Off Topic Threads

To the Moderators:

I appreciate your work at keeping this forum clean and on track. But I want to suggest that dividing the discussion into small areas of a common topic makes the forum less useful. People post on the "General Discussion" area knowing that is the only place where the majority of users will ever participate. For instance, if you have a TrackIr problem and post a question on whatever link ED has dedicated to hardware, you are assured of missing dozens of participants who "reside" in the general discussion area and have just the assistance needed. If posted on the General Discussion area the original poster stands a better chance of drawing attention to his concern. If not, the thread dies and the "forum" concept of free discussion lives through a democratic fertilizing or weeding of discussions based on interest among the group.

Of course it is your forum and again I fully respect EDs right to play traffic cop to content. I only suggest decreasing the amount of subject area fractionalization currently forced on participants.

Thanks,

I concur. I think the traffic control here is too rigorous and slightly confusing; they put my post where...? I tried to find someone who might want my spare printed manual so I posted in General Discussion but within ten minutes the post wound up in "Chit Chat". Chit chat? Who goes there? No wonder I had to go to SimHQ for a response.

It's all a bit over-policed, "top down" where really good forum communities, even the moderated ones, are more "bottom up". No jokes please, or this will wind up in a "Humor" thread I've never been aware of.

I had this exact problem, in that I used to only read the General Discussion forum, but I've gotten around that in a rather nice way.

My bookmark for this forum is not a link to the New Posts search with a very big exclusion filter. In this way, when I visit the forum, I see new posts from just about every English-language, DCS-related forum, and I no longer even pay attention to what forum the posts belong to.

But in general, I do see your point, and I have to agree. Subdividing the forums too much absolutely brings less visibility to your post if it isn't in General Discussion.

You are right that we like to keep a rather tight grip especially on the DCS General Discussion section, and we know that all the moving of threads to the right section might be somewhat inconvenient, especially for newcomers, but we usually leave a link that expires after some time, so if you check the forum regularly for replies you should have no problem finding your thread, and other people will still see it for some time even if they don't read the section it has been moved to. And if the link expired you can still find the thread by using the search function. Anyway, my $0.02 are these:

1. Personally I believe that moving actually prevents threads from getting buried. Sure there are more people reading the general sections than other parts of the forum, but if most of the threads would go only into a single section they would quickly end up on page two or three. Ask yourself: do you read such "old" threads? :) As the amount of threads/posts has increased alot since the release of BS, opening new (sub-)sections was necessary to canalise this new traffic.

2. From what I can see the people in the know (e.g. those interested in hardware or game controllers etc.) regularly check the respective sections and provide help if they can. It may just take a little bit longer.

3. Ideally the process of getting acquainted with the forum should look like this: 1. read the forum rules, 2. register, 3. get to know the forum structure and sections, 4. read the stickies in the sections you are interested in, and 5. learn about the various forum functionalities. And if you have a question/problem: a) RTFM, b) RTFFAQ, c) UTFSF ("use the :censored: search function"), and only if that does not help start a new thread in the appropriate section. This is wishful thinking as we all know, but hey...

4. Moving threads to the correct section also helps with searching, because you get more precise results when you limit the search to the section that likely contains an answer to your question.

5. Most of the moving that's going on at the moment is a result of us changing the name of the "Cockpits and HOTAS" section to "Game Controllers" (which also includes output devices and software, as the subtitle says). The reason we changed it is that in the past topics about the X52 etc. got moved while topics about TrackIR etc. did not, which was a rather inconsistent practice. However, I hope that we will see less off-topic posting once most people realize that the scope of that section has broadened and start posting I/O related threads there in the first place.

6. Finally, apart from being a violation of the rules, posting in the section that attracts most of the attention regardless of the topic is simply a rather disrespectful habit.

Now, I've gotta move this to chit chat.... ;)

Thanks Acedy. No mod with a "Clockwork Orange" avatar can be that authoritarian.

Wait until I clip those nasty eyeclamps to your lids... :D

In my few cents...

I don't see any essential value in threads like "what key is for body", "what key is for auto-hover", or 1000 threads how to trim where are few explained well. Threads like these are in my opinion only waste of monitor space and bandwitch. Maybe even server space lol. I understand topics like these are started in most by new forum members... but why it is no hmmm maybe punished is too strong word but similar to this? Really most, most and most things can be found in manual or started threads. There is no reason to create next 50 threads about same or things which can be found in less than minute by users who doesn't feel any need to read included docs. I am not saying about really uber complicated things - ok - but so "empty essential" threads like I said are IMHO bad and do mess.

Anyone fancy heading down to the Corrolla Milk bar for a pint or two ?

In my few cents...

