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Cenere
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Cenere
13,657 posts
Jester

And a vague title, so you read the gurram OP.

So, let's discuss forum behaviour. In particular the behaviour around or lovely little den, but general forum behaviour or online behaviour should do well too. We can probably relate.
Lately there has been a large influx of people who, and I can only assume here, didn't think it was a good idea to read the rules when they got here, and now, several ranks later, they are doing their very best to get any and all topics closed because they can't type up seven words in response.
I don't know why, but I kinda assumed forums were for discussion, but there seem to be a general consensus that forums are for poll replies, just like the game comments are for word burps instead of, say, quick feedback or reviews, comments, suggestions and so forth.
Is this a thing we just ought to live with, because the internet degrade brains, or should we stand tall, and possibly wait in a dark alley for the people doing this, and beat them up?
Same goes for the deal of "let's reply unnecessarily to questions", not just with the 100+ replies to "How do I change my armatar" or something equally simple, but also the 50+ replies after someone made the first move and told the newbie to go do us all a favour and read the stickies.
I am well aware that the people pointing out the obvious and biting the mods in their well meaning way is doing it out of a good heart, but like the other example, it ends up being rather unnecessary, and spoonfeeding others information just ends up leaving them unable to learn it all themselves.

Anyway, if you fought through that little rant, congratulations. You have now come to the part where you give your opinion, point out the flaws in what I said, perhaps say some wise words or bring our attention towards other aspects of online behaviour and so forth and so forth.

And due to above, I bet this won't make five pages.

  • 71 Replies
Krizaz
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Krizaz
2,399 posts
Nomad

To the OP... Please read. Your statement is good, logical ever, but it look so unpresentable. Wall of text and bad punctuation/grammar. I think just following some of those rules people will start to respect and take you more seriously.

Please read,it'll help you OP.

soccerdude2
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soccerdude2
1,673 posts
Shepherd

May I join in on this?

On another slightly related note what is really the point in having a game rating? I mean you can rate a game well, lets say giving it a 8/10 but never say why you gave it that score. For all we know you could have just been randomly choosing a number if you don't but a comment on it saying why you gave it that score. Even if we assume that you were properly rating we don't know what that person thought about the game as in what they liked and didn't like. Pretty much I don't get the point of a rating.


I think there are two main reasons for having a game rating;

A, It shows people which games are very good or very bad based on the rating they have. A lot of you might be saying "Well people just spam the ratings anyway and give people non-accurate rates" but actually most of the games here have accurate ratings for how good they are, it least in my opinion.

B, It lets the game developer know how good his game was and how much people liked it. This could also be shown through comments though, so I'm not too sure about this reason.


If these aren't good reasons, enlighten me


Furthermore, when I have been on Colony, I have seen many of the usual "good game" or "awesome game" or "8/10" but also many of the colony players like to chat with the comment about who hacks, who's a noob, or their daily problems with the online not working too well or they're nulling a lot. I have probably seen one good comment and then 100 bad ones after that. You could take all of their AP away or send them a message about how their comments are not helping the game developer, but they probably won't even care because most of the players don't care about the AG points, they just made the account for colony.


Another experience with this was when I made a long comment about sonny 2 and then the rest of the comments after that were, "cool, nice post there, I agree" and I'll see this a lot after long comments in games. Of course I found this just searching for it when I was bored :P, I had to go about 1.5 years back...

I have no idea how we could get new users to read the rules, maybe when they join there could be a little notice about the newcomers forum with the rules and guide to AG. Or you could make a ________ character minimum on the forum posts and comments or else it won't give you AP. Because I'm pretty sure that a lot of times the users don't know better and think that putting "that sound cool" for a forum post is a valid post.

Well, I did talk about my experiences with these sorts of users.

I also was very pressured to make a large post like the rest of you, although not nearly as much as Cen's.

Wait, I read over these post again and I realized this was supposed to be about forum behavior, not about game comments or ratings, but mine does sort of tie in to this, and it's in my opinion too good of a post to not post it about these things.
master565
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master565
4,104 posts
Nomad

Your statement is good, logical ever


So than why should anything else matter? He's not trying to make people's eyes feel good.

