Why are Mods making this forum Ask Jeeves?

[Dravinian]

This forum isn't so much a community of people who are together to have a laugh, chew the fat, feel like a part of something...but more a place where you can ask and answer questions, and read some tech news.

 

Everything else is apparently a Status Update, which I doubt many people actually read, I am sure I will be contradicted there before the Mods shut this post too, but I haven't read any updates in the months I have been here and I doubt I ever would...why would you read what one person has to say, on a forum that is designed to engage the whole community?  That has to be the dumbest thing I have ever heard.

 

Why is this place becoming Stack Overflow rather than a place where people in a community can come together to talk about stuff and have a laugh? - as long as there is some connection to technology, the fundamental base of the community.  If it isn't offensive, if it isn't divisive, then why isn't it allowed as long as it doesn't break the rules?

 

That is the point of a forum, to foster a community.  It isn't meant to be a question and answer place and a news site, there are places for that.

 

If it isn't a community, then I for one, don't really see any point to it.  It seems like a lot of effort spent on not creating something.

[minibois]

100% agree.

I just hate seeing a cool topic, someone showing something off, etc. and then seeing it get shut down because it's a "status update". 

This is something I have been seeing for years on this forum, but I have a hard time putting into words how I feel about it.

 

The worst thing about the whole "locking things" is that the posts are not remove; meaning the forum gets tainted with a whole bunch of locked threads which serve no purpose, other than taunting its users with the feeling of "this thread doesn't belong, but it's here.. but I can't comment on it".

 

These lock messages often feel very cold (figuratively), which to new users is not a welcoming idea.

[gloop]

14 minutes ago, Dravinian said:

doubt many people actually read

That’s incorrect. I read nearly every status update published and I know there is a huge percentage of people that do as well. 

[Sauron]

Sounds like status update material. /s

 

Jokes aside if you don't want to discuss tech then there's off topic...? and if you just want to discuss tech, that's what General Discussion is actually for - unfortunately a lot of people just dump their question here even though there are dedicated subforums. This also has the side effect of burying actually cool discussion posts. I'm not sure the mods are at fault there... nor can I think of a direct way to solve that through moderation.

 

From what I see, what is deemed "status update material" is usually nothing burger posts where people just say they bought some piece of hardware or noticed something that doesn't really invite further discussion. If I open a bunch of threads in GD and they're all variations on "I got a new gpu, look at my stock firestrike score that you could have found on google" or "look at how expensive this random piece of hardware is on Amazon in my country" then I tend to stop opening them, even the potentially good ones.

[gloop]

21 minutes ago, Dravinian said:

 people in a community can come together to talk about stuff and have a laugh? 

That's what off-topic is for.

 

Ever read the 'Moderators on the Forum' thread? Or the 'Banning Game'? Or the 'Corrupt a Wish'? Those are all thread whose sole purpose are a bit of a laugh.

[TomvanWijnen]

I fully agree with you. I have seen many very interesting threads get shutdown (somewhat rudely) saying they are a status update. I almost always disagreed with that, as status updates don't evoke discussion as much as a thread does, and are not seen by as many people (only 5 are shown, of which currently 3 have no replies).

[5x5]

The answer is simple. Volume - the forum has around a million users who log on at least once a month. The amount of spam subforums would have if not for that rule is insane. Most people already get buried in regular threads.

[Spotty]

If you feel that a thread has been locked which shouldn't have been locked, please PM the moderator who locked the post to discuss it further (we will often leave a note stating why it was locked so you will know who locked it, but failing that feel free to contact any of the moderation team which you can view from the Staff page). Alternatively if you aren't expecting a reply and you just want to bring it to the moderation teams attention to take a 2nd look at it and reconsider you can also report the post as "something else" and explain in the report notes why you believe it should be unlocked and the moderation team can review it - You don't need to be the OP to do this either if there's a topic you find interesting and think shouldn't have been locked. We're always happy to give things a second look.

