Do we need somewhere for people to "chat" instead of the amount of PM style posts going on in the forum?

[Yaramaki]

Would it be possible to extend the time you can edit your posts for a little longer, i think it's 15 minutes now if my memory doesen't fail me it's kind on the short side especially if you're post are on the longer side? I'm always too late whenever i feel like i should have added something in or i see a big grammer error, could have phrased something better.

Edited June 18, 2022 by Yaramaki

[Shagger]

1 minute ago, Yaramaki said:

Would it be possible to extend the time you can edit your posts for a little longer, i think it's 15 minutes now if my memory doesen't fail me it's kind on the short side especially if you're post are on the longer side? I'm always too late whenever i feel like i should have added something in or i see a big grammer error, could have phrased something better.

 

Right now, people can edit thier own posts for 10 minutes after originally posting it. I would personally say that is sufficient for the vast majority of posts that are made on this forum. What people really should do it proof read thier posts  before sending them to give you all the time you might need to look for and correct errors. I understand what you're saying, especially with regard to longer posts. I also must confess I'm as bad anyone for only finding mistakes after I've posted something, but in the end what I should have done was look harder for those errors before posting it, and that's a responsibility everyone has.

 

If we extended that limit (especially to the kind of lengths you desire like above 15 minutes), we would invite abuse to the system like somebody changing thier statement to better argue against a point that was made after thier original post. It's much a better habit to have a good look through your post before sending it, and a shorter edit window I believe helps encourage that behaviour.

 

If it were to change, I maybe would be happy with it at 15 munities as opposed to 10, but anything longer than that and it it could cause more problems than it solves and it wouldn't solve this problem described in this thread as the so called "post farmers" don't care enough about thier posts to re-read and correct them. Not in a 10 minute long edit window, not in a hour long edit window, it would change nothing.

[Dannyjax]

Everything all boils down to not being too fast to type whatever you have as a response. If you take it slowly, it's going to be very rare for you to have too many errors in your post. 

And @Shaggeryou're right about what's likely to happen when the edit time is extended for too long. Someone might change his initial entry and that's going to be a huge confusion especially if the post wasn't quoted.. What solves it all would be to try and take a moment to read over what you had written even if it's just once before posting.

If you have another thing you feel like adding to your original comment, you can quote your old comment and add it up. 

This is my opinion though! 

[Yaramaki]

*sigh takes deep breath and shakes head in disbelief and bashes hand on the table*

Man why do i keep bothering everithing i suggest just gets slammed anyway, so yet again people who are serious about their posts are getting the middle finger because they want a little more time to perfect their posts all because yet again those so called shit posters who feel the need to make 500+ posts a month. 

2 hours ago, Dannyjax said:

Everything all boils down to not being too fast to type whatever you have as a response. If you take it slowly, it's going to be very rare for you to have too many errors in your post. 

Don't get this the wrong way but english is not my first language grammar mistakes happen, you may not believe me but some of my posts take me half an hour or more, the least i could get is half an hour the time to edit any mistakes i made along the way.

I could start posting in dutch, french or japanese if you want, maybe then somebody will realise how hard it is to speak/write in multiple languages without making spelling errors.

Edited June 18, 2022 by Yaramaki

[Shagger]

On 6/18/2022 at 6:08 PM, Yaramaki said:

*sigh takes deep breath and shakes head in disbelief and bashes hand on the table*

Man why do i keep bothering everithing i suggest just gets slammed anyway, so yet again people who are serious about their posts are getting the middle finger because they want a little more time to perfect their posts all because yet again those so called shit posters who feel the need to make 500+ posts a month. 

Don't get this the wrong way but english is not my first language grammar mistakes happen, you may not believe me but some of my posts take me half an hour or more, the least i could get is half an hour the time to edit any mistakes i made along the way.

I could start posting in dutch, french or japanese if you want, maybe then somebody will realise how hard it is to speak/write in multiple languages without making spelling errors.

 

There's enough people on here who don't speak English as a first language, but still post legibly albeit with some errors. Sadly, there is also enough people who post content that's hard to understand because they don't care and are only interested in getting as many posts done as possible. Let me tell you from experience it is very easy to tell the difference.

