I feel like the Crazy House should be taken out of Viz Board. I feel that the crazy house is an excuse for people to spam in order to increase their post count and I find the quality of posts in the Crazy House to be lacking...

I suggest if people still want to mess around there should be a "Forum Word Games" in an "Off-Topic" Section... but not an entire forum dedicated to the decrease of intelligence...

Just to add to the discussion, I've been to forums like that, and it is not a good idea. Every time you try to get rid of the spam forum, you run into the problem of "Well should I post this stupid little thing that's funny?" I've actually headed up movements like this on other forums and I can promise you that it was one hundred percent a bad idea. As soon as we started the no spam forum rule, posting dropped dramatically, and never truly recovered, even when the spam forum came back. It happens every time, and I haven't been on Vizzed long enough to see it happen here.

I'm fine with the Crazy House forums for the reason Lazlo Falconi brought up. I am sure the reason why the Crazy House Forum was made so people wouldn't flood the other forums with spammy threads just because they kind of fit the category. The part that bothers me is that when I want to find some forums that I can really get into a discussion over by looking in the New Posts window, I see that 3/4 of the New Posts are Crazy House threads. What I think would be a nice answer to that would be to make it to where Crazy House threads aren't shown in the New Posts window. Instead, they should have their own little new posts window. That way, it will be easier for people who want to make more quality posts to find threads more suited for them rather than see 50 Crazy House threads in the New Posts window. That would be a nice feature, but I have no idea on whether or not that would be hard to work out on the site. I know very little about Internet coding. 

I will be honest, there have been times where I want to compete with the other "regulars" of this forum because of post count. However because David has implemented Post Exp I have cared much, much less about it. The Memberlist's default now lists everyone by post experience which I believe is a much more accurate way of giving credit to members. Even if you look at the Memberlist and list everyone by post count, you will notice that the majority of the top 50 are current and former staff. Granted, it's not proportional, but I find it much better the way it is now.

I think we need the Crazy House because it helps us contain the spamming. I have a feeling that many of the topics from that forum would only be showing up in the others if we did not have the Crazy House. Also, some members only make a few posts to earn the Viz they need to play another game in the RGR so if they make them in the Crazy House at we "serious" posters will be less likely to see them.

I don't blame you for wanting to see the spam gone, but eliminating the Crazy House would do more harm than good for the Vizzed Board.

rcarter2 : Hmm, that actually shouldn't be TOO terribly difficult. But it would take time that Davideo wants to use for other activities. But it's a very good idea, and you should bring it up to him at some point.

I disagree.

See, to put it simply, if you get rid of concentrated spam, you run the risk of spilling it all over the rest of the board.

I like keeping the spam in one place. I do not want spam in the Sports Forum.

Well, I was hesitant to bring this up before, but I guess I'll put my suggestion out there.

Since everyone's complaining how people use CH to increase post count, why don't we make it so that CH posts don't add to your post count at all? I've been to forums where the spammy part of it won't add to your post count, but people still post there for fun anyways. And if people still want to pick up the tiny Viz change you get from it, you could make it so that the CH posts still earn you a minuscule amount of Viz.

I really don't think getting rid of the Crazy House would do anything positive...it will only ultimately decrease post activity. I agree, most of the threads in the Crazy House are spam..but that's kinda the point of it and the reason it has it's own forum. It's not like spam is tolerated elsewhere on the board.

Besides, I don't see how or why people posting in the Crazy House or gaining post experience and/or post count should matter to you or anyone for that matter.

Someone70 : That doesn't really make sense though. Just because you're posting in the Crazy House, your post is rendered invalid? If you make a long, but silly post, should you not still receive the post experience for that? I've made threads on other forums in what would be equivalent to their Crazy House with upwards of 15,000 words, but how would it be fair that, just because it wasn't really a "serious" thread, my effort should be in vain?

I totally understand not wanting Crazy House posts to go toward the Tour De Vizzed, but Davideo pretty much already fixed that with the 30+ word count limit.

But posts there are still posts.

Lazlo Falconi : First of all, what CH post would have 15,000 words?

Secondly, the only thing that doesn't count for CH posts is post count. Post EXP, viz, and all that could still count. But everyone's complaining about how people post there just for easy post count, so if that incentive isn't there, it won't get spammed so much.

