know that if you spouted off at the mouth like you seem to do a lot on here, somebody real world person would smack you in the nose and then you'd need help wiping the blood off it. you come across like an angry, poorly socially adjusted little prick, who thinks his opinion is more important and more valid than everyone elses. that being said you're not the only one around here who does that, but grow up
And if you aren't lucky enough, someone would nock your teeth out. Maybe nock you down. Or perhaps kill you. I'm not saying, don't voice your opinion. I honestly thought they were funny. But seriously, if you said all those things to someone bigger than you, stronger than you, I don't know if you'd be able to run your mouth again. Sometimes what we say, can save us, generally speaking. Then we have those who preach a philosophy they don't practice, so we usually take what they say with a grain of salt. I guess it's easy to be keyboard warriers, because they're not physically threatening, but I think that what and how you write says a lot about us.
Most of you if not all of you are not new to the boards and Cody's attitude of how he presents himself. And most of you should realize that he will not change. So I am curious as to why you keep trying to convince him that he's the big bad wolf when you should know that he will not change to appeal to you, and that he quite frankly doesn't give a shit about what you think of him and his opinions. I am not sticking my neck out to stand up for Cody. I just feel like some of you are just wasting your breath on a false cause. Trying to convince Cody to be nice is pointless. I am not saying I would have argued my point as he did, but Cody is Cody. Sorry to bust the party but I am really curious, and I don't mean to derail the topic.
i know at times i have created a new topic because one that is already made has been looked at and commented on so much that no one is really replying on it anymore and I won't get the help or whatever i am asking about by posting on it. This is if it is not active anymore or if people aren't really posting or reading it anymore.
I am a strong advocate for unlocking older board topics, this might prevent some of this.
By the way, did you know that a search of board topics titles containing the word "duplicate", this is the only one? I thought it would be funny if this topic had been brought up several times. But, no way.
Bob (the disapointed grinch)
Oh dear; I see both sides to this argument but as Godsilla said, requesting a punishment is a little far fetched especially considering, even if the staff were on here more, they clearly state that they "are not our parents". I take that to mean they don't want to take the time to go through the boards, and I understand that totally.
The admin created the site for entertainment purposes. There are many other sites around where the boards are heavily moderated; this site, is not; again, that's the way Admin always intended it to be.
Yes of course I agree that they need to maintain other aspects of the sites, but not the boards.
Yes, this is coming from someone who thinks there's way too much drama and bitchiness on these boards. :) Lol