I can't really follow it, but I think the game is that they pretend to be characters from the show and write to other characters. But some of them pose as BBS members and as themselves. Confusing.

Anyway, I shut down Part 1 at 100 posts in hopes they got it out of their system. They didn't. It's not really a discussion thread, but it's not really fan fic either. I don't know. It looks like they're having fun and they're not bothering anyone (yet). I don't really see the need to shut it down, but I wanted to hear what y'all thought.

Thanks.

To be more precise, I don't mean "worship threads"...I mean any threads started by blue, emerald, slaveofarcher, etc where they basically violate the spamming policy and use the BBS as though it's a chatroom...and sit there and reply to each other within seconds of each post. If it's a thread they originate, great, move it to MISC, they will get the point.

If they take over someone else's thread with the same behavior, nail them for spamming.

I figured as long as they had their few threads a day and had fun, what did it hurt? Hell, I'm all for fun, and 4 or 5 concurrent threads in ENT is no big deal to me.

But they squabble and fight and then drag it into QSF where they even role-play fight and then get pissed when folks get annoyed.

Even I'm losing my patience.

So co-mods, do what you want. I won't fight it anymore. I think they've taken advantage of our good will. You want to redirect the stuff or whatever, fine by me.

Too bad, as I said, I didn't mind the roleplaying and fun. But when they couldn't stay in their threads and have fun, but had to come and and make all sorts of problems with other ENT posters and then invade QSF - well - enough is enough.

Hah!

quote:

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Originally posted by Zun:
Is that the same [b]T'Bonz I combatted last year about the bar threads?

Hah!

Oy, by the way, the threads would have zero, as in ZERO business in Misc. [/B]

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Yep, one and the same! Payback's a bitch, eh?

Heck Zun, I didn't mind them having the threads in ENT (as you'll note if you actually READ my above stuff! ). In fact, my co-modes will tell you, I supported them having it, as at the time is was only a few and they seemed to stay in them and have fun. I'm all for fun.

During the bar thread heydey, we had max 3 threads a day, and we stayed in them and weren't nasty to folks outside of them and we welcomed new folks. (we only got nasty when folks tried to get rid of us, lol.)

But these guys, they're nasty to newcomers in them, they have way more than 3 a day, they take it outside of the threads and fight with everyone else in ENT, and then they go and raise hell about it in QSF. Heck one of the main characters even started her own thread in TNZ to have folks "bash" her. Freaking weird. She tried to have me give her warnings when she first joined, by doing stuff that she thought what get warnings, and flat out said she wanted a warning. (Being the contrary creature that I am, I wouldn't give her one )

Then they started really graphic stuff and the whole thing just got nuts. If I'm against it, you know it's bad, as I'm rather liberal.

But I'm glad it gave you a laugh..I can appreciate the irony myself!

**wonder if I can talk my friends into starting a big crazy bar thread in misc. **

P.S. Say co-mods, what say we ship the whole lot over to Zun? (and you thought the bar threads were bad? These make those seem tame! ) Misc. is rather quiet since the post count thing was dropped there, and he has nothing much to do.

**runs off to start sending threads over to misc**

quote:

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Originally posted by Spornan:
Truthfully, they were one of the big reason I myself didn't spend too much time in the forum. From an outsiders point of view, the Enterprise forum looks like nothing more than a silly chat room.

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And that's what I'm most worried about. I don't mind them having their fun, but if what they're doing is discouraging people from coming into ENT, then we need to do something about it.

If the MISC Mods don't want the threads (and is that their consensus?) then we should just start shutting them down. And this means all spam-like stuff from 'Love Letters,' to 'Worship threads' to the 'What does Hoshi do in the Shower' type stuff needs to go. We can't come down on some of it without coming down on all of it.

I'm just hesitant about it. I think people should have room to have their fun. Even if I don't find it fun, they are coming to the site and there should be some space for them somewhere. But it is getting too disruptive in ENT.

Are we in agreement to shut them down? (Affirmatives from T'Bonz, Sho-Rin and Spornan requested)

EDIT: if we do get rid of them somebody who has access to do it needs to post an announcement in the forum. Neither T'Bonz or I can as far as I know.

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"My point is not that everything is bad, but that everything is dangerous . . . so my position leads not to apathy but to a hyper- and pessimistic activism." - Foucaul

This does, of course, depends on what the admins have to say about it. They might well shoot it down, WS.

Damn..I wish there was a way to let them have fun without having to be this drastic though. *sigh*.

