Warning, this is going to be very, very mild. So mild, in fact that this rant is going to take the form of a question.
The thread All Diablo2 Talk here… has been sitting on the front page of Cafe Society for over six months now. 39 pages, 1938 posts. Skimming through, it’s obvious that most of these were made by the same small group of posters.
It’s often mentioned how the real estate space of the SDMB is valuable. For this reason, some restrictions have been put on “joke” threads in the pit as well as post-padding parties, post-count parties and game threads in MPSIM.
In light of this, I’m wondering if it wouldn’t be a good idea for the Diablo2 people to, kind of, take it elsewhere.
So, my questions are thus: should there be limitations on “chat” threads? Am I the only one who has been annoyed by this discussion’s refusal to die? (I’d like to note here that it’s really, in the grand scheme of things, a very minor annoyance, really.)
I’d like to apologise for the appaling lack of fire in this rant. I’d also like to apologise to the fine Diablo2 folks, I wish you no discomfort; it’s just that your thread is, well, there and won’t go. Lastly, I’d like to pre-emptively apologise to anyone who might be offended in any way by this post.
Actually, we did consider taking some aspects of it to email. However, please consider the following facts:
There have been two Diablo 2 threads (as far as I can recall) in CS for the same time that there have been … how man Survivor threads? How many Alias or Queer Eye or Simpsons or obituary threads? Yet there have been two Diablo 2 threads (and one of them is really just a subset of the other, posted to make it easier for us to find each other on battlenet) in this time, at least as far as I can recall. During that same time frame, how many threads on any number of current events/current hot topics have we seen, with many of the same players appearing in each (though certainly with variation)? Yet … 2 Diablo 2 threads. One of them is pretty far dead.
Front page space is reserved for threads that get responses. That thread has gotten responses, so it has stayed on the front page. If it were a question of it being meaninglessly bumped for six months, then … hell, I’d have requested it be closed due to meaningless content. But you’ve got people there discussing stuff, planning nights of playing, etc. I’ll certainly allow that some of the posts there could have been in email, but suppose someone new comes along and sees that the thread is two months dead (because we’ve all been emailing each other instead of posting in the thread). Same poster thinks “Do I revive this months-dead thread? Nah … and this is too trivial to start a new thread. I’ll just go somewhere else.” And thus have we lost a potential new contributor. I don’t welcome that thought.
I like the fact that I can go in there and ask for advice and get it from a half-dozen people. I like reading about various schemes for the fastest Baal-run party. I like when a guy who plays on LAN with his girlfriend comes asking for help beating the Claw Viper Temple, and he gets responses within the day, maybe less. I like that the advice he got meant that he got through that quest without having to make a completely new character (though he did get the sense, which he had before, that they needed to supplement their existing damage). I like that anyone who thought “there’s no way you can get through the game without drinking a potion … just one, come on!” now knows you can get through the game in Norm with at least two character classes (assassin and sorceress) without drinking a blessed thing. I like that I can see that some items in the game I never got to use are in possession of those who have either been playing on West all along or have since migrated there from East. I like that Joe and Jane Random User can see this thread, can feel welcome to post in it, to ask question or give advice, anything like that.
It ain’t just there for the dozen or so folks who are the main ones posting to it. It’s there for anyone who wants to read it or reply to it. Taking it to email would rid everyone else in that forum, whether or not they post to it, of the information we’d be giving out in email.
Ok, you said “a small group of posters”… you do realize that there have been a total of 95 different individual posters in the thread, many threads don’t ever get that many responses much less responses from that many people. Also, is our Diablo 2 conversation any less important than the Survivor threads that punha mentioned? Or is it any less important than the Enterprise or the “24” threads that are usually found on the front page? Those of us who regularly post in that thread decided to stop making a new thread for every little question we had and keep everything in the same thread. What takes up more room and resources, one thread with 2,000 responses or 200 threads with 10 responses?
the diablo2 thread do not appear to be a ‘stagnant’ thread which i think the DaveBear’s is, because i assume any new players can simply jump into the discussion with the game itself as the common interest.
i don’t understand people’s discomfort with huge threads. is it better if the diablo 2 players start a new thread every new ladder season?
