Meta Suggestion: P.A.R.T. Campaign (People Against Rule-Out Threads)

[rwelshjr]

A lot could just be accomplished if the sticky cops could be a nicer bunch of guys. A lot of them are very curt and really come off as someone trying to prove to themselves how smart they are via making another person feel stupid. I see a lot of cases where the person wasn't really out to inform but to 'zing' the guy. I think many or most of us (self included) have guilty of that once in a while maybe a bad moment of irritation getting through and we could try harder to curtail that in favor of the better techniques we use on other occasions. And I also see guys that contribute little else to the forum than these zings so those guys I disagree are working to make the forum a better place.

Instead of making the guy feel stupid most of them (rightly or wrongly) feel like their idea is being put down by some troll so they are not satisfied to drop it and so the post goes forward with its needless conversation and a week(s) of bumps.

When we see a ruled out idea we can politely say so but also take a few extra seconds to say why. A reasonable percentage of guys will, given the reasoning behind why their idea cannot be, drop the matter.

When we see a oft posted idea, lets stop riding guys about search. When you search you only find exact phrase matches so all too often a guy does search but the way he worded the idea is off by just enough he got no hits. Instead just say so politely and go ahead and throw a link to one of the other recent threads there so he can move to that one for the rest of his discussion. This is not a lot of effort. If it is indeed as easy to find these other posts as you want to say then you will have no trouble grabbing that link real quick.

No name calling. its ok if you think the person is lazy, stupid, ignorant etc... But there is no need to tell them that. Keep such thoughts to yourself.

There is a line between calling an idea stupid and calling the poster stupid. Calling the idea stupid (without saying why) is questionable, but calling the poster themselves anything derogatory should be an absolute thing not to do.

Here is a biggie - Don't spam posts if you are really trying to reduce spam. If someone has done one of the above things then leav it. No need to add your own dig. I see ones where 6 guys in a row say 'Use search read the stickies'. Some guys I see it worded the same way on multiple posts (sometimes even containing the same typo) so that you can tell they have that on their clipboard and the only thing reading they are doing is to find opportunities to paste it. If you are doing that don't ♥♥ yourself and others that you are trying to improve the forums. You are trying to boost your posts and frankly if you are doing that you are a bigger pert of the problem than the other guy is. And every time you do that it gets bumped. If you really mean what you say and someone else has already told the poster, then don't bump it so that you can repeat the other guys stuff.

And of course, if you really just can't not play 'sticky cop' then please start by reading and knowing the Stickys. I have see a lot of "Ruled out, read the sticky" on stuff that is not in the ruled out portion (and do know that there is more than one list in their, its not just a ruled out list). Guys are going to tune out the sticky and warnings about them if there is a constant stream of crying wolf coming from guys that were more interested in saying something than knowing something. In fact I have oft wondered if its just the guys looking to boost their post count and they know they do that whether or not they are correct.

Aside from ruled out, if you think and idea is bad, say so nicely. Keep in mind that beauty is in the eye of the beholder. What you think is bad might look good to others. Reign in the acid on that point alone. Instead say more than it is bad. (example of stupid posting... "No, just no") Describe the exploit or negative impact. And be open to debate. Yes, there are guys that want to ignore bad fallout from their idea or increased costs to SC as unimportant and their whole reason is simply 'because they want it'. And/or they are too emotionally vested into their idea that any response other then "I called my contacts and Supercell and they are bringing in a special night shift to get started on this right now" to be unsatisfactory. Then you can argue, or maybe it Is wiser to not argue and hope the thread dies.

Trolling is not always bad. There are times. Sometimes there are guys with whom the nice approach does not work. They either cuss/rage at anyone not agreeing with them (even demanding that people should only agree, we have all seen that) or they deny the option of ignoring them by bumping. (or they obviously just had their entire clan create brand new accounts just to weigh in on their thread) In those cases, those that like to vent their anger at like by trolling the forum, here is your chance. You are even doing a useful service delivering a verbal beat down. But wait until the nice approach has failed AND the guy just wont go away before you do it.

Keep in mind that the forums are to discuss, debate, and entertain. If reading the forums ever become not fun then forum participation will drop off. Before you start think that it would be better if it only contained guys that only talked the way that you talk and only talked about what you wanted to talk about, stop and remind yourself how important it is for membership numbers to stay up.

There is a lot more that I could add. But another thing that would help is to not write overly long posts and here I have already messed up big on that one.

[WarrenJames]

But as I've mentioned in other posts, I don't believe that we should be mean to people posting ruled out ideas. (it's there in your original post, but...)

