'if listing threads were allowed, everybody would only make listing threads'

Cause said:
I agree

NTAD said:
Gunsmith Cats is awesome.

Kagami_Hiiragi said:
Listing threads usually promote spam, though many threads already get plenty of three word answers or spam anyway.

So, yeah.

Swiggy said:
Here's another point for you.
Discussion can come out of anything if one simply allows it to.
Pictures can warrant discussion, lists can warrant discussion-- anything.

I mean, you know what comes to mind when someone asks, "Do you like strawberries"?
-I'm not sure if I trust them, because they've been genetically engineered a bit too much for me. Strawberries are small little berries and are only larger because of disgusting enhancements. Sure, they taste good, but what's really going into strawberries is what makes me think again about whether I like strawberries or not.

One can argue that the reply was a completely different topic, but the topic on simply liking strawberries can easily be turned into a deeper discussion on something related; in this case, the modification of strawberries.


Another example; I gave someone a list of my top ten video games. We had a very long discussion about why Tetris was first on the list before Legend of Zelda and all type of other great franchises. We went into what made the games great or not so great, etc. and took the discussion way beyond personal preferences or finding out what I happened to like or dislike.

_Izaya_ said:
Forums can't live without spam.

You wonder why there are so many forums that get little to no activity or end up dead; it's because spam threads end up getting locked.

They should just make a Spam Section where we can spam all we want and not worry about mods locking anything.

And don't even think about coming to me with that, "But that's why we have the forum games, clubs, PM, and IRC chat." bullshit. Forum Games sub section isn't sufficient enough because, as the title says, its for games, in other words, rules like no listing threads and other spam threads still apply to that subsection.

Clubs are also not sufficient because, no matter how active a club is, it still doesn't beat the amount of activity in the forums; we're talking about a min of over 1000 people online PER DAY, folks.

PM is only good for when you need to squash something out with someone after having a shitstorm of an argument with them in the forums or some other shite. And for when personal questions are involved about the other.

IRC chatting is honestly only used when the forum is lagging or when people want to flirt with Tyrel (*swoons*). That chatroom is deader than a freshly slain chicken when otherwise.

And the only reason why this forum is still as active as it is (god knows why, between the lag and all) is because most of the people who make spam threads regardless of rules are either new or are rebels (mind you, the latter isn't a bad thing).

So yeah.

And I'm not trying to be rude. I am merely speaking the truth.

(And considering the multitude of threads that either got deleted or locked in a matter of minutes between a couple of hours ago and right now, I know you're listening mods, so please take into consideration what we, and others, a
re saying. Thanks and have an awesome day).

dity said:
i super understand.

and let's not forget, most of cd and ad's longest threads stem from such topics. but those also get 'user chat' added to the reason as to why they're locked. but i mean really, what really is a discussion if it's not 'user chat'.

Kagami_Hiiragi said:


If forums can't live without spam then I question the collective IQ of the average forum user.

_Izaya_ said:

Chat is synonymous with discussion

Protaku94 said:
And ehhhh I think the system is fine like that. Maybe make another pseudo-casual discussion board which allows listing threads.

Sabylas said:
Although the rules are sometimes harsher towards listing threads than necessary, they often don't provide anything of substance. Therefore I don't think anything of value is lost when a thread in which all of the answers are one-two sentence long answers that amount to "Yes" or "No" or "I prefer X" gets locked. I don't care whether or not any MAL user likes bananas unless there's some unique aspect to the topic that motivates them to provide an atypical answer that separates theirs from the other dozen people who said the exact same thing, otherwise the content of the thread is generic and uninteresting, which is why I don't think your "you learn something new about the person" argument holds weight.

Topics that encourage more elaborate answers, even if they'd still be considered 'listing' by your logic, have a higher chance of producing something unique, since there's more to examine and talk about, which helps to differentiate it from other threads, and thus make people more inclined to pay attention to what others have to say and respond in kind (i.e, discussion).

That's the reason why I don't mind the rule against listing threads anyway, but I admit that it doesn't quite justify the rule itself or explain how lack of discussion is a bad thing. However, given that my argument primarily suggests that listing threads produce generic answers that very few will actually care to read, remember, or respond to (which admittedly may be relying too much on my personal feelings on the matter, but I still doubt many would think differently), I ask, is there really any value to a thread that doesn't encourage discussion of some sort? Honestly, I see absolutely no value in a typical, commonly-defined listing or spam thread. They fade from my memory very quickly, and they rarely leave an interesting impression on the forum itself, either.


My only real point is that a thread with more elaborate answers, and discussion of some sort, even if they could still technically be considered 'listing', and that their allowed existence is contradictory and inconsistent with the forum rules, at the very least, are usually unique in some way. A typical "listing answer" that's a one-sentence long reply, which represents an unelaborated opinion that's no doubt been shared on MAL in almost the exact same fashion countless times, is entirely meaningless. Nothing is lost if a thread made up of such posts were locked.


I'm almost positive I misunderstood at least part of what this thread was about, and therefore directed my argument at points that might not have even been made here, but I put too much time into this before realizing that to not post it. Consider it a general analysis of listing threads.

Kagami_Hiiragi said:


I never thought in my entire life I'd be called one of the serious ones. If you pay attention to the clubs I'm in and on my profile, I may dissapoint you ,_,

_Izaya_ said:
tl;dr

Sabylas said:

Come on, don't be rude.

_Izaya_ said:
I'm not being rude. I'm just being blunt; that's just how I roll.

I mean, you don't really expect anyone to read all of that?