Wall of text and bad punctuation/grammar.


I don't mind a good wall of text at all, and Cen doesn't natively speak english, and considering most these grammar mistakes are extremely unnoticeable or relevant, I would call this a well written post.

I think just following some of those rules people will start to respect and take you more seriously.


Cen has two fan clubs (one and two), people already revere him.
Cenere
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Cenere
13,657 posts
Jester

Let's start with the on topic stuff first, in order of appearance, I think:

Just as some rules are good, having too many rules is a very bad thing. When there is an overabundance of rules, their sphere of influence spills over from general good conduct into the insignificant areas of operation, where they then become a burdensome and ever-present governmental micro-managing of a person's life.

While being a horrible stickler for rules and order, I do have to agree. There is a point where the rule stop being there to keep order, and just start obstructing the work of, well, everything. I wouldn't say its like this on most forums or on the internet in general, rather, it tends to be a problem with moderators being a bit power abusive or someone being really bossy about how stuff is done on his forum.
Rules are good, but only as long as they actually help anything.

or the "i read and accept the terms of agreement" button,

This is one of the stupid part of this current time's online society. Few bothers to read rules or Terms of Conduct/Agreement/and Conditions. This usually ends with them agreeing to things they would never agree to if asked, and in cases like forums, skipping past the important parts about how to properly behave on the site they are using (and the fact that they agree to follow the rules, not bad mouth moderators and not circumvent bans).
Seriously, some might think the bane of humanity will be robots. I think humanity might just end up clicking 'I agree' to something that will get them killed.

And for the spoonfeeding part, well, if we don't do that, they probably won't learn it, ever. If they can't learn more about the actual way to communicate online, and especially, on this site, well that's their problem.

I will have to disagree on this. If you point out where information can be found, they can go read up on it themselves and thus learn. If you spoonfeed them informations, it will just be a brief "Oh, cool" and it will be gone in minutes.
A teacher doesn't go read up the solutions to questions either, they tell you to try and solve it yourself. Librarians don't sit down and read the books for you, even if they have found them for you. All that is what actually leads to learning, and perhaps next time they will remember that big thread'o'information and go look there instead of making another thread asking questions.

Yet I always get the feeling that on the internet something is always going to go terribly wrong.

Not necessarily, but having done a bit of research on the internet, social interaction and behaviour (yes, that is what I do), I have to say a huge part of users on the internet has no idea what they are doing. Which obviously causes disasters.
They don't bother reading rules or instructions, they can't be bothered to be critical of information, some can't even use a simple search engine (no, really). The internet is an entirely new domain to interact in, and few are actually aware of how to do so without knocking their head against the door frame and so on.

Also I have found that writing more thoughtfully helps me also is school because I am already used to throwing all my thoughts into one thing and including alot of deatail.

This.
Most use of the internet, especially of the social sort, will end up either giving you practice in real world skills, in technical skills or actually teach you new skills. This is also true for multiplayer games.

Well it seems that my longish post had no real effect on the posts after it, well at least it was worth a try.

My theory is that one is never enough, if the OP is short. See any post of mine in one of those threads.
Basically, for a thread to end up being a proper discussion, you have to do a wall'o'text OP to lure most of the people that wouldn't bother reading it and wouldn't understand the topic from the title alone away. But more on that later.

Wait, I read over these post again and I realized this was supposed to be about forum behavior, not about game comments or ratings, but mine does sort of tie in to this, and it's in my opinion too good of a post to not post it about these things.

Well, rating and comments is a part of the social interaction between users here, so obviously it is relevant. It's the same reason I started out with my pet peevee in the OP on the short-as-heck posts of doom. It gives people a bit to relate to.

Now, the internet can be a rather good source of skill learning as previous mentioned, mainly because the social structure mimics that of real life interaction but in text which makes a lot of people more secure in themselves, and perhaps more prone to doing stuff they wouldn't do normally.
On the internet you can construct your own identity, you don't have to tell everyone everything and it is easy to find information and help. A good community can do wonders.

--

Onto other things, so you can skip this.

On an unrelated note (excuse the hypocrisy), I've noticed now that you're not a mod, people treat you differently.. :/

MrDayCee told me the same. I haven't noticed.

