What's caused the change?

Hiya everyone,

It's no secret that I'm not as active as I use to be long ago, so no doubt many of you over the last few years won't have ever heard of me. But it's because of this which is why I'm asking what's happened to the general sections of the forum? Meaning all the none developmental parts.

Once The Legend of Mir died, what kept me active on here for so many years was the social aspects of the forum. Moderating these areas use to be so difficult because of how popular they were, but that's definitely not the case anymore.

Yesterday I remember seeing over 1500 people in the development side of the forum, and only roughly 50+ in all the areas I'm talking about (Evolution) which is really weird.

So why? What's caused such a 180 to happen over the last few years? Because its really sad :(

Some of the activity moved to the Neverland Ranch.

Yeah Spamzilla seems to have sucked out attention from the outerworld but @ChewBecca, the Evo team and other senior staff have put in some great work to merge some sections and try to sort things oot!

There has been a lot of neglect from mods in general so we have all been working hard on bringing the activity back up. Doing this by merging dead sections, and monitoring which mods are active or not to ensure that sections are actually covered. Trust me raff it was a lot worse xP

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Originally Posted by cypher

Some of the activity moved to the Neverland Ranch.

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This basically.

The problem is that at 1 point spamzilla was removed from the public eye, while threads that weren't super duper important, were closed in this section.

Frankly I'd say remove spamzilla, disallow spam, allow slowchat and make post count only visible in your profile. That way people will care less about it and people will actually post to interact with others, regardless of post count, section etc etc.

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Originally Posted by ChewBecca

There has been a lot of neglect from mods in general so we have all been working hard on bringing the activity back up. Doing this by merging dead sections, and monitoring which mods are active or not to ensure that sections are actually covered. Trust me raff it was a lot worse xP

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I'm sure you've done a lovely job becca ^_^. It is a shame to hear things went so awfully down hill though. Personally, without an active social section there's nothing keeping me. No interesting discussions and or good people to chat to etc. Years ago me & you use to speak for hours on end when Evolution was thriving, was good times :P.

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Originally Posted by (>'-')> kirby <('-'<)

This basically.

The problem is that at 1 point spamzilla was removed from the public eye, while threads that weren't super duper important, were closed in this section.

Frankly I'd say remove spamzilla, disallow spam, allow slowchat and make post count only visible in your profile. That way people will care less about it and people will actually post to interact with others, regardless of post count, section etc etc.

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Maybe this is something to consider then, I dunno. It's difficult to say whether the answer is to condense people in fewer social sections because the numbers are to thinly spread. Thousands of people are on this forum daily, maybe the Evolution section needs more awareness. I know Ragezone is a MMO website, but without sections like these they'd be no life here. It would just be thousands of drones attending to there own personal agenda with no interaction.

A combination of spamzillas existence and the insurmountable fact that all of those people that used to be constantly active in the evo sections including us grew up and have lives. Now we have less to talk about in terms of random threads being made to get to know each other and our opinions because we've already had those discussions before, the same applies to all those debates and ideological discussions that used to get bombarded with various levels of tolerance and opinion.

We grew up, we changed and Ragezone isn't the same thing to us as it once was. Not to say that it's a bad thing, it simply is what it is and the only reason us old bastards are still here is because RZ is the internet equivalent of our home with people who we care about and are our life long friends. Hell it would probably be less of a hassle if we just left RZ and used facebook to keep in touch but personally I find the hassle worth it because it means there's still a place where we come together to share our lives even though we're all way too far apart and don't even get to see each other for maybe years at a time.

Plus boobies.

I have to agree that people just post in spamzilla rather than actually posting in any of the evo sections.

Have to agree with Flameing, we grow up have less time =/ just the circle of life I guess

To be honest, my love for MMO games almost died, but I stay and I wish we could talk about more cool things.
But clearly, the spammer section took it all off as I can see. I'm not motivated to talk with people there, because there are so many posts behind my post after some minutes, so less people would read the message, the conversation becomes a one-way conversation. That's the thing I feel about, because I'm not better in the spam section. ... The lazyness to read tons of pages with filler posts to find interesting posts.

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Originally Posted by (>'-')> kirby <('-'<)

This basically.

The problem is that at 1 point spamzilla was removed from the public eye, while threads that weren't super duper important, were closed in this section.

Frankly I'd say remove spamzilla, disallow spam, allow slowchat and make post count only visible in your profile. That way people will care less about it and people will actually post to interact with others, regardless of post count, section etc etc.

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YES, just YES. I don't know in what aspect spam is useful, there is not even any game behind it, just to waste traffic and time without any better sense. When I read such posts, there is no interesting for my mind, I can clearly see a small group of people telling each other any picture or any yawn, that's what it looks to me sometimes.

Topics lack on sense, posts are short and even on 100 posts per page I have to click so many NEXT buttons.
Thus signature takes the half of the whole page, too. Seeing in my settings there are new posts on topics I answered making me disappointing because of the spam sections. People do less "read" and more "write" without reading, so less response on old posts on spam sections. And quickly the real interesting posts are hidden behind the pages.

I lurk, everyday without a doubt, but never do I post anymore. I miss old times. :(

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Originally Posted by Tyler

I lurk, everyday without a doubt, but never do I post anymore. I miss old times. :(

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Dude, post more. GAWD

Spamzilla started to kill the site when it first was made, but its got to the point that you simply cannot kill spamzilla or you will more or less empty the site. At one point we used to move the good topics from there to here, but mods got lazy, then mods started abusing there powers, and this does not include the power crazy Gohanssj!

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Originally Posted by Lee

Spamzilla started to kill the site when it first was made, but its got to the point that you simply cannot kill spamzilla or you will more or less empty the site. At one point we used to move the good topics from there to here, but mods got lazy, then mods started abusing there powers, and this does not include the power crazy Gohanssj!

