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Cynake
 [ Ancient Forge ]
Joined: April 15, 2002
Posts: 1819
Submissions: 1
Location: Calgary, AB. Canada.
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| Member Gone Nutty? |
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| Posted on Sat Nov 07, 2009 5:05 pm |
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Anyone else notice a member acting.. chaotically today?
I can't figure out if it's maliciously annoying, or, what's going on. No rules against it per se, but.. |
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Joined: August 23, 2004
Posts: 1491
Submissions: 0
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| Posted on Sun Nov 08, 2009 2:50 am |
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| Could you be a little more specific, even if it's just in PM? I looked through a couple of threads and don't have time right now to check every new post. By the time I come back in the morning I doubt I'll remember all the new posts to check. |
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Joined: June 21, 2002
Posts: 1682
Submissions: 72
Location: Idaho
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| Posted on Sun Nov 08, 2009 4:22 am || Last edited by ~Mical~ on Sun Nov 08, 2009 6:12 am; edited 1 time in total |
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I think he's referencing several of the threads in the gallery forum that had all been dredged up by the same person.
6ish mo. old threads, too.
Seems like this member is just trying to increase his post count...or something...I don't know...
Silly.
~Mical~ 
[edited for harshness] |
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Joined: July 25, 2006
Posts: 954
Submissions: 3
Location: Klamath Falls, Or.
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| Posted on Sun Nov 08, 2009 5:03 am |
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Eh? A little harsh....he's been here over two years and has under 200 posts, heck, almost as many gallery submissions, not bad work....pretty inspiring actually, a nice chronicle of his work.
Guess it's just his way of catching up?
Kodiak-
Age is an issue of mind over matter. If you don't mind, it doesn't matter.
"For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong". -H.L. Menken
"The cure for boredom is curiosity. There is no cure for curiosity." -Dorothy Parker
Chaincraft Mandrels |
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Joined: August 10, 2005
Posts: 7026
Submissions: 294
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| Posted on Sun Nov 08, 2009 1:40 pm |
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I don't think it's intentionally annoying. Probably just has time on his hands and is catching up on stuff he didn't have time for before *shrug*
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Joined: August 23, 2004
Posts: 1491
Submissions: 0
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| Posted on Sun Nov 08, 2009 4:25 pm |
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I haven't seen him post in a while, could be he was just catching up. I don't see anything wrong with anything he's posted either.
What's the big deal with posting in an old thread anyway? Sure, if there was a conflict and it was resolved, I don't see the sense in dredging up something to post your two cents. But honestly, where's the harm in posting in an old thread?
I do see a lot of harm in discussing an individual in this manner in the Admin forum though. No one has mentioned this persons name, but I'm sure it's not hard for people to figure out, and we get the added bonus of the member probably feeling attacked and possibly embarrassed.
If someone can show me A) the policy that members cannot post in old threads or post in several threads back to back, or B) the harm in posting in old threads or several threads back to back, then I'd be a lot more enthusiastic about bashing someone in absentia. |
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Cynake
[ Ancient Forge ]
Joined: April 15, 2002
Posts: 1819
Submissions: 1
Location: Calgary, AB. Canada.
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| Posted on Sun Nov 08, 2009 5:02 pm |
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Again, all I said was it was a bit strange, and I acknowledged it wasn't against any rules. I didn't want to get into specifics too much, in case it was just me. Wanted to know if anyone else noticed anything strange.
Forums are both discussion and archive. General rule of thumb, if you want to gravedig a dead thread you do it only to add something topical, like new information or an update on the subject. When a thread is new, conversational chatter, opinion, etc, is also good, like a conversation. But when a thread is a few months old, it doesn't make sense to gravedig it just to add chatter. It's not topical anymore, the conversation is dead.
Most of the comments weren't adding anything, they were just chatter. Seemed suspicious. I was wondering if there was something going on like a sibbling sitting down at the user's computer and making a ton of empty "oh that's nice I like it" replies to random threads that were months old. Or a bot getting ahold of the account and posting, as, recently on TRL there's been a rash of bots posting just-barely-relevant sentences on old threads. A bit annoying, but, peculiar more than anything else.
Behavior seemed a bit weird is all, wanted to draw attention to it in case something weirder happened. |
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Joined: April 29, 2002
Posts: 3195
Submissions: 93
Location: Albany, New York
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| Posted on Mon Nov 09, 2009 2:57 am |
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I've wanted for years to look into how to auto-lock threads more than a certain number of months old, so they become a pure archive. I've just never found the time to do the research.
I know it can be done, I've seen several phpBB forums that do it. I'm just not sure if they have admins doing it manually, or not...
"The fact that a believer is happier than a skeptic is no more to the point than the fact that a drunken man is happier than a sober one."
— George Bernard Shaw
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Joined: August 30, 2008
Posts: 2581
Submissions: 20
Location: Mississauga, ON, Canada
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| Posted on Mon Nov 09, 2009 3:10 am |
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| Blaise wrote: | I've wanted for years to look into how to auto-lock threads more than a certain number of months old, so they become a pure archive. I've just never found the time to do the research.
I know it can be done, I've seen several phpBB forums that do it. I'm just not sure if they have admins doing it manually, or not... |
You could write a cron-job to do it fairly easily... Just auto-mod the 'locked' flag in the database for threads older than x days.