If only Cenere could see us now, he'd be so proud

I am very proud of you all. And look, a real discussion in the Tavern!!

I guess that is the magic Cenere has that I've heard about.

It's call "A wall of text and an irrelevant title". Every one can do it.

i think videos would be cool

Shame.

To the OP... Please read. Your statement is good, logical ever, but it look so unpresentable. Wall of text and bad punctuation/grammar. I think just following some of those rules people will start to respect and take you more seriously.

Please read,it'll help you OP.

I am saying this in the most loving way, but you are an idiot. Sorry. Not only are you off topic, you also missed the fact that I already have read your little thread and pointed out the flaws in it, and you are pointing out my flaws in public, when you could just as easily have dodged the bullet of being off topic and thus spamming, by going to my profile and ask me why I wrote such a wall of text and tell me I have a crap grasp of English, a grasp that is still better than most of the native English speakers' around here, it seems.
I assume your point on bad punctuation is all my commas. The English comma makes no sense, and I refuse to go by the entire lack of rules regarding it.
I assume I did a bunch of "They [...]s" and stuff like that? I do that all the time. It's a bad habit that caused me worse grades than I probably should have had if I actually read through my stuff. I don't. I write what I want to communicate, and that it is. If it isn't impossible to read, I think I have succeeded.
As for the wall of text...
"Walls of text, nobody likes reading walls of text, people want information in summed up sentences, short and to the point." - Your point. Have you seen what replies look like when the OP is short and to the point? Want a hint?
Short. Useless. Posts.
My own theory, and the reason I will write those "wall of texts"(which has paragraphs, and thus aren't) is to weed out the people that are... is? going to read the title or the OP and then reply just as short and to the point. Which leads to crap-all discussion, no real content and will get the thread locked for spam.
So dearest you, please don't go about assuming you are the Buddha of writing posts. You were the one that wanted images in the middle of posts, which acts like a doorstop to regular readers.
Or, if you are going to give me some advice, do so in the privacy of profiles, and try to use enough energy on it to know if someone has already replied to that wonder-thread of you, and pointed out what they think is flawed about your theory.

Now, aren't you happy you did this in public?

Anyway...
Cen doesn't natively speak english, and considering most these grammar mistakes are extremely unnoticeable or relevant,

I have to admit I really don't have a good grasp of English grammar. But at least I admit it.
(And the "They are/He is" stuff is bothersome when you start out with a language that only have one form "De er/Han er&quot

Done with ma ranting, continue onwards!
CommanderPaladin
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CommanderPaladin
1,531 posts
Nomad

Just some quick notations (nothing epic-length):

Also I have found that writing more thoughtfully helps me also is school because I am already used to throwing all my thoughts into one thing and including alot of deatail.

I am very proud of you all. And look, a real discussion in the Tavern!!

I guess that is the magic Cenere has that I've heard about.


Simply put, Intelligent thought breeds intelligent conversation.

Basically, for a thread to end up being a proper discussion, you have to do a wall'o'text OP to lure most of the people that wouldn't bother reading it and wouldn't understand the topic from the title alone away.


This touches on an interesting point:
Many of the people who seek to cause trouble in forums are of demonstrably low intelligence (hence their behavior). An increase in intelligent dialogues would shut some of them out because it would not provide an environment conducive to immature and unintelligent actions such as they engage in. Of course, there will always be those who are attracted by such an environment out of a desire to attempt to wreck it with trolling, spam, and pointless micro posts of doom, but the majority of these will simply be bypassed and crushed by the ongoing train of thought before ultimately being removed by Mods or other forum controllers and fading into the proverbial sands of time.