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there isn't really any threads in spamzilla anymore apart from the main big one now. I have been trying to encourage people to post things in Evo in general rather than Spamzilla, and it looks like it has been working. its cause all you guys grew up and starting having lives! STOP THAT xP

Maybe we can have a SpamZone in the normal Forums?

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Originally Posted by שเ๒єtгเ๒є

YES, just YES. I don't know in what aspect spam is useful, there is not even any game behind it, just to waste traffic and time without any better sense. When I read such posts, there is no interesting for my mind, I can clearly see a small group of people telling each other any picture or any yawn, that's what it looks to me sometimes.

Topics lack on sense, posts are short and even on 100 posts per page I have to click so many NEXT buttons.
Thus signature takes the half of the whole page, too. Seeing in my settings there are new posts on topics I answered making me disappointing because of the spam sections. People do less "read" and more "write" without reading, so less response on old posts on spam sections. And quickly the real interesting posts are hidden behind the pages.

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I personally don't see any reason to post anywhere else.It's impossible to learn everything just so you can post and interract with people. Now to post once per year in something that I actually know an answer to, it's pointless to even visit RaGEZONE. So basically with that you would pretty much tell everyone who didn't come here to develop to kindly leave RaGEZONE. Why ... thank you @Wibetribe

Like Gohan said, removing Spamzilla would be the best bet to see the changes Raff is talking about. Spamzilla is a shithole and overall has made the forum experience (for those not active in MMO dev) incredibly boring and dry. We've lost a lot of good members because of the hellish nightmare that Spamzilla is.

- - - Updated - - -

Or, remove the huge mega threads in Spamzilla. They're basically a fucking shoutbox and if anyone out of the normal circle of people (Becca, Nick, etc) try to talk there their post is usually ignored and left behind. Remove those threads or remove Spamzilla as a whole.

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Originally Posted by Mucski

I personally don't see any reason to post anywhere else.It's impossible to learn everything just so you can post and interract with people. Now to post once per year in something that I actually know an answer to, it's pointless to even visit RaGEZONE. So basically with that you would pretty much tell everyone who didn't come here to develop to kindly leave RaGEZONE. Why ... thank you

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@Mucski, no dude, you have not to learn anything about MMOs or something (look at me lol) to interact with people outside of the spamzilla, because there is still a nice Outerworld section you are in right now that waits for your great stories that are on your mind. Create new topics for them instead of just posting the message in spamzillas big thread where only 1 or 2 persons will answer it until it's forgotten. I'm not taking action on many sections, too. Just lurking around on the coding section cuz thats my passion and job. I wish, there would be more to express in the outerworld section.

If you just come to RaGEZONE for spamzilla though, I think you are really wrong here, get any chat and join any group, then. Should be the same, just with other people, of course.

Create a spamzilla forum on a different domain, or talk on skype or something. That's all that goes on there anyways. Bullshit banter that takes away from the forum as a whole. The whole banishing new spamzilla users is old and tired and drives new members away from rz as a whole. Man, this thread got me passionate. I know I joined in 2008, but I really miss what used to happen here on this forum.

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Originally Posted by Savage

Create a spamzilla forum on a different domain, or talk on skype or something. That's all that goes on there anyways. Bullshit banter that takes away from the forum as a whole. The whole banishing new spamzilla users is old and tired and drives new members away from rz as a whole. Man, this thread got me passionate. I know I joined in 2008, but I really miss what used to happen here on this forum.

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Always awesome to know someone feel like this on spamzilla.

Outerworld died when all the ridiculous restrictions regarding what can and can't be posted got put in place. The old Outerworld is what Spamzilla is currently; an off-topic forum with lax restrictions regarding what can and cannot be posted. If its not related to development, and there isn't a section specifically covering what you're posting about (ie Gaming/Tech), then it was fair game.

The large shoutbox threads came from "last person posting is the best", where we all enjoyed a large off-topic shoutbox-like conversation with each other. People then got out of hand and started to spam it mindlessly, which is why we lost that. Then people took that mindless spamming to creating their own threads in the Outerworld, leading to stricter rules against what can be posted here. Everyone posts in Spamzilla because Spamzilla is what the Outerworld used to be.

The following things need to happen in order for the community to return to what it once was:

• As Goha-kirbydouche mentioned, post counts need to be hidden. People ruined Outerworld by spamming to get their post counts up. By all means keep the post count ranks and have post counts visible on the profile pages, but take it out of the forum postbit. This does nothing but encourage people to spam to get their posts up, regardless if it means anything or not.
• Rules need to become more relaxed again. People stopped posting here because of asshole mods and every other thread getting closed. This used to be the off-topic section. Let it be that again, because that is what it was when we remember back to when everyone was still active. If a thread is off-topic and does not apply to any specific sections, it belongs here. Throw out the "is this worthy for the Outerworld" discussions because that is killing this place, as the years have shown.
• STFU about the "old times of RZ" and start welcoming new members. Everyone dwells on the past and doesn't give newcommers a chance to join in conversation. Instead, they get bashed and flamed until they eventually leave. The gay jokes and unwritten "initiation" have run their course, not to mention it can be quite offensive to a lot of people. Shut the fuck up about it and just welcome people. You'll be surprised by how many stick around after that

Those are the three main issues with the Outerworld and why it has been going downhill. Spamzilla itself isn't the problem, because we had both Spamzilla and Outerworld active for a long time. The problem is the unreasonable rules against posting in the Outerworld that eventually drove everyone to deem Spamzilla the only "worthy" place to post. We get one of these "why is this place different" threads about once a year. Maybe its time to actually fix it?

Merging a few more of these sections would also help. A section averaging 5 to 7 posts per week, POSTS, not threads, does not need to be separate from the Outerworld. Content needs to stop being segregated. This will help the community part of the forum look a lot more active, thus attracting more members. That is another discussion entirely however.

