Offtopic forum showing signs of stupidity!

[brgnorway 0]

I'm sick and tired of this forum nowadays. Yes, first of all I'd like to say that this forum has been my great internett revelation and joy the last years. I've made good friends here and have had interesting and informative debates going on. I've learned a lot and I'm happy to say that I sincerely like people I otherwise strongly disagree with politically - and I'm not talking about those IKEA people like Denoir!

Fact is that I'm tired and bored of having to read through people's lack of creativity and intellectual capacity. What the fuck is wrong with us if we cannot read and write something interesting. I'm primarily interested in what YOU have to say - and if it's backed up by quotes and links that's fine. However, having to read over 3000 quoted words in a single post in the Iraq/middle east/European politics thread etc is a bit tiring and to be honest a fucking insult to my intellectual capacity - whatever it's worth. I do read the fucking newspapers, I do follow news in genereal, I am used to reading a lot and I don't need to be nannied through the last 2 weeks of news.

It's causing me to loose my interests in this forum because I'm first of all interested in your views on things, not your lack of creativity and above all your "copy and paste hobby" . If you are so bloody good at it why the hell don't you start a newswatch agency and bore the hell out of companies with a fetish of seing its own name in the media!

I've complained to the moderators about this before and the comment I was given was something along "that as long as the pasted quotes are interesting to read it's fine" ! Well, it isn't anymore! Ulysses by James Joyce is also interesting and fine - but not quoted in its length here. And because I can read myself I'd rather be informed of what you think of it yourself! I'm sick of it!

Use your fucking brains and write something of your own for once my fellow retards!

Sincerely

Christian

[denoir 0]

Although I really havn't had any time in recent months to actively follow what is going on here, I agree. Debate is more or less dead. News clips, that used to be used just as references in a debate have now become the primary content.

I think however that the development is understandable. It's more or less the same people that have been hanging around here the past few years. Every topic has been debated to death. There's no real point debating when you know the other sides' full arguments and position.

Anway, my humble suggestion would be that every people cut-'n-paste something from a news source, that they add a comment of your own to the story.

[quicksand 0]

I've also grown sick of the articles quoted followed by a   or   or   ..

I've been around here long enough to witness and possibly take part in very constructive and entertaning debates especially on the Iraqi thread.Now,the problem is people are simply loosing interest and got used to the daily carnage occouring in that hell hole,some of this threads are years old with seemingly little changing over the course mostly in the members actively following them.

Also alot of people will just suffice thier presence to lurking or concouring with others as they find their views already represented many times in a better worded manner.Do I sound repetitive?Sure I do,it's more or less what denoir already said about this and it is honestly without intention it's just that I share his opinion.

I hope this is just one of the forum's plateau and the topics will have substance once again,I myself still visit this forums with excitment as there are some people for whom I have a great deal of respect and am curious of what they have to say.

[Balschoiw 0]

Well the problem is that discussions in OT are often related to news subjects and therefore we have to post the relevant links or even quote things because if we don´t do that some would go mad screaming "Proof" over and over again. I also dislike the situation but what I dislike even more is the growing habit of "one-line" discussions that seems to be taking over the OT section.

It´s like talking to a primitive lifeform or a bit that can only say 1 or 0.

I guess a lot of people just keep loosing interest in these forums because the forum doesn´t provide that kind of info that everybody would be interested in. OFP 2 for example.

I can remember the days where the BIS crew actively took part in discussions, of course not in OT but other sections, but this seems to be long ago. Today only hardcore OFP worshippers are here. It´s more or less stagnant.

We know where people stand on certain subjects and we´ve learned that discussing or debating is pretty useless sometimes.

Maybe that´s why.

[Gadger 0]

Looking at the recently posted topics, excluding the middle east thread, not as many of the "known" debaters among us are really posting anymore, but hey, I'm sure things will pick up when the American's invade Iran.

[ozanzac 0]

I don't believe the off topic forum is showing 'signs of stupidity', but it certainly is lacking the enthusiastic debates it once had.....

My biggest gripe is also when people post an article, but not an opinion on it....or even pose a challenge to others for theirs.

For example:

Quote[/b] ] News story

Blah blah blah.

Interesting content which could be used to form discussion or voice an opinion.....

Then the poster leaves a hollow comment, or no comment, or a single smilie that readers have no idea what the poster is actually implicating behind that smilie.

End of example.

What I'd really like to see, in the space that follows a newstory, is an insightful opinion, or a challenging argument, which should stir up discussion.

I see no point in someone posting an article, but not discussing it. I view such posts as a form of Spam.

[Balschoiw 0]

Quote[/b] ]a challenging argument, which should stir up discussion.

Most of these stirred up discussion end up in nothing, maybe that´s why people are not that interested in them anymore.

