A discussion on what goes where

[Guest]

I've been waiting for the perfect opportunity to bring this up, and I think I've found it.

 

I'm not saying we get into creating threads for every article posted on prowrestling.com, but...

 

Randy Orton's wife had a daughter on Friday called Alanna Marie Orton.

 

News you could barely use.

 

Former WWE Writer Reveals Possible New Vince Character

 

Vince McMahon is strategically planning his return. Last night on RAW, Shane McMahon's announcement did not further the storyline. This was done so that the plug could be pulled on the storyline if fans show no interest in the following weeks.

 

Vince could return to TV and say he was lucky to avoid serious injury. Another option for WWE is to have Vince remain absence and then show up on RAW unexpectedly. Former WWE writer Brian Gewrirtz pitched an idea in the past of Vince growing a scruffy beard and playing a Howard Hughes-like character.

 

News you could use, news worthy of having its own thread, because it's something that brings forth discussion, even if we're just talking about a rumor.

 

 

We've talked about these mega-threads in staff, and we are not having two Comments That Don't Warrant a Thread threads in any folder. That's basically what we've got over here, and there isn't any good reason for it (no, I am not bringing back CTDWAT). I'm doing my best to not say how I really feel about these mega-threads where everyone talks about multiple topics, sometimes at the same time, so I won't say more. I think you get the idea. Keep this news you can barely use. Keep the random thoughts thread random thoughts.

 

If you've got any questions, comments, or complaints about that, send me a PM.

[Guest]

I decided to cut this out of another thread. Let's talk about this. Was my example any good, or do I have to give another one? I don't want to pick on anyone, but is it really that hard to figure out? Should I just close one of those "random threads" and leave one for posting? Do we go back to posting every insignificant news item in its own thread? Serious questions, all of those.

 

At the moment I'm leaning towards closing both of the two mega-threads we've got in here. It's really up to you guys and what you want to see.

 

[Twisted Intestine 0]

I think that you were wrong about the Lashley story... That is news you can barely use, not a random thought.

 

[Guest]

It's actually worth a new thread. I just couldn't think of what to call it.

[Twisted Intestine 0]

Yeah, I agree with that.

 

Anyways, I think you should just leave one of those threads open, and very trivial thoughts can go in there. Anything that warrants discussion can be posted in its own thread, and you can move it to it's own thread if somebody puts it in the random thoughts - People will get the hang of it.

[Obi Chris Kenobi 0]

Sorry to link another wrestling forum (but to be fair the posting standard is pretty poor) but is this what you want the WWE folder to look like?

http://www.pwsforums.com/forumdisplay.php?f=164

[MillenniumMan831 0]

My suggestion would be keep things the way they are and if a piece of news garners eight or so comments, make a thread out of it, regardless of how minor the item may be.

[Guest]

There's some good stuff going on there, but some is really bad.

 

Ratings should always go in the thread for the show, so I'm not a fan of individual threads for it.

 

Whenever someone gets released or suspended, there should be a new thread for each one. That's news.

 

How the Undertaker may return = new thread, as you could talk about it, post your own ideas and wacky conclusions so people can talk about them.

 

If there's a good Ross Report or Lance Storm thought posting that contains some good information = new thread

 

What's in Kane's Bag = new thread

 

Talk about Randy Orton's return, things they'd do with him, new thread.

 

Thread for house show reports sounds good too.

 

 

 

Rest I could do without or could be put in a mega-thread. I'm starting to think we have one random thoughts thread at the start of next month, for a month, and see how it works. But we are not going to post everything (or anything near everything) in there like with CTDWAT, and if people don't get it after that month, I'll figure something out. What's going on right now, nope, I'm not a fan. I didn't think it would turn out this way after ditching CTDWAT, I was wrong. But now we have two of them and it's worse.

 

My suggestion would be keep things the way they are and if a piece of news garners eight or so comments, make a thread out of it, regardless of how minor the item may be.

