unforum

[vpisteve]

Just a note, Mr. Guest, that posting anyone's personal information here without their consent breaks Unfiction's Terms of Service.

I'm all for the "no rules" thing, as I've been pretty clear about in the past, but there's a line that shouldn't be crossed when it comes to people's privacy.

[Danzilla76]

[colin]

Re: [META] The Community, attitude in general

[Giskard]

Well, I can't say I agree with Colin entirely, but I also disagree with Mr. Anonymous Guest. I take it, from your anonymous posting and the various remarks you made, that you yourself have been the subject of what you described as being shot down by moderators.

It is my experience that these boards are pretty much friendly and welcoming to new users. That said, we have seen a LOT of new users come in over the past few weeks (almost 1500 new registered users and a lot of new guest posters) and a lot of them have shown a habit of barging in and posting without searching or looking at the forum guidelines before anything else.

We tried to make it as obvious as possible that there are certain guidelines to posting on the forums. This, as Colin has said, is done mostly because it would be impossible to keep track of progress after missing a day or two on the forums, because it would be filled with way too many unreadable or inunderstandable topics.

That said, I certainly do not think that only 1% of this forum's posts are worth reading. A lot of the speculation really made a difference in figuring stuff out or getting a discussion going. If you only want to know the pure storyline facts though (of which there haven't been all too much yet), there are things like the WIKI, the moderated blog, the mailinglist and the excellent guide made by Rowan.

In light of the above, it can still happen that people post stuff that really has no value at all. For example, posting that a line from Halo, "I like beans", is similar to "I love bees", imho, does not add to our understanding of the game in any way, so it is a rather unnecessary addition to these boards. For some reason btw, these kind of posts are almost always done with poor execution of the forum guidelines (i.e. not using tags and without consulting the [search] function properly).

If we do not try and keep a tab on these posts, the forums would soon get pretty much cluttered. If it's been done in a way you dislike, I'm sorry, especially because I know locking a post makes you unable te defend yourself posting it, but, browsing for a bit, I can say that in 95% of the cases, it is done in the most friendly manner possible, pointing people to the [search] function, other threads, the guidelines, etc., thus I do not think there is something wrong with "the community in general" or its attitude.

Well, in reply to one more of your remarks, I'd say that discussing who is "acting" Dana is irrelevant and even unwanted information in my opinion, as it tells us nothing about the storyline development. It might be a "fun fact" to know, but it's also behind the curtain and as this game's intention has been pretty much to keep an iron curtain, I do not think the players should go and violate it just for fun.

[colin]

[fireball]

Ok, I'll weigh in, even if I'm one of the more hands-off moderators.

First of all, the use of locking threads has been employed mostly to stem the tide of redundant or irrelevant topics. Usually if a thread gets locked, the locking moderator or administrator puts the reason for the lock before the dancing lock icon. Very seldom does a lock get put on because the spec was too wild...many ARGers thrive on wild spec.
You'll notice that one thing mods rarely do is delete a thread...Space set a very high threshold for a post to get deleted. The idea is that a thread might get locked, and fall to the bottom of the thread like so much detritus.

As for the ARG vs. Halo attitude, I must agree that there is some perception of snobbery there. I think the fear is that veteran ARGers are afraid of being overrun by the stereotypical 12-year old gamerz who don't contribute more than "HALO IS S0 C00L! I LUV THIS GAM3!" On the other hand, many ARGers do love to introduce new people to this genre, and are happy to have new people who have worthwhile ideas to contribute to the game. It could be a temporary situation as the smaller band of ARGers suddenly flooded by a larger community of Halo gamers, and both groups are adjusting.

And finally, as far as discovering and posting the true identity of the PMs, I am STRONGLY AGAINST IT. I believe the curtain should be firmly kept in place. Peeking behind, or tearing down the curtain has no purpose to the game. It doesn't make it any more fun. It detracts from the game's mystique. What purpose does it serve? Are we supposed to laud you for being sooooo cool that you could discover the PM's true identity? Help solve a puzzle, I'll give you respect. Out a PM, and I'll villify you.

[krystyn]

The veritable landslide of new posts every day, waiting to be read through, takes up a lot of my time each day. I'm not even moderating as much as others, but it still takes time and attention to make sure things are running as smoothly as possible. If that means that we put the kibosh on some threads in order to maintain some sense of sanity and reserve stress on SpaceBass' resources, I don't think you can blame us much. There is plenty of spec here that is flourishing and being discussed. There are an easy majority of threads that don't get locked. Contribute to the collective, eh?

People get frustrated because apparently, there's not enough to 'do' right now. It's quite possible there is a whole 'nother layer to the Axons Puzzle that we haven't even cracked, but the payphone/physical location spec has a lot of people in its sway, and that's where people's energies are focused.

So, we're in a waiting game.

If you're a member of this board, and you're posting as a guest to outlay some frustrations, I am very sorry that you're feeling this way, but I disagree with your assessment of rudeness. We're at a point in this game, whether you believe we're in pre-game or not, where there's a LOT of waiting time and a dichotomy between the Halo universe and the game. Outing PMs doesn't do much for the rest of us here who would wish to be further immersed, is against the Terms of Service here at this site, and is generally frowned upon, for a myriad of good reasons.

Patience is a virtue. Are you feeling virtuous?

[thebruce]

on that note, we should all prepared for the massive influx of new postings and duplication that's going to happen come tomorrow morning... I'm more anxious about the effect on the ARG sites than what's actually going to happen IN the game

[krystyn]

*whimper*

[vpisteve]

/me hands krystyn a cookie.

That's a good point though. We may get a veritable avalanche (plethora? cornucopia?) of guests tomorrow, so we should be prepared. Anything we all can do to help stem the flood of redundant posts and keep everything on track would be much appreciated.

If you've joined in the last month, consider yourself a veteran around here now.

[ScarpeGrosse]

[Nightmare Tony]

An interesting open question will be possibly the massive amount of trout served tomorrow. My own spec thinjks of only 2 different phone messages; is there a way to combine posts into a larger one kind of thing? Might want to put a hold on fish dinners as everyone reports in on their findings, since this is new and unknown information, but it will be redundant.

[ SPEC] I do NOT think that its individual messages for each location; for what if one location has nobody go there? We would lose a critical puzzle part, so methinks there is major redundancy involved. The reason I said 2 messages is the 3 and 4 minute timers between locations.

But anyhoo, tomorrow, the Collective Detective is awake and hungry for information. Prepare for the flood; get the hot coffee and J olt next to your computer screens and get comfy, it will be a LONG NIGHT (and hopefully not of long knives

[Varin]

[SuperJerms]

googling

[GunsmithCat]

Re: googling