 

I don't see any essential value in threads like "what key is for body", "what key is for auto-hover", or 1000 threads how to trim where are few explained well. Threads like these are in my opinion only waste of monitor space and bandwitch. Maybe even server space lol. I understand topics like these are started in most by new forum members... but why it is no hmmm maybe punished is too strong word but similar to this? Really most, most and most things can be found in manual or started threads. There is no reason to create next 50 threads about same or things which can be found in less than minute by users who doesn't feel any need to read included docs. I am not saying about really uber complicated things - ok - but so "empty essential" threads like I said are IMHO bad and do mess.

I disagree completely, Borberro. Every attempt to police people into not starting new threads that other people pronounce to be redundant is doomed to failure, it creates bad feelings much of the time and is essentially a denial of how the Internet works. It's futile, unenforceable and authoritarian. I've been reading and writing on sim forums for years and the best sites -- and the ones that last the longest -- are those where the mods and users do not gang up on people who wish to ask their own question in their own way, in their own thread. I will do a search but if I think I can phrase a question better and therefore expect a more useful answer in a closely-related thread of my own, I will start one and it might well be more helpful to others precisely because of that. It's all heat and no light, the fuss that is made about this. Bandwidth? Please.

Now, more importantly, is that you in your avatar pic? Now that qualifies for "Chit Chat".

Every attempt to police people into not starting new threads that other people pronounce to be redundant is doomed to failure, it creates bad feelings much of the time and is essentially a denial of how the Internet works. It's futile, unenforceable and authoritarian.

I don't know how can it create bad feelings and be thyrany if you say someone it is next same question about something and maybe he should search it first.

I've been reading and writing on sim forums for years and the best sites -- and the ones that last the longest -- are those where the mods and users do not gang up on people who wish to ask their own question in their own way, in their own thread.

There is nothing wrong to ask - but what logic is to ask xx times about similar thing? I don't mean about various aspects of something - yes user can ask there many ways as many is things to solve, but there are also situations where something is well explained and new thread is created anyway. What for?

I will do a search but if I think I can phrase a question better and therefore expect a more useful answer in a closely-related thread of my own, I will start one and it might well be more helpful to others precisely because of that. It's all heat and no light, the fuss that is made about this.

Yes search should be first thing before new thread start, but just so many ppl don't use it or can't use it (I stay here a bit time and I also have problems with this searcher..... :D)

Bandwidth? Please.

Methaphor :)

Generally you can say that you can simple not read threads like these, right - I do it since longer time. But it doesn't change fact - for me - it is weird in my opinion to create same threads. I again say it is my personal opinion. I didn't want to hurt anyone - if yes -sorry- but this is how I see this situation.

Yes but... IS THAT YOU IN THE AVATAR PIC??

Probably not I fear.

It's just a question of organizational preference. There are downsides to both extremes - keeping a single "General Discussion" forum and sub-dividing it into too many sub-sections. IMHO, the idea is to find a good balance, which can be approximately gauged by watching the activity levels in the forum sub-sections. If there are sub-sections which sit empty for a week or more, they are probably redundant and unnecessary. On the other hand, if threads in any one section disappear to 2nd page or more within a day, that section is probably handling about as much traffic as it can before becoming too difficult to follow, which results in many recurring thread topics. I would want to sub-divide such a section. Looking at the front page of our forum, I see that every section except Official Announcements and Updates has posts from today or yesterday. To me, this means the division is working rather well.

Personally, I think that more organization is always better than less organization.

I understand that posting in the General Discussion area provides more exposure, but that comes at the expense of moving somebody else's thread down. We want everyone to be able to get the most out of the forum.

P.S. Moved to Forum and Site Issues. :D

the most important for me in a forum it's the moderation it should be cool and it's the case here (eagle-ru) . i'm one of those who think better way to overcome evil it's to let it die by itself . best moderation should be minimum homophobia , racism politics eventually ... not saying ED how to manage their forums just giving my opinion here , i'm conscious it's a company forum and sometimes one needs to put the train back on the rails (sorry don't know how to translate the french expression) . i love the Chit-chat section a lot cause we can talk about all and everything between friends quite easily . i've read the CC rules recently and i noticed that it wasn't an absolutly free talk area , so i'll watch my OT threads in the future but such free section is fundamental for me . i loved to go on Subsim forums i don't go much there today as i play a bit less Silent hunter but there the forums were few moderated not to say never , and Subsim forums were some of the best ones i ever found still today (don't know how they go now , i'll have to make a jump there soon) .

concerning the forum different sections at Eagle.ru i think they are well made i never had any problems at that level

Off Topic Threads

Luckily this is not a big problem in this forum but it has been there. Off topic posting is where a thread has been dedicated so a specific subject can then it totally go of the rails. This of course leads to spam and Jeremy have to clean up after you. I am not saying that every person does this, partly nobody does it on this forum but just be aware of it and anyone who disrespects this rule will be given an infraction.