Actually, the Diablo2 thread is catching right up. Currently, longest thread in each forum as sorted by number of replies (stickies aren’t included) are:
About This Message Board The SDMB is switching to paid subscriptions664 replies (open)
Comments on Cecil’s Columns Damn fool war286 (locked) homeopathy219 (open)
Comments on Staff Reports Ouija board, please explain this?135 (open)
General Questions Are scalar weapons for real?1107 (locked) .99999999 equal to 1 ???206 (open)
Great Debates Contact with the Great Beyond–Psychics like Praagh1779 (open)
Cafe Society If LotR Had Been Written By Someone Else!?2041 (locked) All Diablo2 Talk here…1942 (open)
In My Humble Opinion Spit or Swallow? A followup poll TMI?1032 (open)
MPSIMS a5337 (locked) The hijack game. win absolutely nothing but your insanity…1378 (open)
The BBQ Pit Polycarp did you forget to take you pills?828 (locked) The giant Scylla Thanksgiving crow eating thread.627 (open)
At the bottom of each forum page are three drop-down boxes that allow you to choose how the threads are sorted in the display. I sorted by Number of Replies, from the Beginning, in Descending order.
Yeah, but the longest thread ever is still the “A” thread, which lasted well over 100 pages, and was directly responsible for the crackdown on pointless threads.
Be thankful that Battlenet has a chat mode…otherwise the post count would have been doubled or even tripled.
This is the only thread that I feel really connected to any of the fellow SDMB’ers and therefore, I created new friendships outside of high school, college and neighborhood.
Sometimes we talk about current happenings, but nothing too deep like the stuff you see in Great Debates. Theories and lists show up here on the Diablo 2 thread so it’s easier to reference and respond to if it takes to many lines on the Battlenet chat mode.
Since the “new version” came out back in October, this thread got a shot in the arm since the update made Diablo 2 practically a new game, with new things to discover. It’s one big fricken treasure hunt, and a fun one at that.
Don’t knock the thread until you participated in the game, you will then understand.
There’s more to the patch (the update Yeticus referenced) than that, really, and it’s important to probably 1/3 of that entire thread, if not more.
With the patch came the new ladder, and with the new ladder came baby characters struggling along in act 1 of normal, whereas pre-patch folks had been destroying Cows and Act3 and Act5 of Hell with regular consistency. The amount of newness to the game, especially for those of us who hadn’t been in the Barracks of Act1 in a year or two, was amazing. The AI was remarkably better, though it just made us better gameplayers (I’ve died once, lag not included, to the minions on the right side of the Chaos Sanctuary, and that was a HC potless char). And with the patch and the new things it brought, there are more items to be sought, different ways to make them, new people playing, new character concepts and other things that just didn’t exist (or weren’t emphasized) beforehand.
jovan, I hope you understand my posts in here. I’m not mad at you, I don’t think you’re stupid or anything, I’m just not sure you understand the reasons that thread is a good thing, and why taking it to email would be unwise:)
Earthling, your threads for GQ and MPSIMS are both wrong.
General Questions’ biggest threads are: Are scalar weapons for real?1107 (locked) Uniquely Distinct Americanisms509 (locked) Why doesn’t .9999~ = 1?381 (locked) What happens on May 33rd but only on leap year?313 (locked) How to kill evil Nazi Groundhogs277 (locked) .99999999 equal to 1 ???206 (open)
and
MPSIMS’s most popular threads were: a5337 (locked) Oh, My Freaking God! (Looong!) 3964 (closed) Song Title Game!3914 (closed) Predict The Next Poster!!3379 (closed) Word Association Thread!!2989 (closed) Word morphing game!1677 (closed) Quote… …unquote game!1513 (closed) The hijack game. win absolutely nothing but your insanity…1378 (open)
