Why do you favour the Escapist's forums?

[retterkl]

Personally I'm only hanging around here because my usual forums are blocked off with the internet I have at school. I find that the forums here have too many people on them so:

1) Most threads I look at already have multiple pages of response so I find it long and tiresome to go through and add any new and original input.

2) Too many people means you don't get to know everyone as well.

3) I don't particularly like the layout, although it is nice having a poll option.


So why do you choose to use these forums over other forums?



(People are probably going to tell me that this has already been asked, which kind of adds to page 1 of repeated topics coming up )

 

[Queen Michael]

The people are nice and funny. Also: They gave me a Neo badge.

 

[steeple]

I love the forums here...
1) many of people means different and diverse ideas, so why the hell not?

2) you dont have to try to know everybody, but you can know a couple of guys in the forum

3) whats wrong with the layout? seems fine to me...

 

[Player Two]

a) People are not, unlike a great deal of gaming forums, assholes. They are capable of generating intelligent responses and reasonable debate. They're funny, too.

b) It's attached to the magazine, so you get threads about all the videos and articles

c) The threads are listed on the side, so I don't have to go trawling through forums and sub-forums to find interesting topics - I just pick the ones that sound interesting when I'm passing by.

d) Occasionally a regular asshole enters the forum, and is subsequently savaged by hilariously sarcastic replies.

 

[freaper]

Exactly because the audience here is so vast it leads to a variety of threads containing a great amount of ideas and opinions, which is what I'm looking for nowadays.

And obviously because it's mostly about gaming.

 

[gussy1z]

The surprising lack of trolls considering the amount of people.
the topics people create are usually interesting..

 

[iLikeHippos]

You're not a *gasp* regular? HERETIC!
Oh wait, I've done that one already... Moving on.

I like these forums for the

* forum rules and etiquettes
* debates
* nearby media (video, news, comical stripes, etc)

I can't think of any other points right now, but there is probably more.
The other forums feels foreign to me and clunky as I've gotten used to this one.

 

[Amondren]

I like the community they're largely accepting and you can voice your opinion and people will look at it from your perspective sometimes also its filled with great thread topics.

 

[MiracleOfSound]

No signatures

Civil community for the most part

I have friends here

Big community means more active threads

 

[JoJo]

Different forums suit different people, I like this one because:

1) Having a large community means it's easier to start and find people similar to yourself, although even with close to 2000 posts I'd guess I'm still not that well known.

2) Strict moderation rules keep discussion fairly civil.

3) There's a serious RP (roleplay) section on this site which I enjoy.

4) I like a number of the video series and articles here.

5) People here are generally tolerant compared to your average forum

6) No annoying huge signatures

Of-course here isn't perfect, I wish there was less misantrophes or religion/child haters but it's mostly cool here.

 

[retterkl]

I love the forums here...
1) many of people means different and diverse ideas, so why the hell not?

2) you dont have to try to know everybody, but you can know a couple of guys in the forum

3) whats wrong with the layout? seems fine to me...

1) Yeah that's nice if you want to have a good read, but I like giving my opinion, and most people in threads have already given something close enough to my opinion I hate reading a thread where people don't bother reading what comes before and you get the same answer to the OP 3 posts in a row or something.

2) Yeah I just think of a forum that you want to spend a lot of time in as a community where you should really know people, rather then just talking to strangers.

3) I just don't like it. Having to do a lot of captcha, doing your own tags rather then having editting options with pretty coolers and stuff The black on white text is just a bit boring. It's a personal preferance really.

 

[Catchy Slogan]

I don't really go on other forums, and these were the first I ever went on.

As Queen Michael has already said, there are a few nice folk around here. Honorable mentions go out to Onyx Oblivion, root_of_all_evil, Daystar Clarion, MiracleOfSound(but he's recently joined the payroll, so I'm not sure he counts >.>) and too many to go on listing. All of the Escapists staff are pretty decent people, And Ima gonna shut up before I look like even more of a suck-up.

 

[retterkl]

You're not a *gasp* regular? HERETIC!