There are people here who have a culture of debating, but all their efforts get often nullified by single-phrase-smilie posters who have nothing to offer than their general opposition.

It´s interesting to see that as soon as a debate doesn´t go the intended way some people just post 3 or 4 newsquotes in a row to distract from the initial issue.

It´s like: You can´t make a point, you move as fast as you can away from the subject.

That´s neither contributing, nor interesting. It´s bad style and counterproductive. But that´s what it has turned into at some topics. Sad but true.

[sanctuary 19]

As my lack of english knowledge often prevent me to express my opinions like they are in my head, i try to not participate to those "debates" , but reading them is always interesting.

And so i agree that it is very annoying to see several post of quotes without any opinion other than a smiley or some spamming joke as only user made expression.

While i find even more disturbing than the "quote spam game" the feeling i have , while reading those kind of posts , that for some people something is true because "they read it on the internet".

A possible solution , at least for the "quote spam game" would be , for those threads recognized as "debates" by the forum moderation squad , to create an extra rules saying that posting in a "debate" thread without expressing an opinion is considered as spam and so fall into the traditional no spam rule.

Something similar to the extra rule of the obligation to post a screenshot when you post in the OFP screenshot thread that has been created after the forum rules went out.

[brgnorway 0]

.......to create an extra rules saying that posting in a "debate" thread without expressing an opinion is considered as spam and so fall into the traditional no spam rule.

Something similar to the extra rule of the obligation to post a screenshot when you post in the OFP screenshot thread that has been created after the forum rules went out.

Now that is something I wholeheartedly agree with!

[Akira 0]

I know on my part it just gets so hard to put the effort in everytime something happens relevent to one of the debate threads, the Iraq Thread for example. Only so many times I can rail against terrorists beheading someone, or rant about another car bomb that killed dozens of people. It's the norm now and sadly I've grown quite numb to such things. Why I hardly go in there anymore.

[LepparD 0]

As other people mentioned - I think the lack of good old healthy debating is because of the lack of new stuff... Sure, theres news around to discuss, but the stories are similar to another post.

I also think that the "1 post per subject" kills the debating. Just look at the Middleeast post, it has 10000 of posts in it, but really - who would want as a new guy (like me) to follow a 2 year old thread just to get own insight of who means what? Plus when having a "middle-east" thread, I cant really start a new topic about Libanon demanding syria out of their country. An exciting topic - but posted in another post will numb the discussing and making it alot more difficult to follow since many people posting to different subjets in the same thread.

Ill be the first to have an oppinion:

Down with the multithreaded stickys!!

[red oct 2]

no offense to anyone, but if you were expecting to have a intellectual chat on a forum based on a video game, than i kinda think your in the wrong place. if you wanted to have a polictical debate wouldn't it be better to maybe visit a forum that is more on that subject and has a more mature politicly conscious users?

[Apollo 0]

Quote[/b] ]no offense to anyone, but if you were expecting to have a intellectual chat on a forum based on a video game, than i kinda think your in the wrong place. if you wanted to have a polictical debate wouldn't it be better to maybe visit a forum that is more on that subject and has a more mature politicly conscious users?

No ,because there is a whole different atmosphere where you wouldn't easily fir in.Most big Gaming forum's have OT boards where also various topic's are discussed ,and often depending on the level of complexity of the game the OT discussions will have a certain quality.

The reason why i think that many people post OT on game forum's is because they talk with people where they have many interests in coman with ,personaly im a fan of tactical and strategical game and have a big interrest in war and war material ,and i think that that many people here are interrested in that type's of thing's. ;)

So i expect people here to be about on the same level of me in certain aspects in general ,aspects in personality wich make it easier to communicate on a friendly and relativly relaxed manner.

I can make about 30 account's on various site's of special interrest and discuss my seperate interrests there ,but then i probably will never have a big postcount on any of them ,while i do not care for the number i care for the fact that i learn to know a comunity better and vice versa ,and the specialized site may be to specialized for me to invite to participation ,being resident in a community for a long time can give certain advantage's to.

Quote[/b] ]Down with the multithreaded stickys!!

Wholehartly agree ,besides the lack of shocking events in recent times (or atleast not the daily shocking events we are suite used to) i find these multithreaded sticky's really uninviting.

[Ex-RoNiN 0]

Ok, we've had quite some rants about the quality of debates. Other than you people trying yourselves to raise the bar for debates, what other measures do you think would be beneficial? Do you want us mods to do something about it?

[Apollo 0]

Well ,about the posting long text's from site's or linking to stuff not very important to the actual debate ,i think should be resolved by changing the mindset of the community just like we started to use them that coman.Under the philosophy that we experimented it and although good reference's can be vital at important moments in a debate they shouldn't be used in such an frequency.

