er … eh? What does that mean?!
Happy to pontificate on the meaning of my threads!
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I am totally guilty of this.
Even so, it’s reaching the point that I can’t manage the load. I’m muting everything that doesn’t interest me, but it’s still taking more time than I have available. Something’s going to give, certainly when the baby comes if not before.
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Trying singing the comments as though they were a lullaby, or Cole Porter lyrics to a lost musical.
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No, I don’t think you have. One of the neater things in conversation is discussing edge cases and using those to clarify scope (sometimes this gets used as a debate tactic to try to invalidate the entire premise … which can be valid sometimes but mostly just drags debate into an unproductive place). I think I can say that though an Achievement can be chased, that’s not part of my concern regarding your topic.
@LDoBe reminding me of the metrics page also helped me to put into focus how much 50%-of-all actually meant from a practical perspective. I’m not sure if that helps the conversation as a whole but it helps me in general and I think helps me clarify where I want to go in this conversation.
[quote=“tropo, post:21, topic:77717, full:true”]I’m just saying I think the metric is skewed, and it affects post quality in some cases.
[/quote]
I still think you’re right. It can affect post quality negatively. In terms of … Read Quality, particularly.
I think the bar is there because if you’re not reading a fair bit, you are less likely to spot problems and Flag them. I believe having a bar there helps the quality of BBS overall. But considering how active BBS is, maybe the bar is set too high.
Maybe that’s why some of the folks who have exceptionally high quality posts aren’t Regulars. Although, maybe they’re still really not reading enough threads at whatever an adjusted level would be?
I read the game threads to the point where I find out whether or not they’re fun for me and then stop if I don’t enjoy them. That’s probably how I accidentally got Regular to begin with. 
Well, that combined with my general BBS reading.
You’re 11th overall in terms of thread creations at 195 threads created Boing Boing BBS 
I don’t think anyone’s complaining. I’m definitely not. I like your contribution a lot.
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At least I’m not the only person with time read here measured in months now.
Thanks, @nytespryte!
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“Daddy, why are you singing songs about Donald Trump’s penis and murdering Muslims? I like it better when you sing the German song.”
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The hell you say!
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That’s the premise. I’m not saying it has an impact on everyone, but I think it’s worth considering.
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I’m curious;
Why does there have to be any ‘fail’ in this particular scenario at all?
Perhaps I’m just naïve, but on any forum that I frequent, my only expectations are to be amused and possibly enlightened.
In my personal experience, aspects like levels, leaderboards and any other equivalents of ‘social strata’ are what truly hinder conversation which has some actual depth to it.
Any kind of competitive element can (and usually does) result in lowering the bar for the overall quality of intellectual discourse.
That being said, I understand the point of having trust levels on a site which is open source, and I can appreciate being a member of a community where there’s some actual investment in the site’s sustainability.
Maybe it’s because I’m much more artistically inclined than tech savvy, but I’m just not concerned about any particular ranking here, and the interface works well enough to suit my personal needs.
Call me easy, but I’m fairly content as long as my minimum criteria is met:
*lolz
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There doesn’t have to be. I framed it that way to kick off the discussion. I do think it’s worth noting that metrics can have an effect on the quality of posts.
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I suspect it might be mostly about the reading. I was a Regular briefly (though I think I might have been artificially promoted by a kind benefactor), but I couldn’t keep up the standards, even when I was working a job that afforded me enough free-ish time to run one of the Badass games, with all the reading and posting that entailed. I can’t really devote the time and interest in keeping up with enough threads anymore. Might be that I’m not bored enough these days. As I glance at the main BBS page, fully half the topics are at least of some passing theoretical interest to me, but not quite enough to grab me since we’ve just moved house and I have a lot of furniture to assemble. Between renovating two houses, moving, Ikea-screwing, and saying my final farewells to my late father, I haven’t had the idle time to spend on the BBS that I’d usually like.
I may have a new job starting up, though, so we’ll see if it gives me enough screen time for me to resume manifesting a solid presence here. Even so, I don’t think I’ve missed much by not being a card-carrying Regular. I’m told that the Lounge conversation isn’t, in and of itself, so compelling compared to the forum we ordinary Users enjoy out here, so I take that at face value… but part of me wonders if I might not be missing out on the Baddest-Ass game of Badass taking place in the Lounge, and nobody has the heart to tell me.
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Fair enough.
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I agree, though I don’t know how much of an issue it turns out to be in practice. I mean, certainly I’d be obliged to skim and game the system to obtain and keep Regular status, and such status isn’t nearly important enough for me to bother putting in such half-assed effort. But when it comes to contributing, I still don’t usually find it a challenge to read enough (the whole article in question and the existing comments) before I post so that I offer as informed and up-to-date comment as possible. It hadn’t occurred to me that an otherwise astute poster might be a tad off their game if they’re spread too thin from trying to keep up with enough of the BBS to maintain their status. But yeah, I can see how it might happen, since maintaining status is, in fact, a time-suck.
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Like I said earlier, you guys need to give me specific users to look at if you guys feel this is a legit problem. There is also the issue that I cannot publicize this data unless the user in question asks for it. I can speak in broad terms based on looking at the data though.
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I don’t know that there’s a technical problem with regard to mis-identifying the folks who correctly cross the current threshold. I don’t trawl the statistics we do have enough to really have an idea there. I’m mainly concerned with whether that finish line is in the right place.
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Badass No Donalds Allowed is a great game! You’re really missing out.
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part of me wonders if I might not be missing out on the Baddest-Ass game of Badass taking place in the Lounge, and nobody has the heart to tell me.
It’s like Hackers meets Repo Man in a Mad Max/Matrix world where all the men have died out.
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This seems to be something maintained by technology and social application, but also largely an issue of scaling. If for some reason readership increased quickly it would be so much harder to maintain norms and that feeling of community.
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I have no idea about the Regular thing, but the commenting part of BB is really amazingly, stupendously terrific and well done. There’s not much software that is this user friendly online or elsewhere.
[Gump]And that’s all I have to say about that.[/Gump]
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I think I said something similar previous on a similar thread talking about badges, so I’m reading your comments and the responses with great interest.
I relate to what both you and Ignatius are saying - that is, I have to make an effort to not start pouring extra effort into tweaking my activities to gain a status or badge. I don’t want to do this for the reasons you’re saying - I like the community and people here, and want to contribute to it in healthy ways. (For example, in the ‘Fuck Today’ or ‘Victory’ threads, what one of my other online spaces calls “witnessing” for people.)
I think you’ve got something right in what you’re saying, and I also think it’s subtle and slippery and affects different people in different ways, so it’s hard to express clearly. @codinghorror is perfectly right to ask for a simple and clear explanation, but that may be hard to get to. It’s worth contemplating a bit though.
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