A thread to complain about the small issues of the escapist forums.

[Marter]

Well actually, I am perfectly fine with the system. Just the community is what brings it down, not the system itself. A report system is fine if everyone is equal, and everyone sees everyone is equal. But, here we have a LOT of forum celebrities, forum losers and everyone in between. This isn't even a unique thing, quite a lot of forums have this problem. Personally I see a very easy way to solve this problem, or at least make it better. Basically, just make it so that both join date and post count can't be seen in general viewing, only on people's profiles. That basically means that what people say, not how long they've been here or how big their E-peen post count is. Sure, the old celebrities and losers would stay that way. But it will pretty much stop anyone from getting reported/not reported because they're popular/unpopular.

Then do your part and report.

One is all it takes to get looked at.

 

[Vigormortis]

> passive-aggressive insults becoming the go-to form of response in discussions/debates
> immense levels of arrogance, pretentiousness, and self-importance
> needlessly inflammatory comments from news contributors, used to stir up controversy and increase thread views
> misleading thread titles used to, again, increase thread views
> pointless, perpetual thread derailments
> "popular" or "prolific" thread posters often getting away with posting incredibly insulting comments towards others whilst lesser-known posters will receive warnings for typing out the work "jerk" (this is mostly due to the community at large either not wanting to or being afraid to report the more prolific members)
> hate threads and versus threads ever increasingly becoming the norm
> "us versus them" mentality becoming far more pronounced than it was prior
> question threads wherein the OP clearly has no intention on actually hearing the other sides case

I joined back in 2007. The Escapist community back then was nothing like it is today. Well, mostly. Now, I sometimes wonder why I still post here. More often than not, thread replies are met with anger and disdain. No matter the content or intent.

I guess that's bound to happen as something becomes more popular. Just look at Facebook and Youtube.

Even so, there's still a lot of good on this site and within this community. Sadly, it's becoming increasingly harder to find with the worst aspects of "the internet" infiltrating into it.

We can do better, my fellow Escapists. We're better than this.

In the immortal words of Rodney King - "Can we all just get along?"

 

[Chunga the Great]

Whenever music is brought up, it's always "I like this Neo-Post-Semi-Nu-Heavy-Arabian Music. It's pretty underground." or it's "My favorite band right now is Death of the Happiness and Eternal Sorrow in the Black Plague of My Inner Torment. Their songs have a lot of deep meaning in them. The screaming really helps drive home the 2 lines of actual lyrics." I don't want to sound like an ass, but it annoys the absolute shit out of me. The Escapist as a whole when it comes to music is either a MASSIVE hipster or a depressed goth kid whose parents "don't know his inner darkness and pain."

That and the fact that people can act like complete assholes in a obvious attempt to troll others into flaming them, but the moment you call them out on it, you get reported for calling an obvious troll a troll.

 

[TimeLord]

Huh, a few posts here surprised me. But before I go into them I'll add to the thread. "Strawman" I dislike that word but it's apparantly the popular word to use just now.

SNAP

Crackle!

Pop!


It is derailing. Here's the thing though, there isn't a rule against that as far as I know. Now if you guys wanted to do something about it, you should PM Nasrin. All community concerns should go to her. My opinion is, it's mostly harmless but it has gone overboard quite a few times too. :/

The problem with that kind of thread derailing is that a simple report can't convey how far it's gone into the thread like a "This thread is now Spider-Man" comment. That kind of thing needs to be brought to a mods attention via PM unless its blatantly obvious in the reported post how far the derailment has gone.

I propose a middle road: disable all user group/forum game posts instead. Most of the other forums usually produce decent sized posts, but it's made irrelevant by those two sources of post income.

I wouldn't take any issues with that. Forum posts should mean forum posts. However;

I would rather they did away with any kind of counter, it just seems counter productive. If you have the highest post count, you win some E-peen for nothing.

Basically, just make it so that both join date and post count can't be seen in general viewing, only on people's profiles. That basically means that what people say, not how long they've been here or how big their E-peen post count is. Sure, the old celebrities and losers would stay that way. But it will pretty much stop anyone from getting reported/not reported because they're popular/unpopular.

