I don't think we're getting anywhere - Edit 1
Before modification by Isaac at 08/11/2011 02:12:13 AM
It's not at the bottom of the page, if you have your settings for 'show newest replies first', which a lot of us do, it's right at the top, and people regularly complain about resurrected threads doing that, so let's not act like I've got some weird bug up my butt.
This is one thing I hadn't considered. I do not have that, so it did not occur to me. That does make a difference to the "annoyance" level, I'm sure.
Oh very, why do you think we have the term 'Joeling' and those of us who are the usual suspects in the political threads get cursed at from time to time. Trust me Jen, post resurrection is a serious pet peeve of a lot of people, one I'm not usually that sympathetic to myself, those are mostly about subject, nobody likes seeing a post whose material they found very insulting stuffed in their face, this one is just about duration, it never goes away.
Actually what I personally found irritating is that I did click into the thread fairly regularly, rarely saw a meaningful answer, and was always curious what Druid 'couldn't resist', I never asked because there was a whiff of 'old joke' about it, and frankly every time I've pursued an answer on something along those lines in the past, or seen someone else do it, the reply is usually 100% Prick... I'm not sure if you remember the time I asked 'what does NSSP stand for' but I'm sure you've seen those threads, and that's generally about as nice as people get when asking about in-house terms or the 'Golden Age' stuff... except Joel, who actually seems to think we shouldn't be rude or unhelpful to newer people on the site... so I never asked, and when I saw the answer, I wanted to scream.
This all makes sense, but now that you realize it's "meaningless," is the main annoyance simply that it pops up too frequently for you? Because 200+ posts in as long as RAFO has been open doesn't seem that excessive to me. I do realize we don't get to choose our annoyances, however. And I do understand the concept of the golden age snobbery - in this case though, I think you burned yourself. Druid would not have treated you rudely or unfairly.
Nor was I rude to him, though I don't deny the post wasn't laced with endearments. This thing irritates me, I saw no reason mask it. I like Druid, not that there are many posts by him of late outside of here to judge off of but we've always gotten along fine in our rare chats in the past, if I didn't like him, I'd have picked the easy option, I've got a premie, I couldn't ignore his threads as opposed to wasting time making suggestions then explaining myself to you about why I'm not an evil bastard, it was no spur of the moment post.
The big punchline is the site has a tradition so obscure even someone who has posted heavily for 4 years now didn't know about it, and the response that person gets for suggesting maybe it shouldn't be obscure is a smiley face followed by the equivalent of "Don't be an asshole, that right is reserved to the Special Few".
If you think that is what I said, I must have typed things in wrong. And it appears that you have figured it out now, based on the discussion above, so I'm not sure what about it isn't fairly obvious once a few responses have been read through? If that is snobbery, I'll have to apologize, because it just doesn't seem that confusing to me. I somehow managed to figure it out, and I have only been here since 2005. I wasn't part of the "Golden Ages."
And I've actually been here since 2002, one of the reasons I view the golden age stuff with a certain amount of eye-rolling, till 2007 the predecessor site was just a place to read theories to me. The nostalgia doesn't do much for me, because I don't get what's nostalgic about "Routine meet and greet thread", if there's more to it then that, someone needs to say so, and that general unwillingness to bother to give simple explanations about such things is what I refer to when I say 'snobbery'. I find it absurd to have some precious tradition that no one can be bothered to explain and that in the absence of an explanation amounts to claiming "We have a tradition of people saying hello when they stand up to talk, and saying their name", lacking details it's a pretty simple concept to attach deep nostalgia to, and if it's got deep nostalgia, regardless of its origin or depth, then taking a sentence to explain it would seem kinda appropriate, don't you think?
What bugs me the most though, now, is that none of those ideas will be accepted, on the ultimate grounds that people resent having the obvious pointed out to them. Nossy, your explanation amounts to "Well, I think it should be obvious" when even if it were it couldn't possibly hurt and you know it isn't because I said it wasn't, in other words you resent me pointing out that the blisteringly obvious to some of you isn't necessarily obvious to all, especially new people, it happens to be on the short list of my pet peeves.
I don't resent anything about your argument, I simply disagree with you. One of my pet peeves is being told how I feel, so I suppose we're roughly even. I simply do not think that it is super confusing, and if you still do after you've looked at the post and some replies, then we'll have to agree to disagree.
