Birthday Greetings and the Like

[zorbels]

Wow, I can't believe that people actually have an issue with others in the community banning together to wish another player happy birthday or otherwise! What a cold community it would be to pop onto the forums and see no love! People like to see their names in threads, and friends wishing them the best. What the hell is so wrong with that?

To all of those who psoted in my birthday thread last year I thank you, it made me feel special and made this place feel like home even more than it did before. If someone tried to take that from me I would be pretty upset. :/

Gag does have good idea. Recycling threads. Now there's a solution and everyone could be happy.

[Marqsaynt]

I honestly have no problem with individual birthday threads but, I still wouldn't mind seeing an "Officially Unofficial" birthday thread where someone can post a quick "Happy Birthday!" Virtually all the people that get their own happy birthday threads are pretty well known and established players in the PS community and I would hate to see someone make a nice birthday wishes post for someone not as well known and get zero replies... I mean,even worse than not getting your own happy birthday thread would be getting one... and having no one even care.

As unfair as it may sound, I can imagine some people getting annoyed if people who don't have 1000+ forum posts and/or a few years playing PS started to make or get Happy Birthday posts that started to fill up the Hydlaa Plaza board... Basically if it's Karyuu, Zorbels, Talad etc. getting the nice birthday threads, no one is going to really complain but, if every other day a person with a grand total of 3 forum posts and two months in-game wants to wish their new guild-mate a happy birthday, I can imagine some people crying bloody murder and "spam." I think a thread where anyone can post a nice birthday wish would be a welcome addition (though not at the exclusion of individual threads) particularly so as not to exclude anyone needlessly. ...Either that or go with Waylander's idea of a Happy Birthday forum.

[Earl_Listbard]

Pride is before a crash... Really I don't get it, Bilbous, I don't see why someone would post to inflate their pride. That just sounds, silly. I mean think about it, what does pride do? Well in my experience pride is a bad thing. I mean, I don't look upon people with huge post counts as being superior, or better then everyone else. They're no different then anyone else really. once you get ten posts you're just like everyone else. These +1 complaints neko runs around blurting about is just silly. If anything I say: Go for it.

Anything to encourage people to be active on the forums.

Spam is trying to irritate people, double posting, using huge font, and shout-typing vulgar words can be considered spam. But wishing someone happy birthday. Well get over it, if anything it helps bind us together as a community. Yeah its fine if you want to lock the threads and all.

But like lets say, proglin leaving IE:, that was a huge event I must say, it deserved its own thread. Because that way people in the future can run a search and find it. Threads are like artifacts, down the road one can dig them up, and see what was going on then.


But in all seriousness whats the deal: Oh noes! His post count increased by 1! How?.... Well he was wishing a friend of his happy birthday.... Oh..... NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!


Really now, I think we can agree thats a little over the top now isn't it? Just relax, Ending those kinds of threads wont stop people from gaining SPE. The Mini Lords will not be defeated from a slight loss of resources.


For real...

[bilbous]

It is not pride exactly so much as it is validation. "Here, I have left my mark," "Kilroy was here"
or whatever. I get a bit of a kick when I get home from work and post replies to several items when no-one else is around and then see that all 5 recent posts are from me. I do not go out of my way to make it happen. I like it when I get home and there are several replies to threads I have posted in, particularly when they reference my ideas. As I said it is not so much that I am proud of these things as I feel a certain satisfaction that I have communicated something with someone.

I feel the threads referred to in the topic title really serve little purpose that a personal message does not than to publicly identify your clique. Some people may belong to more than one clique and that becomes apparent too. The policy is in place and ought to be well known by now, any further complaint threads complaining about locks only serve to irritate the moderators and others and to say to your clique "hey I'm in too but I am too late, do not forget about me".

Sadly, I still see no real support for making the policy more lenient, just a few people saying we like these threads.

[Suno_Regin]

Hey, some people finally share one of my views.

You must be pretty lonely to be complaining about people getting wished a happy birthday...that's all I'm gonna say. =/

[bilbous]

Well you see I'm not complaining about people getting wished happy birthday. This seems to be a common misconception. I must not be speaking clearly. I am complaining about people complaining about such threads being terminated according to forum policy and not caring enough to take the appropriate actions to try to get the policy changed. That is, if I am complaining at all. I thought I started this thread to give those people the opportunity to agitate for a more relaxed policy and all I am hearing is "You're a mean one, Mr Grinch!" directed at me. So be it.

