Picture Thread Clean Up Change

[Szordrin]

Yeah, I know we all like to keep that thread clean and neat but it's a BIT OVER ZEALOUS when you post a comment referring to a picture and the DAY you post it, its deleted.

Kinda takes the fun in talking about the pictures away all together, which is why I and others enjoy.

I completely understand deleting comments a month or two weeks later after the interesting pictures have passed past the last page to be covered up by others but this is a bit excessive, dont you think?

[Lisbet]

Abric posted new rules to the picture thread. Go back a page or two and read them.

[Vaaldis]

Yeahhhh, I've got a feeling he's read the new rules. Szo is a big boy and knows his way around a forum, I'm sure.

I'm wonder why we need a clean up anyway? What's wrong with a few comments between pictures? I'd rather read comments like "YR SO COOL BRO," than see half a page of blank space from deletions. Jus' sayin'.

[Rethius]

Yeahhhh, I've got a feeling he's read the new rules. Szo is a big boy and knows his way around a forum, I'm sure.

I'm wonder why we need a clean up anyway? What's wrong with a few comments between pictures? I'd rather read comments like "YR SO COOL BRO," than see half a page of blank space from deletions. Jus' sayin'.

Its so we can more easily find the pictures of the hawt bitches without wading through entire pages of text.





























I mean..... wut.

[Chikt]

I don't understand the need to have the thread ONLY be pictures and strike discussion entirely from the list of things to do in it. It's always confused the hell out of me.

What's the reasoning exactly?

[Abric]

Nothing is stopping you from responding to photographs and images, buddy. You merely have to follow the rules and make one to two extra clicks to make your statements.

To make for less clicking, I shall C&P the rules of the Picture Thread:

- To post on the Picture Thread, you have to put a Picture.
- Pictures on the Picture Thread must be of the poster, a situation involving the poster, or something unique about the poster that cannot be found by simply googling a topic.
- Pictures of other Gazette members is acceptable, but if the individual in the picture does not want their photograph public, they have a right to report and it will be taken down; no questions asked.
- Edits to make a photograph amusing of a poster (either yourself or others) is acceptable, so long as it is done in good humor and is safe enough to show on prime-time television.
- Refusal to abide by guidelines of the Picture Thread will result in deletion of ones post. It is the moderator's discretion to award Infraction points to posters who do not want to abide by the guidelines.

While we all enjoy responding to people's photos, you can continue to do so by clicking their name on the left side of your screen and picking "View Public Profile". Or, if you have a similiar photograph to share ... well, thinking is enjoyable; good luck!

...

Now, those rules could not be anymore simple to abide by. Though, since there may be some confusion or lack of communication that this is just Abric being a fun sponge, I shall go visual.

...

Now, let's say you find a photograph that you quite enjoy and you would like to make a comment.
http://i129.photobucket.com/albums/p237/NamelessJ/Conversation/Abric-1.jpg



Now, instead of posting on the Picture Thread itself, you have the option to speaking directly to that person. While, again, we all want our wit and intelligence to be seen by others... you can access their public profile. You do so by left clicking on their name, and choosing Public Profile.
http://i129.photobucket.com/albums/p237/NamelessJ/Conversation/Abric-2.jpg



From there, you can immediately type in what you want to say. In the event you have something private to say, you can send them a private message. But, for conversation sake... let's just go public. Type in what you want - there are no rules to what you want to type. Each person has access (and moderating rights) to their public profile, so if it is too vulgar or they hate you ... they can handle it without getting a forum moderator involved.
http://i129.photobucket.com/albums/p237/NamelessJ/Conversation/Abric-3.jpg



Once you have finished writing what you wanted, hit "Post Message" and it will immediately (or slowly, dependent on your connection) be posted on their public board. Additionally, they will receive a notification in the top-right of their screen the next time they log on ... or when they refresh. Some people even have email sent to them, so it all depends on the person.
http://i129.photobucket.com/albums/p237/NamelessJ/Conversation/Abric-4.jpg


...