I'm pretty sure I've read all the replies, most of them certainly, part of my frustration comes from how many asinine comments I've subjected myself to. Oh, there are some decent ones, and while you seem to think otherwise I don't dispute that the name of the thread is fairly indicative of its purpose, I've read many out of curiosity, and more out general attmepts to sample to see who might be interested in joining us for a game on the RPG board. I'm irritated by the ones with throw away one-liners and my suggestions are mostly about how to cut down on those or barring that give up the ghost on this understandable if kinda vague tradition.
The great rebuttal of course would be having 5 or 6 people say how obvious it is to them, guaranteeing no one who felt otherwise would ever say so. The message should include a quick, friendly, and polite introduction, along the lines of:
So... why do you come to RAFO?
We always like to get feedback on what draws people to the site, so we can improve it, and so that other posters can get to know you and your interests, and you theirs. ... followed by the poster either saying their own reasons or posting a reply doing so, to set the tone.
And this would very much be changing the tone of the post, though obviously, the original question should be open enough. People who understand the nostalgic nature can indulge themselves, and people who are new might think of a real reason. I think the reason I disagree with you so strongly is that I rarely read the subtext-type rules or explanations when I think I know what I'm being asked. I simply don't see what's so confusing about "So, why do you come to Rafo?" Answer it or don't. Druid may disagree. Possibly he'll agree that it should be made noob-friendlier. The only reason I answered is that it is a thread that many are fond of, and your suggestions seem unfeeling and cold, and would completely kill that for those who love Druid and his post. If you want a different one for new people, maybe you can talk to Ben about an introductory post.
People who understand the nostalgic nature may wallow in it all they want, I'd just appreciate having some explanation of what the nostalgia is all about. I think you still are missing that absent an explanation (and I still haven't got one) people are apparently being nostalgic about the a simple question, you may as well say "We have a tradition of asking people what their favorite movie is, we're very nostalgic about it". Look Jen, this thread minus familiarity reads like "Do you like cats? Sorry, I couldn't resist" and reminds me of people laughing about 'Can I haz cheezburger', I don't mind, but I do kinda like people to take the time to explain that if they're going to basically remind me of it every day for a few months. I think this series of posts from me comes of 'mean', but honestly from my perspective this is nothing more than someone whose hear that cat meme for months without knowing it and finally getting clued in it means something - though not what - taking one of the persons by the elbow and suggesting, perhaps a bit harshly, that they should either knock it off, find some way not to do it in front of people who don't get it, or take 10 seconds to explain the joke.
Now that that is better than some obscure reference to an old tradition is frankly not debatable, so why argue?
Yes, why? Heh.
Also, and again frankly, it wouldn't hurt if along with 'show newest threads first' and 'show newest replies first' we had an option to 'Show newest replies first without showing threads older than X days' or unclick thread or announcements we've already read and don't want to see anymore. Like I said, I'm a big believer in 'if you don't like it, don't click on it' but that's not meant as a salute at those specific threads, I wrangle and roll in the mud here all the time, but I keep my own threads as polite and straightforward as possible, and I never resurrect them ad nauseum. Maybe it's an RPG board bias, we had so many threads skip over the 300 and even 500 replies mark that we set it up to not happen, because we knew first hand what a pain it was to scroll through them trying to find anything. The best thing to do, if people want to continue this 'tradition' and the question itself really is the tradition, is to open it up every couple months with a quick friendly instruction, flag it as an announcement for a while, then lock it down and un-announce it after a few weeks or when that thread fills up past 200 or so, they can always be archived at some point, but it keeps it fresh and manageable.
I don't know what to tell you here. I don't particularly want this thread to disappear, given that it was here since the beginning, and it brought over a nostalgia from Wot, but I can't see that it would be a bad thing to mention your days/time/replies ranking options to Ben. I can see that it might annoy if it kept topping your page. Mine's always at the bottom, so it is a non-issue.
Ben's never replied to any NB I've ever sent him, which isn't many and will probably never be added to. I gather he's mega-busy, I'm grateful to him for the RPG board making it over, and I renew my membership basically as a thanks for that, there are also higher priorities on the waiting list. I should also point out that people who make suggestions about improvements to the site tend to get chilly reception and response from a lot people, even when they're very nice about it. As I've mentioned, I can resolve this problem personally very easily, I just don't feel right about blocking someone, and I actually do like to know why people come here.
Anyway, that's my piece, and I don't see any reasonable grounds to object to it on, we can wrangle about it but I wouldn't see a point.
I have reasonable grounds from my pov, but I'm perfectly fine if we agree to disagree.
That's probably for the best