Spamzilla has no place IMO. There is no reason for anyone to spam. Just go for slowchat.

To not screw up those precious postcount, you can just put the old Spamzilla in a closed forum under this section or keep as a closed on in the hidden section.

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Originally Posted by Ron

We get one of these "why is this place different" threads about once a year. Maybe its time to actually fix it?

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I don't know why nothing is ever done about it. Ron, Gohan, myself, and others have all brought up viable solutions and suggestions for some positive change to the forum. Why isn't anyone with a higher position actually chiming in and attempting to work on it? These posts go ignored and it's bullshit, especially when so many "respected" long-time members of the forum are backing and supporting it.

P.S. @Ron, you brought up some great points.

Bump for change. You know, that stuff Obama promised. @MentaL @Junkers @Madison @ChewBecca

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Originally Posted by Ron

Bump for change. You know, that stuff Obama promised. @MentaL @Junkers @Madison @ChewBecca

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atm @Ron I am focusing on a few other sections but when I come back up to OW I will be keeping these in mind for you. They are certainly good ideas.

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Originally Posted by Savage

Like Gohan said, removing Spamzilla would be the best bet to see the changes Raff is talking about. Spamzilla is a shithole and overall has made the forum experience (for those not active in MMO dev) incredibly boring and dry. We've lost a lot of good members because of the hellish nightmare that Spamzilla is.

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How ironic. I guess maybe you've grown up? I really feel that you personally contributed to us 'losing good members' because of the way you acted in Spamzilla, which definitely contributed to this 'hellish nightmare' that you speak of. I would name you one of the ringleaders to be perfectly honest.

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Originally Posted by Savage

Create a spamzilla forum on a different domain, or talk on skype or something. That's all that goes on there anyways. Bullshit banter that takes away from the forum as a whole. The whole banishing new spamzilla users is old and tired and drives new members away from rz as a whole. Man, this thread got me passionate. I know I joined in 2008, but I really miss what used to happen here on this forum.

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I'm still wondering if you are the same person, really. I don't know if I should laugh, or what, but dude, you were a HUGE part of this 'banishing new spamzilla users'. I'm glad to see you turning over a new leaf, but I'm also wondering in the back of my mind if you mean it, or if you are totally kidding by the posts in this thread.

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Originally Posted by Ron

Outerworld died when all the ridiculous restrictions regarding what can and can't be posted got put in place. The old Outerworld is what Spamzilla is currently; an off-topic forum with lax restrictions regarding what can and cannot be posted. If its not related to development, and there isn't a section specifically covering what you're posting about (ie Gaming/Tech), then it was fair game.

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Originally Posted by Ron

Rules need to become more relaxed again. People stopped posting here because of asshole mods and every other thread getting closed. This used to be the off-topic section. Let it be that again, because that is what it was when we remember back to when everyone was still active. If a thread is off-topic and does not apply to any specific sections, it belongs here. Throw out the "is this worthy for the Outerworld" discussions because that is killing this place, as the years have shown.

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Where are all of these restrictions? This section doesn't even have a rules thread. So few threads are deleted or closed here, take look at some of the threads, we have random things from IRL problems, birthdays, politcal stuff, its pretty random, and also for the most part boring.


Who are the asshole mods? Becca and LordDemonMan? You mention later about dwelling on old times, but I think that you are too. I haven't seen an 'is this worthy for the Outerworld' discussion in a long time.

Maybe you should just try posting stuff, and see what happens?

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Originally Posted by Ron

STFU about the "old times of RZ" and start welcoming new members. Everyone dwells on the past and doesn't give newcommers a chance to join in conversation. Instead, they get bashed and flamed until they eventually leave. The gay jokes and unwritten "initiation" have run their course, not to mention it can be quite offensive to a lot of people. Shut the fuck up about it and just welcome people. You'll be surprised by how many stick around after that

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The only place I see this is in Spamzilla, and it isn't nearly as bad as it was when Savage and IRuleMu were leading their fight against noobs or whatever.


Everyone comes back and expects Ragezone to magically be the same as it was when they left. They expect it will be somehow active, with all the same people posting, and some new people mixed in. Guess what? It isn't going to be active unless you help make it active.

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Originally Posted by Ron

The large shoutbox threads came from "last person posting is the best", where we all enjoyed a large off-topic shoutbox-like conversation with each other. People then got out of hand and started to spam it mindlessly, which is why we lost that. Then people took that mindless spamming to creating their own threads in the Outerworld, leading to stricter rules against what can be posted here. Everyone posts in Spamzilla because Spamzilla is what the Outerworld used to be.

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That's why Spamzilla was moved to the 'hidden sections', so not everyone could access it. That move was meant to encourage Outerworld activity. I personally thought that the Evo section should be moved up higher and the Neverland Ranch section be moved lower on the front page.

Outerworld hasn't ever been like what spamzilla is now in all the time I've been here. It has been mostly boring for 7 years, and with waves of more or less boring. The activity in outerworld is not a new problem at all. Recently all of Evo has honestly been picking up in activity.

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Originally Posted by Ron

The following things need to happen in order for the community to return to what it once was:
As Goha-kirbydouche mentioned, post counts need to be hidden. People ruined Outerworld by spamming to get their post counts up. By all means keep the post count ranks and have post counts visible on the profile pages, but take it out of the forum postbit. This does nothing but encourage people to spam to get their posts up, regardless if it means anything or not.

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The spamming to get post counts up isn't happening in outerworld, tbh, it is in the dev sections now. I agree that post count doesn't matter. I don't know if hiding the post count would work or not. I'm not a big fan of the reputation system either, but some people are very attached to that too, as seen by MentaL's most recent adjustments to that system. Many people were in account support and bugs concerned about their reputation.


I'd be ok if we gave hiding the post counts a shot. I just really don't think it is going to help much. In the end that isn't up to me, but I'm not against trying it.

