Failed Topics That You Felt Were Worth Discussion.

[DudeistBelieve]

I made a thread about people making homophobic and racist comments on Xbox Live and my desire for Microsoft to actually go about issuing bans to these people.

The mods declared the issue wasn't worth talking about and I should take my complaint directly to Microsoft then.

Fucking weird right? Actually really ticked me off, but arguing with the mods is like arguing with a flight attendant on an Airplane. Just gotta take your shit sandwhich and like it.

 

[tippy2k2]

Anyway, to answer the topic; I made a thread about a computer-generated child helping to catch online predators.

I've seen threads on this forum about virtual CP and loli, blow up into multi-page monsters.
Yet strangely, my thread didn't even break double-digit replies.

It is one of the more frustrating parts of the Escapist exploding in size (yup...old man tippy2k2 here to complain).

Back in ma day (when we had to walk uphill 2 miles both ways to post!), obvious flame-bait threads would die rather quickly because everyone was smart enough to remember the most important of internet rules; Don't Feed The Trolls

However now, the only way to get yourself noticed seems to be to have an extreme opinion or have a hot button issue (or ideally, an extreme opinion ABOUT a hot button issue). The site is just so big now that there are bound to be a few people who just keeping dumping food into each others mouths as they argue back and forth and back and forth and back and forth. Unfortunately this seems to kill off the not-insane-person thread before it gets the chance to grow wings and fly

I do my best not to make those kind of threads but it's so hard to not do it when you see those shiny badges....soooo shiny.....the thread that got me my super fire badge wasn't an extreme opinion but I think it could be seen as a hot button issue. I didn't make it with that intention (I swear! ) but in my five years here, it's the only one that had ever gotten anywhere near the flame-views

snips

I tried! I made a nice post for you to bounce your crazy cult-like love of Aliens off of even!

 

[IceForce]

I do my best not to make those kind of threads but it's so hard to not do it when you see those shiny badges....soooo shiny.....the thread that got me my super fire badge wasn't an extreme opinion but I think it could be seen as a hot button issue. I didn't make it with that intention (I swear! ) but in my five years here, it's the only one that had ever gotten anywhere near the flame-views

I got my Fire badge by making a Sarkeesian thread.
Sarkeesian threads always seem to blow up and get huge, with massive numbers of views and replies.

I didn't know that at the time though. In fact, it was one of the first threads I ever created, and I almost immediately regretted it...

No thread I've made since has gotten close to the size of that one.

 

[VanQ]

Anyway, to answer the topic; I made a thread about a computer-generated child helping to catch online predators.

I've seen threads on this forum about virtual CP and loli, blow up into multi-page monsters.
Yet strangely, my thread didn't even break double-digit replies.

It is one of the more frustrating parts of the Escapist exploding in size (yup...old man tippy2k2 here to complain).

Back in ma day (when we had to walk uphill 2 miles both ways to post!), obvious flame-bait threads would die rather quickly because everyone was smart enough to remember the most important of internet rules; Don't Feed The Trolls

However now, the only way to get yourself noticed seems to be to have an extreme opinion or have a hot button issue (or ideally, an extreme opinion ABOUT a hot button issue). The site is just so big now that there are bound to be a few people who just keeping dumping food into each others mouths as they argue back and forth and back and forth and back and forth. Unfortunately this seems to kill off the not-insane-person thread before it gets the chance to grow wings and fly

I do my best not to make those kind of threads but it's so hard to not do it when you see those shiny badges....soooo shiny.....the thread that got me my super fire badge wasn't an extreme opinion but I think it could be seen as a hot button issue. I didn't make it with that intention (I swear! ) but in my five years here, it's the only one that had ever gotten anywhere near the flame-views

snips

I tried! I made a nice post for you to bounce your crazy cult-like love of Aliens off of even!

I swear that I didn't make that feminism thread all those years ago just to get the On Fire badge. I honestly didn't know at the time that it would be such a hot button issue. There was no way any of us could have known!

 

[Thaluikhain]

What about those threads that get lots of useless replies? That's very annoying.

 

[FPLOON]

The mods don't like people bumping their own threads. So what does one do if one makes a thread and it gets no replies at all?

Weep, wonder what you did wrong, continue weeping, eat a tub of ice cream, weep because you just ate more calories than you need in a two-day period, and then beg one of your friends to post and give your thread a second chance.

And then weep because you've sunk so low.