Yeah but I did join before you :S

 

[Gralian]

It's funny, i've tried to get into the SA forums, but i find the layout there to be awful. (pun not intended) It seems so... basic and unfriendly, with garish avatars and signatures, often with incredibly inane babble in the topic replies. I know that can happen here, but after reading the first page of a thread, i'm nearly always left with a "what is this i dont even..." feeling. People here tend to have a lot more focused thinking with clear points and personal stances on issues that are important or otherwise. People here can also be very opinionated and it's easy to have a proper debate going. I find that you easily get to know the most vocal or those that have notoriously high posts. For example, Marter posts in a lot of threads, and while he isn't very vocal, people have come to recognise him because of it. Alternatively, you have guys like Strangeotron who are extremely vocal and will express their displeasure with great passion, making him notorious despite a lower post count. You also have folks who make long posts are also very noticeable - such as Therumancer. After about five or less days of coming here consecutively, you tend to know who are the regulars and roughly what their opinion will be on something. People also don't goof off here or spout endless memes, as moderation is fairly strict, which can be nice when you want the opposite of what something like the SA forums provide. I find the layout bright, clear and helpful, with bold buttons like 'Quote' or 'New Topic' that make it easy for newcomers to navigate the forums as opposed to the tiny understated buttons on most other forums.

 

[SwimmingRock]

Mainly for the user groups and the (generally decent) level of discussion. Look, based on my interests, it was either this or Blizzards forums. Have you seen those? It's hundreds of pages of people claiming they have inside information about Diablo 3 and the next Starcraft game, but it all reads like the dyslexic slash fiction of brain damaged 6-year-olds.

Seriously, it's like this:
"tenh kerig an rutn out be counterol by zelabaga (lol wut? donno word) adn kil Jim."
"No, u r dum. He alredy ded. Dev sed so."<-Which is just blatantly not true.

So, yeah. I ended up here. And I try to contribute meaningfully when I can or at least not be a dick.

EDIT:

No signatures

You know, that hadn't even occurred to me until you mentioned it, but it's so true. It annoys me to no end when I stop in at the TeamLiquid or FutanariPalace forums and somebody makes a post consisting of one sentence, or occasionally just one word, followed by 17 images, multi-coloured quotes in giant fonts and their life story.

 

[Scarim Coral]

Because I don't check out other website forums alot and there alot of intresting dicussions on here to worth post my opinions.

 

[steeple]

1) Yeah that's nice if you want to have a good read, but I like giving my opinion, and most people in threads have already given something close enough to my opinion I hate reading a thread where people don't bother reading what comes before and you get the same answer to the OP 3 posts in a row or something.

2) Yeah I just think of a forum that you want to spend a lot of time in as a community where you should really know people, rather then just talking to strangers.

3) I just don't like it. Having to do a lot of captcha, doing your own tags rather then having editting options with pretty coolers and stuff The black on white text is just a bit boring. It's a personal preferance really.

1) I guess thats a problem in that case, but if people already gave an opinion close to yours, why would you want to repeat them?
I personally dont see it as a problem if someone already said what I was thinking, but I guess thats personal preferences for ya

2) there are people around here with stupid amounts of posts, so you're bound to remember a few of them...
besides, there's always the option of creating a user group to talk with a specific group of people

3) you know the text color is changable, right?
and regarding the captcha's... well nothing is perfect...

 

[DanDeFool]

The conversation is usually quite civil, the threads are well-moderated for trolls, bigots, and ad-bots, and there's a lot of official content and news postings to discuss.

That, and it's nice to be able to participate in discussion when I'm going to be here anyway, looking at videos and reading articles.

 

[Casual Shinji]

It's the first one I've ever been on.

And I'm not fond of change.

 

[SckizoBoy]

The first thing that came to mind was 'because feeding on people's dignity is just so gosh darn delicious, it's all I can do to stop myself from getting pepper out whenever I come onto the Escapist' (and no, that's not how I feel, it's just a demonstration of a capricious mind).

To be fair, I don't really frequent other forums (posting wise, though I do lurk at some). Here, for the most part at least, the people are nicer, more constructive in comments, funnier (even if it's inadvertent) and there's none of that bullshit signatures prevalent on other sites that is often just a dick-waving competition.