I read different posts and I'm always entertained by how much discussion is involved with rules.  People rush to say, "THIS... IS... THE... RULE!" and make judgements from there.  I estimate 10% of all posts are debates on content following rules and being correct.

There is no "Spirit of conversation."  It all seems to fall under "Close the thread."

imamonster : hit 2,000 posts and was shot down without any problem.  2,000 is a nice round number and a good milestone.  I might not like the guy but he gets crushed by the mods and the thread is closed.  Bam!  Why invoke rules when someone was just having fun and celebrating something they find important?

So, the question here is, would you rather be happy or right?

Me?  Rules... whatever.  I take happy.

Oh gosh...why? Why must I feel compelled to reply to this??? xD

Alright, so I'll be the first to admit I'm a stickler to the rules, but I always bear the reason that I'm a stickler in mind: rules on forums are made to make the site fun, not restrictive. Sadly many users (not just mods) forget that and rules become about rules rather than having a purpose.

Monster's thread I assume was not allowed as an official milestone thread, and I support that 100%, though I am saddened for him. Enforcing the rules isn't always fun, but that's why we're mods. Our goal isn't to suck the fun out of it, but to keep the forums running neatly and smoothly so that we can actually increase the fun factor here. If there were no milestone thread guidelines this whole forum would be filled with nothing but milstone threads "I made my thirtieth post!" "I made my thirty-first post!" etc. and that would just suck the fun out of even reading it anymore.

Same with spam. I'll be the first to say that spam can actually be fun to read if it isn't "haifpdiag" kind of spam. lol However we do have to shut it down in order to stop consistent and nonsincical spam from ruining the idea of thought provoking threads/posts and quality discussions.


So yeah, I'm a stickler and so are most of the mods, but we do it in order to keep everyone's experience as happy as possible. Now the non-mod sticklers that TRY to catch people breaking the rules in any way possible...that ruins the fun right there.



EDIT: My opening comment was me fearing I would cause trouble by partially agreeing with you by the way. Sometimes mods forget to just let people have fun. That's why we have to try to understand the post etc. before scrutinizing. I honestly believe we get it right most of the time, but we are human and sometimes do make mistakes. I just ask that all of you fine Vizzed users bear with us in our humanity and occasional failures.

I think that you're right warmaker.

One website I've been on. (Was going to leave Vizzed for it.) had lots of conversation drift.


I could talk about the original topic, or jump in at where it had evolved. It was nice, though one time I made a Metal Sonic thread, and it got deviated by the fourth post- turning into a conversation about a guys front yard.

Even though when this happened it was an extreme, I would like it if people actually talked a little bit more in threads here, and didn't worry as much as they do about staying on topic. I mean. let it drift a little, but keep it coming back.

However, since this is the given mindset, it would be difficult to change.


Anyways, I notice there's a lot of conformity on Vizzed. I guess it's cause users are sometimes young.

Maybe they hold a lot of respect for the site.


And hey, I'm like you warmaker, I like right more than happy, and I never respected someone based on what their beliefs were, but rather on how they arrived to them. (Arriving to your beliefs or conclusions cause everyone else is there gets you zero respect from me).



I would support a 2,000 posts thread. I think it's worth it.

Not totally on topic, but I think people need to take a break on the strictness of at least a few rules. Like the way threads are treated for example. However, I'm not totally convinced in my mind that the way Vizzed has done it is bad either, these rules on "not spamming" or "no 2,000 posts threads" might have been made from experience greater than mine.