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Originally Posted by Ron

Those are the three main issues with the Outerworld and why it has been going downhill. Spamzilla itself isn't the problem, because we had both Spamzilla and Outerworld active for a long time. The problem is the unreasonable rules against posting in the Outerworld that eventually drove everyone to deem Spamzilla the only "worthy" place to post. We get one of these "why is this place different" threads about once a year. Maybe its time to actually fix it?

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Again, more about these invisible rules that I don't see. Yes we did have more restrictions, but I am not aware of any now. We are going to delete the kitchentard spam (bots selling kitchen supplies), and We move some things to entertainment, etc as pertinent, but I don't see a lot of strict rules being enforced here.

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Originally Posted by Ron

Merging a few more of these sections would also help. A section averaging 5 to 7 posts per week, POSTS, not threads, does not need to be separate from the Outerworld. Content needs to stop being segregated. This will help the community part of the forum look a lot more active, thus attracting more members. That is another discussion entirely however.

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We talked about this, and we did change some things around, maybe you didn't notice. We got rid of the sports section (again). We moved TV/Film under Entertainment, and Competitions under the Outerworld. It isn't a matter of should we merge, it is more of a question of What things should be merged where, and why.

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Originally Posted by Mr Slave

Spamzilla has no place IMO. There is no reason for anyone to spam. Just go for slowchat.


To not screw up those precious postcount, you can just put the old Spamzilla in a closed forum under this section or keep as a closed on in the hidden section.

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I don't know what slowchat is.


I don't understand the comment about not screwing up post count either: spamzilla doesn't add to user's post count. Or is that like a forum posts or something? Because I know you know if the section gets 'dumped' those posts are all still there.

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Originally Posted by Savage

I don't know why nothing is ever done about it. Ron, Gohan, myself, and others have all brought up viable solutions and suggestions for some positive change to the forum. Why isn't anyone with a higher position actually chiming in and attempting to work on it? These posts go ignored and it's bullshit, especially when so many "respected" long-time members of the forum are backing and supporting it.

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I read your posts, and tbh, I wondered if I would wake up today, and find that your posts were all a dream. I'm still thinking they are a total joke.

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Originally Posted by Lee

Spamzilla started to kill the site when it first was made, but its got to the point that you simply cannot kill spamzilla or you will more or less empty the site. At one point we used to move the good topics from there to here, but mods got lazy, then mods started abusing there powers, and this does not include the power crazy Gohanssj!

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I'm with Lee on this one. I think at some point we tried to remove spamzilla and it backfired on us? Or am I imaging that, it wasn't for very long at all. I certainly understand the sentiment with wanting to remove it, but I'm sure that will not instantly fix outerworld. It might backfire and do the opposite, as Lee is saying here.

@Ron @Savage @JC/Raiden

Why aren't you doing anything to increase activity yourself? I'm totally serious. To me, the biggest change needed to boost activity is people posting. So post something, and not just you, but everyone in this thread. It is so much easier to come in and complain about something that isn't happening instead of doing something about it (I think the last post I saw by JC/Raiden was a year and a half ago about this same topic, tbh). It is easier to assume that people don't care, instead of seeing the things that have been done, or trying to find out how you can help instead of demanding action. This is not on one person's shoulders, activity is a community issue and it will take a community to change it. No single mod or single change is going to fix everything instantly, and if you look at the history (at least in the last 7 years that I've been around), you'll see that there have been several attempts over time to try to increase activity.

So please, don't just drop in and make some complaints, propose all these changes and then go inactive just to come back later and do the same. I know a few of you lurk around here all the time, and of those, @Mr. Slave (really? lol) and gohan (whatever his name is now, how am I supposed to type that?) are the only ones that I see post regularly.

@Madison, you're right, I was a major part of the new members being ridiculed and banished from Spamzilla but it took a few months of inactivity to realize how lame and useless it all was. Sure, new members can be a little eccentric, but I don't think they ever deserved the hate or jokes they received, and I regret giving myself that reputation.

I lurk a lot, mostly because I never see anything to contribute a post to, which is how I think a lot of us lurkers feel. I feel like more threads get posted to Spamzilla than Outerworld because people that post them only want to see their friends' responses. I've seen plenty of threads that could belong to The Outerworld, but don't get posted there because of the community in Spamzilla. The problem seems to be that we have two off-topic sections, why would someone choose to post in OW when there is Spamzilla? Spamzilla to a new subscriber or new member is secret and 'cool' so they're going to post a thread there to try and fit in. Old members and Spamzilla regulars post in Spamzilla because they want to chat with friends, uninterrupted. OW really has no purpose when OW-related topics go there, and when almost every new member has some type of rank that allows Spamzilla access. If removing Spamzilla didn't go so well last time, maybe remove The Outerworld this time, instead of Spamzilla?

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P.S. Thanks for chiming in, Madi.

Remove the Outerworld? Now you've gone too far! I can't see it go! :'(

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Originally Posted by Ron

Remove the Outerworld? Now you've gone too far! I can't see it go! :'(

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It's a suggestion to be elaborated. When most decent threads and posts go into Spamzilla, and OW gets little attention, why keep it? I understand why Spamzilla might start an uproar for users. I was just thinking about replacing OW with Spamzilla in Evo, to be honest. May be a dumb idea, but I'm just throwing suggestions out there to be elaborated on or shot down.

The better option would be @MentaL kick out the crap mods and get better ones. If a mod abuses there power, don't do there job or are too bias remove them and get some that will do it well. Its clear Spam has no place on the forum, but it still some times goes rewarded.

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Originally Posted by Savage

It's a suggestion to be elaborated. When most decent threads and posts go into Spamzilla, and OW gets little attention, why keep it? I understand why Spamzilla might start an uproar for users. I was just thinking about replacing OW with Spamzilla in Evo, to be honest. May be a dumb idea, but I'm just throwing suggestions out there to be elaborated on or shot down.