 

That's a lot of moderating for me. Ideally it would be nice if people would do their share. We've only had one thread created in the last two weeks (which didn't wasn't a show thread) that I didn't have to do the creating for. Two in the last thirty days.

 

It's still up to you guys, I'm just throwing out ideas and stuff. The only thing for certain is that we need to make more items into individual threads rather than post them in what's, really, a mound of stuff.

[Mike wanna be 0]

I don't know how much more apparent it can be that we like having a mound of stuff.

 

Every attempt to dispel it ends up exactly like this, where there's an obvious need for a catch-all topic for one-off posts about random shit and said catch-all becomes a mound of stuff.

 

Just as an example:

If I say "Lashley looks like he got off steroids" that's a random thought, that much is obvious. The distinction between "Random thoughts" and "news" is apparent.

However, how am I supposed to know if it's something that gets a facepalm picture in response and then is summarily ignored (thereby justifying a "Random thought" post) or if it spawns a page and a half of Wellness policy debate (thus being more fitting of a comment warranting a thread)?

 

The only accurate way to do it is something moderators shouldn't be bothering with, and that's reading through the big-ass topics and pulling out everything that spawns enough discussion to warrant a thread. With that there's still a big catch-all thread going for the random shit, but when something spawns debate it's separated into its own spot; the debate isn't lost in the random shit shuffle and vice versa, and isn't that exactly what you're hoping for?

[Twisted Intestine 0]

I didn't think it would turn out this way after ditching CTDWAT, I was wrong. But now we have two of them and it's worse.

 

 

It will only keep getting worse.

[Obi Chris Kenobi 0]

I don't know how much more apparent it can be that we like having a mound of stuff.

 

Every attempt to dispel it ends up exactly like this, where there's an obvious need for a catch-all topic for one-off posts about random shit and said catch-all becomes a mound of stuff.

 

Just as an example:

If I say "Lashley looks like he got off steroids" that's a random thought, that much is obvious. The distinction between "Random thoughts" and "news" is apparent.

However, how am I supposed to know if it's something that gets a facepalm picture in response and then is summarily ignored (thereby justifying a "Random thought" post) or if it spawns a page and a half of Wellness policy debate (thus being more fitting of a comment warranting a thread)?

 

The only accurate way to do it is something moderators shouldn't be bothering with, and that's reading through the big-ass topics and pulling out everything that spawns enough discussion to warrant a thread. With that there's still a big catch-all thread going for the random shit, but when something spawns debate it's separated into its own spot; the debate isn't lost in the random shit shuffle and vice versa, and isn't that exactly what you're hoping for?

 

Depends on how you'd word the original post that led the topic. If it was just:

 

"Lashley looks like he got off steroids"

 

Then yeah, I don't think you'd get much from that, but if you had said:

 

"Lashley looks like he got off steroids" showed some picture of his changed, asked some questions as to what it meant and invited replies the yeah that'd be worth a thread of its own. You get what you give, I guess.

 

Take this thread for example: http://forums.thesmartmarks.com/index.php?showtopic=91479

 

That could have been put into the random comments thread, as it is kind of, but the poster went into an effort to invite conversation and replies about his point - its a good thread to be honest.

[Guest]

I don't know how much more apparent it can be that we like having a mound of stuff.

One mound of stuff. Two mounds of stuff is ridiculous. It interferes with my enjoyment of the board, and I know that it interferes with other people's enjoyment of the board. I did some checking around before I first posted the original post. I know that even one mound of stuff interferes with people's enjoyment of the board, but I think it's okay to have a thread where people talk about really random stuff like Randy Orton's significant other having a child.

 

The only accurate way to do it is something moderators shouldn't be bothering with, and that's reading through the big-ass topics and pulling out everything that spawns enough discussion to warrant a thread. With that there's still a big catch-all thread going for the random shit, but when something spawns debate it's separated into its own spot; the debate isn't lost in the random shit shuffle and vice versa, and isn't that exactly what you're hoping for?