So, the new rules in place are not ruining your fun, they are merely redirecting it to the people you are trying to contact. If somebody is also interested in the same photograph you are, they can go to that person's public profile... and BAM! They will see a conversation already going on, and can continue without their information being deleted by a moderator. Which, was a main reason for the change ... the moderators have better things to do than police your trash. At the moment there are 4,538 deleted posts in the Picture Thread. Of those 4,538; approximately 100 or so were photographs, but are now dead links. That means 4,438 were conversations that, while good, were in the wrong place.

You now have a place for them. Go to that place. If it is too difficult, too long, or too hard for you to do so; then you obviously didn't have anything good to say. So, people no longer have to sort through worthless statements to enjoy a nice photograph of Diomades beard, Vilmah's band pictures, or Nadea's cleavage.

[Skallagar]

Eh, in this convinance happy day and age I think a lot of interaction will be cut out by this, but whatever. You gotta do what you gotta do.

[Szordrin]

Abric posted new rules to the picture thread. Go back a page or two and read them.

I have and I dont agree with the rules which is why I posted a suggestion. I -could- have just sent Abric a PM but I wanted a discussion too. Sooooo yeah.

And in response to your elaborated but really unnecessary response Abric, a discussion is nice when it involves numerous people. Which is what a forum is for. Surprise! I understand that those rules make YOUR life easier Abric and possibly less tedious but this is, like I said, a forum. What makes a forum? The people who interact with in it, not the rules the moderators make.

[Agnarr]

Eh, in this convince happy day and age I think a lot of interaction will be cut out by this, but whatever. You gotta do what you gotta do.

Interaction has been being cut out ever since "social" groups.

Just my opinion, of course.

[Gorvena]

You mean those stone-dead side lists?

Szo, Abric does not care about your desire to interact. He only cares about doing the least amount of work possible to get his job done. Future civil servant after his Navy career comes to a close.

[opalexian]

This just validates Rand's blog today about the sense of 'community' being ruined. Telling people to put stuff in their blog and to talk about openly viewable images only in users' profiles only further compartmentalizes everyone. Instead of conversing, seeing other people's responses and maybe responding to those you just want us to shine adoration or disgust only to that person and MAYBE strike up a dialog, but there will be no discussion.

There will be no discussion.

I understand the need to make mods' lives easier, but a bunch more were just named, so shouldn't there be plenty of 'manpower' to keep this part of the comm as it was? If its too much trouble for Abric, maybe another mod could do it, or just name someone else as the picture thread mod? The stories people tell and discussions that start in there help us learn more about each other-do you really want to disconnect and compartmentalize us further than we already are?

[Ansha]

Pretty much what Opal, Agnarr, Gorvena and Szo said.

[Rethius]

Guys, guys.


I am really sad, that I cannot openly express how full and epic naowyn's lips are in the picture thread.


THIS ANGERS ME WURRAAAGGGH.


RABBLERABBLERABBLE!


c wut i did thair?

[opalexian]

RETHIUS IS JUSS JEALOUS OF HOW MUCH ATTENTION NAO GETS. :o

OMG *dances with sig*

[Lysimachus]

Since we all seem to have opinions:

Mine is that you bishes should just follow the rules post pictures with your comments. I wanna see more of your beautiful, smiling faces.

[Thalevia]

Since we all seem to have opinions:

Mine is that you bishes should just follow the rules post pictures with your comments. I wanna see more of your beautiful, smiling faces.

This. You can still chat it up and feed egos. You just have to add to the thread with a picture of yourself and not something randomly combed off google.

[Szordrin]

That is tedious. Why would I want to take a picture to comment on another?

Do you REALLY want a ton of pictures of my face? REALLY?


Either way, you arent seeing my point. It's making us all sit into little categories, it's segregating the community more so than it already has been.

Most of all, it's cheap way for Mods to be lazy. Didn't we JUST add more to make the workload less? Do you REALLY need to be so overzealous about a picture thread because it's SO HARD to clean it after the fact?

[Gorvena]

I wanna see more of your beautiful, smiling faces.
I don't have one of those, as you have all unfortunately seen.

And yes, I called Abric out on purpose, since he had the audacity to treat this issue like special education.

No sir, you are not better than the rest of us.

[Broxigan]

All I have to add to this is that the Picture Thread has blown major balls since the uber nazi regime came in and took over. Which is pretty much why I stopped posting in it.

