Forum Reform (vent about status of forums here)

[Lucretius]

well, if you think this forum's direction has changed, a new "senior member forum" will just change it even more.....I believe a senior member forum is really quite useless, and it will just exclude a lot of people.....

I personally agree with this. My idea of how to change this is, and I know no one's gonna like this, to kick the authority around here up a notch. Be a little stricter. The moderator's hidden job is to help guide the forum. We need them to do that.

[SgtBowhack]

I have to agree with Lucretius. Half of the problem is the "I can post what I want!" attitude some people have. Even Ben has said that some stuff isn't appropriate for Forum 42. I'm not saying that people shouldn't post what they want, but we shouldn't be forced to read it. More descriptive thread titles should be a little more strictly enforced. Who wants to read a thousand posts under the subject "Hi" or some such? Some are misleading too.
In short, I'm not sure the problem is in the posts so much as people posting under strange thread titles. Not saying that the mods aren't doing their job, because I think they do a great job (and when things aren't locked after 5 seconds, give them a break- they need to use the bathroom just like everyone else)

[Geebs61]

Guidelines to success:

1) Think hard about what you are about to post. Do it twice. Once before you start, and again after you have written it out. But before you click "Submit." This will both help you decide whether your contribution will be helpful or not and will allow you to proofread what you are trying to say. If you are in doubt, open a word processor and paste what you wrote. Then spell check it.

2) Lose your 13375p34k(leetspeak). It has no place here. This includes substituting "U" for "you", "R" for "are", etc.

3) You are no better than any other person here. Even the mods. They are given the power to moderate things because they are trusted to uphold the rules of the boards. They are to be respected. And every other member deserves the same respect.

4) Number of posts/amount of portables created does not correlate in any way to your seniority. I have been a member of Ben's organization for well over 3 years now. But I am not a "Senior Member". I have no problem with this either. Your seniority is based on the quality of your posts.

5) Just because you cannot physically see a person does not mean that they do not have feelings. I have witnessed several occurances of heckling that may or may not have meant to be mean. But they did hurt someones feelings, and this angered me probably more than the person who was hurt.

6) Everyone makes mistakes. We are all apt to post something we don't mean now and again. In this case make an apology. If everyone else follows the other rules, you will be forgiven, and life on the boards will go on.

By following all of these guidelines everyone can be successful in keeping the boards clean and friendly to both new-comers, and old farts like me.

[diggerdanh]

I hate to jump on the bandwagon, but it is getting to the point where I almost dread my twice-daily trips to this forum to catch up.

I'm really getting tired of filtering through all the "can I use a laptop screen?", "where can I buy a hip gear?", and "I need a PSOne screen pinout" posts.

I agree with Lucretious and SgtBowhack's ideas.

I have some other suggestions - when someone posts a question like one mentioned above (one that has been asked over and over) - someone usually replies to the post with "This has been asked before, use search" and then a moderator locks it. This creates even more crap that I have to read through to find anything good. Rather than doing this, the moderator could email/PM the "please use search" or "here is a link to what you are looking for" to the person asking the question and then delete the post. This would help clean up a lot.

FAQs stickied at the top of each forum could help a lot, too. If a moderator finds a question asked more than a couple of times, then it should be added to the FAQ for that forum. Any additional posts about that should be deleted by the moderator and an email/pm should be sent by the moderator to the poster telling them to look at the FAQ.

Additionally, spam postings by repeat offenders should simply be deleted. I've been a member of these forums (and the old ones) for longer than most people here - some who have thousands and thousands of posts - and I just recently passed 100. I realize that some people feel the need to post more than I do, but we all know spam, we all know who spams, and it should be deleted (not joked about).

I run my own support forums for software that my company sells, and a lot of the posts are the same questions over and over. I do what is described above. I take pride in keeping my forum as clean as possible so it is easier for other users to use it and find what they need.

I think the moderators here should do the same. Maybe different moderators should be assigned to each forum and then they can take a little bit of ownership and pride in their forum and police it a little better than is being done now.

