Enough with the "Name 100 characters" shit

The BBQ Pit
1

What the fuck, is this the new way to do post count parties? I detect no signal in the noise of these threads, and they’re spreading like the plague.

I’d love to say they’re too pathetic even for MPSIMS, but we all know that there is no such animal. Even still, their content-free proliferation in CS is annoying as shit.

Right now, on the front page alone:

100 Hobbit / Lord of the Rings characters

Name 100 Gone With the Wind Characters

Inevitably, 100 Star Wars characters.

100 Krazy Kat Kharacters

100 Characters from “My Dinner with Andre”

100 made-up characters from a made-up soap opera

100 Where-Are-They-Now Former Stars To Book For The Surreal Life

100 Waiting for Godot characters

There are two flavors of these inane circle jerks, and I can’t decide which is more embarassingly lame. The ones that are serious, and of course based on the geekiest subjects, (Lord of the Rings and Star Wars, because hey, it’s the Straight Dope and we’re nothing if not pathetic geeks!) are sad in their vapid pointlessness. But the ironic ones may be even worse. Waiting for Godot? My Dinner With Andre? I’ve come to terms with the fact that the SDMB attracts more than its fair share of losers, but these threads boggle the mind in that they’re pretentious post count parties.

It’s bad enough we have so many comic book threads on page one, but now with the Name 100 crap? And recipes? How is food art?

C’mon, mods, grow a pair and enforce the “no post parties” rule already.

While we’re at it, can we move food and sports over to MPSIMS? That way the poor moderators there could actually moderate some, you know, content.

2

You had me until the recipes.

Just what do you go to a cafe for? The art?

3

[QUOTE=Ellis Dee]
It’s bad enough we have so many comic book threads on page one, but now with the Name 100 crap? And recipes? How is food art?
[/QUOTE]
You’ve read the forum description for CS, right? The one that specifically mentions that it’s the place for comic book and food discussion?

4

Oh, I get it… this is the “Name 100 Types of Threads That Piss You Off” thread! Cool!

I’ll add “People kvetching and taking the time to hyperlink to numerous threads whose content is very self evident from the title and that they could easily make like Dion Warwick and just “Walk on By” if they’re not interested in playing rather than getting their Fig Newton flavored edible panties in a twist over” type threads :slight_smile: .

5

^^ ditto.

I like recipes. And food can be art.

The name 100 posts… eh, I haven’t been here long enough for much of anything to inspire rage in me, but I do think they’re the height of pointless. Even more pointless than word association games. They require no creativity or wit and very little thought, there are no opinions at all involved… it’s just reciting a cast list.

6

oops. posted too late. I was “ditto”-ing Garfield226

7

[QUOTE=cckerberos]
You’ve read the forum description for CS, right? The one that specifically mentions that it’s the place for comic book and food discussion?
[/QUOTE]
I agree that comic book discussions are valid and belong in the Cafe. I just hate seeing them, which is nothing more than a personal problem of mine.

I agree that food (and now sports) discussions are officially slotted for CS, but I’m offering an alternative for that decision that I think makes more sense. I’m not demanding anything by these points; merely tossing them out for consideration.

As opposed to the Name 100 threads, which are clearly post padding parties. The rant sorta morphed into a general Cafe Society rant toward the end.

8

[QUOTE=Ellis Dee]
But the ironic ones may be even worse. Waiting for Godot? My Dinner With Andre? I’ve come to terms with the fact that the SDMB attracts more than its fair share of losers, but these threads boggle the mind in that they’re pretentious post count parties.
[/QUOTE]
Ellis, I think you’re missing the point of my Godot thread. It’s a little closer to this OP than you might think…

9

Eh, the dope is a great place, but it’s not perfect or tailored to suit anyone in particular. I do tire of seeing things like the 100 lists or “Could a ____ be elected POTUS” and I don’t ever want to read, see or hear anything even remotely related the LOTR, comics, RPGs, gaming, Star Wars, “reality” TV, or those threads where someone who thinks they’re a writer vanity publishes some interminable schlock and scores of others chime in fawning over them. So I don’t click on them.

I wouldn’t mind an “Ignore Thread” feature, so I don’t see the same old tired post party threads over and over.

AS far as CS goes, I think it’s fine, but I think Sports should be able to be in different forums, depending on the OP. For instance, there are sometimes questions the warrant a specific answer (GQ),or “who was the best ___?” questions (IMHO), and some of the threads where people are either grousing about their team’s recent failings or woofing at other people’s teams/player clearly belong in the Pit.

10

Yes, but we’re maybe 6 weeks away from being able to do a “Name 100 ‘Name 100 Things’ Threads” thread, and how much self-reflective fun will that be?

11

Name 100 posters in an Ellis Dee Pit rant.

P.S. Nice thread, jjimm.

12

[QUOTE=An Arky]
Eh, the dope is a great place, but it’s not perfect or tailored to suit anyone in particular. I do tire of seeing things like the 100 lists or “Could a ____ be elected POTUS” and I don’t ever want to read, see or hear anything even remotely related the LOTR, comics, RPGs, gaming, Star Wars, “reality” TV, or those threads where someone who thinks they’re a writer vanity publishes some interminable schlock and scores of others chime in fawning over them. So I don’t click on them.
[/quote]
My thoughts almost exactly. (I have a soft spot for Survivor.) In particular I agree with the POTUS threads as being a touch too prevelant in GD, but at least those (I’m assuming) have content in them.