This is one of the stupid part of this current time's online society. Few bothers to read rules or Terms of Conduct/Agreement/and Conditions. This usually ends with them agreeing to things they would never agree to if asked


Allow me to advance a theory on this phenomenon:
The problem is a lack of patience. Today's culture has an ingrained demand for instant gratification, whether it be in the form of fast food, instant downloads, movies on demand, or what have you. People simply are no longer accustomed to waiting for anything. The proverbs that "good things come to those who wait" and "anything worth having is worth working for" are all but forgotten now. This societal lack of patience drives people to make decisions or take actions that they otherwise would not in order to get what they want immediately. Current real world examples of this include the housing market crisis (America) and the chaos in Greece. People wanted houses, so they jumped headlong into bad deals and payments that they couldn't afford, and now they are stuck in a very bad way. (Note: I'm not excusing the banks here - they encouraged these faulty decisions.) In Greece, the people wanted money, housing, etc. without working for it (government subsidies, welfare, and the like), and they wanted it immediately. The demand far exceeded the supply of resources, and when the resources ran dry, the people became angry at the results of their decisions and took it out on everyone else.
The same effect is in play when people agree to the terms of use without finding out what it is that they are agreeing to. They want whatever their motivation is to join, be it status, online friends they'll never actually know, or just an outlet to waste time, and their desire for instant gratification leads them to skip anything that could delay them, like reading the terms of agreement and rules. Then when they make total blithering fools out of themselves, forever trash their online reputation, and get banned, they either don't realize or just plain ignore that it's their fault, so they do things to further propel themselves down the path to flaming idiocy like circumvent bans and attack Mods and Admins.

A teacher doesn't go read up the solutions to questions either, they tell you to try and solve it yourself. Librarians don't sit down and read the books for you, even if they have found them for you. All that is what actually leads to learning


You have accurately targeted and hit the reason why the education system is totaled today. People expect to be spoon-fed their learning, which defeats the purpose and actually prevents real learning. The main causes for this are desire for instant gratification (see above), an embarrassment at failure that leads to the shunning of the concept, and plain, simple laziness. People want what they want, but the don't want to exert the effort to attain it for themselves. Incidentally, that's also what "share the wealth" is really about, but that's another discussion.

Okay, looks like I was wrong. That WAS long.
This concludes the important stuff. Insignificant thoughts follow.
______________________________________________

pet peevee


Um, Cen? A peevee is a lever tool used for manually moving things like big logs. I think you meant &quoteeve," which is something utterly annoying to you.
Not sure if you didn't know or were just messin' around.

to weed out the people that are... is?

Correct form: are. "People" is a plural construct, therefore use the plural verb form.

a grasp that is still better than most of the native English speakers' around here, it seems.


This is true. And disgusting (no offense). I hate it when people who should know their grammar abuse it with unintelligible blather.

Now, back to your ranting!
Santi_
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Santi_
1,900 posts
Nomad

I've honestly lost track of what we're ranting about at this point. Is it about the rules, spamming, education, differentiating opinions on the above matters, or some type of hybrid fusion of all of the above? Before I can continue my rant, could I know a specific or even a broad subject we're talking about here? Thanks.

Cenere
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Cenere
13,657 posts
Jester

First things first:

could I know a specific or even a broad subject we're talking about here?

Forum behaviour, as mentioned somewhere in either the first or the second OP. Or both.
I am just taking it from the "This is annoying because I can't ban people any more" and the "I have a degree in this" points of view, while the rest are going about it from their experiences and observations. Which is probably better than either of my PoVs.

Simply put, Intelligent thought breeds intelligent conversation.

Yes, indeed.
Though, in the other end of the scale, we have "the more people in a group, the less the collective IQ will be".

This touches on an interesting point:[...]

Or, to put it simple: They cannot be arsed to actually read anything full length, and if they do, they cannot actually communicate a proper response.
My own theory on Wall'o'Text = Less spam is that anyone that would spam would be too lazy to find out what the topic is about, if the title is vague and the OP is long and doesn't make the usual "So, what is your opinion on this specific thing I am mentioning in this very sentence so you might be aware what we are talking about?", and thus, to reply, they would either have to assume (like the nice kid with the videos) or just click backspace and find something easier to get their AP from.
After that comes the intelligence and all that, at least in my opinion, which is what the WEPR is working on: If you are going to make a stupid comment there, you will be sure to be shunned like a moron forever. So their OPs can be fairly short ("I read this article, and as you can see they [point], [point] and [conclusion]. I was wondering what your opinions might be on this?&quot without risking the "Lol, I fink dey b gud"-replies.