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I get what you're saying, but I don't think that is best. If anything gets removed then it should be Spamzilla. That section has offered absolutely nothing lately other than the 1k post threads. Without that, the section is dead. Everyone who kept things interesting have all left, and the attitude towards new members in spamzilla killed off anyone interested in replacing them. Redirect people here in a more mature posting environment and we'll see improvements.

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Originally Posted by Lee

The better option would be @MentaL kick out the crap mods and get better ones. If a mod abuses there power, don't do there job or are too bias remove them and get some that will do it well. Its clear Spam has no place on the forum, but it still some times goes rewarded.

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It used to definitely be an issue as that is what caused the Outerworld to die. That isn't really the case anymore though. Its gotten pretty laxed but all the older members still remember the strictness and abusive mods, so no one is encouraged to post here. The Outerworld was better before Spamzilla existed, because Spamzilla gave everyone a place to go to avoid the previously abusive mods and strict guidelines.

@Madison
Sorry, I don't really have time at the moment to reply to all of your points, just wanted to clear up I was mainly referring to the past in regards to abusive mods. That is no longer the case as I said above, but the older members still remember that and avoid the section.

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Originally Posted by Savage

It's a suggestion to be elaborated. When most decent threads and posts go into Spamzilla, and OW gets little attention, why keep it? I understand why Spamzilla might start an uproar for users. I was just thinking about replacing OW with Spamzilla in Evo, to be honest. May be a dumb idea, but I'm just throwing suggestions out there to be elaborated on or shot down.

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I was actually thinking across the same lines, merging them together as they are kind of the same thing but just in two different places. But removing any of the two sections could cause uproar so it's kind of a dead end.

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Originally Posted by Shoelace

I was actually thinking across the same lines, merging them together as they are kind of the same thing but just in two different places. But removing any of the two sections could cause uproar so it's kind of a dead end.

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I disagree. Spamzilla no longer even offers anything worth reading. It can be summed down to a single thread, with the occasional random pointless thread directed towards a single person. People can talk on skype, or we can get the IRC channel going again. We don't need a whole section for one thread.

Not having that section will push the times people do want to post to the Outerworld, where new members can also participate in discussion. I would miss Spamzilla, but I already miss Spamzilla. Its not what it used to be either, and there would definitely be no uproar if it was removed again.

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Originally Posted by Ron

I disagree. Spamzilla no longer even offers anything worth reading. It can be summed down to a single thread, with the occasional random pointless thread directed towards a single person. People can talk on skype, or we can get the IRC channel going again. We don't need a whole section for one thread.

Not having that section will push the times people do want to post to the Outerworld, where new members can also participate in discussion. I would miss Spamzilla, but I already miss Spamzilla. Its not what it used to be either, and there would definitely be no uproar if it was removed again.

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I can see where you are coming from now. When I actually just looked through the spamzilla section, I didn't realise there was so many threads that had created in the past few weeks. I am not the best person to contribute to this thread to be honest because I am not the most active person when it comes to spamzilla that is mostly because I am weary of posting because I did get quite a bit of slack when I first posted in the section.

However when it comes to the outerworld, I was trying think of a way of describing what gets posted there for something I was doing but I couldn't really come up with anything, all I really relate with the outerworld is world news and world events such as the world cup or stuff like that. However, when a user first visits the section the description says "Beware! Our off-topic community section, anything and everything is discussed here." but when you look inside it really isn't anything and everything. Other than the odd happy birthday thread.

But I do have to say that recently it has been seeing the activity that you would expect and that is mostly because of the older members creating threads.

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Originally Posted by Shoelace

However when it comes to the outerworld, I was trying think of a way of describing what gets posted there for something I was doing but I couldn't really come up with anything, all I really relate with the outerworld is world news and world events such as the world cup or stuff like that. However, when a user first visits the section the description says "Beware! Our off-topic community section, anything and everything is discussed here." but when you look inside it really isn't anything and everything. Other than the odd happy birthday thread.

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That was the problem with the older Outerworld mods. It wasn't supposed to be a serious discussion section, but thats what it turned in to. Anything that wasn't significant news was frowned upon. Outerworld used to be the place for everything, including all the small talk. Then all of a sudden they put in rules against small talk, then rules against posting news, then rules against addressing a small group of people. Spamzilla was created because of these restrictions to give everyone a more relaxed place to talk, when that was the whole point of the Outerworld. The change made no sense to me at the time and it still doesn't make sense, but those changes killed the section and it never really recovered.

Spamzilla was removed once and activity did spike back up, but again that activity didn't meet the rules that were in place at the time. This led it to be readded and the Outerworld once again declined in activity. The evo sections as a whole were the most popular before Spamzilla.

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Originally Posted by Madison

That's why Spamzilla was moved to the 'hidden sections', so not everyone could access it. That move was meant to encourage Outerworld activity. I personally thought that the Evo section should be moved up higher and the Neverland Ranch section be moved lower on the front page.

Outerworld hasn't ever been like what spamzilla is now in all the time I've been here. It has been mostly boring for 7 years, and with waves of more or less boring. The activity in outerworld is not a new problem at all. Recently all of Evo has honestly been picking up in activity.

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But here is the thing. It failed horribly. Instead of boosting activity, you reduced it. So many dipshits are on this forum who think rank, post count etc matter, by having Spamzilla in the hidden section, you basically gave these dipshits a place where they can get away from all the 'noobs'.
And that just makes it even worse, because when new members pay for a subscription and take part in the community, they just get hassled etc.

Spamzilla is poisonous and frankly it has always been, in all these years, I've never had the feeling that it was adding something, well aside from spam. Right now it's not being used to really spam, it's slow chat, messing about etc. But that should be in this section. If you want a serious debate, go to the debate section etc.

