Topic of the day, just when I thought I was going to go through all today without a blog entry, something hit me and I'm surprised it never hit me before. Concerning the anal-retentiveness and pickiness of so many forums over what they consider "spam."
I don't mean automated spam links, or even completely off-topic posts that seem to come out of nowhere and server to rumple up a smooth-running conversation on a topic. I mean pickiness over people who post happy faces as a reply, or single word responses like, "Cool" "Yeah" "I agree." Etc.
Who gives a crap? I don't restrict this content on my forum, it is part of having a conversation. Do your dinnertime discussions or talks on a bus, have a word minimum? I see this more and more on forums, administrators requiring a "5 word minimum" on all posts, or even "a few sentences". I can see why that might be the case for filling out a given form or supplying some kind of specialised information for some kind of event or activity on the boards, I have no idea what...but just plain old conversation topics in your general discussion area? Get me out of there!
If people artificially inflating post counts are your issue, regulate rank by currency earnt via wordcount instead. Sometimes, the natural reaction to someone's post is just, "Cool." And I'm cool with that.
I really don't mind ooc word minimums so much. I mean, I can see how some people would get annoyed by short, responses like "ikr?" Things like that don't bother me, but I can see how some people could get bothered by it. If nobody offers anything to the conversation it dies.
ReplyDelete