The proverbs that "good things come to those who wait" and "anything worth having is worth working for" are all but forgotten now.

Indeed. I believe Nemo suggested a book to me about becoming a leader or something like that. Either way, one of the pieces of advice given was that you should never hurry. If you hurry and look like you are late or anything like that, you will look out of control, not to mention, you probably will be out of control anyway.
Then again, waiting is no longer a part of our culture as such. Both due to the internet, the fast gratification, not having to wait for anything besides the pizza and the ambulance more or less, but also because you, as an individual in this world, will have a hundred things to do in very little time.
The result? When we actually have time to sit down and not do anything, we feel restless. We will have nothing to do, because everything offered to us will be part of the grand schedule of ruining our lives with stress.
Even pleasure reading can be seen as some kind of pressure put upon us, because you "Just have to finish this chapter before going to bed", not necessarily because it is interesting, but because you know the next time you will be able to continue this book (which you have to read because intelligent people read and all that) will be the night after, where you again would rather sleep.
Anyway.

The same effect is in play when people agree to the terms of use without finding out what it is that they are agreeing to.

I have to admit I don't necessarily read TaCs. I do skim them for important information and to know what I will be agreeing to, but I don't normally read them thoroughly.
But that said, I doubt most people even do that any more. It's more of a 'scroll to bottom, click I agree' thing.

They want whatever their motivation is to join, be it status, online friends they'll never actually know, or just an outlet to waste time, and their desire for instant gratification leads them to skip anything that could delay them, like reading the terms of agreement and rules.

Which is a bit sad, because as it is with the internet working as real life, they will be outsiders as newbies anyway, especially if they don't know anyone on the site before joining. The vets of the site (or the popular people on social networking sites) will be looking down on them for being new, for not knowing what is going on and how to behave, the other newbies will have nothing to judge them against, but being newbies themselves, they cannot give any reassurance or popularity, and everyone else will just ignore them.
It's like some of the "how do I get friends"-threads here on AG. People asking how to get friends here, not how to friend them, but how to gain someone as their friend. And all we can say is "Well, be active, reply to stuff you are interested in, find someone you have a common ground with!". What we are actually communicating is "Do like you would have, if you were trying to get friends a new place out in the real world". It's the same procedures, it's just via text rather than appearance or speech or activities.

they either don't realize or just plain ignore that it's their fault,

To be fair, most get it after the first ban, when they have been pointed to the place the rules are. I have had people thanking me for warning them and giving them a link to the rules, because they were unaware of them (and apparently unable or unwilling to go read up on them themselves before they were already in trouble). it might stem from users from other sites, where breaking the rules has few consequences or they weren't as strict and they just assume it's like that everywhere, or it might be from internet/forum newbies that consider the internet a place where you can do whatever you like, without considering there might actually be rules in place to keep order in the chaos.
So, it usually goes alright after the first few warnings or a single ban. Then there is the type that will consider themselves above everyone and everything, but they tend to get banned pretty fast anyway.

I think my main point is that if you are new to a site, lurk, lurk some more, and then start being active.

People expect to be spoon-fed their learning, which defeats the purpose and actually prevents real learning.

Not to mention that there often is a meaning behind the madness of getting people to look it up themselves.
If you know how to use a dictionary, you most likely also end up having a passive skill of knowing how a word should be spelled in the first place. This is a skill you practice when you look up words. I know there are stories about teachers going "Look it up" when the student is quite literally unable to start their search for a word (for example in languages that does not follow the same linguistic rules as their own language does), but otherwise the 'look it up yourself' is there for a really good reason, just as homework is there to help you out and so forth. Even if the learning methods of schools tend to be pretty... basic. And behind.
This actually has a nice term: "Learning by doing", which over time has been proven quite right. Now we just need to prove that you also learn better in a social environment, but that is a whole other discussion.

--------------

Not sure if you didn't know or were just messin' around.

I just can't spell. It happens sometimes.
It's like when I use the English spelling of some words and not others, except in this case I just didn't get anything right.

Correct form: are. "People" is a plural construct, therefore use the plural verb form.