All I can say is the next time I see a thread "Why'd you lock X's Greeting Thread" I am going to post about 500 lines of AH HAA Haa haahaagaagfaagaagaa. hehheehehheheeeheeheehe. Hoohoohoohhhohhohohooh! (well not really, but I'll be thinking it)
Silly wabbits.

[Parallo]

Usually I look through a thread to see if what I have said has been said before and choose weather or not to post based on that. I don't really care if people have birthday threads or not. I'll just continue to not participate.

[zorbels]

Well you see I'm not complaining about people getting wished happy birthday. This seems to be a common misconception. I must not be speaking clearly. I am complaining about people complaining about such threads being terminated according to forum policy and not caring enough to take the appropriate actions to try to get the policy changed.

  Well ... no you weren't that clear in the first post. That was the post I was responding to.

Now that you have made your point clear, I completely agree.  Complaining about closed threads out in the public eye and not taking the appropriate action is getting rather tiresome. My solution, no one should even post in those threads other than to post a link to forum rules or send a PM explaining to them why their thread was closed (Which I think the mods are supposed to do). If others don't post in the thread, people will start to see making a thread like that is pointless. It is only going to have you look like a fool if you make a thread complaining about a locked thread.

[Suno_Regin]

There is perfectly good messaging functionality with the forum. I do not see why people feel it is necessary to create a thread  to offer best wishes, tearful goodbyes or overjoyed welcome backs. It seems a little narcissistic in that "everyone must see that I expressed these sentiments and know I am special." I am sure it is not really that way but that is how it looks and then other people feel they too must get on the bandwagon to show they, too, are in the clique.

That paragraph right there is what throws everyone off.

[zorbels]

  /me nods "That's the paragraph that my first post was responding too. That's why I was completely surprized when Bilbous said we weren't getting his message clearly."

[bilbous]

Anyway if you have a problem with the policy to close such threads relatively quickly this would be the place to discuss it without reference to any particular thread but in general only.

I do not have a problem with the policy and it would not bother me overmuch if the policy was to lock or delete them immediately. I am not advocating that the policy change, either, though.

The next two paragraphs seem pretty clear to me, but perhaps my prefatory comments were so incendiary as to obscure the meat of the post. Pardon my penchant for verbosity!   I suppose I could have linked the posts that prompted this thread so as to leave clues for the budding  Hehheheh.

Further bread crumbs appeared thus:

I thought this thread might allow those of you in favor of such threads to show how much support there is for them and possibly get the rules relaxed somewhat. If people do not wish to do so then I hope I can expect to not hear any more complaints when the policy is followed as is. The moderator(s) does not need the grief. Smiley

from my first follow-up post. It was the sixth post of the thread.

If we are all in agreement now that this thread is to lobby for more relaxed rules, I'll leave it at that as I do not really support that position though I am not unduly against it either.

[Xordan]

I quite like separate birthday threads.

[Raa]

Why doesn't someone make one of those... things... a sticky. Yeah, why doesn't someone make a birthday sticky, and people can post in it to congratulate someone on their birthday. It would stop the clutterinezz.

Edit:

Oh, nevermind. 

[Ralleyon]

I like (separate) birthday wishes too, no matter how many or few post inside. It does give one a sense of "not being forgotten". Sending a PM is too personal however and I might miss that person's birthday altogether because I tend to forget some things very easily. I'm terrible with birthdays even with my best friends...

Anyway, what I'd like to say is that I received one from an old friend when I was just about "lurking" deep in the shadows of the forum and it made me quite happy. So I crawled from my usual forum guest status and gave people a big hug. I think it's nice and good the way it is right now.

[Izzabella]

What if we just started a whole new thread...Birthdays..then we could just have topics in there that consisted of "happy birthday *****" and then we could all wish so and so a happy birthday and I don't see why if we had such a thread the need to lock them after 24 or 48 hours whatever the rules was...anyways just an idea.