P.S. We can edit the forum announcement thingy (I can't make a new one, but can edit the one which is up, which is out of date anyhow). I did that when we lost all the threads out of ENT a while back.

We can handle that in QSF because that's what the forum is there for. I would much rather them raise a stink for a couple of days and cause another "major bbs crisis" that will blow over in 48 hours than continue to slowly or rapidly hemorrhage members who want to come and use the forum for what it's designed to be. It bothers me that we don't know how serious an impact the worship thread crowd is having.

quote:

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Originally posted by Tamek:
I also recommend that you decide before any announcement is made whether you will warn them if they invade other threads with their spam conduct, and that we're clear about that upfront.

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Depends on how bad they are. If they completely hijack a thread, warnings may be necessary, but otherwise telling them to cut it out should work. They can get pretty vocal, but they're not trolls like Slarus or Dennis.

As an engineer, I needed to quantify the problem. In the first 50 threads just now there are 4 "Worship" threads, 1 "Love Letters #2", 1 "T'Pol's Catsuit" (on topic), "1 Catsuit vs Hoshi's miniskirt" (not much on topic) and one "Figurine Archer tossed in TAI" thread. That amounts to 16% that do or may fall into this questionable category.

As much as I dislike the apparent post-count spamming aspect of the Worship threads, I fear the image of jack-booted Moderators (or Admins) closing all of them will throw a chill over a lot of people. Personally, I won't object to their disappearance, bu what will pop up in their place, more "Phlox Jerks Porthos" stuff? Or possibly an even bigger loss of posters than those who have claimed to have left to avoid excess Worship threads. Consider this move carefully!

Isn't it possible, instead, to send personal E-Mails to the half-dozen regulars and ask them to stop before Mod/Admin action is required. Give it 9 days 'til the first new ep airs and see what happens.

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"Into the sands of blood comes the Sho-Rin, master of the Mutai." B5 - TKO

The self same Sho-Rin will attempt to be a Moderator of Moderation!

quote:

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Originally posted by Mutai Sho-Rin:
Isn't it possible, instead, to send personal E-Mails to the half-dozen regulars and ask them to stop before Mod/Admin action is required. Give it 9 days 'til the first new ep airs and see what happens.

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I don't think email is a good idea. If we're going to do something I think it should be official. If we do it over email they're likely to get pissy and then increase their spam onslaught.

quote:

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If the MISC Mods don't want the threads (and is that their consensus?)

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Isn't there some halfway measure perhaps, to let them have fun, yet at the same time reining them in?

Generally I take a firm stand on things, but I'm rather torn on this, and in all honesty, am not sure what is the best thing to do.

What I did was wait until the last one got too 100 posts, closed it, and closed it's new counterpart with a message to everyone to take a break for a while.

Contact Sarek, have him start the charcoal now. The mighty Sho-Rin is eager for the taste of bar-b-q newbie; I'm tired of chewing on my own well-cooked butt!

I think Spornan's approach probably is the best compromise as opposed to slamming the lid on all tho ones that are currently open. We should each take one now, as they fill up, with the same admonition in our closing post. Enough is enough.

I do hope that means if we're shutting those down, we're shutting down the graphic Jolene boobie talk, or Hoshi stuff, etc. as it occurs ?

But I'm not thrilled about this whole damned deal. We hadn't finished talking this all out, and I was kind of hoping for some sort of compromise instead of tossing them all out altogether. Why couldn't we have put a limit on how many?

I mean I know it's done, but I had mixed emotions on this and hadn't worked it out yet. We were still talking. We were not all in unity yet, Sho-Rin had come out urging caution and then I was at that point hoping for some compromise, once I had read his. We HAD all agreed on the need FOR action, but the action to take wasn't agreed on yet.

But they were closed and done. And now I have to pretend I agree with it out there and dammit, I don't and I can't. They may have been frivilous and they may have crossed the line, but they were no more stupid than some of the other stuff in there. And now I'm not sure what the heck to close. *sigh*.

I would much rather we reach some sort of compromise. I don't think the Misc mods other than Barcode really want them. Why can't we figure out some compromise, allow 2 or 3 of them. If you guys don't want to moderate them, I'll be happy to do so.

And can we agree on the action next time before doing something? Or at least KNOW before the action is taken?

It seems to me that there's something of a vocal minority who are really into these threads, and that most other people didn't like them or didn't care about them. From what I've seen, the other forums seem to have a more discussion quality to them, while the Enterprise forum was going down the route of a mini-chatroom.

