Puzzled about Topics

[Buzzaro]

The topic of this thread's topic is Topics.
(go ahead and say that three times fast)

Some examples of things I would like to find out about topics (but not limmited to) are:
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A* What do you consider to be a valid or invalid topic? [please give examples of each]
(and YES I have read the EULA for posting and I am NOT taking about anything that is a real-world religions, politics, personal attacks, graphic violence, illegal drugs, criminal activity, explicit sexuality.)
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B* Why do you think we have a Monthly topic when the dates are not posted on the comics.?
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C* Do you think it would be a better idea to have topics like "Comic #227" where we discuss what is going on in that strip over looking in the Monthly tring to find the area where they are talking about it?
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D* What are your feelings on why is it 'wrong' to post 4 valid messages in a row in a long strip that quote 4 different posts which have 4 differnt versions of something to comment on?
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incase you need to read it here it is.
Topic: The Rules of Posting
http://www.giantitp.com/cgi-bin/yabb/YaBB.pl?board=news;action=display;num=1064187174

[GuywithSword#2]

I think, Buzzaro, that perhaps this is better suited for a pm to a mod. It feels like you are using a question about rules to veil, thinly I might add, your frustrations with this board.

If it isn't, then here goes.

A: Simple, for this board, something that has relevance to a comic, web comic, or even OOtS itself.

B: So that the current comic can be discussed as it is posted, allowing the discussion to continue over numerous comics without creating additional, unnecessary topics. You don't need the comics to have a date, because only one month topic is stickied, so the latest comic will be included.

C: I suppose it would be a good idea if you wish to discuss an older comic.

D: I don't feel strongly about this personally, but I suppose I can see it from another perspective. You don't need to make more than one post in a row. The modify button is there. and adding extra posts where one would suffice puts the topic at the top artificially. You get more post counts personally and for the topic, where really you could have accomplished it all in one post. Long posts are only really hard to read if they aren't organized properly.

[Zherog]

B* Why do you think we have a Monthly topic when the dates are not posted on the comics.?
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There used to be a single thread for discussing the comics. It went from month to month, happily serving the community. Then a funny thing happened. The comic became popular. Really popular.

When threads around here get big it has a pretty severe impact on performance because it loads the entire thread in the history below the reply window. So to help keep things vaguely under control, about a year and a half ago (give or take) the decision was made to have a monthly thread that discussed The Stick. Even with the thread being locked and restarted every month, it can get pretty huge by the end of the month.

that ends our Giant In The Playground history lesson (tm) for today, class. Make sure to do your homework. ;D

edit: Meant to answer this, too:


D* What are your feelings on why is it 'wrong' to post 4 valid messages in a row in a long strip that quote 4 different posts which have 4 differnt versions of something to comment on?
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I'm not quite sure which part of the rules you're complaining about. However, if you're referring to the rule that says, basically, don't double post and wait for a few people to reply before you post again - well, that rule is (more or less) intended for the posting games forum.

If that's not what you meant, can you explain it better?

[Gorbash Kazdar]

Double Posts
I personally think the "no double posts" rule is a good one in most cases. There's a limit to the number of posts on each page, and it would really irritate me to have an entire page of one-sentence statements all by the same poster. Plus, it's basically spam at that level.

OTOH, if you're responding at length to two seperate things in the same post (ie. at least a full paragraph for each) seperating into two posts isn't as much of an issue, and makes sense, since people often skim lengthy posts. Alternatively, you can insert a line break and slap a bold title when you change topics (sorta like you did for your questions).

In case anyone else is wondering, for line breaks:

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Monthly Comic Thread vs Comic Specific Threads
Anyways, Zherog's historical review covers things nicely on that front, but I want to add a bit on the logistical side. For one, there are already over 200 comics - if each has it's own thread, that's 200+ threads in comics alone, with the number constantly growing. And I have no doubt that threads for older comics would be needed, since Rich has new readers all the time. That's a lot of threads. If they're user created, you'll likely see numerous instances of duplicate threads, which a mod then has to deal with. If they're mod created... well, that means an intial startup of 227 threads as of right now. Ouch.

Additionally, since the OotS comics are part of a continuity, rather than each standing fully alone, you can't really discuss a single comic all by itself - the connections to older ones often get brought up. The fact that discussion comes up in a continious thread makes this a little easier to follow. The reason it's biweekly or monthly (the thread gets renewed about once every 2-4 weeks, depending) is to avoid the horrendous load times Zherog mentioned - the time cap is simply a nice, easy way to deal with it. The other option is to decide on a number of pages to cap the thread at, but that can be a bit harder to wrangle.

Anyways, just my 2cp.

[RawBearNYC]

In the beginning (and by beginning, I mean the time before what Zherog's history lesson covered), people used to post a new thread on every little tidbit of information presented in the comic. One comic would spawn 3 or 4 threads, many of them, duplicate threads because people wouldn't see that someone else already started that thread.

Rich decided, then, that one thread was better, and he started it and stickied it. And mod life got better. As it stands, people still post without reading first, and we still get people posting regularly about various aspects of the current comic in separate threds, but Lilly has been doing a great job of corralling them.

Over in Comics there are at least 5 active threads covering Miko, and it's starting to bug me a bit, don't know about anybody else.

[Buzzaro]

I think, Buzzaro, that perhaps this is better suited for a pm to a mod. It feels like you are using a question about rules to veil, thinly I might add, your frustrations with this board.


Yes, I am frustrated,
All Anti-miko threads are close with in a few days.
some for actual EULA violations, like double posts on the same topic are locked. most becase 'the powers that be' feel the thread is off topic of the orignal post so they lock the thread so those who are still on topic are punished. where is the logic in this?
I have read the EULA three times and I dont see anywhere that going off the topic of the post is a valid reason a thread can be locked.
If someone falls into a "you're stupid" "no you're stupid" argument then those two people should get a warning and those post are deleted/edited and those who follow the rules are still free to opine on our pithy comments.

I just want to know the rules and I would like to see them applied consistently.

[HempRope]

Well, I'll let the mod take on the question about 'what the rules are,' but I'd like to chime in with my view of the consistency of their enfrcement.

To put it simply, I think that the modding on this site is quite consistent. While sometimes there are questionable decisions made, I think that these questionable decisions are made consistently. By which I mean that while I may not always agree with the decisions made, I think that in most instances the mods rule in these ways that I don't like pretty much all of the time.
And while I'm occasionally displeased by that, I nonetheless must congratulate the mods on keeping things consistently questionable.