I reply to ruled out people to tell them that it's ruled out, somewhat nicely, explain stuff and help them get along on the forums in the hopes that if they become active forumers they don't repeat this mistake. I'm going to continue doing that, although it doesn't seem to make too much an impact on them. Other than that, I agree with everything else you proposed, so I'll take part in PART, but only partly. (so I will reply to bad threads if I think it hasn't been properly taken care of)

That's great. The proposed idea has a few parts to it. One of them is the moving of 'bad posts' to the proposed Ruled-Out section. I don't want people to reply to such posts here, since it just bumps them back up again, BUT if the Ruled-out sub forum exists, and the 'bad post' gets moved there, replying to it is not an issue at all! I would actually encourage people continuing to post there to help explain to the newbie as to why thier thread got moved there. I would imagine your suggestions for improvement would then carry more weight with the shock of the thread moved to the ruled out section.

A lot could be accomplished if the sticky cops could be a nicer bunch of guys... (rest of quote omitted)

Wow that's a long one! (and this is me saying this) I find posts that long hard to read (yes, ironic), but made the effort to read it all since the beginning looked important and very relevant to the thread. Just going to say that, wow, really touched a nerve there. And I wholly agree. This P.A.R.T. campaign is to 'attack' the ruled-out thread problem, but not to attack the new person making the thread.

---

As time goes by, it becomes clearer to me that this is a human psychology problem, not an issue of "everyone else is stupid" that some people seem to assume (which is also another common human nature problem). The current system has to change to better take that into account. The proposed idea I have I known won't be perfect, but I hope it would be better than the current system.

[rwelshjr]

Wow that's a long one! (and this is me saying this) I find posts that long hard to read (yes, ironic), but made the effort to read it all since the beginning looked important and very relevant to the thread. Just going to say that, wow, really touched a nerve there. And I wholly agree. This P.A.R.T. campaign is to 'attack' the ruled-out thread problem, but not to attack the new person making the thread.

---

As time goes by, it becomes clearer to me that this is a human psychology problem, not an issue of "everyone else is stupid" that some people seem to assume (which is also another common human nature problem). The current system has to change to better take that into account. The proposed idea I have I known won't be perfect, but I hope it would be better than the current system.

Yeah, it was long. I had the time on my hands while I sipped my coffee. it sort of peters out the same time my coffee got finished. I even admitted at the end it was to long. So thanks for reading it anyhow.

I do think every bit of it was true though. And I liked your response to it particularly the part that it is to speak to the threads, not the poster.

I support your idea. I think the philosophy I was speaking to is also something that people should embrace. But what you are suggesting would also help. Especially in the cases I cite where being pleasantly informative to the poster is not helping. (On that note the 'too many clans' guy has bumped his thread to the top again)

[mmf01]

Thats playing a person who helps keep the forums a better place.

Ouch lol

10char

[WarrenJames]

I'm glad I got some dedicated support, but I'm surprised there are so little votes, and some that say 'no'. Would have thought people would be all over this, being tired of the ruled-out threads filling up the forum.

I just hope the mods make a ruled-out section for moving these threads to, or much of this idea just won't work very well at all.

[George1971]

If you read the 'sticky' (pinned rules, top post from moderators?), you would know that 'ruled-out' means an idea that Supercell doesn't want to hear about anymore. As for the reasons, you would need to do the research for each and every listed ruled-out idea. Either ask staff or mods directly, or search the forum for the few threads with a Supercell staffer posting the reason why. Both I believe have a questionable rate of success. If you think the thread listing the ruled out, or yet to be considered ideas was long, putting reasons behind each one could easily double the length, or even explode it to 100 times it's size if you put in details.

If you want to talk about the common ideas that still need to be 'voted on' and hashed out, the list is right there, in that same thread with the ruled-out idea list; neatly organized by category. If you want to make weekly talks about such ideas, no one here can say they are 'ruled-out', nor deleted on sight by a mod.

As for your badly worded first line, what do you mean 'alienate customers'? The idea is to 'attack' and solve the problem of the plaque of ruled out threads, not attack the people making them. The fact new people even show up to post an idea, is great! Shows they have the drive and will to try to help. The only issue is that the idea they first post is bad, only for the fact it is an old and long dismissed idea. I want to preserve the will to post ideas, but fix the common mistake of posting what has been posted too many times before.

> "you would know that 'ruled-out' means an idea that Supercell doesn't want to hear about anymore"


I don't know that at all. I think it is actually not true. "for the time being" implies that there is future interest, just not soon. Future interest means that it is worthy of further discussion. You are trying to divine meaning from the poorly written 'sticky' (pinned rules, top post from moderators). The solution demanded is to improve the text.