Except when it is a singular construct like "A people", "A group", "A family". Which is some of the stuff that confuses the heck out of me sometimes. Sometimes it is considered one thing, sometimes it's not, and it is just screwing around with my already mentioned inability to get it right in the first place.
I just can't grammar.
Santi_
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Santi_
1,900 posts
Nomad

Well, honestly what I meant by spoon-feeding was that when you start your education as a small child, you don't just hand them a textbook, and say "learn". I'm saying that they need to know the very basics, then find out the correct, or at least a legible, and not completely rediculous, way to interact with others. Which goes hand and hand with what you were saying aboout lurking in this site, then start to interact with others on the forums.

I personally prefer walls of text, because it shares the user's true opinions on the matter. If it's just a few words, or even a few senteces, it is usually just the first thing that comes to one's mind. With that, you don't have to wait, and think about it for a short while, to make an actual constructive response. Thankfully as we're not doing on this thread.

nichodemus
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nichodemus
14,991 posts
Grand Duke

Cen Cen Cen, what in the name of Danish sweets do we have here....a misleading title, calling people idiots, tsk tsk. And of course the cardinal sin of going against the flow and writing a novel on the internet.

"the more people in a group, the less the collective IQ will be".


Let's call this Cen's Law. Yes, let's!

People asking how to get friends here, not how to friend them, but how to gain someone as their friend.


Only people with the social adequacy of a hobo with third stage syphilis come here, so don't be too harsh on the rest of us. I mean, if you really had good real life friends, would you spend that much time cooped up here?

The vets of the site (or the popular people on social networking sites) will be looking down on them for being new, for not knowing what is going on and how to behave, the other newbies will have nothing to judge them against, but being newbies themselves, they cannot give any reassurance or popularity, and everyone else will just ignore them.


Hey, what can we say about this? Even a mock virtual society has to have the toffs on top and the rest of the insignificant masses of people below. It's a cycle of the same bland stupidity looping to a merry tune of ''What's Your Favourite''. They come and go, and are a dime a dozen, so the only time I pay attention is when I test my sarcastic mind meter in trying to phrase acerbic short responses pertaining to the stickies. It tickles me, makes me giggle and turns me on. Every man has his own secret fetish I guess. Not that you should know.

it might stem from users from other sites, where breaking the rules has few consequences or they weren't as strict and they just assume it's like that everywhere, or it might be from internet/forum newbies that consider the internet a place where you can do whatever you like, without considering there might actually be rules in place to keep order in the chaos.


Must be a fun place, these other forums. I've never been on them, and my sorry, pitiful internet existence has been limited to this hellish dictatorship of rules that is AG.
NMeade
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NMeade
49 posts
Nomad

This is one of the stupid part of this current time's online society. Few bothers to read rules or Terms of Conduct/Agreement/and Conditions.

And it gets even dumber. You forget to check the little box that says "I agree to the terms and rules". Then, you hit 'Sign me up!' and a pop up says, "You forgot the agree to the terms and rules!" *clicks box*. . .

I mean, if you really had good real life friends, would you spend that much time cooped up here?

Lol ha. Unless you considered your friends on Armor Games your real life friends.
nichodemus
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nichodemus
14,991 posts
Grand Duke

Lol ha. Unless you considered your friends on Armor Games your real life friends.


More or less one of them is and has been for four years, although we live thousands of miles apart. But at least, it proves that the Forums aren't the forsaken hell pits which have not seen the light since their inception, because at the end of the day, I still was able to meet one decent person who has incredibly become one of my closer friends. Internet friendships for the win, but again, different thread, different time.
Devoidless
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Devoidless
3,675 posts
Jester

Wall of text and bad punctuation/grammar. I think just following some of those rules people will start to respect and take you more seriously.

I know Cen already took care of this. Yet I have not had my turn yet.

