this forum has gone to hell

mdfriend wrote:

stuartcurran wrote:

One thing I would say though is that maybe all this socializing could be kept to one thread. That one that's something like "Nettangel showed her pic now you show yours" seems like a good one, I really don't think we need an individual thread for our favorite songs/movies/hockey teams/etc. That allows people to communicate with each other and not take up the whole forum, and so everyone's happy (excluding trolls).

I understand this, and it makes sense, but at the same time, one OT thread for hockey and songs and everything else is not realistic. I do not want to wade through 200 pages to find out who likes what hockey team. The nice thing about this forum, and really most forums that are about a single topic and not a help thread is that a certainty community forms and a closeness develops. Part of the human experience, we just cannot help ourselves. The downside is that cliques form and some people feel intimidated to post or ask things because they feel they might be ridiculed or derailed or any other number of things, that legitimately could or may not happen.

In the end what we have here is a group of regulars that enjoy spending inordinate amounts of time on a forum board talking to one another when there is not much else going on in the game.

I would ask you, what are some in game things you want to discuss? I do not mean that in any negative way, but if you feel there are things not being covered that you want to talk about, please bring them up.

spiffshine wrote:
I appreciate the more thoughtful posts here - zuzupj and mdfriend, you have summed it for for me quite well (as you so often do) so +1 for those. I also see your points, rabbikrustofski and stuartcurran and can even agree somewhat.

I agree that on topic threads should not be derailed, otherwise all our telling people to search is for naught.

However, I don't agree that one should hold back on starting worthwhile threads for fear of derailment. I'd love for you to share som of these ideas, rabbikrustofski. I think you will find that, even with the socializing regulars, we live talking about the game. It's what brought us here in the first place!

The forum is General Discussion, after all...

Odd, I do not see zuzu's post

Good rebuttal and I understand your points. It would be pretty annoying scrolling through a bunch of pages to find something specific you want to know. Although you could argue that anyone who wants to find some info about the game right now would have that very problem and, while the search forum is quite helpful, its been demonstrated by numerous posters who come in here and make repetitive threads that they are unaware of its existence or just refuse to use it. While this is the general discussion forum, I think everyone can agree that the other three sections are essentially deadwood. The FAQ may be the next best thing but it would seem that this is the go-to forum regardless of which section it belongs to.

In response to your question, I initially came here just to read others opinions and posts various pictures of my Springfield but if I do have any ideas I'll post them. If no one responds or it gets derailed in seconds then so be it. I made a thread before about character costumes which I think got about 2 pages of discussion and that was without derailment!

I too love the friendly atmosphere you can get from a forum and have been involved in a number of community-esque forums before. The reason I don't actually participate in this one is that I find it to be a bit clique-y, which happens, and its fair enough. While most of the regulars seem to be lovely people they tend to stay among themselves which makes it difficult for others to be recognised without posting hundreds of times (or 2000 times and then making a thread about it). It would seem that I'm in a minority anyway, as it seems a lot of people are siding with your school of though mdfriend, and I don't blame them, you put your arguments forward well and I'm glad we could have a civilized debate instead of it descending into usual internet madness. Anyway, I shall return to the shadows, if I can think of anything game-related worthy of discussion I'll post it :)