For the Hydlaa Plaza forum, how off topic is off topic? What constitu

[zanzibar]

The Hydlaa Plaza

Off-topic chat board. Please do all your chit-chatting here. Moderators will delete obvious spam, overly hateful flames, and cussing but otherwise you have free reign to sink as low as you want.

So, with that in mind, how off topic is off topic in the Hydlaa Plaza forum?  If we have \"free reign to sink as low as [we] want\", then when should a thread be locked?

This is not like the other forums on the board.  There seems to be some confusion though surrounding these somewhat basic questions.

[Xordan]

Obvious spam = \"Who is blah\" threads with no actual topic other than a excuse to post something.

<.<

[Houlen Aru]

Do you like to get in trouble? :|

[zanzibar]

Originally posted by Xordan
Obvious spam = \"Who is blah\" threads with no actual topic other than a excuse to post something.

<.<

Xordan, you should know better than to hijack threads.

Originally posted by Houlen Aru
Do you like to get in trouble? :| (...) I\'ve seen a few of your posts, you\'re putting on a smart act so that you can try and hide behind that when making threads like this. You should read some of the things you\'ve said, it\'s easy to point out the smart parts from the pointless ones.

Do I like to get in trouble?  Not as much as you like to spam serious threads, good sir.

Apparently, you have nothing to add to the conversation.  That\'s unfortunate, but don\'t make it worse by spamming.

[Houlen Aru]

I\'ve seen a few of your posts, you\'re putting on a smart act so that you can try and hide behind that when making threads like this. You should read some of the things you\'ve said, it\'s easy to point out the smart parts from the pointless ones.

[Kiern]

I think obvious spam is classified as something you can\'t discuss, ex:

\" \" being the sole part of your post, or maybe an \"I agree\"

Or maybe your thread where people don\'t understand what you are implying, just as inside jokes shouldn\'t be allowed on the public boards.  If you\'re going to post something like that which the majority of people would not understand, I think it should be classified as obvious spam.  I was only able to somewhat understand what you were insinuating because I\'ve read so many of your other posts.  But like everything else that is up to the moderator (aka Karyuu).  If it were me I would have bluntly asked you to make yourself clear or face deletion, she however is much nicer.

I personally see nothing wrong with hijacking threads, I think they should be able to evolve because it allows for more interesting discussion.

[Keyaz]

No one can be bothered to slap the little munchkin since I\'m not around? *sigh*

meh I\'m not here to argue anyway.

it says in the description.

overly hateful flames (example: add swearing to the above)

obvious spam (example: \"roflplanes!\")

:| now, that wasn\'t hard eh?

*skitters away*

[Karyuu]

To share my own personal opinion:

A thread\'s title or its opening post states its purpose. Once the purpose and need have been met and the thread turns into a meaningless exchange that has nothing to do with the original subject, it\'s time for a small warning. If it continues, it\'s time for a lock.

The thread very much had a meaningless exchange - for example replying to yourself using different accounts is a bad idea, and an obvious method to increase a postcount (again, not stating that this was Zanzibar\'s aim, as it was one of the last things on his mind from what I can tell). Was there seriously a single post useful aside from those involving my replies to Valbrandr and his comments, your larger reply to various previous comments, and one of Drey\'s posts?

If it\'s unnecessary and can be avoided, don\'t post. If there are many accumulating unnecessaries that no longer make sense when referring to the first post, the thread\'s a gonner.

At least that\'s the way I approach things.

*edit*

Houlen Aru, that was unnecessary and close to inviting a flame - thus had to be removed. Maybe I should make one more rule: If you know that posting something will ignite someone in a negative way, don\'t post. Go bite a pillow, go kill some sprites on your computer screen, but don\'t make someone hate you just because you can.

[zanzibar]

It\'s interesting to see Keyaz use one of his known monikers again.  And Kiern, bravo for adding to the conversation despite the other junk you threw in! :-D


Anyway, Karyuu:  Your interpretation greatly contrasts the given description of the forum and the guidelines which were made for it.  How do you justify this contradiction?

[Ghostslayer]

Well I think as a general rule anything that inevitably leads to flames is off-topic for the Plaza.  Ie. Religion, sexual preferences, \"my country is better than yours\", etc. types of topics. Basically anything where there is no correct answer but have very polarized views from each side.
That and advertisements, and pretty much whenever a person\'s first & only post is in the Plaza .  The rest I think is covered by those who already posted.

[Karyuu]

Through the moderating Vengeance himself has done over time :) If you think I\'m being harsh about it, consider yourself lucky. I\'m not going to let threads full of nothing sprout in Hydlaa Plaza, no matter \'how long you can sink.\' You can rest assured that a thread of full of \'This is what I did today, the end\' or \'Post one word beginning with the last letter of the word before yours\' won\'t last long at all. Does anyone else disagree?

[Kiern]

Originally posted by zanzibar
 And Kiern, bravo for adding to the conversation despite the other junk you threw in! :-D

Please, point out where ANYTHING out of my post is not completely on the topic of what is off-topic in the hydlaa plaza?  I wasn\'t posting for your benefit, and don\'t appreciate you calling part of what I said \"junk\".

Originally posted by Karyuu
Does anyone else disagree?

Not in the least.

[Pale]

I do disagree, a little anyway.

I\'m all for serious, on-topic, relevant posting in the all the other forums (Support, gameplay, development), but I thought the point of an off-topic forum was for frivoloties and non-PlaneShift stuff. And I figured that could include What did you do today? and silly word games. Or long rambling Ask a Question, next person answers and asks another threads. It\'s silly, and off-topic. But it\'s not flaming, spamming, and avoiding coarse language should be a rule across all boards.

And personally, I enjoy talking to people who I\'ve never met, who I know nothing about, and the only connection I have with is that we like playing the same game. It builds a community.

*hops off his soapbox*

[Houlen Aru]

Now that I look at it, I think zanzibar just posts these things (and replies in mostly every topic in the forums) to raise his post count. His current rank just isn\'t enough, he needs to go higher.

[Karyuu]

A certain amount of sillyness is great, I agree :) Taking a look through some Hydlaa Plaza threads of the past, both that were left open and those that were locked, could give you a good idea of what\'s allowed and what isn\'t. A thread of one-word posts would be spam, regardless of the original purpose. Asking \'Who is such-and-such?\' is perfectly fine, too. But again, once a thread has served its purpose, whether here or in other forum sections, and people post things that are completely unrelated that you can tell are posted simply because:

\"I want to say something but I have nothing to say,\"

--that\'s when things start to be messy and needless. There are more intelligent ways to learn about people. I really wish Vengeance was around these days so I could talk to him about that \'sink as low as you want\' bit, but in the meantime these forums are going to be moderated for the most part as they\'ve always been. If there is no content, there is no post. If there is nothing to discuss, there is no discussion - thus there is no thread.