I was just wondering what people here thought about this issue of all the hangman, abc, and elimination threads being closed for the TDV.

Personally, I think it's dumb, but has good reasoning to it.

Why are the threads closed?:

Elimination heads, Hangman threads, and ABC threads are crazy easy to post in, requiring about 15 seconds to a minute to post in. This gives people competing in the TDV about 10-20 posts extra EACH day. This was a serious problem in past TDVs and is why they are now closed. The elimination threads also contributed greatly to the yellow jersey, as they normally consist of 150-300 words in the post.

Why leave them open?:

These threads are fun. People enjoy posting in them, and gives some friendly competition to vizzed. To us users who rarely compete in the TDV, without these being open, the TDV months are pretty bland and boring.

These threads allow people to share thoughts and allow people to even learn about new things. I feel that these threads are benefiting the board's growth.

It would be easy enough to say that if you're competing in the TDV don't post in there, so I feel they can be left open for the rest of us who want to have fun in these.

What do you guys think about these?

I have personally always wanted particular threads' words to be ignored to prove the fact that people truly post there just to have fun. If that could happen, I would have made a lot more threads.

I agree. I think we should allow something like only 3 posts in all the elimination/ABC/Hangman threads you post in per day combined, or else you get DQ'd. Or do a percentage post thing with those threads, like vizzed already does with certain forums (for example: if more than 25% of your posts are in the crazy house you get DQ'd)

The issue is this:

1) Those threads count for the competition.
2) For them to not count for the competition, David would have to code it in.
3) Even if David coded it in, the mods would have to police those threads more than they do now, as no one is going to say "my words shouldn't count".

Ultimately, it's just easier for David and the mods to close down the threads, since they don't want those threads counting for the competition (and they shouldn't count, if anything, they should take word EXP away).

Even if the threads are fun, they are wicked spammy.

Personally, I think they should be completely gone. I've never liked the ABC/Elimination/Hangman threads, I never felt like they did anything but make the board worse. But my own feelings aside, there's just no easier solution, as far as the mods are concerned. If there was, I think they'd already have done it.

NintendoFanKimmy :

I don't disagree with that. As I recall, ignoring the posts words not only gets rid of the word count, but makes it negative.

I'd love for people who post in those threads to get punished, since many do it purely for word count. (There are some who don't, but there are a lot who do)

legacyme3 : just tell competitors, don't post in any of these threads or you'll be DQ'D

There are so am any users who actually like those threads, that I feel hey should be left open, and just tell Zander and thing1 not to spam them up during TDV months.

They are wicked spammy, as to why TDV competitors shouldn't be allowed to post there, but why take away the fun for the rest of us?

What they're doing is just about like taking away the crazy house.

You may not like them personally, but plenty of people do like them, enough for them to be left open.

I don't really see how they are a problem. Wouldn't everyone who wants to win the TDV post in those threads? This means no one would get an advantage if everyone has the same number of posts and same word count in those threads.
The point of the competition is to encourage posting, but I don't think it would encourage much if what you can post in is limited.

earthwarrior :

The thing is, not everyone does. A lot of people avoid those threads like the plague, because it carries the stigma of spam.

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Barathemos :

"just tell competitors, don't post in any of these threads or you'll be DQ'D"

This makes more work for the moderators. They would have to individually check everyone's results for the day, and check if any of them ever posted in one of those threads that day. It might be attainable, but that's the mods discretion, not yours or mine.

"There are so am any users who actually like those threads"

There are also so many users who detest those threads. There's a flipside to every story.

"You may not like them personally, but plenty of people do like them, enough for them to be left open."

And you may love them personally, but there's a reason the mods do what they do. They have enough work to do in TDV months without having to deal with something they shouldn't have to deal with in the first place.

The easiest solution would be to just get rid of the TDV, but that's obviously not happening (unfortunately).

EDIT - Also, this caught my attention...

"What they're doing is just about like taking away the crazy house."