 

 

17 minutes ago, TomvanWijnen said:

I almost always disagreed with that, as status updates don't evoke discussion as much as a thread does, and are not seen by as many people (only 5 are shown, of which currently 3 have no replies).

The Recent Status updates list shown on the home page will only show the 5 most recent status updates. If you click the button in the top right hand corner of the recent list it will take you to a list of all of the status updates sorted by most recent. You can also view the Status Updates from clicking My Activity Streams > Status Updates in the top bar.

If there are people on the forum you find interesting then I would recommend following them. This way you will receive a notification if they post a new status update.

[NineEyeRon]

Despite agreeing with @minibois I have a real feeling we are better of as we are. 
 

I have no idea how to view status updates or when they are posted, maybe this is my settings but it’s a totally hidden part of the forum to me.

[TVwazhere]

8 minutes ago, NineEyeRon said:

I have no idea how to view status updates or when they are posted, maybe this is my settings but it’s a totally hidden part of the forum to me.

If you're on desktop, it's on your right side underneath the Recent Topic, Ads and LTT videos. The little gray icon at the top right of that UI box brings you to all status updates.

For users with smaller desktop screens or mobile users, it gets pushed to the very bottom with the LTT videos as well. 

[kelvinhall05]

It's fine the way it is because if posts didn't get locked for "status update material" I'd see the same bullshit every day. Low effort memes that don't make sense, YouTube videos that aren't funny, etc. Just clogs up the forum and even if it posting "status update material" was allowed in Off Topic, lets be real that wouldn't stay there. Just look at General Discussion, it's basically all moved threads...

 

I think it's fine the way it is.

[Sauron]

1 minute ago, BlueScope819 said:

See, that's the problem. Instead of moving the threads you get stuff like this. I was enjoying the conversation that my thread sparked about SFF builds, but instead I got this.

 

I feel like if you wanted a discussion about necessary compromises in SFF builds you could have just made a thread specifically about that... and you still can. The OP was definitely something that would be more appropriate in a status update; members trying to make the best of virtually nothing doesn't really change that.

[spartaman64]

status updates are terrible imo theres no organization by what they are about and i need to scroll all the way to the bottom to see them. also theres no easy way to go back to a status update other than clicking on the person's profile and scrolling down till you find it

[Moonzy]

1 minute ago, spartaman64 said:

status updates are terrible imo theres no organization by what they are about and i need to scroll all the way to the bottom to see them. also theres no easy way to go back to a status update other than clicking on the person's profile and scrolling down till you find it

agreed, maybe an additional tab would help?

Activity | Status Update | About

 

or else status update is gonna be buried under all the post activity posts

[lewdicrous]

6 minutes ago, spartaman64 said:

and i need to scroll all the way to the bottom to see them.

My activity stream > status updates.

6 minutes ago, spartaman64 said:

also theres no easy way to go back to a status update other than clicking on the person's profile and scrolling down till you find it

Profile > see activity > status updates

[Sauron]

3 minutes ago, Moonzy said:

agreed, maybe an additional tab would help?

Activity | Status Update | About

This exists

 

[TetraSky]

4 hours ago, kelvinhall05 said:

It's fine the way it is because if posts didn't get locked for "status update material" I'd see the same bullshit every day. Low effort memes that don't make sense, YouTube videos that aren't funny, etc. Just clogs up the forum and even if it posting "status update material" was allowed in Off Topic, lets be real that wouldn't stay there. Just look at General Discussion, it's basically all moved threads...

 

I think it's fine the way it is.

This ^

 

Threads that are classified as "Status update" don't evoke any further discussion. It's just someone making a thread to essentially shout into the void what they are feeling right now. Instead of a proper discussion, all you'll get is a "reaction".

If your thread is just you lamenting that your circuit breaker blows when you start the microwave while the AC is on... Yeah sorry, that's a status update. Now if you modified said thread and made it so you ASKED for solutions to your problem instead of you just complaining to the void about it, it wouldn't get locked.