Someone70 : It was just a silly story, one that was amusing (Or at least, I thought so) but didn't rightfully belong in a more serious forum. Things like that do happen--at least on forums where posts in the "spammy section" still count.

As for the post count thing... Do people really care about that? The member list's default sort order is by Post Experience now, so if someone wants to have 10,000 1 word posts, they'll still be lower on the ranking than someone who makes legitimate posts.

And the other thing is, when you say, "so if that incentive isn't there, it won't get spammed so much." But I think you're assuming that the people who post in the Crazy House do so for the post count. I think their real incentive for spamming in there is just to get Viz Points. For some people this is the ONLY time they post, so should their posts not count?

Lazlo Falconi : If you want to post a silly story, there's a story section for that. Really, the only thing that goes in CH are forum games that can get multiple replies and don't take much effort to answer.

Post count was the way the Memberlist was organized for years, and people will still be attached to that for a while, at least until there's a Post EXP radar. People will still rank themselves by post count for a while.

Why would you post in CH for viz? You get about 3 Viz per post in there, on average. People that make threads in there get about 1 Viz per post on their thread. It's not really an investment to post there for Viz. I'm not saying that everyone who posts in CH is a greedy post-count hog, but that's certainly part of the reason for its excessive activity.

If people really want to do something about CH, then not letting it count towards post count is a good step in the right direction, rather that let it go like it is now. I think the only reason David wouldn't do that is because he doesn't like holes in the database or something.

If Crazy house was removed, then it would probably leave some people with no place to post, but wouldn't that make them the spammers that wouldn't be missed in the first place? Also... I do have many of my old posts in the Crazy House, but I've been trying to avoid posting there entirely, sure I'll be occasionally drawn in, but my primary objective in Viz Board will no longer be guessing what the next poster's favorite pokemon is or corrupting their wish. Granted I liked the original premise of corrupt a wish, because it wasn't "trying to make uncorruptable wishes."

There have been Crazy House threads where they require longer responses like 30 words+, but what sucks is that they die out because nobody takes the time make a post in them...
I agree it's best to devote and contain the spam in a single forum. Not that all of it is spam since there can be some interesting ones but evidence speaks for itself

Lazlo Falconi : Sorry, I didn't notice that you made a summon on my previous post in this thread, so this is a bit late. Yeah, I figured it wouldn't be too difficult, but I didn't want to just assume that out loud Anyway, from time to time, David announces upcoming feature ideas in the staff forums. Next time there is a thread made there about future ideas, I'll be bringing it up. Although there are some features discussed that I would rather see implemented first, as the whole Crazy House threads being the majority of the New Posts window is more of an annoyance to me rather than something that I want to crack down on  

shredknives : My point exactly. If the Crazy House was removed which I doubt will happen...POST ACTIVITY WILL DECREASE, regardless if you feel that it's "spam." As Mike said...not ALL threads in the Crazy House are spam worthy. People just need to put more thought and effort into their posts, in the Crazy House or not. In short, I see no purpose of getting rid of the Crazy House despite your concern of "spammers." There are a few people who only post in the Crazy House...so getting rid of it, they'll most likely not post at all and that clarifies my earlier statement of a decrease in post activity.

YourMajestyKen :

1725 of your 12702 posts are in Crazy House. 13.6% of all your posts ever are in Crazy House.

Just keep this in mind for a second.

If we took out 2000 of your posts because Crazy House didn't exist, you'd be back at 10,000 or so.

Now that that's been estabilished... I can't see it hurting overall activity.

When I look at posting numbers I generally discount Crazy House from post count because it's useless. Crazy House is 90% spam and 10% genuinely funny things that belong in other forums anyway.

My suggestion is to strike Crazy House from Post Count.

Make it separate. Not get rid of it completely, but to make it not count for post count.

I like the Crazy House.

Now your next Oil change will be on ME.Yes your next oil change is on the house.

I would be okay either way I think.

I've always liked the crazy house but to be honest it's not all that crazy anymore. I think if we're not going to allow people to actually be crazy in there then we shouldn't have it.

And I would be okay with removing the post count for crazy house posts.... they are just a waste and shouldn't be counted.