In the past, these suggestions weren't needed because it was a small group which only occasionally got new members so everyone pretty much knew everything through the history of all the posts. When a new member did come along, it was pretty easy to catch up by reading through the past posts. Now we get new members everyday and because there is so much crap in the archives, there is no way for them to catch up on everything! Some changes need to be made to keep this place worthwhile.

[G-force]

A Senior Members only forum wouldn't help anything, there are just too many people who aren't SM's who are still very important to the forums.

I do feel like the forums have changed, and not for the better. But I'm hoping that after the book excitement dies down, the noobs will just kind of lose interest and things will go back to "normal"

[Sparkfist]

The reason as I see it that the forum direction has changed and is focused on 42 is that other forums no longer have anything useful to add. As sad as it is, no more current technology has come out to make use review or improve how we make a portable. We've covered just about everything important and so we go to the only forum that has any real movement and thats 42.

You want to get the ball moving in other forums here are a few suggestions.

Atari; Someone make the mini PSB that can be collablerated into a community effort as we have like 4 or 5 people working on it. Another is maybe a new portable, the C64 DTV.
NES; Well Nin_Nin is the only person working to make a SMSp, no one has the knowlege to get a replacement screen (i.e. PSone) to work with the GameGear, and NOACs are the only option for making a small NESp.
SNES; Cant move any farther as we're restricted by how fast the development of the Radicas are and the SNES is not been reduced to a chip.
PSone; SegaSonicFan is woking on a Saturnp, and yeah nothing new about the PSone.
N64; Nothing new
Dreamcast; Only new news was that they made a DOAC and no one here knows how to get one or know we'd make use of it.
128bit; Right the only thing left to do in that forum is the Xbox, and thats impossible!
TV screen; No new screens have come out, besides Ben's discovery.
Trading post; Is dependent on people who have someting to sell.

We're just out of gas with the other forums.

[Unidentified Assilant]

A Senior Members only forum wouldn't help anything, there are just too many people who aren't SM's who are still very important to the forums.

I do feel like the forums have changed, and not for the better. But I'm hoping that after the book excitement dies down, the noobs will just kind of lose interest and things will go back to "normal"

Nobody has ever said anything to me so nice... I wonder when I will be a senior member? If only I joined when I discovered Benheck.com...

[HK-47]

Geebs61, diggerdanh,
Thanks for the suggestions. Geebs61, you'll find your "guide to sucess" is now part of the read this first sticky. diggerdanh, Ill probably start doing what you described, it shounds like a good idea.

Now about the read this first sticky, does anyone think it should be moved to F42, just because it gets more attention, and contains a load of, for lack of a better word, crap. Im pretty sure if it was moved to F42, or at least a copy of it was put there, it would be seen more.

About the stickies: If you post some links for questions like the laptop screen one, Id sticky without hesitation.

Spark: If the flashback II has a aoac, that'll "get the ball moving" in the 2600 forum too...


Anyway, think thats about it for now.

[Link89]

Please forget the senior members furom things i know it isnt the best idea. i just thought it would be a good place to get away from all of the noobish posts. If we would post the furom rules again then as i said wouldnt be posting this. We have to get people to understand the rules. PLEASE

[bicostp]

PWNED!!!!!111!!!!one!!!!refreshing...

Seems everyone is posting "!!!!11!!1!!one!!1" since I posted it in a rant.

Maybe I should charge royalties.

[SpongeBuell]

I think it's been done before. Also, I had an idea a while back: word censor=leet eliminator (31|\/|1|\|@+0r?) let me exlain

u gets changed to you
i get changed to I
plz = please
thx = thanks
ne = any


you get the idea. Doesn't cover everything, but it gets the more annoying ones

[Lucretius]

That's a great idea. It would be hard, but not imposible. I'll help anyway I can...

[bicostp]

This count as a spam post?

[soundwave]

Only if youre vegetarian.

[HK-47]

I think it's been done before. Also, I had an idea a while back: word censor=leet eliminator (31|\/|1|\|@+0r?) let me exlain

u gets changed to you
i get changed to I
plz = please
thx = thanks
ne = any


you get the idea. Doesn't cover everything, but it gets the more annoying ones

Very nice! Ill take to Ben about it if you want... Or you can, dosnt matter.