Or if you start an airplane thread because you saw a cool plane and wanted to share it... But then your post is basically just a picture with "I saw this and thought to share it", that will get locked.

All we could say to a thread like that is "cool" or "nice" or "I see your plane and raise you a car!" or really, any other random stuff for a random thread.

If instead you said something like "Hey I saw this cool plane and thought it would be nice to see what the rest of the community has to say about it or about other cool planes you've seen...", that's actually inviting further discussion from us instead of a reaction. It's all about the wording.

 

If these type of threads weren't locked, it'd be next to impossible to find "quality content" on the forum, to find help to a problem or anything like that.

 

A small solution to that would be having a single thread, like the meme thread, for everything pointless to the rest of the forum but you feel like shouting out for some reason and people can react to it outside of the Status Update page. That way, instead of getting your "status update" thread locked, it'd be moved into the one big thread once seen by a mod. It could be called "The Void".... Could even be a dedicated sub forum for anything that doesn't fit in Off-Topic. Would also be easier to find "Status Updates" for new members if it was just a sub forum instead of a "hidden feature"

[spartaman64]

1 minute ago, lewdicrous said:

My activity stream > status updates.

Profile > see activity > status updates

im talking about like whether its about tech, animals, games etc etc. and its just not an organic way to interact with a forum imo. 

[Moonzy]

9 minutes ago, Sauron said:

This exists

well, the more you know

[Beerzerker]

Aw man - You could have just asked Jeeves about asking Jeeves instead......

 

To me it's no biggie to even worry about.

There is a purpose as others have said, I too see the thing about it's best as a status update and was like ? in at least some cases.

 

Personally I've never done a "Status Update" because I'm not sure how you'd do that anyway.
Not that I'd have much to say of any interest mind you.



 

[Loote]

I saw status updates when first joining the site and thought 'that's a feature I'm never gonna use', reading the op I was under impression that status updates were forbidden and got removed. What's described here might explain why the forum seems stiff to me, but whatever, I'm only here for the news anyway.

[Sauron]

4 minutes ago, Loote said:

I saw status updates when first joining the site and thought 'that's a feature I'm never gonna use', reading the op I was under impression that status updates were forbidden and got removed. What's described here might explain why the forum seems stiff to me, but whatever, I'm only here for the news anyway.

You haven't truly lived if you haven't been 15 pages deep in a Tech News flamewar

[Loote]

Just now, Sauron said:

You haven't truly lived if you haven't been 15 pages deep in a Tech News flamewar

Oh I read the comments, though they lack profanity compared to the previous place I got my tech news from.

[SansVarnic]

Status updates are more for posting things of personal thought, things not usually intended to evoke topic of conversation, such as "one liners" or the random meme that would not normally fall under the usual posting standard. We know that it sometimes does but this allows the community to post things that under normal forum etiquette would be seen as spam. Admittedly it does "clutter" things up a bit when we lock a topic and mark it "Status Update Material". At this time, we cannot move Status Update material to an OPs profile page and we generally don't want to hide or remove a topic/comment that doesn't need removing and an OP can repost anything marked as Status on their profile page and let us know they did as much and we can then remove the topic. Bit more work but this is a work around. Obviously if the topic was locked for other reasons this does not apply.

 

Discussion has been evoked on this topic within the Mod/Admin ranks. We have not ignored this.

[spartaman64]

3 minutes ago, SansVarnic said:

Status updates are more for posting things of personal thought, things not usually intended to evoke topic of conversation, such as "one liners" or the random meme that would not normally fall under the usual posting standard. We know that it sometimes does but this allows the community to post things that under normal forum etiquette would be seem as spam. Admittedly it does "clutter" things up a bit when we lock a topic and mark it "status Update Material". At this time, we cannot move Status Update material to an OPs profile page and we generally don't want to hide or remove a topic that doesn't need removing.

 

Discussion has been evoked on this topic within the Mod/Admin ranks. We have not ignored this.

idk sometimes i post something wanting a discussion and i get told to move it to status update where like at most 2 or so people respond to it