[Evanthe]

I like the new rules. *shrug*

[Szordrin]

Also - not really impressed with the way the mods decided to respond to a suggestion. No fucking wonder I haven't wasted my time with this before.

[Broxigan]

In before rage lock/deletion.

[Malebrignon]

I shouldered the bulk of the picture thread work for several years, so I'll chime in a bit here. I will attempt to use my least condescending tone.

First, I have fielded dozens of complaints over the years regarding people's feelings being hurt in that thread. Some have simply been: "I can't believe <your name> is allowed to insult me like this!" Others might be: "Every single time I post new pictures <your name> suddenly has a slew of new pictures of themself to post so I don't get any attention." Sure, we could just tell them "Toughen up; it's the internet.", but we're more sensitive than that, so we address the complaints as best we can.

Second, I've always felt the comments in the picture thread encourage a clique mentality that is one of the things we've been asked repeatedly to try and curb as much as possible. Picture comments habitually turn into a 3-page pseudo-conversation between 2-4 people. They blow right by the new pictures and continue with their silliness for page after page and make me come clean it up.

Third, I'd like to think everyone here that is a moderator has attained that position by having the best interests of our e-community at heart. Facebook, MySpace, and all their wonderful clones are where you go to craft silly comments on pictures. Here, we'd rather you spend your time typing up a story for us or starting an interesting game-related discussion. All the other forums have ALWAYS been at Villy's discretion. They are a privilege, not a right you get merely for gracing us with your presence.

Now, I'm not saying your opinion is being squashed here. I will make sure we have an actual mod discussion regarding this topic. However, please consider that Villy has put a lot of work into making what Abric detailed happen. We want you to use the personal pages. It really is much more....personal. Comments in any thread are often made just to garner community attention. We all like to be noticed. Wouldn't your comments on someone's pictures seem more important if you actually delivered them to the owner of the picture instead of as a random public message? I know it would mean more to me.

Anyways, nobody is being told to "sit down and shut up" here. You may not like his delivery, but Abric is trying to encourage you to use the tools Villy has so graciously given us to make things a bit more awesome for everyone.

To add my personal opinion, I prefer the thread without the comments. I've read over a hundred pages of comments in that thread. On a couple of occasions, I found something amazingly well-written and interesting, so I C&P'd it to the writer so it wouldn't be lost. Most of the time, it's just: "RAWR! Hawtness!" and similar drivel I could care less about. But I bet the owner of that picture likes knowing you find them attractive. Let them know on their page. I don't need to hear about it.

[Vaaldis]

"Every single time I post new pictures <your name> suddenly has a slew of new pictures of themself to post so I don't get any attention."

While the rest of your post shows great points.... have you seriously gotten a freaking PM like that? REALLY?!

[Malebrignon]

My PM pox is a bizarre place. Yes, I've received that one from no less than two members. If you are one of those members and are reading this, please don't dime yourself out. Your feelings are yours to have and you don't have to explain yourself to anyone. Many apologies if you feel "called out" by my example.

The moderator discussion of this topic is underway. I believe Villy has something in mind that would make a suitable compromise, but I do ask that you all please give the new system we've proposed a chance.

[Villayna]

Remember that just because I don't respond to a thread within an hour, it doesn't mean I'm ignoring it. I was waiting for more of the moderators to chime in their opinion before making a decision.

There are good reasons for keeping the thread social, and good reasons for keeping it primarily about pictures. Honestly if people would limit their posts to just comments about photos and not have a few people have 2 or 3 page spam conversations, it never would have come down to this.

We are still deciding what to do with it, so have some patience and not jump to conclusions.

[Szordrin]

Well, to be honest all I wanted was either what Mal just wrote out or what you did, Vill. I wasn't waiting for the head honcho's doomhammer or anything (if you want a doomhammer that is). I just didn't care for the delivery from the mods prior to Male and it only furthered a point from a member earlier with the way it was responded to.

To be honest, I could drop the suggestion now with how Male put it because there were a few things I hadn't considered but to be honest, I really do miss the social aspect of the thread. I'm glad to hear it's being discussed at least so thank you for that.