>"As for the reasons, you would need to do the research for each and every listed ruled-out idea."


No, the onus is on the rules makers to make the rules understandable. If some moderator is going to post a rule, they need to give the explanation there and then. Anything less is rude.


It is not reasonable to expect a customer to do nearly as much research as you suggest before they contribute to the forum.


> "If you want to talk about the common ideas that still need to be 'voted on' and hashed out, the list is right there, in that same thread with the ruled-out idea list; neatly organized by category."


You have a peculiar concept of "neatly organised". How about thrown together, truly bad ideas mixed with good ideas that may come later.


> "As for your badly worded first line, what do you mean 'alienate customers'?"


The game itself invites us to come here to the forums. So we do. First thing encountered is massively overworded guidelines, and then know-it-alls who dismiss your contribution with reference to something unintelligible. For supercell, the game players are the customers. Allowing self appointed forum rulers to be rude to forum newcomers is alienating.


Attacking someone's idea is more cutting than a personal attack. If the new people show up with enthusiam but post badly, because the idea is old and dismissed, well link to the explanation for why it is dismissed. Reference to "stickies" is unhelpful. the stickies are themselves unhelpful because they don't say why. they don't even discriminate between the "definitely no"s and "maybe but not soon"s.


If you want to fix the common mistake of posting what has been posted too many times before, well it is going to need an easy to follow index of what has been posted too many times before. Such a thing does not exist.

[Cargantua]

I definitely agree that people could be nicer in their responses to repetitive threads. I've noticed that there is a fair bit of narkiness and sarcasm around, particularly from certain people.
Welcoming new posters isn't hard.
Be kind, remember that if you wouldn't say it to them in person, it's probably not right to say it here.

[WarrenJames]

Replies in quotes.

> "you would know that 'ruled-out' means an idea that Supercell doesn't want to hear about anymore"

I don't know that at all. I think it is actually not true. "for the time being" implies that there is future interest, just not soon. Future interest means that it is worthy of further discussion. You are trying to divine meaning from the poorly written 'sticky' (pinned rules, top post from moderators). The solution demanded is to improve the text.

Right.. What part of 'not now' don't you understand? If they don't want to hear about those ideas now, again, which has been discussed, and re-discussed, and then started over with another discussion, and then the wheel is reinvented again; why would you want do push it and re-re-re-discuss the topic one more time, right now? There is a reason why they are deleting ruled-out threads, now, and it isn't because there they are idiotic and close minded. The topic is beaten to death currently, and further discussion is detrimental to the advancement of this forum's purpose. If you want to know what was discussed, search! Those threads are, as to my understanding, never deleted. Only deletions are ones that are useless, like spamming threads, harassment threads, trolling threads, and yes.. ruled-out topic threads

To me it is clear, poorly written or not. If you have an issue with how it is written, bring it up with the moderator that posted it.

>"As for the reasons, you would need to do the research for each and every listed ruled-out idea."

No, the onus is on the rules makers to make the rules understandable. If some moderator is going to post a rule, they need to give the explanation there and then. Anything less is rude.

It is not reasonable to expect a customer to do nearly as much research as you suggest before they contribute to the forum.
Customer? This isn't part of the game's service. This is all volunteer work from people wanting a better game. Unfortunately the sad truth is that due to how alike people can think, any new players joining come up with the same, or similar, ideas as the players that came before.

And you want EVERYTHING spelled out for you? Where? In the sticky thread? It is short and to the point as they can get, because if they make it any longer, hardly anyone would feel like reading the monolithic thing. And they did explain it. They said that those list of topics are being looked into, or are ruled-out. No one else questions that, it just is. For those wondering about A/ONE topic of interest, they can easily use the forum search feature and likely find dozens of threads on any of those 81 topics.

And there is NO REASON TO DO full detailed research on each and every topic on that list before they can contribute meaningfully to the forum. The mods ask, or rather order, people to not talk about a set of topics, and that's all we need to know. It would be insane to try to read all of the threads relating to one of those topics, let alone all of them.

> "If you want to talk about the common ideas that still need to be 'voted on' and hashed out, the list is right there, in that same thread with the ruled-out idea list; neatly organized by category."


You have a peculiar concept of "neatly organised". How about thrown together, truly bad ideas mixed with good ideas that may come later.
Look, they are in a bulleted list. How much neater do you think you can get them on a forum system like this in a reasonable time? They are sorted by category, and in formated bullet points. Any neater, and you are starting to go beyond the scope of this forum's ability, and the mod's time to typeset the ideas into a prettier state.