About forum changes ,well i have many thought's as seen on other site's:

you could allow more threads viewable on 1 page ,i can currently see 15 topics and it's a bit few IMO ,Maybe i have to change some User setiing but normally i can see about 30 thread on 1 page on other forum's.It allows for a larger overview of threads.

I agree with what Leppard asked to ,no multithread's anymore plz ,but then we have to watch out afcourse that we don't get 3 threads on almost the same topic.

Otherwise ,we could try out some forum games ,i think posters on this forum are usually educated enough to write story's for ex. ,so someone start's a thread with the beginning of the stroy and each poster can add a addition to the story.Or you do some quiz on the harder difficulty levels. Like a "name the tank quiz" ,where you show some photo of a tank and others try to name the model.

ah well ,thing's like that...

[Albert Schweitzer 10]

relax a bit. We all got a life running parallel to this forum. I just came back from a long trip and I dont grow tired of looking at this board... but I grew somewhat tired of posting. I dont know what the reasons are... maybe it is because "everything has been said, just not by everyone (Karl Valentin) or maybe because we dont have the time to research and invest much time into posting a comment... or maybe it is because currently there is not much in the news that is worth arguing about.

AND I know that most points I can make are nothing new to you guys. You read the newspapers maybe more frequently than me and most of you are probably also more sophisticated than me. Maybe we should just relax a bit and dont expect to much of this forum. Maybe we should wait till the world starts moving again and another "event" starts to shake the globe... and dont forget we survived many years here so far and till 2006 is not such a long way anymore.. Then we will see new members joining and the forum will be rejuvinated.

BUT you are right in one point: STOP posting just an article... We dont need to be informed of news, we need opinions!

[shinRaiden 0]

Well the situation as you nailed it spot on, (and exposed the dirty little secret of the significant OT threads) is such that it has seldom been 'debate' for a very long time.

It seems to me that there has been four groups of postings here that we are all collectively and individually guilty of to some degree:

1) Blog-ish opinionated preaching

2) Dynamic news

3) vaguely related gaming topics

4) Utterly useless crap.

Sometimes inbetween all that may be an honest and reasoned discussion in an ad-hoc panel of pundits that gives an interesting and unique analysis perspective. We can go to Google News to get the latest wire feeds, but I often come here to get "live-on-the-ground" reports from real people with real experience in the subject, rather than pompus talking heads on the TV.

However, whatever news or analysis content was present in many of the more volatile threads was soon replaced with the same kind of virilent attacks and demagogery that I can get on the nightly news, or you can get on talk radio for that matter, with the exception of AirAmerika. Regardless of how right or wrong your postion may be, you lose your audience when you do that, unless your only demographic of interest is your self.

As a result, all participents quickly denegrate to a vicious spitball war using various incantations of spun numbers and creative postulating to prove the holiness of their preferred biases, and damn the percieved heresies of their opponents. Is this debate? no, it his unilateral Jihad.

Part of the problem is, as more clearly evidenced in the religiously themed topics, is the refusal to agree to a common framework of ideas for debate. For example, those of us active and professing/confessing believers generally insist on integrating 'spiritual' and 'natural' realms, in some cases as a combined realm of discussion. To not do so is a cheating ourselves at best, and moral suicide at worst. Conversely, to strictly rational atheists, not only is that blending unacceptable, but it also disqualifies the subject as being delusionally incompetent. With such mutually exclusive parameters, it's not feasible to conduct an argumentive or analytical debate.

Again, the same subjective difficulties appear with the otherwise interesting dynamic news. Given the diverse international audience, and the generally more mature people that the Flashpoint community attracts, there are often in-depth news stories posted or referenced that do not get covered well elsewhere. While blogs may have their place as specialty news gathering and analysis tools, they tend to focus on exclusive topics or audiences. Here on the other hand you have a much more diverse audience, with a wide variety of interests, which is frankly much more interesting than the filler pages between A3 and the editorials in the daily paper. My suspicion is that the majority of those so-called news items are in fact reports made by lazy reporters busted surfing the net instead of working.

Also polluting the discussion is various fanboy drool over all the other games out there. Do we need yet another announcement of Halflife2? I think not. On the other hand, a debate about the dark overlords known as E(vil)A(bbadon), or obscure new tacsim titles, or vs. analysis of why what is better, I think all have a welcome home here.

Finally there is the utter crap that gets spammed and trolled here on occasion. No debate is needed there as the vast consensus is to do (*trademarked*) artillery ranging tests with the poor poster in-game.

A couple final comments regarding the politically charged discussions. As you are all well aware of, with few exceptions America has often projected and acted out the role of a wild lone cowboy. While this may be offensive to some, please bear in mind that not only do others prefer that image, but also feel that those actions are divinely obligated and inspired.

