[Tweaker]

I've been going around and seeing a lot of really short, insignificant replies to topics lately. I want to reiterate—posts which have no content other than "I agree!" or "That's sick/disgusting/etc" with no actual content or explanation behind your opinion are pretty much useless to a conversation, and generally serve little more than to clutter up topics with legitimate discussion within them. To bring up some particular examples of what you shouldn't have in a reply:

http://forums.sonicretro.org/index.php?sho...st&p=245872
http://forums.sonicretro.org/index.php?sho...st&p=245699
http://forums.sonicretro.org/index.php?sho...st&p=245676
http://forums.sonicretro.org/index.php?sho...st&p=245624
http://forums.sonicretro.org/index.php?sho...st&p=245543
http://forums.sonicretro.org/index.php?sho...st&p=244939
http://forums.sonicretro.org/index.php?sho...st&p=244603
http://forums.sonicretro.org/index.php?sho...st&p=244778
http://forums.sonicretro.org/index.php?sho...st&p=244792
http://forums.sonicretro.org/index.php?sho...st&p=244840

All of these are either rather annoying, pointless, and serve little more than to annoy people who want legitimate discussion in their topics. I have absolutely no problem regarding the length of a post, as long as it serves to get your point across well enough and is backed up by solid reasoning and facts. I think that's a problem in general, actually—people saying things without any substance or saying what's on their mind without explaining it. If you want people to understand your way of thinking, then how do you expect them to subscribe to your views without any sort of reasoning explained to them?

With very few exceptions, short posts with no content that add little to a conversation will no longer be tolerated, and people who make multiple posts like this will be either contacted and told to stop, or suspended for post-whoring. Mind you, there is nothing wrong with making many posts a day—people such as muteKi, Overlord, myself, and eggfan are among many who post quite a bit. However, if you are going to post a lot, then please make sure your post has a decent amount of content in it.

I sent out an email the other day that encourages members to post whenever they can. This still holds true—I want as many members as possible to get involved with this community if they can and contribute their thoughts and opinions. Still, remember that this is one of the best Sonic-related boards on the net, and we didn't get that way through posts that don't really say anything.

I'm sure a lot of you will understand this course of action. And remember—if you're not sure what is considered appropriate and what is not, you're always free to contact myself or any other staff member about what kind of posting is acceptable, and what is not. If your posts are getting trashed, that should be a clue to shape up; if not, and you still want to make sure, send one of us a PM and we'll let you know.

I'm hoping this community is mature enough to take this message in the right way. We've had some great posting lately, especially in the Community Project forums. Just remember that, say, feedback on a hack isn't helpful if you aren't specific, and that posting in a debate or "list" topic isn't helpful either if you don't explain your thoughts. It's a good practice, and you may find your posts more interesting to other people as a result!

[Stealth]

Ohhh....crap. I need to start making longer posts :X

[Xkeeper]

The problem arises in that, some times, there just isn't anything to say other than something short.

Some of those posts don't even fit what you're talking about; they have a point and they get it across in few words. Do we have to start magically padding everything we post now if the point is relatively concise?

[Sik]

A short post doesn't hurt, as long as it provides something useful to the discussion. I suppose this one does =P

[Delta]

Would it do Retro any good to have a post rating system? For example, buttons that allow a person to rate a post with "Agree", "Disagree", "Groan", "Funny", "Thanks", "Informative", etc, and the amount of each of those ratings can appear alongside each post?

It could cut down on posts with little content. So if all you have to say is a one-liner, you can express it with a rating instead of a useless post. I've seen it used on a few other forums I frequent.

[Xkeeper]

The amount of use a feature like that would be almost nothing. I've seen a few forums implement a basic version of it ("Thanks") but it was used about once in a year.

It isn't worth it.

[Tweaker]

Stealth, on Nov 15 2008, 06:54 PM, said:

Ohhh....crap. I need to start making longer posts :X

I love you.

Xkeeper, on Nov 15 2008, 07:02 PM, said:

The problem arises in that, some times, there just isn't anything to say other than something short.

Some of those posts don't even fit what you're talking about; they have a point and they get it across in few words. Do we have to start magically padding everything we post now if the point is relatively concise?

Okay... here's my core issue at hand.

Our good friend doc eggfan makes a religious debate topic! Naturally speaking, this topic is meant to appeal to a large, wide demographic and attract some in-depth, philosophical discussion. Our friend Knux13 comes in, makes a very well-structured, well thought-out post full of facts, insightful ideas, reasoning, and evidence. It makes a very good point which, let's say, tries to support a religion (not saying that's how he actually rolls). This post has the potential to sway people to understand his viewpoint more because he put so much thought into it.

