Did I miss something here? Mod rant in The Game Room

[EllisDee]

@Giraffe

FYI, if you can get a few minutes of Jerry’s time, you can tweak the Game Room so that the labeling Dex was doing manually happens whenever someone starts a thread, using Thread Prefixes. Once configured, what would happen is every time someone starts a thread in the Game Room, there would be an additional pulldown menu next to the title field. They’d select one of the categories you’d set up (sports, forum games, other) and the thread title would have some labeling text in front of it, e.g. [GAME], [SPORTS]). You could even set up custom search links to show only the threads with those prefixes, or people could manually search – the search function would have an additional thread prefix option. (One possible downside is that this option would show for all searches, even though it would only be relevant for the Game Room.)

Let me know if you’re interested and I’ll post a detailed walkthrough of how to set up the prefixes and modify the forum permissions so you don’t have to waste time reading documentation.

Much simpler to just create a Thread Games subforum under the game room and be done with it. (Or a standalone Thread Games forum. Either way.) This would be a perfect solution, and much easier to maintain than thread prefixes.

Unfortunately Jerry works 24/7, 365 and simply cannot spend a half hour making a new (sub)forum. Nobody else has admin privileges, so we’re SOL for pretty much ever.

[TubaDiva]

We’re convinced subforums don’t build traffic – they destroy it. People don’t see them, skip over them, don’t know about them. We need more traffic, not less.

It’s an experiment, but we think that with some marking of thread titles people will be able to run Google searches to help find the content they’re looking for. Once that content is found people can subscribe to threads as well. Granted, the solution we’re looking at is low-tech but it’s a solution we can implement directly.

[Justin_Bailey]

Are you kidding me? Nice to know what some of the powers that be think of people who want to post about sports and video games.

[Aquadementia]

@Giraffe

Yes, I should have prefaced my post by saying that if the mod consensus was to try to do the [GAME] and [SPORTS] labels, there existed an easy way to make it automatic and consistent that they may not have been aware of.

Post icons would be awful, IMO. For one thing, they’re intended to be used on a post by post basis, not as a single thread label. For another thing, they make the main forum display hideous.

If it is used in the opening post then it appears next to the thread when viewing the board it is on.

They are hideous because most forums use hideous icons. A 12x12 dot or square in muted colors wouldn’t be distracting, serve the same purpose as the text labels and would be quicker to scan.

Using all caps in bracket labels in every post is what’s hideous. It’s the text equivalent of a rainbow barfing unicorn or animated gif of Gallagher smashing a watermelon.

I don’t think there is a less disruptive way to accomplish what they want then using post icons like I described, except for doing nothing. Which would be fine too.

[Inner_Stickler]

@TubaDiva

We’re convinced subforums don’t build traffic – they destroy it. People don’t see them, skip over them, don’t know about them. We need more traffic, not less.

If you’re looking at the traffic in SD Chicago, The Barn House and the Marketplace, then I would question whether what you’re seeing is subfourms destroying traffic, or subforums accurately reporting how much the userbase cares about the topic of the forum. I would bet money that there’s far more rehabbing conversations on the dope now than there were before the forum was added.

[EllisDee]

@TubaDiva

We’re convinced subforums don’t build traffic – they destroy it. People don’t see them, skip over them, don’t know about them. We need more traffic, not less.

A full-fledged forum devoted to thread games – as opposed to a subforum – would be equally effective, as noted in my parenthetical. (In fairness, I may have edited that parenthetical in later, though.)

[Munch]

@TubaDiva

We need more traffic, not less.

How far up the list of priorities would you say that is?

[asterion]

I kinda wish that the experiment had been able to run for a little while, say one week. Give most people a chance to see and express an opinion and see if the thread games sort themselves out in a way that was less intimidating than when they were all right up top after the labeling.

Also, I’m not convinced that the thread games either drive traffic to the rest of the threads in the Game Room or that it’s really desirable traffic. On a board where there’s been worries about database size, responsiveness, and overall stability it seems like the thread games would be undesirable.

[Heffalump_and_Roo]

I just wanted to extend a kudos to Dex for trying something that might help. From my reading of ATMB, it seems like Dex tries hard to make this board a better place. I appreciate that.

[Aquadementia]

@Aquadementia

Using all caps in bracket labels in every post is what’s hideous. It’s the text equivalent of a rainbow barfing unicorn or animated gif of Gallagher smashing a watermelon.

Dude, that’s a bit of an exaggeration invoking Gallagher and all.

[Vita_Beata]

@Aquadementia

Dude, that’s a bit of an exaggeration invoking Gallagher and all.

Aquadementia, You’re critiquing your own quote?

[aldiboronti]

@Heffalump_and_Roo

I just wanted to extend a kudos to Dex for trying something that might help. From my reading of ATMB, it seems like Dex tries hard to make this board a better place. I appreciate that.

Heartily seconded.

[ZenBeam]

I’ll third that. I was one of I think two people who voted that they liked it in the poll thread that’s disappeared. I’ll agree it was ugly (or maybe [UGLY] ;)), but it made scanning the forum to find non-game threads much easier.

[SCAdian]

I thought it was a great idea - made it easier to a) find the games, and b) ignore all the sports rubbish.

[cmyk]

@Vita_Beata

Aquadementia, You’re critiquing your own quote?

He just probably forgot to log out then log into his sock account.

SOCK ACCOUNT?!?

[IvoryTowerDenizen]

@cmyk

He just probably forgot to log out then log into his sock account.

SOCK ACCOUNT?!?

Ruh, roh!

[bldysabba]

The tags seem to be back, only more…comprehensive. I think square brackets around the tag would be helpful in parsing.

[Der_Trihs]

In case no one noticed, now the threads in the Game Room are labeled GAME and GAMING.

EDIT: Ninjaed - and there’s also SPORTS.

[Terminus_Est]

Yeah and they went and mischaracterized the Crusader Kings II thread as “GAME”. While I’m sure all the talk of killing your kids to ensure your favored son inherits the realm sounds like a run-of-the-mill thread game, it’s a legitimate discussion about a complicated video game.

[Suburban_Plankton]

I have no problem with the labels, but it might be nice if there was some sort of Official Notice about what’s going on…or did I miss one?