You are right to say that it has been boring, but it didn't use to be. Now I'm not one to talk about how everything used to be better. But this section would be to mess about. This section was created as an addition to the Legend of Mir server, where people could mess about, talk about their regular life etc, things that had no place in the LoM sections. This section, because the forum was so small, had all the Evo sections in it + the slowchat that we have right now in Spamzilla.

In the end, we should remove spamzilla and just combat pure spam. Let people mess around, there is no harm in that.

As for the comments about anal mods and the OW being destroyed, this is all true. We had mods that would constantly move threads to Spamzilla (before it was hidden) because they said it wasn't important enough. Again, we need to divide it in 3 ways. Spam gets removed. Topics that have a specific forum gets removed, all the other is welcome in the very public OW so that everyone can take part of it.

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Originally Posted by Savage

maybe remove The Outerworld this time, instead of Spamzilla?

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Keep your filthy hands of my section! I made this section and it will be the last 1 to survive! :P

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Originally Posted by Savage

@Madison, you're right, I was a major part of the new members being ridiculed and banished from Spamzilla but it took a few months of inactivity to realize how lame and useless it all was. Sure, new members can be a little eccentric, but I don't think they ever deserved the hate or jokes they received, and I regret giving myself that reputation.

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I'm more than happy to hear this.

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Originally Posted by Savage

I've seen plenty of threads that could belong to The Outerworld, but don't get posted there because of the community in Spamzilla.

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Let someone know, report the first post or something to bring it to someone's attention or send a pm or something. I would certainly move one if I agreed. I went and looked at the current first page of Spamzilla, and other than Mental's post the first word thread, I didn't really see any of them here. That thread, being a one word post thread, I thought wasn't very productive for here.

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Originally Posted by Lee

The better option would be @MentaL kick out the crap mods and get better ones. If a mod abuses there power, don't do there job or are too bias remove them and get some that will do it well. Its clear Spam has no place on the forum, but it still some times goes rewarded.

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I think we are mostly successful at this. When these type of issues come up they are taken seriously and addressed appropriately. Honestly we have the most active Senior Staff I have seen in many many years, All of the Supervisors and Super Mods are on regularly. Mental is also on regularly, and he's very active and generous with his competitions, and even social media.

Some of the dev sections are more prone to spam now than evo.

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Originally Posted by Ron

It used to definitely be an issue as that is what caused the Outerworld to die. That isn't really the case anymore though. Its gotten pretty laxed but all the older members still remember the strictness and abusive mods, so no one is encouraged to post here. The Outerworld was better before Spamzilla existed, because Spamzilla gave everyone a place to go to avoid the previously abusive mods and strict guidelines.


@Madison
Sorry, I don't really have time at the moment to reply to all of your points, just wanted to clear up I was mainly referring to the past in regards to abusive mods. That is no longer the case as I said above, but the older members still remember that and avoid the section.

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Well I don't know of a way to change that way of thinking other than to tell you to try posting stuff. As always, let us know if you see mod abuse, or any other moderator complaints. I mentioned our Senior staff is active already, but we are also humans. We might not see the things you see.






I'd like to shift the conversation away from the topic of removing spamzilla and back to other ideas. I'm curious what else people have in their minds since the conversation is flowing, and I would like it if we don't get bogged down on one topic. I'm not trying to dismiss that idea entirely, but I feel that most of the main points to remove it have already been made. At the end of the day it isn't a change that can be taken lightly, and obviously not a decision that I can even even make.


I would also like to emphasize/add to what Becca said:

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Originally Posted by ChewBecca

atm @Ron I am focusing on a few other sections but when I come back up to OW I will be keeping these in mind for you. They are certainly good ideas.

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Activity in outerworld is just one of the topics in regard to the Evolution sections. Please know that it is on our minds and many things are in progression but obviously not all at once.

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Originally Posted by Madison

I'm more than happy to hear this.

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:):

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Originally Posted by Madison

Let someone know, report the first post or something to bring it to someone's attention or send a pm or something. I would certainly move one if I agreed. I went and looked at the current first page of Spamzilla, and other than Mental's post the first word thread, I didn't really see any of them here. That thread, being a one word post thread, I thought wasn't very productive for here.

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- http://forum.ragezone.com/f83/10-ragezone-1000206/
- http://forum.ragezone.com/f83/cat-died-1002088/
- http://forum.ragezone.com/f83/happy-4-20-a-998291/
- http://forum.ragezone.com/f83/york-996643/
- http://forum.ragezone.com/f83/times-...ed-day-990881/

Just a few off the first two pages that could get people chatting and talking in the OW. I think most of the comical or joke threads in Spamzilla have a place in OW, if for no reason other than fun. It seems like those threads only go there because they want to be shared with the very exclusive crowd in Spamzilla, which pushes away newer members and stops the opportunity of new discussions, members, etc. If we had just one place (instead of two) for these types of threads in addition to other more meaningful threads, I'd imagine we'd see more new member and outsider activity.

Lets focus on moving forward not looking back. I don't see a point to moving those old threads here, the most current thread you mentioned hasn't been posted in for over a week, it would barely make the first page in Outerworld.

Wow this thread got crazy, I've been lurking this since rageparty but didn't really want to post in here during that time.

This topic did come up a few times while we were there just chilling and most of the ideas then have been thrown into this thread and debated.

If my old fart opinion from someone who is barely active is worth reading then here's some 10 cents and such.

I'm personally up for the removal of spamzilla (again) but this is coming from someone who doesn't spend all day there like a few regulars here do, they are the ones who should have the biggest voice in debating the removal for the above reason. Why I think this is because of.

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Originally Posted by Ron

Spamzilla no longer even offers anything worth reading. It can be summed down to a single thread, with the occasional random pointless thread directed towards a single person.