However, someone else comes in—say, Cheos Hedgie, for the sake of example—and says that, by rejecting religion, we're all going to hell. But that's it. That's the post. Not only does this post sort of interrupt the discussion that was going on, but he just said something, didn't explain it, didn't justify it, didn't reason it... it's just sitting there. What use does it have? Nobody really knows; it's a post for the sake of a post.


But that might be a shaky example. Here's another:

Soselocke makes a thread about a cool Sonic hack concept. This is well thought-out, explained, and plausible concept that he thought could be very fun to implement. BlazeHedgehog comes in making an insightful post commenting on the idea, pointing out its pros, its cons, and making his own personal suggestions to add to the idea. This post is presented in such a way that it makes a persuasive argument, and a lot of people can unanimously agree with his thoughts; or, on the other hand, provide a similarly-structured counter argument that goes against it. A good discussion is had!

However, Polygon Jim makes a response to the OP saying "This idea sucks. It plays out like a bad fan-fic."; he then leaves the topic. This post serves to not provide any reasonable, justified opinion of the proposed idea, get in the way of normal discussion, and irritate people who came into that topic for interesting reading material, or simply to find something to agree with. This may lead to other, similarly short and useless posts to be made in the thread, as Jim promoted the idea that it was okay to shit on a thread without any kind of justification. A thread turns sour.


Do you get what I'm getting at? Both of these topics could have been arguably saved or run better had the bad example had instead followed the good one. This community is horrible when it comes to bandwagoning a certain thought or attitude, and it's becoming increasingly detrimental to the board's content as a whole. I think it is a good thing for the board in general that we realize this, and put a concious effort towards rectifying it. If we can do that, the board is bound to be more enjoyable as a whole. Make sense?

[Xkeeper]

I meant for general purpose posting (agreement, etc). Of course when you're in disagreement or such you should back up your thoughts with reasoning.

I was mostly meaning that sometimes, one or two sentences is really all it takes to get a point across, so the goal shouldn't be longer posts, but posts that convey ideas well.

Eh.

[Metal Man88]

Well, there's difference between short posts and stupid/negative ones. A short post which, nonetheless, has a complete sentence or two in it and expresses a complete, intelligent thought, is fine.

A short 'No, this sucks' or 'You're all going to hell' post just needs to be split and sent into the bin and the person who made it warned, then eventually suspended if they don't take the hint. Then probably banned if that isn't enough either.

[Tweaker]

Xkeeper, on Nov 15 2008, 08:21 PM, said:

I was mostly meaning that sometimes, one or two sentences is really all it takes to get a point across, so the goal shouldn't be longer posts, but posts that convey ideas well.

I agree! This is why I said "content issues," not "length issues." Some people need long posts to convey and justify a point; others don't. The point is that... well, you make a point. Posts that don't really do that may as well not have been made in the first place, you know?

[Xkeeper]

Oh.

Well, okay then! That pretty much clears everything up.

[Qjimbo]

I agree entirely with this notion. P:SR has been attracting posts of this nature and it is just plain irritating. No insight is given into the thought processes of the poster, or any suggestions on how to correct the situation. It's just a short snippet of meaningless negativity that doesn't benefit discussion in the slightest.

[Jayextee]

Does the forum software allow for a time-check or something against when the reply page was loaded, to the time the button was pressed to commit the post?

I was thinking, maybe in the case of posts that took under a minute (Maybe less, some folk are pretty fast typists... I don't know), there is an extra WARNING page which comes up first, maybe saying something like "Gee, that was fast. Hope this post came from your brain, and not your ass. Sure you want to continue (y/n)?".

This would annoy legitimate posters, I guess -- but the number of legitimate one-sentence posts compared to lengthier ones is so insignificant, I don't see how there's a real problem when there's a downright annoying detterent to folk who just vomit on the forums.

That was my 2¢ anyways.

[muteKi]

I happen to think that a minute would in fact be overkill -- I can't see a really lame and inappropriate post taking more than 30 seconds while many legitimate posts could be done in under a minute.

That does of course assume that this is a possible feature.

This post has been edited by muteKi: 16 November 2008 - 04:53 AM

[SMTP]

Stealth, on Nov 15 2008, 06:54 PM, said:

Ohhh....crap. I need to start making longer posts :X

Actually you just need to start making posts in general. :P