Maxie Zeus
02-23-2002, 06:55 PM
Okay, people. It's time to lay down some rules about the new community board. No sense in letting things slide any further.
We split AniGen mainly because it had grown too big. And it grew too big because there were too many "general" posts. And there were too many "general" posts because -- and there's no polite way to say this -- there was too much crap being posted.
Well, we separated out the "entertainment" posts - - what AniGen was originally designed for -- and put them on AniTainment. And this is now going to be a community board. But (contrary to some of the titles that are being suggested) it's not going to be a case of "anything goes" around here.
We want people to feel free to talk around here, to relax and get to know each other. But that's not possible if everyone has to shovel through a lot of pointless drivel to get to those conversations that are actually informative and useful. That's why we're going to start exercising some control: Not so that we can shut off the talk, but so that the talk is easier to follow and pick up on.
So we're going to be cracking down on the pointless threads -- the ones that say "It's midnight and I'm bored and cutting my toenails, so I thought I'd come here and tell everyone that." This not a chat room, and we're not going to let it turn into one.
Any subject (so long as it is PG in nature) is fair game around here. By all means joke and laugh and shoot the breeze. Talk about sports and hobbies and games and personal interests and problems. Talk about your hopes, your dreams, your fears, your talents, your goals, your failings: In short, talk about your life. We only ask for substance, not chatter.
Here's an example of what we want to discourage, a thread that has a promising topic that is totally ruined by the flippant content: How computer literate are you? (http://forums.toonzone.net/showthread.php?s=&threadid=20849) That's a good subject. Presumably we are all able to turn on a computer, get on the web, and join a message board. But some of us have web-sites, and some of us do cool things like Flash animation, and some of us have built web-communities. That's a wide range of experience, and it would be interesting to hear from people about what they've managed to accomplish, and what they hope to accomplish in the future.
Instead, we get a silly poll and some empty chatter. I spent ten seconds of my life looking at that thread, ten seconds I'm not going to get back. (The time I spent closing and moving it is another matter; that was time well spent, if only because it saved other people from wasting their time on it.)
Empty "opinion" posts are also extremely cluttersome. "Who likes ice cream?" doesn't exactly rock the world. Why ask the question, except to take up bandwidth?
Again, we're not asking for a lot of long, thoughtful chintugging around here. Nothing wrong with pulling up to the Community Board (or whatever the final name we settle on) and asking, "So, how about them Mets?" People like talking about sports, and celebrities, and news of the day.
No, these aren't clear and clean-cut rules, and there's going to be a lot of slack and inconsistency in how they're applied. We're all of us going to be feeling our way forward. Mostly, though, it's going to come down to common sense. Before you post, ask yourself: "Is this going to be a waste of everyone's time except my own?" Because that's the test that other people will apply when they read your post.
:)
We split AniGen mainly because it had grown too big. And it grew too big because there were too many "general" posts. And there were too many "general" posts because -- and there's no polite way to say this -- there was too much crap being posted.
Well, we separated out the "entertainment" posts - - what AniGen was originally designed for -- and put them on AniTainment. And this is now going to be a community board. But (contrary to some of the titles that are being suggested) it's not going to be a case of "anything goes" around here.
We want people to feel free to talk around here, to relax and get to know each other. But that's not possible if everyone has to shovel through a lot of pointless drivel to get to those conversations that are actually informative and useful. That's why we're going to start exercising some control: Not so that we can shut off the talk, but so that the talk is easier to follow and pick up on.
So we're going to be cracking down on the pointless threads -- the ones that say "It's midnight and I'm bored and cutting my toenails, so I thought I'd come here and tell everyone that." This not a chat room, and we're not going to let it turn into one.
Any subject (so long as it is PG in nature) is fair game around here. By all means joke and laugh and shoot the breeze. Talk about sports and hobbies and games and personal interests and problems. Talk about your hopes, your dreams, your fears, your talents, your goals, your failings: In short, talk about your life. We only ask for substance, not chatter.
Here's an example of what we want to discourage, a thread that has a promising topic that is totally ruined by the flippant content: How computer literate are you? (http://forums.toonzone.net/showthread.php?s=&threadid=20849) That's a good subject. Presumably we are all able to turn on a computer, get on the web, and join a message board. But some of us have web-sites, and some of us do cool things like Flash animation, and some of us have built web-communities. That's a wide range of experience, and it would be interesting to hear from people about what they've managed to accomplish, and what they hope to accomplish in the future.
Instead, we get a silly poll and some empty chatter. I spent ten seconds of my life looking at that thread, ten seconds I'm not going to get back. (The time I spent closing and moving it is another matter; that was time well spent, if only because it saved other people from wasting their time on it.)
Empty "opinion" posts are also extremely cluttersome. "Who likes ice cream?" doesn't exactly rock the world. Why ask the question, except to take up bandwidth?
Again, we're not asking for a lot of long, thoughtful chintugging around here. Nothing wrong with pulling up to the Community Board (or whatever the final name we settle on) and asking, "So, how about them Mets?" People like talking about sports, and celebrities, and news of the day.
No, these aren't clear and clean-cut rules, and there's going to be a lot of slack and inconsistency in how they're applied. We're all of us going to be feeling our way forward. Mostly, though, it's going to come down to common sense. Before you post, ask yourself: "Is this going to be a waste of everyone's time except my own?" Because that's the test that other people will apply when they read your post.
:)