You even cut out the part I quoted, which means it was too long even for you, so um?

Kagami_Hiiragi said:


I read it >>

_Izaya_ said:
I'm not being rude. I'm just being blunt; that's just how I roll.

I mean, you don't really expect anyone to read all of that?

You even cut out the part I quoted, which means it was too long even for you, so um?

_Izaya_ said:
Ofc the 2nd page reappears. Eff you Crave

Short version pls?

Sabylas said:

Come on, don't be rude.

Sabylas said:
-snip of your original post-

dity said:
actually, his response does perfectly point out that longer replies are just as likely to be read as a one-sentence replies.

_Izaya_ said:
And you expect someone to read that?

Sabylas said:


I always read one-sentence replies because that doesn't require putting in a conscious effort, since it takes just a few seconds. And from there it's easy to make a judgement of its worth based off of that. However, not reading a post at all makes it a bit difficult for you to logically judge the merit of the post itself, doesn't it? That fault stems from a problem in the reader only, and says nothing about the potential value of the post on its own.


Again, two minutes.

Sabylas said:


I always read one-sentence replies because that doesn't require putting in a conscious effort, since it takes just a few seconds. And from there it's easy to make a judgement of its worth based off of that. However, not reading a post at all makes it a bit difficult for you to logically judge the merit of the post itself, doesn't it? That fault stems from a problem in the reader only, and says nothing about the potential value of the post on its own.

-shotz said:
tl;dr

dity said:
a post has 0 merit if no one can be bothered to read it. after all, no one deemed it worthy enough to bother reading (fully).

Sabylas said:

Damn. Stop ruining my quality posts!

If you made an 8-paragraph-long post about absolutely anything, no matter how interesting, insightful, and/or well-written the post might have been, (hell, say you copy-and-pasted it from the journal of the most interesting and insightful person in the world) I guarantee you that wouldn't have affected how many people read it fully. I'm not saying that mine was any of those, of course, but I'd say the TL;DR quotient is skewed more by the attention span of the audience than it is by the actual quality of a post.

_Izaya_ said:


>460 words
>5 paragraphs

And you expect someone to read that?

k, whatever. It doesn't matter since it wasn't directed at me.

/bread.

If I stay up any longer, I'm not gonna wake up in time for my last day in hell school for the week, since I'm homeschooled and I'm only there for like an hour and a half. And then I'm going to get an earful. Again.

Chaossu.

_Izaya_ said:
tl;dr

_Izaya_ said:
Forums can't live without spam.

You wonder why there are so many forums that get little to no activity or end up dead; it's because spam threads end up getting locked.

They should just make a Spam Section where we can spam all we want and not worry about mods locking anything.

And don't even think about coming to me with that, "But that's why we have the forum games, clubs, PM, and IRC chat." bullshit. Forum Games sub section isn't sufficient enough because, as the title says, its for games, in other words, rules like no listing threads and other spam threads still apply to that subsection.

Clubs are also not sufficient because, no matter how active a club is, it still doesn't beat the amount of activity in the forums; we're talking about a min of over 1000 people online PER DAY, folks.

PM is only good for when you need to squash something out with someone after having a shitstorm of an argument with them in the forums or some other shite. And for when personal questions are involved about the other.

IRC chatting is honestly only used when the forum is lagging or when people want to flirt with Tyrel (*swoons*). That chatroom is deader than a freshly slain chicken when otherwise.

And the only reason why this forum is still as active as it is (god knows why, between the lag and all) is because most of the people who make spam threads regardless of rules are either new or are rebels (mind you, the latter isn't a bad thing).

So yeah.

And I'm not trying to be rude. I am merely speaking the truth.

(And considering the multitude of threads that either got deleted or locked in a matter of minutes between a couple of hours ago and right now, I know you're listening mods, so please take into consideration what we, and others, are saying. Thanks and have an awesome day).

dity said:
not to mention that length doesn't imply substance. you could have (and did) just blabber on about random things sort-of related to the topic, which in essence isn't much different than multiple shorter easier to process replies that are't necessarily on-topic or relevant.

dity said:
when you're losing your audience, do you really still have merit? i think that's how trends work.

honestly i reckon merit is awarded by the audience, not the poster. and the response you get might be reason enough to rethink what you deem to be a quality content.

Sabylas said:


Ech, I originally made a longer reply to this, but I regretted that and scrapped it.

If you think I'm trying to defend my own overly-elaborate post, that saddens me. I don't give a shit about my post, even if that tl;dr did hurt a bit. I'm speaking in general. My point was simply that if one wasn't interested in reading a long post to begin with, and chose to ignore it out of laziness or fear of paragraphs, as many people (or at least I) have a tendency to do, they'd be in no position to judge the worth of that post.

Say my post was profoundly insightful and interesting to the topic at hand (ha). Say the more patient people read the whole thing and appreciated its value, while the impatient read the first two lines and gave up. If they haven't familiarized themselves with the majority of the content in the first place, likely more so because of their own emotional biases than because of their genuine assessment of it, what worth does their opinion on it have?


Anyway, I think this argument is stupid and tangential from the original topic, and I just want to be the first one to say it. If you have anything else to say, I'll respond, I suppose, but I really don't want to.

dity said:
well everyone has emotional bias, so i have no idea where you were going with that anyway. lol

Sabylas said:

Sigh. I meant emotional bias as in "I don't feel like reading this".

VitaminCaim said:
I read it

traed said:
Mods dont like fun.

dity said:
report a user if they're double posting, or typing unintelligible things (wo98431p7). but being able to report someone for a short, non-unique opinion?