I agree that they aren't very harmful, but I disagree that they belong in the Enterprise forum. I think you know as well as anyone else that discussing Reed, Trip, T'pol, or anyone else is really just a pretense to let them hang out and talk with each other. There are areas of the board in which to do things like that, and Enterprise is not the forum in which to do it.

I realize (in hindsight) that I probably jumped the gun, and realize that as the new guy, that's probably a bigger offense than it would be otherwise. Still, I think that in general it's the right thing to do in order to help things in the long run. Already it looks like what Reed threads there are seem to be promoting actual discussion about the character, and not just chat-room antics.

And honestly, the Number XX is a big part of that. With that gone, people can come into the forum without thinking they are jumping into a discussion so intense that it's reached 30+ new threads.

Also, I for one, was careful to never say that they were gone for good. Just that a break should be taken for a while. I think that we have the leeway to allow them back in moderate (no pun intended) doses in the future, as soon as a month or so from now.

I guess it comes down to what you feel the affect these threads had on the forum. I know that personally, they kept me from really wanting to come into the forum. And whenever those worship threads spread (and died rather quickly) to other forums, most people didn't welcome them.

It's a reason like that that I don't go into Misc very often either. I have no problem with that forum, it's just not my cup of tea. I think the same probably goes for a lot of people too, which is why they were upset or didn't go into the Enterprise forum when that type of thread spread to there.

I take it that you do like those kinds of threads, and that's fine. I just don't believe they are appropriate for the Enterprise forum.

I think as mods we were split on it anyhow. WS would have liked to dump them, if I'm correct (and if not, he'll beat my ass correcting me ). I am pretty much for them, but realize that we needed to stop some of the fighting and crap.

The problem as I see it, is that this was done too quickly. We hadn't finished talking, or it seemed to me that we hadn't. Mutai had come in and said "Hey, wait a minute, let's think this over" (more or less), I came in with "can't we find some compromise" but then wham, the deed was done.

And I just can't go out there and say I agree with what happened, because I really don't. We hadn't quite worked it out yet. As far as I can tell, the threads do fall within policy. I was hoping that we could talk to certain ones about behaviors and find some compromise.

As for folks avoiding the forum because of them, well that's damned stupid. How hard is it to hop over stuff that you don't want to click? I'm in all of the fora except for four I think, and it's easy to tell which things to click and not. If I don't like something, I just skip past it. That's not very difficult, and I've never understood why folks get so offended because stuff like that is there. Skip the damn things. So it takes an extra minute or two to scan the titles. Big deal. *sigh*

First impressions do have a lot to do with it. When you see that a thread with very little content and/or discussion has reached it's 20th incarnation, along with a dozen other similar threads, it makes you think the forum itself doesn't offer much in the way of intelligent discussion.

People wouldn't avoid it because they are offended by these threads, they'd avoid it because they wouldn't know there are any other kinds of threads.

PS: I don't know how much of it is a "We need to have a united front" kind of thing, but I hope that you don't feel the need to lie or hold back your feelings in order to back me up. Either way, I'm sorry that my actions caused you to have to do that, and you have my apologies.

And it's not difficult to skim. Not at all. If someone doesn't want to, why pander to them?

I know the threads aren't to everyone's taste. In all honesty, I don't go in them unless one looks funny, or it's my turn to mod it. But some people really enjoyed them. And that's their perogative. Aren't we here for the posters?

Hell, if I could get rid of stuff I didn't like....

Just cause they enjoyed them doesn't mean it belonged in that forum.

I guess all I'm really suggesting is a stricter moderation of these types of threads, in the long run. If they are discussing the character in question, then by all means let it stay open. But if they start posting one-sentence posts every thirty seconds about something less-than-enterprise-related, I say they get closed.

Then, if they don't cooperate, it's on them that it's closed.

What do you guys think, WS and Sho-Rin?

http://trekbbs.com/ubb/Forum28/HTML/001559.html

which puts a much more intelligent spin on discussion of her favorite character. As soon as she started it, I posted in it stating my happiness that she had decided to continue with us and addressing her speculation on Reed's upcoming character development.

The only remaining abuse is a benign one, that of Kirk the Jerk's picture threads. His pleading for picture requests and frequent dialog with Top 41 amount to the same kind of near-spam that clouded the worship threads. We need to slow that one down wothout killing the spirit and fun of it.