Keeping The Racketboy Forum Crap-Free

[racketboy]

Ok, I've had a number of established members mention the influx of new members (perhaps because of the Game Informer mention) and the decline in the quality of discussions here.

Now, I welcome new members completely, but we have higher standards for our threads and topics here than on most forums.

Unfortunately, the past few months, I haven't been able to be as involved here as I would have liked, I plan on getting back to normal soon and keep this place running well.

So here's the deal:
We won't be putting up with random threads that don't have much of a point.
It doens't all have to be game related, but lets try to keep things to topics that either ask a legitimate question or are discussions that most people here would enjoy.

Yes, we have the "whatever" forum, but "whatever" has been taken to too much of an extreme lately.

Don't spam the BST forums with ebay auctions or random junk.

Don't start flame wars/console wars/etc They never turn out good.

I'm sure there are other hot spots I need to address, but we'll deal with them as we encounter them.

So if anyone sees a discussion on here that is bring the place down, please email me the link (racketboy AT gmail) and I'll take care of it. Moderators, I know you guys are working hard and I appreciate it. If you have questions, just let me know.

This place is my baby and I want the best for it.

[Mozgus]

Regarding BST, I would really, REALLY like it if everyone was restricted to creating just one thread in that forum for all their business. I dont know if thats possible without modding PHPBB though. We would just have one topic stickied and closed which educates people about the process of using their thread, editing/updating it with new items, and show them how to search the BST category for what they are looking to buy.

Far too many people go in there (or stray to other categories without thinking) and post whatever auctions or other crap they find some personal interest in. Like, "zOMG, this guys selling such and such game for double what its worth! What an idiot!" Who cares? Don't make threads about ebay scams. There's a million every day other there. We dont need them here. That's just one example.

[MrPopo]

Moz, if the Moderators were willing to take on a bit of an extra burden, we could lock the BST forum to new posts. One of the stickies could be a "BST Thread signup", where people post that they want a BST thread. You guys would create the new thread, with a title like "MrPopo's BST Thread" and a one line body. Then I could put my stuff in the thread, and bump it when new stuff happens.

[racketboy]

That's a lot of work. Seems like it would just be easier to delete the bad ones.

[Ack]

That's a lot of work. Seems like it would just be easier to delete the bad ones.

Or the old ones that haven't been used in a while. We could also condense threads, but that would take a while to do the necessary overhaul.

[noiseredux]

kudos on the crap-free initiative.

[dsheinem]

I posted a topic a few months ago and we had some discussion about the B/S/T forum. There were favorable responses to a potential 1 thread rule.

You can find that discussion here:

http://www.racketboy.com/forum/viewtopi ... 22&t=10495

Since then, I totaled up the feedback and the mods stickied the post. The problem NOW is that people are leaving feedback in one sticky or the other (or both), so it is even harder to keep track of for when I or the mods want to update the totals. We should combine the two threads, post the feedback totals in the first post of the combined thread, and then delete any additional feedback threads.

Also, we might want to have two "Whatever" forums. One for games called something like "General Gaming" and one for "Non-Gaming Discussion."

[Mozgus]

Since then, I totaled up the feedback and the mods stickied the post. The problem NOW is that people are leaving feedback in one sticky or the other (or both), so it is even harder to keep track of for when I or the mods want to update the totals. We should combine the two threads, post the feedback totals in the first post of the combined thread, and then delete any additional feedback threads.

I wish we had a "Search this thread" function. Then we wouldn't need totals. If someone wants to do business with someone, they can search their name in that thread. Problem would be solved.

[the King]

You may want to adopt a FAQ or a forum rules if there are topics or discussions you don't want started. These are from a Detroit based sports message board that I'm a moderator at. Of course some of it would need to be changed, but you could use it as a template. That way the moderators have something to point to instead of just banning people off the cuff.

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[Ack]

Definitely gonna have to drop that no nudity rule...

For the most part, those look pretty good, though you're right about us having to change it up a bit. Not a bad idea though.