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If my occasional lurking of spamzilla has pointed anything out to me it is this quote. The only thing a lot of people go into that section to look at is the last person posting thread. There is the odd random thread of course and Mental likes to post a few competitions there but all these threads aside from competitions (which could just go to the competition sub-forum.) could be moved over to this magical slowchat chatbox.

This is where another problem comes in, if we start forcefully moving people into a chatbox, where are we going to put it? The regulars are going to want it hidden so does it just pop up at the top of the forum like spamzilla when the criteria to access the forum is met? Or do we just open it up to the public where it can potentially get bombed by "noobies" (using that term generally) and spammed by adbots. What will probably happen if it's set like spamzilla is that you may see a tad bit of activity arise in the OW but you haven't fixed much, you've just picked up someone's home and stuck it somewhere else so the people that frequent there will stay there no?

One cool thing I can think of this though is that all those random threads pointed at people used to just get hidden inside a last person posting thread and some of those were quite fun to discover. They would have no choice but to disguise to well enough to go into OW or chatbox it. But to find one of those once in a while gems, is it worth it? Just some food for thought on the chatbox stuff.

That exhausting snippet finally brings me to the part where I suggest to getting rid of anything spamzilla related. It was apparently done before, it might of happened when I was active but I've gotten senile in my life that I've totally forgotten whether I was there or not, regardless. It's back so something probably didn't work. My guess is that people really missed it and the regulars were the biggest voice on calling for its return. If we remove it, that will probably happen again unless those regulars are the ones calling for the removal. It's all good and all to jump back on RZ after years of inactivity and be like muh nostalgia but if they're not happy then it's not going to work. Were in a situation though where a lot of the people in that section are more mature than the past few years. (No offence taken I hope.) Maybe if it was to go then we would migrate back to OW and try find those so called glory days. But the way things are now spamzilla is a cancer that isn't going any time soon.

So in conclusion, whatever happens someone will get mad. Ultimately the only solution to this problem is...

To post more in OW. Simple yeah? It's easy to do but nobody does. Why? Take me for example, my interests at the moment are heavily focused on gaming and esports. If I have something to discuss I'll probably go into the gaming hotspot and post a thread once a year there to get no replies and think to myself, I remember why I stopped posting.

Looking at the forum now that section has 12 viewers while OW has 60+. The front page of these sections have threads spanning an entire month, there is talk of merging forums and I think that would be a nice change. For one I would have something to discuss and hopefully get more people viewing it. I could maybe find 1 guy like, yo I'm gonna watch TI4 also, the teams this year are stacked etc etc. Why can't entertainment, gaming hotspot and debate all just be merged into OW, it's not like those sections are brimming with activity, just be creative on the rules and have some fun for a change.

I'm not going to fully proof read this shit so if I've made a mistake, try pretend what I would normally say and call me out on it.

I've probably missed some stuff I wanted to raise also so I'll make another post or just revise this. Love some discussion back.

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Originally Posted by Madison

Lets focus on moving forward not looking back. I don't see a point to moving those old threads here, the most current thread you mentioned hasn't been posted in for over a week, it would barely make the first page in Outerworld.

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Oh I'm not trying to get those threads moved to OW, just providing examples of threads and topics that could've worked well in OW, but only got posted in Spamzilla because of the tight community in that section.

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@ElMarshal Just because Spamzilla gets removed, doesn't mean there needs to be a slowchat chatbox of any sort. That's essentially another Spamzilla, just in a different form. We don't need banter and slowchat, whether it be in the form of a section or as a shoutbox. Take the slowchat away completely. No matter what form it's in, it's taking away from the overall activity of other sections on the forum. My two cents on that subject. Hopefully I understood your argument clearly.

I do however agree with the rest of your points, all valid.

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Adding to @ElMarshal's idea on merging sections... Debate, Entertainment, and Gaming Hotspot could all technically fit under the OW.

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Originally Posted by ElMarshal

Looking at the forum now that section has 12 viewers while OW has 60+. The front page of these sections have threads spanning an entire month, there is talk of merging forums and I think that would be a nice change. For one I would have something to discuss and hopefully get more people viewing it. I could maybe find 1 guy like, yo I'm gonna watch TI4 also, the teams this year are stacked etc etc. Why can't entertainment, gaming hotspot and debate all just be merged into OW, it's not like those sections are brimming with activity, just be creative on the rules and have some fun for a change.

I'm not going to fully proof read this shit so if I've made a mistake, try pretend what I would normally say and call me out on it.

I've probably missed some stuff I wanted to raise also so I'll make another post or just revise this. Love some discussion back.

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If these sections do end up merging which isn't a bad idea, it would be better if there was subsections as having too many sections in one main section could get a bit too confusing. The only ones that would need a subsection in my opinion would be TV/Film, Music lounge and maybe Debate as they are not really slow chat sort of sections so they wouldn't fit in with the Outerworld section itself but still would be good to merge if it comes down to it. Entertainment would definitely fit in with the Outerworld section as it is just videos and pictures and anything funny and off-topic.

Is it possible to disallow increasing post count on one thread? When you would remove spamzilla we could still give a chat thread in the OW that is sticked and does not increase post count.

So spammers still have a place, a whole section is not needed IMHO.

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Originally Posted by ElMarshal

That exhausting snippet finally brings me to the part where I suggest to getting rid of anything spamzilla related. It was apparently done before, it might of happened when I was active but I've gotten senile in my life that I've totally forgotten whether I was there or not, regardless. It's back so something probably didn't work. My guess is that people really missed it and the regulars were the biggest voice on calling for its return. If we remove it, that will probably happen again unless those regulars are the ones calling for the removal. It's all good and all to jump back on RZ after years of inactivity and be like muh nostalgia but if they're not happy then it's not going to work. Were in a situation though where a lot of the people in that section are more mature than the past few years. (No offence taken I hope.) Maybe if it was to go then we would migrate back to OW and try find those so called glory days. But the way things are now spamzilla is a cancer that isn't going any time soon.