That’s the official thinking on the subject, but I think it’s actually performing a disservice by being too rigid. My thinking goes like this:

Virtually no posters inhabit all forums equally. Everyone has their favorite places to go. Generally these coincide with how they like to use the boards, which doesn’t have a high correlation to what topics they gravitate toward. (Some primarily like to debate, others like to discuss tv shows, some like to answer factual questions, etc…)

I would posit that a poster’s favorite forums are completely unrelated to their interest in sports. While a factual sports question currently belongs in GQ, I strongly suspect that GQ is the worst forum in which to reach the knowledgable sports fans. (Not that I’m an expert, but I do know some stuff and I almost never go there. And there are plenty of others like me.)

If sports were all contained in a single forum, then all the sports fans would be much more likely to see all the factual sports questions, and thus those questions would be more likely to receive a robust answer. The same logic applies to polls and debates about sports.

The current fragmentation of the sports threads is actually an oddity on these boards, not the norm. [post=7231871]Here[/post] [post=7220438]are[/post] [post=7239892]some[/post] [post=7234185]examples[/post] of [post=6944096]factual[/post] [post=6955048]questions[/post] being moved from GQ to CS based purely on their subject matter. I’m sure there are plenty more.

Obviously, nobody would expect 100% compliance with this. But just like there is currently a discussion about the movie It’s All About Love here in the pit, there could justifiably be the few outlier sports threads in other forums.

Is anybody here willing to argue that anything sports related fails to meet the “mundane and pointless” criteria? And it’s actual mundane and pointless content. A win-win, says I.

13

[QUOTE=Frank]
Name 100 posters in an Ellis Dee Pit rant.

P.S. Nice thread, jjimm.
[/QUOTE]
hehheh. I did swing for the fences.

I’m curious, though. As a moderator, do you not consider any of the linked threads from the OP as post padding parties? I think there is more teeth to the sports and food issue; I had thought the Name 100 threads would be a no-brainer.

Regarding food threads, is the idea that eating isn’t pointless? Eating is the very definition of mundane, and only a tortured definition would consider cooking spaghetti in the microwave to be “art”.

While there is most definitely an art to cooking, mostly cooking revolves around one’s opinions, making it a better candidate for IMHO on reflection. Even so, were it up to me (which it clearly is not) I would think that MPSIMS is an ideal home for food threads.

Where do general fitness threads go, such as weightlifting, exercising, and dieting? They all seem strongly related, but if I’m not mistaken they are currently split between MPSIMS and CS. Or do dieting threads – which are clearly about food – currently belong in MPSIMS? If so, that seems a strange and arbitrary dichotomy to me.

14

[QUOTE=Ellis Dee]
While there is most definitely an art to cooking, mostly cooking revolves around one’s opinions
[/QUOTE]

By the same token, don’t most entertainment threads revolve around the posters’ opinions on said entertainment?

I am behind you 100% on the “Name 100 Characters” threads, though. Damned things are spreading like cockroaches.

15

[QUOTE=jjimm]
Ellis, I think you’re missing the point of my Godot thread. It’s a little closer to this OP than you might think…
[/QUOTE]
Your made the cut for being more ‘subtle’ than the earlier Now For Something Completely Different: Name 100 Characters From Give Em Hell, Harry! thread.

16

[QUOTE=Sampiro]
I’ll add “People kvetching and taking the time to hyperlink to numerous threads whose content is very self evident from the title and that they could easily make like Dion Warwick and just “Walk on By” if they’re not interested in playing rather than getting their Fig Newton flavored edible panties in a twist over” type threads :slight_smile: .
[/QUOTE]

I don’t think it’s as simple as that, though. I mean, sure, if you don’t like them, you can not read them, but they also force the other, maybe more worthy threads (although, I admit, there have been times when I’ve asked myself “Where can I find a list of 100 Lord of the Rings characters?”) off the front page.

17

Like most retarded post count padding threads, this too shall pass. Sometimes the participants get distracted by the next shiney object. Sometimes it takes moderator action like when those stupid game threads and post count parties poliferated the place. You may have forgotten what I think was the pinacle of reatarded threads that were going around at one time. Someone would post the first line of a song’s lyrics and the whole thread would be people adding lines.

You’re way off base about the sports and food thing though. Those are appropriate and definitely not overwhelming the other real content.

18

[QUOTE=Captain Amazing]
I don’t think it’s as simple as that, though. I mean, sure, if you don’t like them, you can not read them, but they also force the other, maybe more worthy threads (although, I admit, there have been times when I’ve asked myself “Where can I find a list of 100 Lord of the Rings characters?”) off the front page.
[/QUOTE]

Exactly. How many times does the idiotic “if you don’t like them, don’t read them” argument have to be made?

19

[QUOTE=hajario]
…How many times does the idiotic “if you don’t like them, don’t read them” argument have to be made?
[/QUOTE]
100?

20

More “worthy” threads? Talk about opinion. Those other threads are “worthy” only because they involve something you are interested in. This place functions like a very loose direct democracy that way. If people are interested, or there are a few loud parties involved, the thread floats to the top of the public awareness for a while. Then it drops. Just like RL. Personally, I couldn’t give a rat’s-ass about 75% of the threads in any forum, so I just pass them by and read what I do care about. Like how the Giants are going to go down hard this year, and how somebody better do something about the White Sox or they are going to repeat. You know…important stuff!