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Joined: December 22, 2007
Posts: 3600
Submissions: 99
Location: Hampton, Virginia USA
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| Posted on Mon Nov 09, 2009 4:08 am |
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Do it DL. Do it now! 
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Joined: July 25, 2006
Posts: 954
Submissions: 3
Location: Klamath Falls, Or.
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| Posted on Mon Nov 09, 2009 7:16 am |
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OK, but how old, where do you draw the line? A week, a month, a year? Personally, I don't like the precedent....could use a bit more discussion, whenever you look at restricting members freedom of speech. People can start a new thread on an old topic, but in some cases it's helpful to have the old discussion text handy.
Besides being a pet peeve, the valid argument, and this case stands out, it bumps current posts down, possibly out of the range of posts most people look to comment on. Necroposting in bunches should be discouraged, even made to be an infraction of forum rules, but singly, an old thread can be interesting and relevant, fun to look back on.
I know, it bugs some more than others, and pulling up an old Gallery thread just to say "cool, I like it", isn't the same as a weave theory discussion where issues are still being hashed out. How bout putting a big, glaring notice in the guidelines that mass necroposting will result in restrictions or loss of privileges?
I don't know, but before hardcoding it in, a little more discussion/opinion might be good......my opinion, we shouldn't lock up the archives, but multiple necroposting is against forum rules.
Kodiak-
Age is an issue of mind over matter. If you don't mind, it doesn't matter.
"For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong". -H.L. Menken
"The cure for boredom is curiosity. There is no cure for curiosity." -Dorothy Parker
Chaincraft Mandrels |
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Joined: August 30, 2008
Posts: 2581
Submissions: 20
Location: Mississauga, ON, Canada
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| Posted on Mon Nov 09, 2009 1:10 pm |
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'cause he can't echo his comments in here himself...
| Chubbs wrote: | | I think Kodiak is on the right track, as well as a possible cron job. I don't have much experience with cron jobs, but would it be possible to limit it to just the gallery discussion sub-forum? would it not be safe to say that this area is whats causing most people the most grief since most necromancy here is just quick comments, that push the new threads down. Where as Necromancy in other areas of the forum tend to be constructive. In fact if the search feature was promoted more and necromancy encouraged we might just have 1 thread about tumbling instead of the 225 current matches to the keyword "tumbling". I remember years ago we would have to prune the forums on a semi regular basis to get rid of outdated threads to keep the website running fast, however because of our content any loss would be a loss. but thats a whole different can of worms ... |
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Joined: August 10, 2005
Posts: 7026
Submissions: 294
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| Posted on Mon Nov 09, 2009 1:19 pm |
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I don't like the idea of locking down old threads completely for the same reasons Kodiak states but the pointless gravedigging is a bit irritating.
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Cynake
[ Ancient Forge ]
Joined: April 15, 2002
Posts: 1819
Submissions: 1
Location: Calgary, AB. Canada.
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| Posted on Mon Nov 09, 2009 5:23 pm |
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| Daemon_Lotos wrote: | | I remember years ago we would have to prune the forums on a semi regular basis to get rid of outdated threads to keep the website running fast, however because of our content any loss would be a loss. but thats a whole different can of worms ... |
Not here, ever, that I know of.
Bernice does that over on TRL about every six months, and, anyone who I've talked to about it says there's no reason to do that. Lots of good info there has been lost, often without warning. I know Zlosk and others, at times, put in a lot of effort discussing things and keeping track of things in threads, and were quite upset when they suddenly weren't accessible. Their entire FAQ now has gaping holes in it because the threads they reference for the answers are gone. *shrug*, their forums facilitate their business, they're not a library, so.. meh.
Searching discussion forums is often useless, unless someone tells you the topic is there and how to find it. My take is, if the questions come up often enough to be annoying, someone should put it into a damned article or an FAQ. Which, hopefully MAIL 3.0 fixes, as there will be a lot more room for a highly-interconnected glossary and microarticles.
I'm not a fan of locking old threads either. I'm in fan of telling people off when they needlessly gravedig, and deleting posts if need be. Often there's good reason to dig up an old thread, and it would be the particularly valuable ones that get brought back. It's a value judgment as to whether a given thread should or shouldn't be, so I don't like the idea of locking them all by default. |
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Joined: May 07, 2008
Posts: 3490
Submissions: 147
Location: Germany, Herxheim
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| Posted on Mon Nov 09, 2009 6:52 pm |
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Well, I wasn't overly annoyed by that necropost-revival - that's sometimes way better than beginning a new thread on an old topic, resulting in the same answers given. And in one special case, it even reminded me to fulfill a 'duty' I already had forgot about.
So in principle I concur with Cynake's last paragraph - pm, rebut, even punish by deleting of messages, or write-locking the user for some time if necessary.
But no automated thread-locking for a very doubtful advantage.
-ZiLi-
Maille Code V2.0 T6.5 R5.6 Ep Fper Mfe.s Ws$ Cpbsw$ G0.4-3.5 I1.6-16.0 N28.25 Pj Dacdejst Xagtw S08 Hi
Human societies are like chain mail.
A single link will be worth nothing.
A chain is of use, but will break at the weakest link.
A weak weave will have the need to replace weak links.
A strong weave will survive even with weak links included.
-'me |
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