And who said they were all good ideas? No one, as far as I can recall! That is your assumption, and you reading too much into things.

> "As for your badly worded first line, what do you mean 'alienate customers'?"

The game itself invites us to come here to the forums. So we do. First thing encountered is massively overworded guidelines, and then know-it-alls who dismiss your contribution with reference to something unintelligible. For supercell, the game players are the customers. Allowing self appointed forum rulers to be rude to forum newcomers is alienating.

Yes, Supercell invites us to come here, but the so-called self appointed forum rulers are other players as well... until a mod shows up, or an actual staff person from Supercell, puts them in this place. You of all people should know the difference between the two. Yes, the 'know-it-alls' are rude, why do you think I have been trying to make a campaign to stop such rudeness?

Attacking someone's idea is more cutting than a personal attack. If the new people show up with enthusiam but post badly, because the idea is old and dismissed, well link to the explanation for why it is dismissed. Reference to "stickies" is unhelpful. the stickies are themselves unhelpful because they don't say why. they don't even discriminate between the "definitely no"s and "maybe but not soon"s.

You haven't been on the Internet very long, have you? This is human nature. It is ignorant, and callus, and can do many stupid and hurtful things because people in general don't think fair enough ahead on thier actions. I believe that if they knew, they would be much less inclined to do such things, since people in general also want to be nice to others of thier group, as evident by some passionate people here on the forum. The sad irony is that these rude actions of bluntly referring to the sticky, saying they should have searched first, or talking down to them as to why thier idea was shot down before they even dreamed of it are expected to simply somehow fix the newbies' ways and that would be that if the newbie had any brains. We both know that's not the case. The ignorance and pride of the people 'helping' are not helping keep new forum goers, and again that's how human nature is. Thankfully ignorance can be cured with education (but not always).

And the 'no's mean no. If the person running this forum feels like the ideas have been talked about in a nonproductive way for too long that they delete on sight, does it make any difference if it is a 'no, maybe' or a 'no, never'? If there are multiple renditions of the same idea posted here, and they all come up with practically the same answer, Supercell has the answer they need, and do not need others to keep bring it up. That is just assumed by most others when they see the list! If you want the details on why your particular idea is on the ruled-out list, look it up!

I admit, that does need to be stressed to new people, that it is really easy to search for threads about the idea they independently came up with, and can see the idea develop into the answer it got. You said it yourself, the sticky is wordy! And yet you want it to explain more details? You can't have it both ways! It is as short as it can get to get the point across to most people, and even that isn't good enough! Why else do you think I suggested having a specially designed intro page for people new to this sub forum in another thread? (http://forum.supercell.net/showthrea...ght=intro+page & http://forum.supercell.net/showthrea...ght=intro+page are the first two results from the search "intro page") I know the sticky thread is ineffective, since new people glaze over from the new environment of the forum and just look for the 'New Thread' button. You never hear about the ones that actually read the sticky and had just one idea to post, since they see the ruling on it, and silently go on thier way.

If you want to fix the common mistake of posting what has been posted too many times before, well it is going to need an easy to follow index of what has been posted too many times before. Such a thing does not exist.

Then suggest that a wiki page be setup. If not, I WILL if you fail to do so after a few days. The reason why wiki pages work is because the human nature of some people wanting information correctly recorded and indexed is really strong. Sure, it will be a huge effort to read over and summarize what has been written, but for dedicated people staying up to date on current topics, it won't be nearly as hard. Once indexed, then people can say 'check the wiki! <link to source>' instead of 'check the sticky'

I really really hope this addresses the issues you have brought up, but I doubt it has.

Honestly, I can't regularly invest time and effort into such line-by-line arguments and word play. I hope you understand where I'm coming from with this, and if not, wish that you please don't escalate this to even longer and more tediously arguments.

If you really need to continue, please pick only one or a few topics, and we can talk about those specific ideas in detail.

I'm wore out, and cannot keep reviewing my wording for errors anymore on this huge post.

[BattleBorn007]

This thread is going places not sure where but places

[WarrenJames]

I feel like it is going no place fast Honestly, I thought there would be much more support for something like this.

I knew there would be some people opposed, but not anything like this.

Sure, I know all ideas can't win, but this was something I would have bet on touching a nerve with forum goers. Even came up with a fancy and important name for people to use to help make it memorial.

Just as well I guess. If the forum mods don't make a Ruled-Out sub forum for such threads to be moved to, rather than abruptly deleted, this idea is kind of shot and all but useless.