*slow clap* That was such an uplifting response... I feel better already... (I now need more ice cream... or chocolate cake... They both taste the same to me either way... *slowly weeps in a designated corner*)

OT: I tried to do a source material-related thread where my example was how my friend hated wanting to play the original Persona 4 game, only wanted to watch the anime version, then comes to me to want to borrow Persona 4 Arena like he now knows everything about Persona 4 AND 3... The thread was suppose to ask how you feel about those being introduced by other source material while simultaneously rejecting the original source material...

No one responded... and I did not feel like looking up who even looked at it to begin with...

Then again, at the time, I was still fairly new to the whole "forum" deal... and I still have a hard time thinking up new threads to do without it being either uninteresting or has just been done to death... about a year ago... (So far, only three threads I've made so far I'm really happy how they did turn out...)

 

[Esotera]

Basically half the threads in R&P fail if you count it entirely by the number of posts, but the discussion is generally way more thought out and users take the time to reply to each other. Whereas my most popular thread (can you pass the UK citizenship test, or some title like that) got about 13 pages of people either saying "Nope" or "Yes" with very little discussion about the test itself.

I wonder if the mods should start applying the low content thread to useless threads, although I've no idea how that could be applied consistently. I suppose "who would win in a fight between X vs Y" threads are an example of failed threads...

 

[Scarim Coral]

I'm probably bias or something but when I was first joined this site, I made a bunch of creative threads well the ones that get you to think (I made threads like your face appear on the front pages of the newspaper, what did you do? and what your statue would be like?) and they only gotten like less than ten replies.
My reaction is pretty much like "Come on people! Use your imagination!" I mean I have seen a few similar threads that did get more comments but I'm just never been successful at getting more views like that.

 

[DoveAlexa]

Is this the official 'dredge up old drama' thread? I really hope not, but if I come back and tomorrow this has 300 replies I'll have my answer .

Also, escapist isn't really the best place to do anything by whine a ton and throw hyperbole at each other. I know it's hard to find somewhere to talk about games in a forum but you can do better than here. Hell, you can even make your own site at one of those free forum maker sites and just PM invite a bunch of escapists who aren't permanent 13 year olds.

 

[Strazdas]

The threads i didnt make because i didnt think anyone cared enough about them.

 

[RJ 17]

Is this the official 'dredge up old drama' thread? I really hope not, but if I come back and tomorrow this has 300 replies I'll have my answer .

Also, escapist isn't really the best place to do anything by whine a ton and throw hyperbole at each other. I know it's hard to find somewhere to talk about games in a forum but you can do better than here. Hell, you can even make your own site at one of those free forum maker sites and just PM invite a bunch of escapists who aren't permanent 13 year olds.

Well that's an interesting comment...though I'm not quite certain it has anything to do with the "theme" of this topic.

As my OP said: this topic is simply for mentioning "Failed Topics" that you've tried to create - doesn't necessarily have to be gaming topics - that only received a handful of replies when, at the time of their creation, you figured they'd lead to a good discussion. I don't really see how that could lead to dredging up old drama.

Regardless, I'd say the chances of this topic ever reaching 100 replies - let alone 300 - is slim and none, so you should be safe in that regard.

 

[Yopaz]

I had one about some people being more or less cured of HIV including one guy who had stopped taking medicines for 13 years and there was no sign of the virus reproducing, but it was still present. I posted that during a weekend and weekend threads tend to be slow so that might be it, but I really though that a step towards finding a solution to HIV was worth discussing. Guess I was wrong.

Idon't really have a good memory for these things, but there have been quite a few threads I liked that just didn't get the interest of the forum. This often happens during big events such as the Mass Effect ending and some of the feminist threads surging. They take up a lot of time and effort and if you are having a fight with someone in one thread then you might be reluctant to friendly post in the same thread while waiting for a new infuriating response from that guy. At least that's a hypothesis. I'm just bitter. (Not really)

The good thing about the help threads is that they turn out quite well even if they only get 2 or 3 replies if those are good replies, but I hate seeing unresolved problems that could have been fixed. I try to make sure to help when I can and suggest advice as to what might be done for those threads.

 

[DoveAlexa]

snip

Oh, I've had a few failed topic, non-gaming. Don't really care now though cause I've found somewhere and some people who'll actually discuss things. Things about governments using your sexual habits as way to shore-up a case against you for an unrelated cyber offense, and a few other things I don't remember.

I find that if the thread is something positive, people will just read it, nod to themselves and go. People only really get going here if there is a very simplified issue to complain about. 'Fun' threads fail because of this reason too, though equal portions of people find these threads just insipid anyways. Need to have a few people on board to launch the fun thread with a few good example posts, not that it'd help much *here*, but elsewhere. You can get around the 'can't ***** here' barrier with a good old 'insult the person above you' thread.