Good. The CH is basically the Spam-aholics Anonymous forum.

I agree that these threads are fun to an extent, but with everything that is easy or fun, people become more likely to abuse it and spam. Keeping them open would only make the mods' job that much harder when it shouldn't be. The mods already have their work cut out for them and their is no reason to put more strain on them. 

I agree that it is a shame that it takes a few spammers that abuse the privilege of "fun" threads to completely ruin the opportunity for everyone. Aside from that, If I recall correctly, these forums were closed the last TDV, and along with a few changes to the jersey requirements, the TDV went a lot more smooth. Maybe not perfect, but it definitely reduced the spam. 

I can understand why you want to leave them open, but you have to take everything into consideration. It's just not fair to the mods to make them do more work than what is necessary. Besides, they're only closed for a month. Some sacrifices need to be made in order to have a more balanced competition. 

legacyme3 : Oh, I didn't know that. Thanks for telling me! Oddly, though, there was a server error once when I was still a Newbie, and I posted one thread twice by accident. That was acknowledged, and the second one was closed for being a dupe. Its words were also ignored, though, and it seemed reasonable until I heard what you just said. Some of my Post Exp. was subtracted because of a server error? It seems kind of strange to me, but I'm not going to make a fuss over something so unimportant .

As has been stated, the threads get closed because they require so much policing. Even if users don't intend to compete, they might use those threads and accidentally rank. If we DQ them, then they can't compete for the entire month, which is a bit harsh. If it's an honest mistake, then we have to discuss. If we give leniency for a certain number of posts, there will be users who will use that unfairly. The point I'm trying to make is that we'd have to take a holistic approach and gauge every single scenario as it happens.

Ask any staff member who helps out with the TdV. Even with these threads closed we deal with a barrage of events, reports, spammers, CP abusers, plagiarizers, and almost anything that can be exploited does get exploited. We simply don't have the time to spend time deciding on even more issues, so we settle on a more mechanical approach, which is just closing these threads until the end of the TdV. It would be nice if we could solve problems case-by-case, but it's just impractical.

That said, I'm surprised elimination threads are even open. Like you said, they take 10-20 seconds and users get hundreds of words. I'm sure there are users with 50-60,000 words simply from the copy/paste of elimination threads. That's ridiculous, and as long as they exist, it's hard to include word count when thinking about contribution. And there's not just one or two... they're littered across the forums.

tl;dr - The staff are swamped during the TdV and these threads don't help. If we could keep them open we would. I'm not entirely sure about this, but perhaps if we got rid of elimination threads entirely, we could think about keeping hangman/ABC open.

Razor said it perfectly when he said "I agree that it is a shame that it takes a few spammers that abuse the privilege of "fun" threads to completely ruin the opportunity for everyone".
It is a shame that a few spammers have to ruin the fun for everyone, but also as EideticMemory, Razor, and Legacy said, such is the case and closing them is the only logical solution for us sadly. Really a lot of the rules we have to enforce are because of the spammers, and we all have to pay for their spam. But I suppose in the end all rules are for the ones who abuse the system (even real life laws are often for the same reasons).

I also feel that the copy/paste of elimination threads are a bad thing outside of the TdV because they falsify Viz, CP, EXP, and Word count records. I would prefer we either close them for good or edit the way they're played. The ABC and Hangman threads aren't too bad really, especially the ABC threads. Still they need closed for jersey spam during the TdV. If there is a way to abuse a thread for easy jersey points, people will do it.

Really in the end all we're asking is for everyone to bear with us once every three months, as we do our best to keep the forums spam free, enjoyable, and running smoothly. Because really, besides spammers, who enjoys a spammed up forum and having TdV cheaters? It's our job to try to make this place as fun and functional as possible, and ensure that it runs smoothly, optimizing everyone's experience here. And that's exactly what we're trying to do, not ruin the fun. So again, bear with us as we do what we can to make sure that Vizzed remains site that we've all come to know and love.