Wall of Text? Really? Since when did paragraph form magically become a wall of text? I must have missed something in the several years since I graduated, because last I checked every form of real literature was written in the purported 'wall of text' style.
See what just happened here? A new paragraph. That denotes a new idea, train of thought or the like is/has taken place. Perhaps the lack of indentation threw you off. Although, in my opinion, it is clear enough where the old stops and the new begins. If, for some dim witted idea, I decided to skip the crucial step of pressing the "Enter" key, things would look messy. Following this sentence will be a page break! Which is another common forum tactic to tell you "Hey, totally new subject coming up."

y u got b hatin on hix speling n punctations bcuz i think it wuz gud nuff when u compare it 2 lots of ppl in teh forims n on the net bcuz they dont use real wurds or no how 2 seprate thought form 1 anoother n even wen they tpye out the full wurds it is nvr the full wurd or even anthing nere it n lotx of tiems numbers r uses to insted of wurds or leeters when its ezier 2 tpye the real wurd as appozed to teh wurd.
Compared to what I see far too often here and on the rest of the Internet, can you really even attempt to rip into Cen for his electronic vernacular? As someone already stated, English is not his native tongue. Yet despite this he still manages to blow away the general population. If you then considered how ridiculous the English language is it is even more of a grand feat.

Shameless link to your own useless thread is shamelessly useless. That's all I have to say about that.

I find it hilarious that you decide to tell, of all people on the forums, Cen how to be respected and taken seriously. You, an unknown user. I call you unknown because I can not recall a single time I've seen you in the community. Before you even mention it, I have seen your post count. It means nothing if out of all those posts, not one left a lasting impression on me. Out of 1,831 posts you made exactly zero that were worth a bloody thing, and that includes the thread you felt the need to link to. I guarantee you though, after this ordeal I'll remember you. And not for the reasons you want.
/rant

Back to the actual topic!

Everyone notice the abundance of locked thread here in the Tavern? There is a reason for that. Such topics bred no discussion at all. An overwhelming majority of the post were nothing more than empty-headed responses to the OP. Pages upon pages of "I liek trains" and "What did I do today? Woke up, lol" and "My favorite color is red." And little more.
The forums are for discussions. I'm not asking for grandiose epics or earth-shattering revelations here people. Simply put some thought into your posts. Make it look like your tried, as opposed to vomiting whatever ill-planned thoughts you have stored in your empty little heads all over my internets.
Cenere
offline
Cenere
13,657 posts
Jester

Well, honestly what I meant by spoon-feeding was that when you start your education as a small child, you don't just hand them a textbook, and say "learn". I'm saying that they need to know the very basics, then find out the correct, or at least a legible, and not completely rediculous, way to interact with others. Which goes hand and hand with what you were saying aboout lurking in this site, then start to interact with others on the forums.

Indeed, indeed.
Mainly, what I consider spoon feeding is when someone goes to a thread, copy-pastes the entire ranking and what action gets what amount of points, and assume they have done their job. Or if someone is asking about how to change their armatar and stuff. Simple things that has been explained several times in other threads, not to mention is specifically explained for newbies in the AG guide or some few times on the Help page.
I have seen this happen before (and that is even more annoying):
OP: Hi, how do you...
Replier1: Hello, I think you will find your answer if you read [thread]. (Sometimes linked, sometimes just a mention where to find it, which is both a-okay)
Replier2: Sure, here do you have your answer! [Tells everything that has been said in the linked thread]
It's annoying, and the second replier is more likely to get the thanks for the help, even if what they do is ruining, well, everything.

Only people with the social adequacy of a hobo with third stage syphilis come here, so don't be too harsh on the rest of us. I mean, if you really had good real life friends, would you spend that much time cooped up here?

Baw. I made friends by being awkward and emo and hating myself. They should surely be able to make friends purely by not being awkward and emo and hating themselves.
And, well, not making stupid comments...

Must be a fun place, these other forums. I've never been on them, and my sorry, pitiful internet existence has been limited to this hellish dictatorship of rules that is AG.

To be honest, and this is a really sad part of my life, I was part of a friend made rpg forum for a while. A forum made entirely by a bunch of people that wanted to rp in this specific world, made for that specific group and whoever they invited to play in this specific world.
As far as I remember, the only rule was that you shouldn't godmod. That was the only thing, the rest was up to the users. It worked well, but had it been larger, it would probably have died in fire and flames.
Then comes the dA forums, especially the Complaints section, where call-out threads, flames and generally behaviour that would leave the section empty, had it been on AG, are entirely alright, as far as I have seen. That one works well too, if you are not a newbie, because in this case you will be flamed to hell and back.
It's not a perfect environment, unless you have a thick, fireproof skin.
But that's how it is.

