Reflections on AO

[Ban me please]

This from a guy who fallows up a comment on his weight by getting red-faced, foams at the mouth, yells at his screen, then responds with a rambling speech or two which doesn't even make a whole hell of alot of sense.

I prolly do, but at least I go out and have a good time... and I spend time with my gf who I **** regularly.. have you ever been with a woman? you're like some 12 year old who's got no life.. you're only insult is ever you're fat... get a life.

HT also once said in addicts awhile back that every member should be banned except for a select few of senior members and that everyone should pay money to post here. Oh and then he yelled alot when no one agreed.

[steve.milner]

Originally posted here by AngelicKnight
I find anytime I have a question I get a string of quick and informed responses, so AO continues to be satisfactory for me.

I'm glad you get what you want. But as an established member you 'know the ropes'. It's the newbies that don't seem to hang around too much to learn. I wonder if that is a reflection on the style of AO or a reflection of the newbies

Originally posted
here by gauravjulka


Hey.. where is ms Mittens.. She has had an overwhelming impact on this forum... She is not around lately.. Does anyone know where she is...

I would hardly suggest that she wreaks havoc though!

Originally posted here by HTRegz
[...]
Technology and Security seem to be at a low lately, even the mailing lists I subscribe to are down in that aspect... which on a forum leads to bored.. .and boredom on these things always causes trouble.. which is what we have... We also have a highly stressed political situtation in the world which is frequently broached here and we unlike a good ol' fashioned debate, we make it personal or take it personally... We read the literal when we should read the general or the general when we should read the literal... We also have a lot of immaturity... (my political beliefs would have me classed in that by those that I label as immature but there are others as well)... It's as it will always be a revolving soap opera..
HT

Maybe it's the Tec/Sec activity that's low I'm noticing... The more I think about this the more the above makes sense.

As far as your question of mods... How it happens kinda varies...
[...]
That's about it...

Shame I missed it. I volunteered some time ago to be a mod.

Steve

[Katja]

Originally posted here by steve.milner
I'm glad you get what you want. But as an established member you 'know the ropes'. It's the newbies that don't seem to hang around too much to learn. I wonder if that is a reflection on the style of AO or a reflection of the newbies

I do realise that some newbies might be scared off pretty easily by the AP system, especially if they get negged almost immediately for some dumb remarks. I can imagine that a newbie who gets negged just because of a post (s)he made might be a bit insulted because (s)he thinks it was a valid answer.
Of course, since AO gets visited by plenty of trolls the AP system does help to get rid of those. But when a newbie isn't trolling but just a bit dumb, negging them will tend to scare them off too. A bit more tolerance would be appreciated.
Trolls can easily be dealt with by reporting their posts. A moderator can then decide to kill a troll even faster than the AP system can.

Suggestion: since new members must provide their email address, it might be useful to send them some useful information from the FAQs by email after they've succesfully logged in to the system for the first time.

[steve.milner]

Originally posted here by Katja
I do realise that some newbies might be scared off pretty easily by the AP system, especially if they get negged almost immediately for some dumb remarks. I can imagine that a newbie who gets negged just because of a post (s)he made might be a bit insulted because (s)he thinks it was a valid answer.

It's not so much the AP system I think that causes the problem, but some of the acidity of the comments that fly around that would put off the newbies.

And also there's the who issue of who's reliable.

One time Senior Memebers had that as a title, now the plethora of custom titles is likely to cause confusion for the newbies - Who to trust becomes an issue.

Steve

[Egaladeist]

I've visited lots of forums ( as I'm sure you all have )...and...every forum that has a community lounge has the same problems or worse...and I've seen plenty worse...that's the trade-off you have to expect when you build a community...people from places all over the world, with varying ages, personalities, and cultures are going to clash once in awhile...

the only forums I've seen that have avoided this are the ones that do not allow personal interaction between members...forums that do not have a lounge or any place where the members can chat with each other...the trade-off for them is that their membership doesn't seem to be a community...the members are more like formal participants...

personally, I like and prefer the community forums better...and I think most people agree with me...because those formal forums don't seem to be very active...even with a large membership base they rarely have more than 10 people online at any given time...and often, none at all.

Eg

[neel]

I like the drama, it breaks the routine and its not in the least comming anywhere near me personally nor am I annoyed by it. Like someone (the-jinx I think) already pointed out, it's a reacuring event and everytime I'm having great fun bitching about how bad antionline has become. I don't have me account removed because I think that's silly, so I just don't look at the site. Then after a while when I'm surfing arround I stumble upon antionline again and start pissing of some americans or whatever. I did give me opinion on alot of computer issues in the past, but I rarely do that now. It's a waste of time for me since most topics are already discussed, already answered or helplessly lost in conflicting views. Adding new perspectives to several topics is more valuable to me and I secretly hope some people actually listen to what I say sometimes. With me non-conformistic patriotic political view I think that adds some value to AO, yet it also causes the nescesarry flame at times. The moderators get payed to handle that though, so no problem whatsoever if you ask me.

As for antionline degrading... To be honest, since it turned into a forum it hasn't been much better or much worse... There's just different people now, so antionline is different.

On a second thought, antionline has become way less tollerant towards pretty much everything. Also, the active usercount is sorta shrinking, for the reason that there's no new reasons to come here, yet there's plenty of new reasons to leave or go somewhere else instead.

[d0pp]

Well, in all the time I've been here, I've seen a bunch of people take this site way too ****ing seriously. I've seen good discussions, stupid discussions, and Seniors go off and do stupid **** just so they can get banned. (I know, I'm guilty of that a few times myself.) But it's been mostly good.

And, many of the things that AO has spawned either directly or indirectly, YICS and Unerror for example, as well as many of the friendships I've made with people here, have more tha made up for any bullshit that has come up.

Yes, I do believe that AO is at somewhat of a low point, but it'll bounce back. Always does.

[steve.milner]

So it seems like the 'action' here is popular.

In that case you're all a bunch of b....

Nah, I haven't got the eneergy.

Steve

[neel]

bring it on b...., you already replied

[d0pp]

w00t

Flame war!!!!!!!!


If people didn't get oversensitive about this stuff, there wouldn't be a problem. Flame wars are fun. They're entertainment.

You're all bitches.