Second, there are often younger forum members who are not necessarily aware of the 'traditions' of the offtopic board. Rather than nuke them off the boards, I would strongly recommend that instead you considerately explain "how things work around here" and provide examples. None of us should be out to chalk up another victim count on our modded pc's.

Finally, if we find ourselves more wrapped up in bashing bit-buckets over each other's heads, than playing the game or making stuff for others, we need to seriously step back and think it over. It's a friggin game, now go lag on port 2302, not port 80.

Btw, GwBush pwnz0rs the world, that's why I voted for him.

[blackdog~ 0]

Thanks for the post, bgrnorway. I expressed the same opinion in the Ask a Mod thread and was pretty much told to get out

So once again, I think it is best expressed with graphs:

http://www.tacticalblunder.com/Image1.gif

http://www.tacticalblunder.com/Image2.gif

Red Oct hit it right on the nose... this is an OFFTOPIC board... not a POLITICAL DEBATE board... which it seems to have unfortunately evolved to. A political debate board should be made where for each post users make, one post is subtracted from their post count. Once again, this is a game forum...

By the way, some of my favorite posts go like this:

<s>Political</s> Offtopic Forum:

A: "GEORGE BUSH SUCKS!!!"

B: "UK RULES!!! EU OWNS ALL!!!"

A&M Boards:

A: "Wow that looks nice. Maybe I'll download it!"

B: Attempts at being funny for example "Can I beta test? (WINK WINK WINK) ROFL LMAO!"

Globally:

A: People pretending to be a moderator "oh gee, this should have been posted in the x forum" "you're signature is too big"

B: People pretending to be a moderator (like above) then posting some totally irrelevant bullshit to give the illusion that they aren't spamming.

[ralphwiggum 6]

blackdog, your interest here in OT seems to be posting useless stuff. if you read the name of threads here, there are more than political threads.

back on the note, it is obvious that most of the arguments available in the world has been brought here before. the world is now somewhat in less turmoil than before, and thus would be less to discuss about.

[Daddl 10]

Ok, I'm one of those dedicated OT readers that usually don't participate actively in the Big Threads. A few times I have linked some news articles or commented on a thing or two. I don't see the quoting of news articles as the main problem, but I have to agree that the quality (from a reader's point) has gone down enormously.

Quote terrror aka dissecting one or more messages and then replying to them line by line makes a answer unreadable and people like me just skip over the post (i.e. ignoring it completely). Why can't people write up a comprehensive answer instead? Sum up what you want to say and don't get lost in phrase by phrase stuff...

I think that's definitely something mods should restrict (at least in the political debates).

[Ex-RoNiN 0]

Erm, the second we start enforcing this suggestion, we will have dozens of people jumping down our neck, accusing us of impeding their freedom of speech and freedom of expression. Quite honestly, I don't see why we should have such big influence in debates, is it that hard to organise yourselves and make yourselves post in the manner you wish?

[blackdog~ 0]

blackdog, your interest here in OT seems to be posting useless stuff. if you read the name of threads here, there are more than political threads.

Not really, but if you say so!

Despite some thread titles they often do go off topic and turn into a political debate.

End argument...

[SpeedyDonkey 0]

Thanks for the post, bgrnorway. I expressed the same opinion in the Ask a Mod thread and was pretty much told to get out

So once again, I think it is best expressed with graphs:

http://www.tacticalblunder.com/Image1.gif

http://www.tacticalblunder.com/Image2.gif

very shaggadelic graphs bd!

[Daddl 10]

Erm, the second we start enforcing this suggestion, we will have dozens of people jumping down our neck, accusing us of impeding their freedom of speech and freedom of expression. Quite honestly, I don't see why we should have such big influence in debates, is it that hard to organise yourselves and make yourselves post in the manner you wish?

I don't see how preventing people from making 20 quote sections and ansewering each with a single line (often just a word) limits their 'freedom of speech' in any way but making it easier to understand what crap they are pooring onto the unfortunate audience (to be fair: admittedly sometimes a good reply is also missed because of this).

[sARCASM]In the end they'd actually be forced to think up a full sentence or (gasp!) paragraph to answer with? Wow, grave injustice there![/sARCASM]

Imo this is simply a form issue - quoting ten or twenty sentences or short paragraphs from one (or worse: more than one) old mail and answering them with single words, smileys or just a short phrase simply ends up as a completely illegible mess for everyone. A mess in which the actual topic is often lost in favour of bickering and nit-picking.

[EiZei 0]

blackdog, your interest here in OT seems to be posting useless stuff. if you read the name of threads here, there are more than political threads.

Not really, but if you say so!

Despite some thread titles they often do go off topic and turn into a political debate.

End argument...

I have seen you posting political one-line flamebaits sometimes aswell.