Posts in Offtopic counting towards ranks

[҉]

Really ? Is my story a spam ? Or if I want to tell you for example some cool stuff I had today ? This is what off-topic is about - free socialising ... the problem is some of the community members just cant use this wonderful area properly while the others avoid it altogether.

The difference is that your story, and most of the conversation in the Off-Topic Area, is at least designed to provide information or amusement to someone else. The First Word thread does none of that. I find it very hard to imagine that anyone else gives a crap what word someone's posted, so it's just a thing to try to ignore.

[Prototype]

I'd say roughly 30% of the off-topic is useful, the rest tends to be either spam or irrelevant.


(note, figure is a guess, do not take my word for it)

[hyperlite]

Honestly, do ranks really matter? They don't. But if you make posts in off topic not count, people will spam in actual discussion and serious development thread. This will not eliminate spam, you will only clog important stuff with it.

[Iv121]

I'n my opinion what you said there doesn’t make sense. For me it's more ideological. I want to develop the discussion in off-topics to the level people don't write spam topics anymore. I doubt people make them intentionally and so YOU WILL NOT FIND THEM IN AREAS OTHER THAN THAT NO MATTER WHAT. When you say you don't award points for it for me it sounds like discouraging to post anything useful in this thread and encouraging to post spam as it "Doesn't count anyway". AS the mod is not yet out there is no much to do in the mod-related sections so it's natural discussion will be in topics not related to it. The question is what do you do with this discussion.

I think the community has to develop something called posting habits. Some popular norms of behavior on the forums that are not enforced by the law. For example new members starting a thread to introduce themselves and say "hi" while the others welcoming them, or making Birthday threads when someone has a birthday. The current posting habits on the forums are quite childish. People tend to post more in spam threads like the first word threads and avoid serious discussion or topics such as my story. There are nice habits such as the ship design area though ... The first step in developing those habits is regularly posting content that we want to see more of it until it feels natural for us. For this reason I believe there is a need to support posting in the off-topics section and protect it from spam. As long as there is no post count there is nothing I can do about those topics because they are legit. By not awarding count for them you just push the problem away instead of solving it.

[Prototype]

IV you have a good point, and I think we should try and do just that.

The only problem I see, is that is going to be very difficult to carry out, I mean you can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it drink, and we are dealing with a lot of horses, there will always be "that guy" who ruins things.

We might be able to sort things out at the moment, but when we FC gets closer to release, and when the hoardes rush in, you won't have a chance in hell.

[Iv121]

That's why we need those habits. Humans have a tendency to try an be with the others. If the others are doing X you will adapt and do X with them. That's why we should make sure the X in our community is good enough. Let's start with small. Tiel could you add a bar in the bottom of the page where it's written who has birthdays today ?

[҉]

I think you're all making too big a deal out of post count. It doesn't do anything. Iv, you're a moderator. If you want to encourage proper posting habits, get out there and do it, and whether or not the posts will tick up a little number by your name is entirely irrelevant. I'm looking at your post directly above this, and it really looks like you're trying to use a psychology book to convince people not to post spam. IMO, this whole 'issue' is much less major than you guys are making it out to be.

[Prototype]

IV the only problem with your idea is people don't act like they would do in real life on the Internet.

That is why there is a lot of trolling and hate speech, people think there are no consequences on the Internet, so they misbehave.

Hence, spam, and other bad habits are inevitable.

That and I'm not sure everyone on this forum is strictly human, I'm pretty sure ACH is an owl.

[Iv121]

Actually exactly the opposite my friend :P. People don't act in RL as they actually would because there are behavior norms around them. On the internet however not only those norms are quite blurred but also you are protected with your secret identity. Nobody knows who you are and no rules enforced so you are free to do what you want, be what you truly are. Will you steal a game disk in real life ? And how about downloading a pirated copy ? If you answered no to the last question you belong to a group of people who prefer to be honest and not to steal, this is part of their ideology. On the other hand those who answered yes would steal in real life if there were no things such as rules and norms that restrain them.

As I said LJS it's a matter of ideology for me and I won't give up on it even if it's indeed small and dumb :P (and actually it's slightly bigger than you think). It's like the settlement in Israel. Between Israel and the western bank there is a small arguable territory called E1. In this territory there are Jewish settlement as well as Arab ones. The UN , Europe and the US are pretty much against any Jewish construction in the area and they claim it's a direct violation of diff conventions and agreements. Our government on the other hand doesn't give a damn and allow construction in a few of those territories. (One of them being Eastern Jerusalem, I wanna see those who will forbid construction in eastern Washington or London ...) . The western countries do not give up and keep pressing and threatening while our government doesn't give up either. The point is those areas are around 4% of all E1 zone which is not that big already. It's such a minor thing and pointless argument here, those territories won't even effect the borders, yet it is ideologically important for each side... or at least for one of them.

[Prototype]

The people we have now will mostly behave, however there is still the security of anonymity, so any new people will likely misbehave at some point, knowing that if they do wrong, the worst that will happen is someone will angrily press a few keys.

And not everyone is honest, while we may attract honest people, judging by the magnitude of the project, we will also attract an ungodly amount of [censored] and that'll be when the real problem starts.

So for now say posts in off topic count, but lock and spam threads.

Simples (almost)

[҉]

Would it be simpler to remove post count altogether? I'm having a bit of trouble understanding why the post count meter is linked to spam, since you don't seem to be saying that people will want to spam to get their post count up (if that were the case, not having the posts count in Off-Topic should remove spam), but assuming there is a link that you're seeing and I'm not understanding that should remove the problem entirely. Beyond that, as a moderator, there's a system for changing the forum rules. If you want to crack down on spam, that's where you should start. Make a proposal, and try to change the rules so that they're stricter there.

[Iv121]

It's possible to remove it all together, but either all counts or nothing matters. As you see there is no post count in off-topic yet the first word thread exists, so the first does not prevent the other. There is another way to award ranks - depending on your service in the community. Each month members can be awarded a new rank. The ranks will also represent the status of the member in the community. For progression up to something equal to sergeant (I can add more icons if you need). will be possible. Sergeants are given to members who fill a curtain role in the community, such as development team or even organization (Related to social gaming again). Ranks of senior sergeant and above can only be awarded to members that participate in some sort of a team (I guess judges will fit senior sergeants but members who have a curtain position will not be automatically promoted up). Officers are veterans on the forums. They are usually moderators or senior staff members (Senior devs etc.) and are members for a long time now. Senior officers are the direct command of the forums . They are community members such as Shiva, Frost and Mac.

[Shadowcatbot]

This seems to spur too many problems, Lets just not fix what isn't broken. I vote nay, If you don't want spam to count don't include off-topic since off-topic basically means spam.
Besides the current system works well, If your excessively not posting legitimate discussion in non off-topic areas then the mods will deal with it, Talking in a sense of a larger forum population, And when that larger population comes around the post count will help to show who's the old timers and who's the new peoples.

[Iv121]

You repeat arguments told before so I will summarise my position with : IS my story spam ? Or if I want to share something cool that happened to me today ? This is what off-topic is about. And if you say "Off topic is for spam let's write it in the rules" that's what you'll get. Full position can be read in my posts on the prev page.

[Shadowcatbot]

It might not be considered spam but you could've posted it in the RP section on the other hand though.