"popular" or "prolific" thread posters often getting away with posting incredibly insulting comments towards others whilst lesser-known posters will receive warnings for typing out the work "jerk" (this is mostly due to the community at large either not wanting to or being afraid to report the more prolific members)

Wow do people really care about post count that much? Apart from anything else, I would have thought that forum "celebrities" are known more by their name and avatar than their post count and join date. Especially when post count can be easily inflated by Forum Games and User Groups and the only time I've ever seen join date be a thing was that fun Oldscapist thread. That wasn't even an issue, just a bit of fun. But hey, the Internet surprises me again.

For the record, "celebrity" or not, they all get the same treatment from the mods. If anything then what Vigormortis said is true. Users don't report them. However...

To be fair, I've rarely seen the "forum celebrities" (christ I hate that term) actually say or do anything worth reporting in the first place

This. Off the top of my head I can think of only 4 people who you would class as "celebrities"[footnote]Yes I am still using air quotes for that word because the idea of a celebrity is someone made famous by the community they partake in. Yet it's always bandied about as close to an insult to be known on a site you post on. Despite the fact that it's the very users who complain about them who are the ones who make them "famous"[/footnote]. Neonbob, Sassafrass, Aylaine and Daystar. All 4 of which I've never seen in a stupid argument calling other users names or being idiots to the point where moderation is needed. They are just posters who, if anything, exemplify what every other forum member should aspire (for lack of a better word) to. Either being posters who partake in genuine discussions, are generally nice and welcoming to other users, or are just a bit mental and want to have some fun while still inside the site rules.

Yeah if they broke any site rules then I'd still bash them round the head the same as any other user. But until they do that they aren't hurting anyone.

 

[Sassafrass]

The sudden spat of "I've got X posts"

Yes, we get it, you're proud you hit X posts.
I don't care, I've got more than you. SUCK MY E-PEEN.

But seriously, it's kinda annoying. Especially when post count means jack shit to anything in this forum.

I blame UG/FG's. xD

<------ See that number? All forum side baby. Except maybe 1? One post to rule them all? Though, that's something that bothers me in all honesty. Usergroup/Forum Game posts boosting post count. I think it should be disabled to restore meaning to the post count! :3

I see what you did there. Maybe. XD

But yeah, it wouldn't hurt to do it, maybe some people will finally stop spouting rubbish about celebrities and such. Although, and I will stress this again as some people seem to think this, post count means fuck all. Nada. Zip. Fuck all. So it would be kinda stupid to pull it anyway.

I dunno, I'm just reading the posts here and getting flash-backs to, say...2010, I think? Ya know, the last time we had a "popular" user who had a "following". Name began with an F.

 

[Daystar Clarion]

My oh my, so much hate in here

Yeah if they broke any site rules then I'd still bash them round the head the same as any other user. But until they do that they aren't hurting anyone.

I love you too TimeLord


OT: Gotta go with strawmen too, well, that or people who think that others being popular means they get preferential treatment ¬_¬

 

[Owyn_Merrilin]

OT: Also the term "strawman". If you don't throw that in your argument about 50 times then you're debating wrong apparently.

Something that always comes to mind when I see the term "strawman" is that I've never ever seen it used outside these forums. Hell, I didn't even see it in these forums until a year or so ago. Now everyone and their bloody dog goes tossing it around in an attempt to sound intellectual.

I think there needs to be a new logical fallacy: the fallacy of claiming your opponent is being fallacious. Because nine times out of ten, they're not, you've just run out arguments but are still trying to get a technical win.

The biggest one that bugs me is claiming the slippery slope is a fallacy. Because it's only a fallacy in the minds of formal logicians. Those of us who live in the real world realize that democracies and republics are gigantic slippery slope factories -- big sweeping changes tend to happen gradually, through many small changes in the law, the courts, and public opinion. They don't tend to happen all at once, but each small change makes the next one easier. Hence, the slippery slope.

 

[pffh]

Badge notifications. If there is a way to turn those off please tell me because I really don't give a fuck about badges.

 

[DugMachine]

When two people ***** and ***** and ***** and ***** and ***** and so on. Often their argument goes off topic and slowly becomes more personal, whilst there's the odd post relating to the OP in the midst of the two arguers. Guys/girls, learn to drop it. It doesn't matter if you think they're wrong, you won't solve anything by whinging at each other for 2 pages.

Are you referencing those two that went on for a whole 2 pages about whether one was being dishonest or not? I won't say his name because he knows who he is if he's reading this but he's got a knack of crying LIAR at everything and then going way off topic.

