Oolite Bulletins

DaddyHoggy wrote:

FSOneblin - the name suddenly comes to me...

(He got better, but still had his moments - but then again - don't we all?)

Found that myself after spending about an hour, and nearly had a shock. Hope he didn't grow a bit and came back under a different name!

Okti wrote:

Thanks to all, expressed their views on this subject.

But I still see a lot of off topic posts made or posts made in the wrong threads.

Oolite Bulletins Index page is very clear about the main threads and must be read by anyone posting a new topic. I have seen many posts made in the wrong threads.

I would only suggest any inquires about OXP's if it is not specific to an OXP to be under discussions and any concepts for an OXP to be under Suggestions. And please do not post any forehand ideas before you have actually tested an OXP released Under Expansion packs.

I know that it may a bit patronizing, but I believe the moderators of the board will not need to move topics any further.

Cheers

For this to truly work members must be prepared to do some homework for themselves, to learn how to dig a little and do research. From my own experience I have learned allot from getting side tracked by interesting points related to the subject I was researching.

But by all means once you have tried to find the answer and come up blank do ask.

I'll admit that the proliferation of "nonsense posts" is one of the reasons I've been coming here less lately. It usually happens for a few weeks then dies down, though, so I haven't said anything. This is the first time someone's actually brought it up.

I wholeheartedly agree with Thargoid - a text BBS is not a good conversation medium and when feelings are being discussed it can easily lead to bad feelings. As a mod on other forums I used to use smiley faces a lot to make sure that the intent behind my posts was clear as could be (and I still do it).

I've used a few forums where some people have decided that the post count was a mark of honour, and to be honest I didn't think I would see that here. It could be that this is the first time that several people with the same opinion on post counts have joined at roughly the same time though.

My main personal feeling on it is that this is a forum where the primary interest is the development and expansion of a game. In a sense I believe that the Outworld area should be the area with LEAST posts compared to the other, directly relevant parts of the forum.

One forum I was a mod on some time ago became defined by its "Random Musings" topic, which gained about 1000 posts a day whilst the rest of the forum got about 20 posts. The topic was the earliest recorded version of Facebook. Before long the only people on the forum were degenerate idiots. Not that people here are degenerate idiots. My concern is that degenerate idiots might get attracted by the "social network" aspects of the forum if it starts to go that way.

I don't want to read about people's day or how they're feeling or what they had for breakfast that morning. If I want that I'll sign up to Twitter. I come here to find out what's new in Oolite and if anyone has created any more cool addons or stories!

As for the resurrection vs. new topic debate, that's one that will never be resolved. Both have their pros and cons, so it may be a waste of time to try and choose which is the better option. Much better to just judge for yourself.

Simple solution: make postcount not increase when posting in outworld.

I've seen that elsewhere, it seems to work. A bit.

There's an option in PHPBB's settings for it.

I think it's a good idea - but I also feel it would be a shame if the reporting of spam was not "rewarded" with an additional +1 on the post counter.

(Although the spam thread could be moved I guess)

DaddyHoggy wrote:

...The spam thread could be moved I guess.

Yeah, I don't think spam reporting should be in the off topic discussion zone.
Where, then?

We could add a new subforum for administrativia, but the main page is getting a bit crowded. I personally don’t think the Mac, Linux and PC sections are very useful; the Linux and PC forums were created when the ports were essentially separate projects playing catch-up.

(If we did add a new section, it could be hidden from non-members and people who haven’t had a post approved yet. I thought about this a while back when someone suggested that seeing the spam assassination factory might be off-putting to new users.)

Thanks again for posting your suggestions, but positive or negative, please spare a moment to look at their profiles, meaning age and their ambitions and their personal websites. And you will understand what I mean. And even this thread is being sort of spammed by the person I meant.

Ahruman wrote:

We could add a new subforum for administrativia, but the main page is getting a bit crowded. I personally don’t think the Mac, Linux and PC sections are very useful; the Linux and PC forums were created when the ports were essentially separate projects playing catch-up.

(If we did add a new section, it could be hidden from non-members and people who haven’t had a post approved yet. I thought about this a while back when someone suggested that seeing the spam assassination factory might be off-putting to new users.)

If that's do-able then that's an excellent idea.

Re: Mac/Linux/PC sections - they still have different install methodologies, different quirks regards filenames, native/non-native speech, native iTunes support, no iTunes support, etc... One "advantage" of their being three sections is that, to those coming to Oolite for the first time, from which ever OS, can see they have a specific place to ask questions (after all, there are lots of first posts that begin along the lines of: "...glad I found this great game, but..." and then the OS specific problem is rolled out)

My screen is 1920x1200 and on normal Firefox 4 settings (default zoom) I already have to use the scroll bar to see the newest member at the bottom (usually just before I delete it... ) - so at 1280x1024 or lower it must be a bit of pain!

Okti wrote:

Thanks again for posting your suggestions, but positive or negative, please spare a moment to look at their profiles, meaning age and their ambitions and their personal websites. And you will understand what I mean. And even this thread is being sort of spammed by the person I meant.

You’re less subtle than you seem to think.

DaddyHoggy wrote:

One "advantage" of their being three sections is that, to those coming to Oolite for the first time, from which ever OS, can see they have a specific place to ask questions (after all, there are lots of first posts that begin along the lines of: "...glad I found this great game, but..." and then the OS specific problem is rolled out)

Yeah, but people tend to post OS-specific questions in Testing and Bug Reports (without specifying OS) anyway. To me, this suggests information overload (option overload?) in the forum list.

Ahruman wrote:

DaddyHoggy wrote:

One "advantage" of their being three sections is that, to those coming to Oolite for the first time, from which ever OS, can see they have a specific place to ask questions (after all, there are lots of first posts that begin along the lines of: "...glad I found this great game, but..." and then the OS specific problem is rolled out)

Yeah, but people tend to post OS-specific questions in Testing and Bug Reports (without specifying OS) anyway. To me, this suggests information overload (option overload?) in the forum list.

Having had a quick look, it would seem that you're broadly correct in this and based on that, then the is no point in there being separate OS sections.

For what it's worth I would favour keeping the three O/S sections. As DH said, it's good to have a 'home' for your O/S related problems.

Smivs wrote:

For what it's worth I would favour keeping the three O/S sections. As DH said, it's good to have a 'home' for your O/S related problems.

But Ahruman's argument is, is that most OS issues are posted under Bugs and not the OS specific sections and having had a quick look it would seem he's correct - although for lots of other stuff I could/do see the need for a platform specific section.