 

Posts that you and the other members is who don't speak English as a first language are still understandable. A few minor grammatical errors and spelling mistakes isn't going to bug anyone. It is perfectly acceptable and isn't actually what makes there "other" people's post hard to read. It's more about thier post being structured badly and convoluted because it's the act of someone typing in a rush. The act of someone who hasn't thought it through and obviously doesn't proof read anything before posting it. I believe that you make fantastic posts, and you do, because you take your time. Just because the reason you take your time is because of language difficulties, doesn't change the positive effect it has. Hell, even as a native English speaker I can take just as long as you on a post because I'm a horrible typist and make errors all the time, but taking the time I need to get it good enough, just like you do, helps a great deal. You should have seen the mess this very post would have been if I hadn't gone back... twice.

 

I know you're disappointed that your request didn't gather the support you hoped in this this early stage (Ultimately, it's up to @DC, not me or anyone else, so you should not get discouraged anyway), but I can't be anything else but honest and I think that this is a fix for something that isn't broken. Give yourself a little credit, like I said the quality of the content you put on VGR from the very start has been superb. I could be convinced to champion for the edit window to be extended a little bit, maybe to 15 minutes, but I can't get behind 30 minutes, I'm sorry.

Edited June 22, 2022 by Shagger

[DC]

@Yaramaki I understand your suggestion. I am going to brainstorm a solution where users who have made X amount of MEANINGFUL posts and/or have been a member at VGR for X amount of time period have the ability to edit posts for more than 10 minutes. Basically this feature would only be available to those who are considered valued contributors of the forum (which I would categorize you in).

[DC]

I have disabled posting from Dannyjax and Aniekwe. As a reminder, in June I disabled Jasmin, Boblee, and Heath-Hunter from posting.

I am now deciding what to do with Justin11, Heatman, and Clasher.

[Empire Of Sight]

A Discord is a great option but from reading the front page here it seems losing site traffic can be a negative thing, however if you limit the Discord simply to "Spam chat" only and dont have too many channels it shouldnt be an issue, ALSO you can have a really cool ticket system within the discord where users can report/ ask questions and it makes it super simple for moderators to manage these things.

 

My 1.5 cents.

[Aniekwe]

On 7/5/2022 at 5:22 PM, DC said:

I have disabled posting from Dannyjax and Aniekwe. As a reminder, in June I disabled Jasmin, Boblee, and Heath-Hunter from posting.

I am now deciding what to do with Justin11, Heatman, and Clasher.

Pttff... Oh, Nice one! 

 

[runswithspatulas]

On 3/28/2022 at 4:09 PM, Shagger said:

I know that many of you have been expressing frustration over how "spammy" (for lack of a better word) some sections of the forum are becoming by a handful of people using the threads more like a chat. The forum gets flooded with off-topic posts on threads that really should have long since died but keep getting bummed because some people feel compiled to reply to them with anything.

 

This thread is not about pointing fingers or blame, it is just about how to better organise the forum so that the threads can be more welcoming for the whole community. So people can post, for example, without worrying about there posts getting bummed down by people posting barley relevant, low value replies just to up posts counts. Four possible idea come to me.

 

• A "shitposting" sub forum for people to, well, "shitpost". A thread for memes, jokes and other irrelevant dribble to have fun with without impacting other areas of the forum.
• A re-focus on forum games. Upping post counts is essentially what these types of threads are for, but almost nobody on VGR tends to use them. For this to work, it would necessitate a change of habit that, to be honest, I don't really see happening, so I'm less sure about this one.
• A chat box added to the forum itself. This works well in theory, but could be difficult and time consuming to implement, not to mention hard to monitor and moderate, which is why I'd personally prefer...
• Opening a VGR Discord server. As well as a place for live chat, it would also open up the community to the opportunity to group up and actually play games together. Now, @DC, I remember we have had this discussion before and you didn't want to do this because you feared it would move traffic off the website, and I truly understand that, but this CAN be run and moderated in such a way that it would work, and may even attract new people to VGR.

 

Still, that is just one man's thoughts. If you have anything to add or if you want to push one of these ideas, reply below. 