Everyone notice the abundance of locked thread here in the Tavern? There is a reason for that. Such topics bred no discussion at all. An overwhelming majority of the post were nothing more than empty-headed responses to the OP. Pages upon pages of "I liek trains" and "What did I do today? Woke up, lol" and "My favorite color is red." And little more.

It might be a sign of the end of days, since it looks pretty much like the last couple of pages here in the Tavern from before most of us signed up.
I personally find it a punchable offence, but I also feel the urge to kick cars that stop on the road crossing (which is both inconvenient and shows they have no idea how to drive a bloody car), find it horrifying that people working with books (Like librarians...) might not be able to remember the alphabet without singing their ABC and once fantasised about biting someone that jumped the line...
Either way, I do consider the current work in progress a good way to perhaps forcefully teach people what can and cannot work out on these forums, without having to use a lot of time on deleting spam (perhaps rather, the entire threads should be deleted, I would happily sacrifice posts and points for a cleaner forum).

as opposed to vomiting whatever ill-planned thoughts you have stored in your empty little heads all over my internets.

Word-vomit and brain-farts!!
I think it might be time to go to bed...

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calling people idiots

I did tell him I was sorry afterwards.

Let's call this Cen's Law. Yes, let's!

Reminds me a bit of Hanlon's razor, which could probably be applied here too: Don't assume people are doing it for the points when it is just as likely they just aren't that smart.

@Majority of Voidy's post:
That.
Especially pointing out that wall'o'text = most literature (which I forgot to mention), use of paragraphs (though mine were kinda sloppy in the OP, I will admit to that) and the most awesome feat of using text speak.
Anyway, enough on that topic, besides once again pointing out that it would probably have gone better in the &quotrivacy" of my profile instead of my thread. I like my threads. I don't take well to people screwing with them to "help" me, and if it had happened in my art thread, I would have been banned for breaking several threads, and there would probably have been several users with mental scars and a rather low impression of me.
Wait, that wasn't leaving the topic. Nevermind...
epicness01
offline
epicness01
1,515 posts
Nomad

Why is it that the title tells nothing of the complex nature of the discussion taking place in the forum? The simple title makes the one browsing the forums make it look like it expresses the kind of simplistic view that is criticized here. Probably, with your wordy posts, this amount of pages should amount to a good-sized book with 8-by-11.5 paper, like that in a printer. Essentially, what is going on here is under the disguise of some random place to talk about juvenile cats that apparently like the refrigerator. And, if I might add, putting your forum posts into paragraph form basically is saying you admit your forum post is ridiculously long and should instead be part of a book.
One with sophisticated taste might pass right over this forum without looking at it, but if they click the link, they would find they are right at home in the string of posts. Maybe the thread's title should be changed?

NMeade
offline
NMeade
49 posts
Nomad

. . . And I just read the OP of this thread.

OP: Hi, how do you...
Replier1: Hello, I think you will find your answer if you read [thread]. (Sometimes linked, sometimes just a mention where to find it, which is both a-okay)
Replier2: Sure, here do you have your answer! [Tells everything that has been said in the linked thread]
It's annoying, and the second replier is more likely to get the thanks for the help, even if what they do is ruining, well, everything.

Yeah why do people keep asking those questions? Don't the moderators always tell them to read the stickies?

Why is it that the title tells nothing of the complex nature of the discussion taking place in the forum?

So that people would read the opening post of this forum (as mentioned in um, the opening post).

this amount of pages should amount to a good-sized book with 8-by-11.5 paper

Notice how this forum is only three pages long and almost every post on the previous page is very long. Also, as mentioned before, moderators and/or users are tired of seeing "What is your eye color?" and a one word reply: "Brown".

And, if I might add, putting your forum posts into paragraph form basically is saying you admit your forum post is ridiculously long and should instead be part of a book.

And, may I ask, how else can you post something without putting it into paragraph form?

Maybe the thread's title should be changed?

When this thread reaches more pages, I guess that could be a possibility.

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Sorry if my post sounds like rant. I have a bad habit of doing that.
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