frosty
This ban belongs to frosty now
 I want Frosty to take my anal virginity!!1
Ballkicks: (+68 / -9)
Posts: 405 (0.071)
Reg. Date: Aug 2005
Location: Robin Hood Country
Gender: Male |
Reply 2 of 19 (Originally posted on: 01-21-06 05:47:25 PM)
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Quote: Frosty, just because some obnoxious fuck who's been here a few weeks says the forum is "clinically dead" doesn't actually mean it's true. Forum activity fluctuates and there's nothing different about it now then there was 3 years ago.
I'm sure you're right, but the theme of the forum needing "saved" and generally not being as good as it was has come up a few times, and it's not like I've really been digging. I'm not saying I'm going to "save" it, I'm just raising the issue of a low n00b retention rate in the appropriate place and airing a couple of ideas.
Quote: There hasn't been a 'high I'm new' thread for a long time, maybe if you'd looked around a bit longer you'd see that the only people banned for their first post are usually selling stuff and wouldn't stick around anyway.
Again, perhaps there hasn't, but if you flick through the HOS, you'll see three or four of these threads from people who sound well-meaning enough. As I said, such threads are pointless and binning them is a good idea, but maybe you don't need to ban these people for an entire week; just warn them or something. Idiots who are trying to sell stuff are a different manner.
Quote: INTL does hold new people to a certain standard but it's far lower these days then it used to be. Also, vervet has already said that the mods have been told to be more lenient with new people. The only people who get an unfriendly welcome are fucking idiots, and enough of them still manage to stick around.
I think most of your regulars would agree there's a certain amount of "hazing," which is by definition unpleasant. As I've said elsewhere though, hazing's fair enough and it's never going to go away, so I accept there's not much point in asking people to be nice, even if I wanted them to be.
Quote: There's nothing out of the ordinary in the TOS. The whole thing could be summed up by 'use your common sense'. There's no secret rules to be aware of like in SA so I really don't see the problem.
The problem isn't so much with the TOS themselves - as you say, they're far from unreasonable - it's more the "one strike and you're out policy." In an ideal world everyone would read disclaimers/safety instructions/TOSs but, realistically, no-one ever does. This is going to result in a high casualty of rate of potentially good forumers. Basically all my argument in this thread boils down to is warn the innocent once - not all that radical. I take your point about one of the mods talking of being more lenient, so maybe there's somthing being done already.
Quote: I think the reason people tend not to stick around is because of the newbie avatar. They might as well be anonomous and it means that after they get enough posts for a proper avatar they effectivly have to start establishing who they are all over again.
It is slightly obnoxious, but it's quite funny. For me, that's just part of the hazing process, although you're probably right that it puts a few sensitive souls off.
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A second suggestion - which I'll post here as there's no point spamming in a new thread - would be to get rid of the serious discussions forum and incorporate it into the main room. As it stands, hardly anyone uses it, and the forum which people do use has a lot of threads with no actual discussion, so a merger might be a logical solution to both problems.
The idea of trying to keep spamming and flaming out of the serious discussions is commendable, but since those things are banned in the main forum anyway, there probably wouldn't be too much of a conflict of interest. It's possible that the quality of discussions might deteriorate very slightly, but I doubt anyone comes to this place for a serious debate anyway - there are other purpose-designed forums for that - so I don't think this would be stepping on anyone's toes too much.
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Anyway, these are only suggestions from an outsider's perspective, so feel free to pick holes, ridicule etc, but please don't go thinking I'm on a reforming crusade or anything...ultimately all I'm doing is posting a couple of ideas in the appropriate place, rather than diverting existing threads OT.
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That will be all.
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