 

That's a lot of moderating for me. Ideally it would be nice if people would do their share. We've only had one thread created in the last two weeks (which didn't wasn't a show thread) that I didn't have to do the creating for. Two in the last thirty days.

 

Every attempt to dispel it ends up exactly like this, where there's an obvious need for a catch-all topic for one-off posts about random shit and said catch-all becomes a mound of stuff.

I bolded the part of that quote I agree with. We need one topic for really random stuff. Not two topics. Stuff that is extremely minor news, that you know won't have too many people talking about it. Stuff that you know is going to garner a share of replies does not belong in those threads.

[Guest]

Some of my checking.

 

I did some checking around before I first posted the original post.

http://forums.thesmartmarks.com/index.php?...t=0&start=0

[Scroby 0]

I like having the "comments that don't warrent a thread" thread back when we had it. The only issue I had with it was when people didn't look a page or two back to see if something had already been posted or discussed and would re-post the same topic. It was more annoying when people just didn't look a couple posts above theirs to see the same thing already posted or the same discussion would restart.

 

The main reason I didn't start a thread for AAA using Lashley WWE footage is because I was worried it would overall turn into a AAA discussion and also didn't think it'd really get that many posts or a giant discussion and of course the "Oh this doesn't warrent it's own thread" or the "This belongs in a AAA thread."

 

Though to be honest, and maybe this should be a PM, but I don't get why what I posted about Lashley was moved to the "Random thoughts" thread. Was it the way I wrote it out or was it just a matter of opinon?

[Guest]

I like having the "comments that don't warrent a thread" thread back when we had it. The only issue I had with it was when people didn't look a page or two back to see if something had already been posted or discussed and would re-post the same topic. It was more annoying when people just didn't look a couple posts above theirs to see the same thing already posted or the same discussion would restart.

 

I'll just delete those re-posts, and send the person who did so a PM, telling them that they should probably check next time. You know, something like that. My problem with CTDWAT back when we had it is that, as bob mentioned in the link I posted, that people would post something like "Sabu was released" in a comments that don't warrant a thread post. I've gotta ask, how does something like that not warrant a thread? Or when a guy gets busted with roids in his system, people usually talk about it for a while. I mean, that's worthy of a discussion all to itself, right? But I would rather have one CTDWAT than two...

 

The main reason I didn't start a thread for AAA using Lashley WWE footage is because I was worried it would overall turn into a AAA discussion and also didn't think it'd really get that many posts or a giant discussion and of course the "Oh this doesn't warrent it's own thread" or the "This belongs in a AAA thread."

If it doesn't, it just falls down the page. And that's okay, at least people can see that you were wondering why AAA was able to use WWE's music, or if they're able to use the music at all, who else uses their WWE music in other feds, etc. Then people can talk about it, which is cool. If someone wants to say, "this doesn't warrant it's own thread," well, I'll be the judge. It's nicer for a casual observer to see what you guys are talking about. That's how new members can be attracted...in some cases that might not be so good, but still. It helps grow the community.

[Twisted Intestine 0]

People have gotten used to using CTDWAT is the thing. For example, if I wanted to ask, "How long do you think CM Punk will hold the title?" I'd feel stupid starting a thread for that, even though it should get responses.

[Mike wanna be 0]

No comment warrants a thread by itself, it's the responses to the comment that determine whether it warrants a thread. Hence my post.

 

I realize mods don't want to fish through CTDWAT every day pulling shit out to make topics out of it when discussion pops up, but the only way "people do their share" in making topics is to either:

a) be omniscient enough to know whether your comment will spawn enough debate and discussion to warrant its own thread, or

b) make a new topic about everything in case it's discussed enough to warrant it.

 

I asked about $60 each for floor seats at a house show and whether it was worth the money or if I'd be better off being a cheapskate and sitting farther back, and got 6-7 responses in Random Thoughts.

Did that warrant a thread, and would it warrant one if I had only gotten one or two responses?

 

The only way you're going to get things the way you want them is to do the things you don't want to do; either fish through and pick out what's being discussed for topics, or close a shitload of one-off topics that get no discussion.