[Durdur]

A SUGGESTION:

Instead of completely allowing social banter, or keeping it how it is where anything and everything not picture-including gets deleted.. Ammend the current rules to where single comments are allowed and encouraged. Hell, even say that comments should be more than just "lol, tits" or the like. But make a one comment limit? This will encourage complimenting Dio's taste in beardage, and Nao's obvious taste in lookin' fine.. but at the same time will keep people from having four page conversations about Dio's incredibly large neck. You dig?

To alter and quote Dr. Farnsworth- "That suggestion was less stupid, although you said it in a profoundly stupid way."

[Rand_Shea]

I've seen the modding in that thread to be more for the purpose of some of the mods stroking their egos for having that power rather than actually doing it out of the sake of keeping it clean and free of pointless bantering.

You know why people post their pictures on TNG? Do you REALLY want to know the actual reason they do it?

For attention. For stupid "omg ur hot!" or "omg u iz so sillyz!" comments. Maybe every once in awhile they do it to get a "dear lord you're an ugly sonuvabitch" for lulz.

So... deleting comments, especially the pointless "loltits" ones defeats the purpose of why people post in that thread at all.

Not that any of you, other than maybe 5 people on this forum, will ever see my face.

[Vilmah]

This just validates Rand's blog today about the sense of 'community' being ruined. Telling people to put stuff in their blog and to talk about openly viewable images only in users' profiles only further compartmentalizes everyone. Instead of conversing, seeing other people's responses and maybe responding to those you just want us to shine adoration or disgust only to that person and MAYBE strike up a dialog, but there will be no discussion.

This is not in response to the photo thread, but I'm agreeing with this because in the past, the TNG used to be a lot more social because we were allowed to discuss personal things and have nice discussions. It was ruined with a few people argued with one another over, people were called attention whores, ect. "News of the Personal" used to be a fun and happenin' place. Now we're forced to use blogs, even if we want to make a big announcement to the community and invite discussion. It's a shame, and I'm not putting the blame on anyone, but maybe we should take a look at what's happened to the TNG lately and why.

Not that I'm going to suggest bringing back the Inferno or anything.. lovely little thing that it was, at the time.

[opalexian]

Second, I've always felt the comments in the picture thread encourage a clique mentality that is one of the things we've been asked repeatedly to try and curb as much as possible. Picture comments habitually turn into a 3-page pseudo-conversation between 2-4 people. They blow right by the new pictures and continue with their silliness for page after page and make me come clean it up.

Would you rather have cliques, or everyone feeling isolated and leaving the site because it's become a slave-labor workhouse only churning out LORE-PERFECT RP stories and images? That's seriously something to consider. I would not have stayed on TN had I not made many of the friends, no matter how close, that I have, and it's all from TNG. Needless to say, I would have also left the site a while ago as well.

There have been just as many arguments about cliques forming due to some authors/artists being more popular than others and people feeling like their stories are being overlooked in favor of a more 'popular' author/artist. If you can't comment on pictures publically because of this, why should you on stories or art threads? Wouldn't people also be better-served having those messages hand-delivered to their personal page that almost no one else will ever see or be able to comment on or, god forbid, get an idea to run with? (Yes it can happen with pictures too-see just about any picture Carmen has ever posted-whether its Nira or boyfriend-underwear-ninja, I think a lot of the comments were just as pertinent as the images themselves and enriched the community. Y/Y?)


Third, I'd like to think everyone here that is a moderator has attained that position by having the best interests of our e-community at heart. Facebook, MySpace, and all their wonderful clones are where you go to craft silly comments on pictures. Here, we'd rather you spend your time typing up a story for us or starting an interesting game-related discussion. All the other forums have ALWAYS been at Villy's discretion. They are a privilege, not a right you get merely for gracing us with your presence.

See above (my thoughts kinda ran together. You're shocked Im sure.)

Please stop trotting out the 'its a privelege not a right' arguement. If the members weren't here you wouldn't have much of any reason to be a mod, would you? Yes, you are here to 'keep the peace' as needed, but no, most of us don't need to be babysat, and we're ALL here 'cause we love this godforsaken game. One could almost say that that mentality can breed....a clique.


