Regarding the Lounge and General Discussion

[Vipershark]

Hello, everyone!

I’ve sure you’ve all noticed that there have been some, uh… changes around here.

First off, I’d like to apologize on behalf of the staff for the stuff that went down earlier. I unfortunately was at work as it was going on so there was nothing I could do while it was happening but it’s been a few hours since then and there’s been a lot of talking between a lot of people to figure out a solution to this mess. Also, for those of you who noticed that Sengir is no longer with us, he resigned his moderator position and was banned at his own request. That was his choice, so please respect his decision.

In case you missed it, there was quite a bit of confusion and anger as a result of The Lounge being removed with the resetting of the forum, and that sort of turned into a staff-vs-members argument about what should and shouldn’t be allowed. I hope this post will be able to clarify that for you, as well as explain how things will be going from here forward.

I can’t speak for Dazz or Petie of course, but I’d like to apologize for the lack of communication (and the excess of miscommunication) that went on over the last 48 or so hours and I hope that things can be more transparent between us (the staff) and you (the members) from now on. At the very least I can assure you that there was never intended to be any sort of “Serious Business Zone” or anything like that and nobody was trying to take away the fun from the forum.

Anyway, while we decided not to bring the Lounge back in its previous form, we agreed on a compromise that I hope will satisfy you all.

In short, the Lounge is now gone and General Discussion has new, more relaxed posting rules.

”What’s the point of that? Why not just have the Lounge and be done with it?”
Well, the Lounge kind of ended up being a free-for-all area when it came to posting and that’s the sort of thing that we don’t want. That’s not to say that we’re disallowing fun threads or joke posts or anything; it’s the complete opposite, actually. We still want fun threads where the community can enjoy themselves, but the main issue with the Lounge was that there were a lot of posts and threads that were… quite frankly, garbage. Instead, the aim of the new General Discussion is to still allow off-topic posting and relaxed threads but at the same time ensure that the posts and threads inside are of actual quality and limit those garbage threads wherever possible.

”So you’re telling me that you’re going to be going through each thread and telling people that they’re bad posters and deleting their threads if you don’t like them?”
No, of course not! …Well, not directly, at least. Instead of going through and going “good thread, bad thread,” the main qualifier that we’ll be looking for is whether or not a thread has any sort of actual potential for discussion.

Rule 1.1 states:

1.1: Make sure your post has actual content in it.
Single-word posts, short sentence posts, blankposting, and/or quoting a previous post with no additional content added by yourself are generally frowned upon. Don't just post to say "XD" or "lol". Doing this counts as spamming, which will result in a 30% warn and posting rights being revoked for 12 hours. Therefore, put something of at least of SOME additional value to the current topic into your post that people might actually read, and not just scroll past.

And that’s pretty much what we’ll be looking for. Does your thread have something that will actually encourage other people to post in it and is there some form of discussion that could potentially come from it? If so, it’s most likely acceptable.

For example, if a user posts a thread called “Look at this frog” and the post inside is nothing but a lone picture of a frog or just a few words, it’s a pointless thread and will be deleted. On the other hand, if that same thread is posted and the OP actually posts about why the frog is relevant or why they even posted it to begin with (and it’s not an obvious bait/trash thread) then that sort of thing will likely be completely fine, even if it’s a joke thread. Of course, this is all context-dependent and different threads will have different results.

Essentially, while we want you all to have fun, we also want to ensure quality posting and keep it so that General Discussion won’t be filled with dumb, pointless threads. This change isn’t about disallowing people from posting funny things or simple threads or joking; it’s about encouraging the quality of said threads to be better and creating more engaging threads in general.
After discussing it, we came to the conclusion that the Post Funny Images thread is borderline but it DOES fall within the bounds of encouraging discussion and as a result it will be allowed in General Discussion until further notice.

”That just sounds like the Lounge, though. What changes does this being General Discussion mean?”
Aside from the above, General Discussion will still be the same as ever. Birthday, Music, Sports, Movies, TV, Anime, etc threads will all still go in GD as normal as well as any other topics that would have gone there. GD will just now have the Lounge threads in it as well. In addition, since this is no longer the Lounge, it has been unanimously decided that from now on there will be no more forum games. The “Ban The Above User” and “Count To 2048” threads in particular are good examples of threads that have little to no discussion potential (every post was just “banned because x” or “<previous post number image +1>”) and do nothing but add a lot of useless posts to the forums.

”Why combine the sections though?”
The old incarnation of the Lounge had maybe five or so threads that were actually active at any point in time, and having an entire subforum for a bunch of pointless threads (plus the five threads that were actually used) was kind of unnecessary. It makes more sense to just combine them together and then introduce a more relaxed version of the rules that allows for joke threads and stuff but still discourages low-content posts.

To sum it all up:

• The Lounge is no more and what was there has been deleted. Off-Topic posts will now go in General Discussion. We want fun, quality threads and we do not want spam. This is not the Lounge, so don't post like it.
  
• The Post Funny Images thread is now allowed until further notice.
  
• No more forum games, period. If you’re unsure, ask a staff member.
  
• The general forum rules apply, of course. Don't be jerks.
  

I’m sorry for the gigantic post but I hope this will explain it all well enough that there is no confusion. If you have any questions, feel free to ask. Have fun!

Note- This post is subject to change as necessary.