 

Or give up on letting new people who haven't even signed up yet determine how & where the current people post and instead let them assimilate into our way of doing things, that's always an option. It's what you post that counts, not where you post it. I don't see how re-working the place we post what we post will somehow bring a massive influx of new users, and if it does I don't see why any of us would want to bring in users so shallow and inattentive as to determine whether or not they join a forum based on how many threads their wrestling news go in.

[Obi Chris Kenobi 0]

The only way you're going to get things the way you want them is to do the things you don't want to do; either fish through and pick out what's being discussed for topics, or close a shitload of one-off topics that get no discussion.

 

If they get no reply they'll simply drop off the 1st page anyway, right? Most boards have admin options to auto delete posts that have no activity for x amount of days, so that shouldn't really be an issue. I think it just comes down to common sense and putting a bit of effort into what you post. If you post a one liner, then yeah, you won't get much back and it probably should go into the random comments thread.

 

I mean look at the movie/tv section of the forum: http://forums.thesmartmarks.com/index.php?showforum=12

 

There's endless amount of topics in there, ranging from many pages of responses to a few replies to no replies. Its easy to find a show you might want to talk about a few weeks/months after everyone else has using the search feature, and I don't believe its cluttered at all - surely its what internet forums are for?

 

I'm not saying I think the WWE forum should have a thread for every wrestler and every tidbit of news, but to clump all in one mega thread does seem a bit pointless. Especially when you have people like Enigma who chain copy and paste news into the mega threads and then it gets lost in the mix amongst Test's third nipple and The Rock sneezed and someone thought he was coming back to wrestling.

 

So far we have our weekly TV show threads, that get pinned to the top when they're new, which is handy. Then we have the odd post about something else, but it does look like we're not discussing much wrestling. There's times where I'll come back to the board after work, maybe not being able to check it for 12-24 hours, and it doesn't look like much has been discussed, but then you look at the mega thread and its gained 3 pages or more. Personally, I can't be bothered to fish through all of that to see if there was something decent worth responding to.

 

Also what happened to those round table posts discussing events over the last few years and what people thought? They were pretty cool to read and something different.

[Mike wanna be 0]

It looks like we're not discussing a lot of WWE wrestling because in reality...we're not discussing much wrestling except DURING wrestling in the show/PPV threads.

 

I've got the board settings to show all topics from the last 15 days and there are six that aren't show/PPV/spoiler threads.

 

One's the very recent Lashley in AAA thread, there's the DVD discussion thread, "What isn't stale in the WWE?", the Benoit book thread, "unrealistic angles", and "Vince McMahon = Howard Hughes?". I'm going to not include the DVD discussion thread because that's a year-long thing and has been there for seven months while the others are relatively recent.

 

So we have five non-show threads. Of the five, at thirty posts per page, two have made it to page two, and only one made it past that (the Benoit book thread at five).

 

All three shows and the PPVs have their own topic, Smackdown has a spoilers topic every week, overly big news and Observer notes, on the rare occasion they happen, get their own thread. If you have a random thought, there is a topic for it. If you have some news that's not big enough to deserve a thread, there's a topic for it.

 

If you want some topics, we need something to discuss in them, and just as some examples, I pieced this list of suggestions together:

-What about getting a handful of members to chip in some cash to buy an Observer subscription, and having somebody or a group of somebodies type up the notes? They always seemed to gather a large amount of discussion compared to the other topics.

-A "Let's discuss" thread that targets wrestlers, gimmicks, feuds, storylines and matches on a weekly basis

-A "Predict the future" thread where you pick a wrestler and try to guess what they're going to do in the next week/month/year/remainder of their career

-A "Tragedy Strikes" thread, where somebody selects a current feud or storyline, throws a potential wrench in the works, and challenges others to try to 'fix' things (say Snitsky is the one that injured Punk in their title match of a couple weeks ago; where does WWE go with Raw and the World Heavyweight Title?, for example)

-A "What might have been" thread, discussing gimmicks, injuries or storylines and discussing how (if at all) their continuance/early severance would have changed the wrestling world (How would the WWF have gone if Michaels doesn't lose four years to a back injury?)

