What THREADS have you been LOCKING?

Dunno what you're complaining about, Barney, I hold you personally responsible.
If you hadn't started that "What BALLS have you been SCRATCHING?" thread...

Good riddance to the mega threads. I barely looked at any of them, ever — the signal-to-noise ratio was remarkably poor. I can only imagine how ridiculous they must have seemed to a newcomer and/or casual lurker.

Change, FTW.

No, the signal-to-noise ratio was excellent - because all of the 'noise' was kept within a few 'threads'. Now it will be spread everywhere (on the assumption the 'chit-chat' nature of the posts continues, of which I have my doubts.)

Suggestion: would a "What video games are you playing in APRIL?" thread be an acceptable compromise?

Long time Trash Talk lurker here. Loved the mega-threads. I believe getting rid of them is a mistake. YMMV.

P.S. I bought Vanquish because of the "What VIDEO GAMES have you been playing?" thread.

We actually talked about video games casually and in a general fashion.

I still don't understand what the problem was with the mega threads that people could just IGNORE if they felt threatened by them sexually or whatever people's beef was. Cuz it doesn't intimidate the newfish, they participated. The same way that you might join in a conversation in a pub when they talk about a movie you saw.

It was the perfect digital medium of a LOUNGE which was the name of the area in the first place I think. Go to the lounge if you want to chit chat, go elsewhere on the forums if you want depth.

Anyway, I don't understand the business of websites so if people talking to each other and enjoying talking to each other is detrimental (and it very well could be for all I know), then obviously ditching them is a good business move.

/is obviously very resistant to change, btw, so don't hold it against me
//secretly wants to just witch-hunt Southernman for no good reason at all

I'm surprised users weren't consulted about this stuff anyway.

and this thank you feature is super ghey. It's so Facebook which I hate. It's nice that F:AT is a place where you can say what you want which you can't on Facebook cuz your boss, mother-in-law and such are watchin' or may be a-watchin'. Giving people thumbs up on posts is drawing lines in the sand and leads to the mini civil wars we see on BGG a lot. At least next time there is a drama thread we will know who is with who.


edit: i'm getting scared that Uba is gonna ask me what my agenda is.

i don't exactly get how the monthly thread idea would satisfy the establishment's problem with the big threads in the first place but hey I'll take it cuz we could basically have the exact same types of banter and exploratory conversations in those that we did in the original ones. But if I'm in the middle of a good exchange with Jebby in the April Gaming thread and it's may 2nd but we're not finished, I'm gonna conclude that conversation in the April thread and if someone tells me 'HEY FELLAS, MOVE IT TO MAY' I'm gonna tell them to fock themselves

Black Barney wrote: and this thank you feature is super ghey.

FYI, I thanked you, because I love you.
:*

I hope I'm not remotely alone on this, but I really dislike the removal of the "What GAMES/MOVIES have you been playing/watching, etc." threads. Those were one of my favorite things about F:AT, and every day I could click into those threads and catch up on everything I'd missed recently. Now, there is a forum for what games you've been playing, so you look on there and see threads for "Battlestar Galactica", "Cosmic Encounter", etc. But I don't want to have to click on every little thread just to see what everyone's playing. In many cases I don't care about the specific game, but I always like to read people's experiences and the flow of conversation that sometimes happens about certain things. Much as I love BSG, I don't really care about some individual person's game of BSG, but I do care about everybody's game of everything, if you know what I mean. And what, now when I go to a game night and play six different games I have to post about them in six different threads?? It would be a major pain in the ass now to even remotely get the same kind of effect that the old threads had, in terms of reading and posting, and the result is I wouldn't even bother with that at all anymore. A really great community aspect of F:AT is gone, in essence. Definitely not an upgrade, and quite the opposite, IMO.

From Uba's reply in the upgrade announcement thread:

They were so popular

For a reason. If it ain't broke... Why would you think, "this is really popular, so let's completely end it or change it to make it much worse?"

that we have expanded and given you whole forums rather than just a single thread. Check out our new Trash Talk index . Too much good discussion buried in those.

It's not "buried", though. It's meant to be followed (which the new "NEW" buttons are great for), or jumped into when you feel like it. The thing is, you're definitely going to miss out on any possible "good discussion" if you can't keep up on checking out all of the individual game threads (which it would be ridiculous to try to keep up with). Who knows where that good discussion is?

Just start a new thread when you see a movie, or play an "Other" type of game. Then people can find it when they are considering watching or playing it. And if they do, they can add to the conversation, even if it's 6 months from now. Seriously, how many times have people said, "I remember someone mentioning something about X, but I can't remember where it is." It's probably buried on page 58 of one of those long threads, and to read the whole conversation, you have to scan three pages of discussion about it intermixed with discussion about 4 other movies, games, or whatever.

In those cases, people can use that little button up there called "Search." Works pretty well, actually. The few times I've wanted to find something it took minimal effort to do so. But regardless, I wouldn't change the best part of what makes those threads so great and so popular for the sake of the rare case when someone wants to search for some particular thing.

Please, either unlock those threads or start new ones of the same type.

Ah, sorry. I didn't see this thread before...

Black Barney's nitpicking aside, I cant see anyone posting in the April thread in May getting any guff. But if management says the real problem isnt chit chat in threads but size, and we really care about the chit chat but not the actual thread size - problem solved!

I've peeked into other communities online and seeing a massive thread like that is intimidating if you feel like you need to read most of it to get the conversation's context. I'm guessing that's part of hte issue?

That said, no one's startred an APRIL thread...

I suggest that we start it in the "The Lounge-What Have You Been Doing?" forum instead of "The Game Room" so to keep the chit-chat out of serious gaming (which also keeps Mr Weeks happy) plus other monthly 'What have you ...' threads could also show up.
Also I suggest the first one (so Barney does not get himself banned or his agenda revealed) is called 'Games I have been Playing in May (& April) 2011'.

Any Yeas or Nays ?

And I promise to shorten my AARs - I don't do it deliberately, I just write a bit like I talk ... I don't shut up sometimes.

PS I notice that threads from some forums (i.e this one) are not coming up in the Recent Topics view, is this by design or a bug ?

yeah, what the hell is going on with all the interesting threads not showing up in the recent threads? It's super tough to keep up with what's going on. I can understand you not wanting it on the front page (if that still happens), but it should still show up in recent threads.

It's a new 'friendly' feature I think.

You now need to use index to see everything that has been posted.

I'll miss the megadick threads but the monthly ones are a good compromise.