Have any of you noticed how GD isn't really general discussion anymore? It's general "post and move on without reading anything from earlier in the topic or anything after you post."

I understand people need to post as often as possible to get gold, but you should at least take the time to read topics in their entirety before posting in them.

Take the "Pregnant Man" topic, for example. How many people in there have asked how a man can have a baby? How many have answered with a quote from the article? None of the people asking have read the topic (or the article), or they wouldn't have asked in the first place. I see things like this going on in nearly every topic that makes it to two pages. If there's discussion to be had, it's being killed by an influx of people simply posting to get another 3 gold and not caring about any discussion whatsoever.

Do you agree with this assessment? If you do, can you picture a way to fix it? If it can't be fixed, what other options are there?

(Also, I weighed heavily whether this should go in here or Community Discussion, or even site feedback, and decided that since it discussed GD, it would get read by more GD'ers in GD. If a mod disagrees, then by all means move it.)

the GD is always like that :(

I think its due to the slow moving forums people tend to forget about coming back. That and we have no 'visible' way of looking at our past posts (meaning the link isn't infront of people's faces and they have to go through their profiles but most are too lazy xD; )

Im guilty of forgetting to check most of the time >.>; I just get so busy

I don't really come in here very much.
But when I do, I usually get bored and go somewhere else, so I don't read stuff after I post most of the time.

Originally Posted by Tre Le Coco

(meaning the link isn't infront of people's faces and they have to go through their profiles but most are too lazy xD; )

I understand that a link at the bottom of the forum index isn't particularly obvious but it is there and quite easy to click on, really...

lol, you know what people are like ^^;;; unless its jumping right in front of their faces they won't do it :P

ahhh we have one down there!~ i always go through my profile >.>; *shot*

LOLOL

It's true that it's been like that for a very long time. But that's a bit of an unweildy title for a forum >.<

I agree with Tre Le Coco.. :3 it's the fact that some topics are so SLOW. especially in my case, where I am usually awake when the most of menewshans are sleeping... -.-
nothing happens in 5 hours..? I close the topic window.
I do come back if I see it on the first page again and remember, but I don't necessarely answer.

or, the topics are just like that, everyone comes and puts their own answer and leaves.. there's not much to discuss with others in that case x3

I think the only solution would be to have a forum where people could earn (a reduced amount of) gold for spam.
As this place grows, we're bound to get more and more people who just want gold and don't care about discussing anything. It's not only that people are making trite responses to topics, it's also the quality of topics that are going downhill nowadays.
If people could have a spam place to play in, it would leave GD and other forums free for those who actually want to talk about a certain subject.
If it were down to me, I'd raise the amount of gold for posting "proper" discussions and also have a small token amount of gold on a forum where people can post any old junk they feel like. Including "LOL!" or :D responses.
I know this place is all about the community, but we've got to accept that parts of the community will not be able to (or willing to) have serious discussions and are only going to be capable of posting spam.
It's like how in the real world, we have institutions for those of us that can't cope with the norm. We could have "The Assylum" for those with questionable conversational abilities to play in.

I am still really new here, and even I am noticing that. And the pregnant man thread, I posted there, I have read the story, mainly due to the fact that the man lives in the same state as me lol. But yeah, I do agree with your point.

I don't know Ebil.. I wouldn't like it if there was a possibility to spam, even if it was only in one forum.. :3
the spammers would still be in other places too, acting.. like spammers. x3 you know?

If I got a PM of new replies when I watched a topic, I might use the link, but emails are pretty useless... Beh, I'm not checking my emails 10 times an hour to see if some weirdo replied 'i know, lol' to a post.

I do try to discuss things sometimes, but sometimes other people don't leave much to discuss that hasn't already been said.

One positive thing I have noticed is that the topics on this site are much better than most other forum sites I have found. Even if they are short lived due to internet add/just posting for gold. So yeah, I still like this site.

@ebil
While that's a great theory, it wouldn't work in practice. Allow me to give you a scenario:

1)An "asylum" forum is created where people can post whatever they want for a reduced gold earning rate.

1a)Why would they post spam at a reduced gold rate when they could simply post a trite reply to a topic in GD and earn full rate gold?

2)An "asylum" forum is created where people can post whatever at full rate.

2a)Now the spammers have all the pure while people who are interested in the community are getting the shaft. Inflation and hoarding would increase and a general ill feeling would occur in the exchange because the spammers would be spamming in there with buy posts. :(

I like both of those less than what we have now. :(

There will never be a possibility to spam ^^;; Its never going to be allowed, even if you only get .01 per post

Zantarni has been running under the same rules for 2 years, they have double the amount of members (believe it or not) and they haven't been overrun by spam and their GD (aka beer hall) and still have discussions going on :)

That makes me happy. I think a spam forum should be held off as long as possible, permanently if possible.

What a lot of GD threads are these days are venting threads. A person goes on and on about how much they're parents suck, or how mean this one person is to them, and then they tack on "Has this ever happened to you?" at the end of the rant and it suddenly becomes a discussion xP

I think those threads need to either be locked or tossed to life issues.

(but that's just my opinion, my views can be a bit draconian at times when it comes to keeping order)

Not even life issues. All parents tell their children "No" from time to time. All teachers are gonna give hard assignments. And it's a safe bet that you'll get into an argument with a friend at least once in your life time.

There should be a stamp posted "Suck it up and get on with life." before the thread is locked.

Wow! I seem to be very bitchy today O.o

I agree whole-heartedly with that.

If people just want to talk about themselves, they should get a journal.
It really isn't at all difficult to come up with interesting and valid topics of discussion.

Unfortunately, onsite journals have been offline for quite a while...

I hope they come back with the software switch, and if they do, I hope we see a thinning out of those types of topics, and even if we don't, the staff can then lock them up and tell people that belongs in their journal.

General Discussion. I guess most people just came on in, leave their thoughts on the topic. And yes, I have seen alot of threads that art started with how bad their day is, and ask you if you're day is bad too those kind of stuff. I think they decided to start a thread in here to get people posting, because the thread owner do get an amount of gold when someone posts in their thread right? I think that's on fuel. To fix this, I don't really think there is a way. I mean, in all avatar sites I've been, there is bound to be a place like this... it's only natural?

Originally Posted by Kinmotsu

Unfortunately, onsite journals have been offline for quite a while...

I hope they come back with the software switch, and if they do, I hope we see a thinning out of those types of topics, and even if we don't, the staff can then lock them up and tell people that belongs in their journal.

Here's hoping they come back, then.

I know there's zero tolerance for "flaming" on Menewsha, but sometimes it's really difficult to just ignore a topic, rather than informing the thread starter that I really couldn't care less about the mundane events of their boring little lives.

But then, if they do get a journal (which would cost them gold, which they won't like) then it's just a one shot thing for them. They post their journal entry today, they got this certain amount of gold. And that's all. But the fact that people earn gold from others posting in there thread, it's pretty attractive. Who knows how many replies that might get from their thread?

But general discussion, so it's just general discussion about things right? and the things can range from ... oh, i don't know. How would you describe what belongs to the GD anyways?

The gold people get from people posting in their threads is pretty unsubstantial. (.10 gold per reply) Hell, you could give them that for people commenting on their journal posts and we wouldn't lose out on anything. :)

I think that's the major problem encountered on pretty much all forums I'm on.

Exactly how general is General Discussion?
And what exactly qualifies as a discussion?