[Obi Chris Kenobi 0]

It looks like we're not discussing a lot of WWE wrestling because in reality...we're not discussing much wrestling except DURING wrestling in the show/PPV threads.

 

I've got the board settings to show all topics from the last 15 days and there are six that aren't show/PPV/spoiler threads.

 

One's the very recent Lashley in AAA thread, there's the DVD discussion thread, "What isn't stale in the WWE?", the Benoit book thread, "unrealistic angles", and "Vince McMahon = Howard Hughes?". I'm going to not include the DVD discussion thread because that's a year-long thing and has been there for seven months while the others are relatively recent.

 

So we have five non-show threads. Of the five, at thirty posts per page, two have made it to page two, and only one made it past that (the Benoit book thread at five).

 

All three shows and the PPVs have their own topic, Smackdown has a spoilers topic every week, overly big news and Observer notes, on the rare occasion they happen, get their own thread. If you have a random thought, there is a topic for it. If you have some news that's not big enough to deserve a thread, there's a topic for it.

 

If you want some topics, we need something to discuss in them, and just as some examples, I pieced this list of suggestions together:

-What about getting a handful of members to chip in some cash to buy an Observer subscription, and having somebody or a group of somebodies type up the notes? They always seemed to gather a large amount of discussion compared to the other topics.

-A "Let's discuss" thread that targets wrestlers, gimmicks, feuds, storylines and matches on a weekly basis

-A "Predict the future" thread where you pick a wrestler and try to guess what they're going to do in the next week/month/year/remainder of their career

-A "Tragedy Strikes" thread, where somebody selects a current feud or storyline, throws a potential wrench in the works, and challenges others to try to 'fix' things (say Snitsky is the one that injured Punk in their title match of a couple weeks ago; where does WWE go with Raw and the World Heavyweight Title?, for example)

-A "What might have been" thread, discussing gimmicks, injuries or storylines and discussing how (if at all) their continuance/early severance would have changed the wrestling world (How would the WWF have gone if Michaels doesn't lose four years to a back injury?)

 

They are all good ideas for posts, which begs the question, why haven't you posted a topic about them? If people start to post stuff I'm sure others will follow and take part, like with the Round Table discussions for PPVs and when Kamala did his weekly Town Hall thing (which disappeared). I think sometimes people put some of the questions like you suggested above into the megathread such as the random comments - as in essence they are a bit of a random comment. I think this is what the mod types are trying to draw a line on - what is and what isn't a random comment and what deserves their own thread.

[Scroby 0]

-A "Tragedy Strikes" thread, where somebody selects a current feud or storyline, throws a potential wrench in the works, and challenges others to try to 'fix' things (say Snitsky is the one that injured Punk in their title match of a couple weeks ago; where does WWE go with Raw and the World Heavyweight Title?, for example)

 

It wasn't Snitsky's fault so there's really no disussion to be had on that one. (sorry I couldn't resisit)

 

Chris did however bring something up that I think would cause a problem as well and that's with the people who copy and paste every little news bit they find or think they've found something and make a topic out of it. I think if the WWE folder goes back to having people make dozens of tiny threads, then we're going to get a lot of people making new threads just for finding random news facts. A lot of it probably pretty pointless and I could see the same problem we'd had with the CTDWAT thread and that's people not paying enough attention to something that already had been posted and another new thread is created.

 

Granted a mod would close it and get rid of it, but I could just see that happening a lot.

 

I like Oldskool's idea about making threads that warrant a certain kind of discussion but be real specific when it comes to what is discussed in those thread so there's not a lot of random confusing discussion in those threads. Have a News thread, have a "What do you think about...." thread, have a title belt thread where people talk about champions and various title belts. Something along those lines.

 

The other idea I had on what might help a bit is getting rid of "Random thoughts" but keeping the "News you can barely use" thread.