Now, I'm not saying your opinion is being squashed here. I will make sure we have an actual mod discussion regarding this topic. However, please consider that Villy has put a lot of work into making what Abric detailed happen. We want you to use the personal pages. It really is much more....personal. Comments in any thread are often made just to garner community attention. We all like to be noticed. Wouldn't your comments on someone's pictures seem more important if you actually delivered them to the owner of the picture instead of as a random public message? I know it would mean more to me.

Anyways, nobody is being told to "sit down and shut up" here. You may not like his delivery, but Abric is trying to encourage you to use the tools Villy has so graciously given us to make things a bit more awesome for everyone.

To add my personal opinion, I prefer the thread without the comments. I've read over a hundred pages of comments in that thread. On a couple of occasions, I found something amazingly well-written and interesting, so I C&P'd it to the writer so it wouldn't be lost. Most of the time, it's just: "RAWR! Hawtness!" and similar drivel I could care less about. But I bet the owner of that picture likes knowing you find them attractive. Let them know on their page. I don't need to hear about it.

Personal pages are for personal messages yes, but they don't encourage discussion in the least because of how they work (either looking at the 'conversation' which is exclusively between two people, or remembering to go to one person's page to see a 'conversation' between multilple people that, again, may end up being broken up because of the 1 on 1 conversation link.) Again, this is just encouraging isolation and forced private conversations. No I dont think the personal page is a bad idea at all, but I think that using it to supercede discussion of any sort, unless exceptionally volatile, is a cop out. Yes, it may sometimes make the blog the equivalent of a high school year book, but that can and often does happen in just about any given post on this forum. This game breeds highschoolish, cliquish behavior. This game contains a lot of high schoolers who only know this behavior. This game contains a lot of people not long out of high school who haven't experienced a lot of other kinds of social interaction. Yes, there are several older people here (and, I might note, almost all the mods are of the older persuasion,) but the average age of the members is probably well under 24-just before the time people have gotten out of college, into the real world, and had their egos beaten down until they learn that being the quarterback did not, in fact, end up making you a Hollywood star.

BUT I DIGRESS. :rolleyes: Yes, you guys shouldn't have to feel like babysitters, but you should also try not to force behaviors on people that make them feel alienated from each other, further breaking down what a lot of older members lament as the community that was here (enter your preference) years ago. I will further what I said earlier-*I* will clean the thread if you guys don't want to deal with it. *I* will field the 2 QQ emails. Maybe something appropriate for those, if they were warranted, would be to make the offending comment (if even left there) say 'Hi, Im a douchebag and didnt learn from my mom that if I dont have anything nice to say, I shouldnt say anything.'

Yeah you probably won't do it but that's fine-again, you just 'hired' a bunch of new mods-why don't you pass stuff off to some of the newer guys so you can have more time to...whatever. Instead, its kinda seeming like having more mods has given the older mods the desire to force the community into a mold that does exactly what you want, when you want. Simple fact of the matter is that RPers tend to be more social creatures-we want to hang out together, we like talking in vent (even as we kill each other X D,) we get to know each other through creating characters and interacting with them, and finding out things about the other person through that interaction as well. Telling us to fit into smaller and smaller boxes isn't just serving to destroy the community but is also slowly going to break down the RP community as a whole.

Like Rand said, people post pictures for attention; but we also post them to get to know each other better. Why can't I just reply to Ryo's pics further regaling him with accolades about how he looks like Neil Gaiman with the MOST FUCKING AWESOME HAIR IN THE WORLD!?!?!? And then gee, someone might pick up that Im some sort of Neil Gaiman fan (or stalker) and we could talk about that, or someone else might want Ryo's DNA sequence to try and reproduce that hair, or something. NONE OF THIS WOULD HAPPEN WITHOUT COMMENTS.

To put this another way, if a picture is required to make a comment, you will be sorry, really fast. And Im not just saying I'll do this-there are far snarkier people here with a lot more motivation to upload 500 pictures of their cars, cats, laundry, ear, sink, dinner, and fuck knows what else just so they can make a comment. Now I'd have to wade through 10 pages of that to get to another image of Ryo's glorious visage? D:<

Please note-Im saying all of this having gotten maybe 5 comments on just as many pictures. Oh well, QQ. I still like reading (most) of the other shit that people have to say about other pictures, and reading 'OHAITITS' about some attention whore who posts too many pictures just makes me laugh. Is there some kind of limit on how many pages/posts a thread can have?

