When to post outside of ToA
polycounter lvl 18
I'm curious to hear your interpretation of Polycount's "Thread of Awesomeness" (ToA), as well as see you post a picture of the last thing you've eaten.
Personally, I've seen it as a collection of cool videos and pictures that members think are awesome. I see it's purpose was to clean up the place acting as a mighty sponge for internet juice. I appreciate the good intentions.
I see a problem though and am confused by it.
The problem is that some interesting articles or videos that are being presented in it that have potential for good discussion but are being lumped into the cancerous ToA which isn't structured to enable discussion on one thing but to just collect stupid links. I've noticed some threads created outside of it are even being told by moderators that it belongs in the ToA - which seems almost as an insult, no offense to the ToA. I was hoping for a clearer understanding of what should get put into the ToA and what shouldn't?
(chicken casserole)
Personally, I've seen it as a collection of cool videos and pictures that members think are awesome. I see it's purpose was to clean up the place acting as a mighty sponge for internet juice. I appreciate the good intentions.
I see a problem though and am confused by it.
The problem is that some interesting articles or videos that are being presented in it that have potential for good discussion but are being lumped into the cancerous ToA which isn't structured to enable discussion on one thing but to just collect stupid links. I've noticed some threads created outside of it are even being told by moderators that it belongs in the ToA - which seems almost as an insult, no offense to the ToA. I was hoping for a clearer understanding of what should get put into the ToA and what shouldn't?
(chicken casserole)
Replies
Lame videos that someone new to the internets has found on Youtube today, but others have seen for years.
Replies, that resemble those found in youtube comments.
Poorly compressed motion picture formats.
NOT in the Thread of Awesomeness =
Politics, Religion, Birthdays, Deaths, Job Congratulations, and things adamBrome likes.
edit: oh yes, and today I ate...
(grilled chee)
killing_people, any examples of threads your post is about?
I'd like to think that Polycount is an art forum before its anything else, so while this is General Discussion, there are a ton of other forums out there for truly general topics of discussion. (Read: Posts with random direction that won't generate an ounce of thought beyond an LOL cat are likely going to be closed.) It's often not about 'what I like' (nice jab, Ely) but more-so the mod team keeping an eye on the quality of the posts made, with the context being my first sentence in this reply.
As for the 'Thread of Awesomeness', if its up on Break.com or a site like that then the ToA is a good place for your post to go. Because of this, when someone makes an "LOL CHECK OUT THIS VIDEO" thread, it gets nuked and the member is reminded of the ToA (as of late this has been from a lot of our newer members).
A thread like this is a good example of a ToA candidate. The topic is titled and and the post is centered around a (rather shit) video of when Bush had a shoe thrown at him. (thus, ToA). However, If you'd like to discuss the incident of when the journalist threw his size 10 @ Bush, go ahead. Just keep it on topic. The context of that thread, however, was more about the ROFL++ video.
TL;DR: We need more topics of discussion around here. Just keep in mind we're a videogame art forum the next time you'd like to share a hilarious video with us.
EDIT: Oh, and:
it's a good topic. this is whats is going to happen when we attempt to rigidly control everything; it's impossible. you're going to find places where any control system breaks, because the world isn't that cut and dry, no matter how much the most linear mentality wants it so.
in my opinion, the only real problem is how when someone makes a mistake, everyone jumps down their through in a cruel, abusive way.... "wrong forum you FUCKING IDIOT!!"
edit: in case you haven't seen it.. this is vaguely relevant:
[ame]
I think I was feeling a little annoyed by what I felt was needless complications and restrictions. The Polycount community has always felt the opposite of those to me.
I felt I was reading "This should be posted in the Thread of Awesomeness" a lot in the recent months. It begs the question: Why are people still having to be constantly asked to post what they had in the ToA? Maybe it needs to be stickied. I feel like there are much more, but here are threads I could find as an example of thread-starters being notified they should have posted in the ToA:
http://boards.polycount.net/showthread.php?t=58351
http://boards.polycount.net/showthread.php?t=57865
http://boards.polycount.net/showthread.php?t=57808
http://boards.polycount.net/showthread.php?t=58198
It doesn't seem to me the ToA concept was communicated very well. It's defiantly caused some confusion with me, otherwise I wouldn't have made this thread.
Take this thread, posted yesterday Dec 16th, for example:
http://boards.polycount.net/showthread.php?t=58357
I posted the same story, different article, on Dec 12th in the ToA thread. I wasn't sure where to post it and didn't want to put it in the wrong place. The important part is that two members, essentially, posted the same link both in the ToA thread and GD forum. That should be a decent example of how needlessly complicated and confusing it is.
http://boards.polycount.net/showpost.php?p=877633&postcount=1379
The ToA has become a General Discussion thread within a General Discussion thread. I couldn't clearly define for myself what should be posted in the ToA thread or not, so I figured I'd ask. I think what Sectaurs had said was pretty dead on.
We're in the middle of writing our rules page when that goes up, our forums, the ToA and other more specific threads will be addressed. (There won't be any new rules or such nonsense. Currently the FAQ & rules are vBulletin default and they need to be updated to reflect this community).
Happy posting