 

I think the "Random Thoughts" thread might be holding people back from making new threads because when they see "random thoughts" they might automatically think to post whatever they wanted to post in there instead of just making a new thread about it.

 

If we keep the "News you can barely use" thread then it should (just my opinon) be used just for the minor small stories no one is really going to care about. While the major stories like someone getting released or suspended or if there's a new title and there's a picture of it floating around or something along those lines would get it's own thread. Now does that mean people should go nuts and post every small tidbit that they either think is news or is posted somewhere, no. Use the News you can barely use thread for things like new devlopment talent got hired and reported to FCW or a fan just the baricade and got his ass beat by J.R. news.

 

It's very hard to make everyone happy, no matter what happens people are gonna bitch about it. I think the mods should just experiment with different things and go from there and see what clicks.

[Mike wanna be 0]

Why I haven't made those threads: It's easy to come up with a one-off idea to make a point, but much harder to come up with weekly ideas, plus you run into spoiler v. non-spoiler.

 

I mean, for Tragedy Strikes I could easily do stuff related to several GAB matches, but I'd be walking the line between doing it immediately after the PPV and risking people outright giving out spoilers (or having the entire thread be a wall of spoilered text, forcing everybody to highlight the whole page to read anything), or waiting a week or two and having the PPV buzz die down so nobody wants to bother.

 

The only question I've got now is how should we do it?

 

Do people want rigid timelines (like say, What Might Have been being the midday Wednesday discussion topic that lasts for a week) and defined thread creators (one person being the "official" person to decide the week's topic, taking requests & suggestions from the forum in general), or do they want more or less a crapshoot where anybody who's got a topic can throw out a discussion thread for it any time they want, and mods will just close them/let them fall when discussion dies off?

[Obi Chris Kenobi 0]

Again I point to the movie thread as a good example of how people manage to talk about movies using spoiler tags and still give a good insight without blow major parts of the movie out of the water and spoiling it. I say we give it ago, create the topics, give your thoughts and ideas and whatever and if its going to spoil something use the spoiler tags, its what its there for. I don't think we'll have walls of spoiler text, and if there is, and someone doesn't want the PPV spoiled for them, they'll leave before they read on (hopefully join the discussion later and renew the interest).

[Twisted Intestine 0]

Use the News you can barely use thread for things like new devlopment talent got hired and reported to FCW or a fan just the baricade and got his ass beat by J.R. news.

 

I think that would deserve it's own thread.

 

[Guest]

I think I've made my decision. But I am still able to be swayed.

 

On the first of August, I'm going to close both the random thoughts and news you can barely use threads. We'll have one CTDWAT thread for every month, like before, but more heavily moderated, (and we'll call it comments that don't warrant a thread, while making sure comments posted in there don't warrant a thread) for random stuff and news like what has been posted in posts #422, #425, and #426 of the News You Can Barely Use thread. To clarify about those examples, something like "the WWE's running their first house show in Egypt in the past fifteen years" doesn't warrant a thread. So and so has heat doesn't warrant a thread. So and so getting in a fight backstage with so and so does warrant a thread.

 

So and so must be a tough bastard!

 

Speculation and news like that which I posted in post #8 of this thread is what warrants a new thread. I don't mind seeing a bunch of no reply threads falling down the board. Chances are, people are going to reply to them anyway. You guys talk when someone gets released or suspended. You guys also wonder and talk about booking and how such and such is going to make his return from injury.

[Scroby 0]

I like it. I say run with it and see what happens.

[Perfxion 0]

I would be all for all CTWATs to be deleted because it is annoying trying to follow whats going on in any of them. I rather skip all of them and yet it seems no discussion is going on in any folder because of it.

 

I say instead of a catch all thread for a bunch of shit, lets just have a million topics and stupid ones will die quick and painless deaths. Or if for anything really dumb, make one "little tidbits" thread and let the rest flow free. There is no discussion when all post flow too fast because someone with other random topic post and all talk dies.