Anywho, back to browsing teh webz.

 

[Andy Shandy]

Badge notifications. If there is a way to turn those off please tell me because I really don't give a fuck about badges.

Go to profile, forum and notification options, and there's the option there to turn off badge notifications amongst other things.

Hope that helps!

 

[pffh]

Badge notifications. If there is a way to turn those off please tell me because I really don't give a fuck about badges.

Go to profile, forum and notification options, and there's the option there to turn off badge notifications amongst other things.

Hope that helps!

Ah cheers mate that's perfect!

 

[anthony87]

When two people ***** and ***** and ***** and ***** and ***** and so on. Often their argument goes off topic and slowly becomes more personal, whilst there's the odd post relating to the OP in the midst of the two arguers. Guys/girls, learn to drop it. It doesn't matter if you think they're wrong, you won't solve anything by whinging at each other for 2 pages.

Are you referencing those two that went on for a whole 2 pages about whether one was being dishonest or not? I won't say his name because he knows who he is if he's reading this but he's got a knack of crying LIAR at everything and then going way off topic.

Anywho, back to browsing teh webz.

What, you mean Mortai? He's been banned so you're safe with a name drop.

 

[DugMachine]

When two people ***** and ***** and ***** and ***** and ***** and so on. Often their argument goes off topic and slowly becomes more personal, whilst there's the odd post relating to the OP in the midst of the two arguers. Guys/girls, learn to drop it. It doesn't matter if you think they're wrong, you won't solve anything by whinging at each other for 2 pages.

Are you referencing those two that went on for a whole 2 pages about whether one was being dishonest or not? I won't say his name because he knows who he is if he's reading this but he's got a knack of crying LIAR at everything and then going way off topic.

Anywho, back to browsing teh webz.

What, you mean Mortai? He's been banned so you're safe with a name drop.

Shame. I actually enjoyed reading his normal posts when he wasn't calling dishonesty on everyone with an opinion.

 

[anthony87]

gigante snip

I have no idea why but when I saw that you quoted me, then saw the size of the post before actually reading it I was convinced that I'd done something wrong and you were gonna chew me out for it

 

[Owyn_Merrilin]

]Well, there's the Fallacy Fallacy.
Not sure if that's the same thing...

I had to look it up, because I'd never heard it called that before, but it's more a special case of what I'm talking about than the whole thing. Apparently the fallacy fallacy is if you say something must be false because a fallacy was used to try to prove it. So in other words, no "that's a fallacy, therefore you're wrong."

What I'm saying needs to happen is either a new fallacy or at least a new law of the internet that stops people from going "fallacy, therefore you're being a poopy pants." Which is the form people claiming fallacies are being used usually take, though not in so many words.

 

[anthony87]

When two people ***** and ***** and ***** and ***** and ***** and so on. Often their argument goes off topic and slowly becomes more personal, whilst there's the odd post relating to the OP in the midst of the two arguers. Guys/girls, learn to drop it. It doesn't matter if you think they're wrong, you won't solve anything by whinging at each other for 2 pages.

Are you referencing those two that went on for a whole 2 pages about whether one was being dishonest or not? I won't say his name because he knows who he is if he's reading this but he's got a knack of crying LIAR at everything and then going way off topic.

Anywho, back to browsing teh webz.

What, you mean Mortai? He's been banned so you're safe with a name drop.

Shame. I actually enjoyed reading his normal posts when he wasn't calling dishonesty on everyone with an opinion.

Yeah I know what you mean. I didn't disagree with him all that often, hell, I probably would've genuinely liked the dude if it wasn't for his whole "I'm going to repeatedly tell you that you're wrong but never actually elaborate while repeatedly implying that you're stupid and a liar" shtick.

 

[anthony87]

What, you mean Mortai? He's been banned so you're safe with a name drop.

So we're allowed to say what we like about someone after they've been banned?

Well, I guess everyone always says that "Zeel was the biggest troll ever", which would earn mod wrath if he was still a member...

Though, I guess it would be prudent to wait until appeals are seen, and the user in question is definitely gone for good.

Nah I didn't mean it like that, it's not like I'm gonna go around saying nasty stuff about banned users but there's no reason to not drop someones name if said someone isn't around anymore.

Then again, appeals and all that just like you said.

 

[UberNoodle]

I hate the fact that people immediately began complaining about this thread for complaining. Now I have to complain about it!