Semi-relevant aside: did you know there is a twitter account just for posting the worst sorts of comments seen on the escapist? I'd link it directly but that's probably banable. Just search 'escapist forums twitter'.

 

[Snotnarok]

Anything I post, anything, infact I even posted on the escapist ages ago when steam had a total face lift that you could try in a beta and people instead of discussing were calling BS, posted some screens and then it sorta became a decent topic.
But any topic I post gets like 3-4 posts responding and then they just go away.

Not that I'm a paranoid type or anything (I am) but I think that there's just many members who dislike me and what I post, I swear I could make a post on a news article stating there's a zombie hitler beating the escapist news to it and there'd be 2 views and just one post saying "Dick"

 

[thebobmaster_v1legacy]

Pretty much every review I've done. Maybe not worthy of a lot of discussion, but come on! I have 35 views on a review (and that is one of the low view counts for me), and not one person has any suggestions or anything to say about it? Yeesh!

*steps off of soapbox, contemplates, steps back on*

Yeah, it's definitely a bit petty of me to complain that people are only reading my reviews, not commenting on them, but when I put an hour+ of time into a review (that's about standard when reviewing a 20 minute episode), it gets a bit frustrating not knowing if people even like my review style, much less how to improve on it.

In short: people who visit the cobwebbed corner of the Escapist forums known as the User Reviews, feedback is nice!

 

[DrunkOnEstus]

The day I got Bioshock Infinite at launch for $38 legally through a weird German site that was in all English and sold international Steam keys was the day I discovered the "grey market". I made a thread where I asked and thought aloud about whether or not I properly supported the developers by doing this, or contributed money to a realm where the sale wasn't "really counted". I likened it to paying money to pirate the game, even though the situation was obviously more legit than that. It died fast.

Either there's nothing interesting to discuss about the "grey market" (especially Russian keys and other region-specific "price cuts"), or people are far less interested in the concept of "supporting the developer" or "making a vote/statement with your wallet" than I am and are just happy as long as they have a Steam key.

 

[bartholen_v1legacy]

I made a topic about properties that should be made into TV shows something like a year ago. I got one reply...

 

[Squilookle]

I've had a few ones that didn't take off, but the only one I was really disappointed in it running out of steam was one where I tried to get discussion going on what could become a new medium of entertainment. Perhaps the posts were too long or something but it just didn't take off-

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/9.392731-Would-you-buy-a-randomised-game-with-little-no-gameplay

 

[Sarge034]

I made a thread about people making homophobic and racist comments on Xbox Live and my desire for Microsoft to actually go about issuing bans to these people.

The mods declared the issue wasn't worth talking about and I should take my complaint directly to Microsoft then.

Fucking weird right? Actually really ticked me off, but arguing with the mods is like arguing with a flight attendant on an Airplane. Just gotta take your shit sandwhich and like it.

Careful man, they got eyes everywhere and most have an itchy banning finger. LOL JK... ... but not really.

OT- I had a topic asking what people thought is required to make a "good" survival horror game. It got to two pages only because I had some die hard old school survival horror fanatics arguing with me about why my opinions were wrong. One actually had the audacity to tell me that I didn't know what I was talking about and another said I needed to stop complaining about their genre because I obviously didn't care about it.

I thought it was a topic that had substantial discussion value because there was an escapist expo panel, a featured article, and a Jimquisition about it. I was wrong...

 

[DudeistBelieve]

I made a thread about people making homophobic and racist comments on Xbox Live and my desire for Microsoft to actually go about issuing bans to these people.

The mods declared the issue wasn't worth talking about and I should take my complaint directly to Microsoft then.

Fucking weird right? Actually really ticked me off, but arguing with the mods is like arguing with a flight attendant on an Airplane. Just gotta take your shit sandwhich and like it.

Careful man, they got eyes everywhere and most have an itchy banning finger. LOL JK... ... but not really.

OT- I had a topic asking what people thought is required to make a "good" survival horror game. It got to two pages only because I had some die hard old school survival horror fanatics arguing with me about why my opinions were wrong. One actually had the audacity to tell me that I didn't know what I was talking about and another said I needed to stop complaining about their genre because I obviously didn't care about it.

I thought it was a topic that had substantial discussion value because there was an escapist expo panel, a featured article, and a Jimquisition about it. I was wrong...

Generally I'm pretty content with the way things are run here, but that was the one instant that not only seem grossly unfair but just plain weird. Like they were shutting me up or censoring me for some reason, but that would be absurd.

Still stand by it though. I'd love it if Xbox banned people for Racial/Ethnic/Religious/Sexual slurs. There are tons of ways to insult people and taunt them with out resorting to low brow unintelligent insults.