As for what Vilmah said, that's a whole other topic, lady-go make it. >_>

[Athin]

I agree with most of the above posters. This place is beginning to feel more like Myspace then a forum.

[Naowyn]

While I agree with what Szordrin has been saying, I also can understand that the mods have a hard job trying to clear all of the trash that us damn kids post. While I think it would be nice to just be able to comment (And as the one who probably gets her comments deleted the most) I can also understand not wanting scroll through the endless banter to find pictures of people's pretty mugs.

I'll never go to someone's page and comment on a picture they posted, but again I can see the reasoning behind the suggestion.

All in all, I'd prefer to have some semblance of banter going on amidst one of the most visited threads on the site, but that's not my decision to make.

[Villayna]

I agree with most of the above posters. This place is beginning to feel more like Myspace then a forum.

which posters are you agreeing with?

I think when I read this yesterday I assumed you were in the "let there be comments" posters, but really, now that I think about it, the picture thread is THE most Myspace-like thing on TNG.


We will probably allow comments again, but I haven't posted yet because I've been busy and I'm still not sure which is the best way to go with this.

[The_Golden_Wolf]

I'm on the fence on this, while I do like the freedom of commenting, It does get repetitive and tiresome at times.

Underlined and bolded parts, I particularly sympathize with or agree.




Picture comments habitually turn into a 3-page pseudo-conversation between 2-4 people. They blow right by the new pictures and continue with their silliness for page after page and make me come clean it up.


We'd rather you spend your time typing up a story for us or starting an interesting game-related discussion. All the other forums have ALWAYS been at Villy's discretion. They are a privilege, not a right you get merely for gracing us with your presence.


Comments in any thread are often made just to garner community attention. We all like to be noticed. Wouldn't your comments on someone's pictures seem more important if you actually delivered them to the owner of the picture instead of as a random public message? I know it would mean more to me.


I've read over a hundred pages of comments in that thread. On a couple of occasions, I found something amazingly well-written and interesting, so I C&P'd it to the writer so it wouldn't be lost. Most of the time, it's just: "RAWR! Hawtness!" and similar drivel I could care less about. But I bet the owner of that picture likes knowing you find them attractive. Let them know on their page. I don't need to hear about it.

[Keraph]

Just noticed this thread, totally no interest in reading past Szo's initial post to throw my two CP in, but yeah, overzealous rules, stop being so bad XP

[Alphaeus]

Skimmed most of the thread, so if someone else suggested it, m'bad but.. solution?

Companion thread - Picture Thread Comments. 'Link the post you're commenting on, and discuss'. Or something.

So people who want to discuss can discuss and people who want to see pictures can see pictures. Win/Win.

[Grayslin]

So why was this resurrected again?

We reversed the no-comments rule like 2 weeks ago...

[Broxigan]

So why was this resurrected again?

We reversed the no-comments rule like 2 weeks ago...

I never knew this happened.

[Rand_Shea]

Sylennis, you showed nothing to indicate that you had. Shame on you for being a bad mod.

The proper way is to bake cupcakes and send them to everyone, with the frosting on top spelling out that the rule was reversed.

Where's my fucking cupcake?!

[Grayslin]

Yeah, sorry, villy said the rule would probably be reversed, and we quit deleting the comments.

I just figured it was obvious. >.<

[Akuje]

I figured my posting of giant boobies was a pretty good indicator things are being relaxed in there, and will go back to the once every few months clean up.

[Szordrin]

I figured my posting of giant boobies was a pretty good indicator things are being relaxed in there, and will go back to the once every few months clean up.

This.

And thank you, mods.

[Villayna]

Sorry, that's my fault. Other larger drama storms happened that distracted me from making an official retraction of the no posts without pics rule. This doesn't mean a free for all, so if you find yourself posting more than once or twice a day, you're probably posting too often.

[Yatokth]

I want my fucking cupcake.