I have a question.

This is a gaming forum. If we can't "chat" about the games then what is the point of posting? I'm just confused. Not mad. Just trying to understand what it is you want us to do? Is there some formal format for a post cuz I don't know how to post without actually chatting about what I'm posting about. That's what a discussion is correct?

[Shagger]

4 hours ago, runswithspatulas said:

I have a question.

This is a gaming forum. If we can't "chat" about the games then what is the point of posting? I'm just confused. Not mad. Just trying to understand what it is you want us to do? Is there some formal format for a post cuz I don't know how to post without actually chatting about what I'm posting about. That's what a discussion is correct?

 

The way you have conducted yourself so far is fine, so if you just keep doing what you do and it will be OK. What we were discussing here is people firing in a mass a low effort, pointless posts just to add to their post tallies.

 

There was a point where a lot of people were pretty much hijacking threads to use as there own personal text chain instead of engaging in the structured discussion that's meant to happen on a forum. It was hurting the forum because people were getting there post buried by people post one sentence replies from others who didn't care about staying on topic, the legibility of their posts, the purpose or what their posts added. the only thing that mattered was that it was a post, something to add to the tally.

 

If you browse the forum, find a topic of interest, give it a read then if you have something to add, an opinion to express or a question to ask in relation to that topic, post a reply. If there is is topic you want to talk about not being discussed, start a new thread about it in the appropriate sub-forum. That is  it these people were doing, they were just moving down the threads one by one to make a pointless post with thought or purpose put into it then onto the next one.

[Crazycrab]

6 hours ago, runswithspatulas said:

I have a question.

This is a gaming forum. If we can't "chat" about the games then what is the point of posting? I'm just confused. Not mad. Just trying to understand what it is you want us to do? Is there some formal format for a post cuz I don't know how to post without actually chatting about what I'm posting about. That's what a discussion is correct?

 

I can understand your confusion, you weren't here when these problems were really profound so it might seem like moderators are being a little harsh and controlling.  As someone who was here when it was it worst I promise you their not and it's nothing personal.  The General Gaming and Music sections in particular were a joke, people would just bump the same topics with generic short posts that barely relate to the topic and post the same music tracks and videos over multiple threads over and over.  We literally got the same users making about 30 posts within spans of about 10 minutes multiple times a day.  It made trying to find the most recent legitimate content an absolute nightmare, burying good threads long before their time.

[The Blackangel]

On 9/24/2022 at 12:29 AM, runswithspatulas said:

I have a question.

This is a gaming forum. If we can't "chat" about the games then what is the point of posting? I'm just confused. Not mad. Just trying to understand what it is you want us to do? Is there some formal format for a post cuz I don't know how to post without actually chatting about what I'm posting about. That's what a discussion is correct?

Your confusion is completely understandable. And thank you for not holding your tongue, as many do. What we're looking for is members wanting to add to the forum, not their personal numbers. What many don't realize is that posting numbers don't relate to popularity. Members who have posted for years now have gotten a feel for this place, and know how things work. Thus their posts are for the most part on topic and educating. Sure there are places to post goofy and light hearted fun, and that's always welcome in the correct sub-forum. If you look at the leader boards, you will see many people leading in different categories. But just because they are leading in the category doesn't mean that every post they have made was worth making. So post as much as you want. We don't mean machine gun posting. But post when and where you feel you can add to the discussion. If you have any questions you can always PM me, or @Shagger and @DC if you prefer. Part of our job is helping members when they need it.

[Kale]

With how much the Internet has changed, I've also noticed more PM style replies and stuff to things on forums. What we used to do back in the old days was to make a 'chat thread' where PM style replies could go. People talked about whatever they wanted be it games, anime, etc. 

[Shagger]

11 minutes ago, Kale said:

With how much the Internet has changed, I've also noticed more PM style replies and stuff to things on forums. What we used to do back in the old days was to make a 'chat thread' where PM style replies could go. People talked about whatever they wanted be it games, anime, etc. 

 

We have a general chat section including a forum games section that's there for a reason, the problem was (and I do say was as this problem has come under control in recent months on VGR) is that none of the culprits used the thread the way they were supposed to.