I don't normally respond to this sort of madness, but this time I will make an exception.
As soon as a thread goes 'off topic', then the MOD should 'mark the thread'.
Therefore, as soon as the thread has been 'marked', it is known that the thread is no longer a discussion, except 'whatever' talk not related to the title of the thread...
For this to Work, Mods must be doing their job!
First of all, given the type of interface mods have dealing with the forum, this is impossible to do, other than me hand-selecting each thread and making myself a post-it note to remind myself to keep an eye on it.
Forget it.
Mods must be "doing their job"? Would you like to see a screenshot of the amount of garbage myself and the other mods cull around here?
The fact of the matter is - NONE of you see the shit that has been edited, but we mods do. The idea here is that everything looks find and dandy and on topic and (mostly) free of spam and advertising.
We do our best to keep it this way around here. Some of you post so godamn much, you don't even realize some of the crap you have posted and I have deleted. The "rofl" or "hahaha" or "......." replies usually get deleted on the spot. The random thoughts in the middle of a post are crushed. The e-hitting and personal messages and "Old Timer" chat goes away fast. There is so much of this that is gets old real fast, but I still delete it and try to do my best.
Why do we do this?
Nothing is more annoying for a "newbie" looking for help or advice and having to sift through stupid crap. We edit and moderate for the MAJORITY, not for the 5-10 of you with thousands of posts under your belt. There are TONS of people who come to this site a day and NEVER register. They come for help and advice. Not to sift through 10/12 crappy posts to find 2 good ones.
Should we change the "General" Discussion" forum to something more fitting with stupid stuff?
Why? The intelligent browser will look at the list of places to post stuff, and HOPEfully post it in the correct area. We all know this doesn't always happen, so us mods get to move shit around.
I don't have a problem with starting a NEW "Free For All" forum. I will talk to Loveadmin about adding this. But for the time being, General chat is STILL a thread for people to talk about General TOPICS. Sure, the ones that I listed were vague and boring, but that wasn't the point. The point is to keep things relatively on point.
Right now I don't moderate the General chat much at all, so for me to be compared to a "Forum Nazi" is a bit of a stretch. I moderate the Dating and Dumping and Sex 95% of the time. If a General gets WAY out of hand or people start flaming each other, then I might step in and make some stuff disappear.
Don't worry about me suddenly erasing everything that moves around here. The fact of the matter is that for General Chat, most of it will stay - But when RSK or others just start randomly posting "Increase your Post count here!" type of threads that serve absolutely no purpose other than senseless yammering, it serves no purpose here, or in ANY area and will likely disappear as well.
Linear Mode