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The problem wasn't that people missed it, the problem was that fun threads, like the slow-chat thread in Spamzilla now, was deemed spam and would just get closed, making people go "well we want spamzilla back".
Why did they get closed? Well because people care too damn much about a useless number below their username.

So the whole problem was that we had mods that demanded high quality posts, which left the community craving for a section that allowed their banter.

Like I said, remove Spamzilla and only remove pure spam. So no word games, no counting games, no fucking retarded useless topics that have absolutely no point except to smash your head into your keyboard games. Just a bunch of topics about important stuff, you know the things that are going on in the world, personal stuff etc, and slowchat, where people just enjoy talking to each other.

Just gonna jump in with regards to talk about a slowchat chatbox, Dan has mentioned in the past (IIRC) this would put too much strain on the server, especially if it wasn't hidden.

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Originally Posted by Junkers

Just gonna jump in with regards to talk about a slowchat chatbox, Dan has mentioned in the past (IIRC) this would put too much strain on the server, especially if it wasn't hidden.

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I remember his statement on my suggestion, too. I suggested a shoutbox some time ago, too. The only differences between a chat topic and a shout box is people poll the shout box every X seconds automatically. Technically when users have to press a button to load new messages it's the same like pressing F5 on your keyboard but it will still waste more resources because people will press the button even more than pressing F5 now, because they do not need to scroll always, and they have to load more than just a few text (images and so on).

But Gohans slowchat was meant to be just a normal topic I guess.

When I talk about slow chat, I mean a topic where people just chat through regular posts.

I'm actually against a chatbox or going to IRC.

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Originally Posted by Savage

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@ElMarshal Just because Spamzilla gets removed, doesn't mean there needs to be a slowchat chatbox of any sort. That's essentially another Spamzilla, just in a different form. We don't need banter and slowchat, whether it be in the form of a section or as a shoutbox. Take the slowchat away completely. No matter what form it's in, it's taking away from the overall activity of other sections on the forum. My two cents on that subject. Hopefully I understood your argument clearly.

I do however agree with the rest of your points, all valid.

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I do agree with the removal of the section, my post was to put across a few different arguments and scenarios. I'll like to removal it all but it's obviously serving a purpose, even if the purpose in its current form is just to have one thread and the odd small tiny call outs. I'm slowly starting to think that the premise of spamzilla (As it is now, last personal posting etc. taking away traffic from OW is just a myth at this point, if anything will improve activity, it's more people actually posting there, we could still have nice things where both sections continue to exist.

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Originally Posted by Shoelace

If these sections do end up merging which isn't a bad idea, it would be better if there was subsections as having too many sections in one main section could get a bit too confusing. The only ones that would need a subsection in my opinion would be TV/Film, Music lounge and maybe Debate as they are not really slow chat sort of sections so they wouldn't fit in with the Outerworld section itself but still would be good to merge if it comes down to it. Entertainment would definitely fit in with the Outerworld section as it is just videos and pictures and anything funny and off-topic.

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If it was up to me I'd throw sub-sections out the window for all of the forums and just let it rock in OW. People would just have to make good titles for a change to distinguish the topic.

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Originally Posted by Mr Slave

The problem wasn't that people missed it, the problem was that fun threads, like the slow-chat thread in Spamzilla now, was deemed spam and would just get closed, making people go "well we want spamzilla back".
Why did they get closed? Well because people care too damn much about a useless number below their username.

So the whole problem was that we had mods that demanded high quality posts, which left the community craving for a section that allowed their banter.

Like I said, remove Spamzilla and only remove pure spam. So no word games, no counting games, no fucking retarded useless topics that have absolutely no point except to smash your head into your keyboard games. Just a bunch of topics about important stuff, you know the things that are going on in the world, personal stuff etc, and slowchat, where people just enjoy talking to each other.

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So if we were the move the last person posting thread over to OW, like you said, post count worshippers would kick off. I like the idea a lot and this is what it was like to begin with. The solutions need to be discussed heavily though.

Moving the thread over and hiding post count could work. But a lot of people would still like to keep post count visible. If it were to be hidden globally I think it's unfair for the people that don't come to OW and the subsequent forums to just chat, sure the lot of us in this one thread may agree that post count is dumb but there are tons of other people who will disagree and what are we to just force our opinions on the thousands of other users on the board.

If we were to just hide post count in this section somehow, it would just feel weird to me. The purest sense of post count is to show how much discussion that user has been in and in a section where discussion is key (rather has posting releases etc.) It just feels off, even though I agree with the removal of post count.

The only other idea I think may be viable but it's bulky is making a subsection in OW for last person posting only and just keeping the threads locked when they hit the threshold. Have post count disabled and delete any other thread created that isn't LPP or just only let a mod have rights to create threads there. But this idea is just moving spamzilla as a whole and cutting the fat.

Dan could easily add a hack that allows you to disable post count for certain threads.

Just to touch on the post count issue... Tons of extremely popular forums hide post counts. Making post counts irrelevant improves quality of content. People no longer spam to get their post count up because most users will never see their post count. This in turn would make usergroups more "valuable", as the only things distinguishing between users after post counts are removed would be like counts and the usergroups.

Post count is also a number used by new members to see who is the most active and who to "respect" on the forum. This causes new members to spam as fast as possible to increase their own post count so that they can get that same "respect", because they make the mistake of thinking post count means more than length of time on the forum or quality of posts.

Post count is a useless figure that causes user spam when it is visible. Make it hidden in the postbit. The only people who will complain are going to be the spamming users who actually care about the useless figure. There is a reason all popular forums now have post counts hidden... it increases overall quality of content. I have post counts hidden on all forums I am a part of running now and I've seen drastic changes in user activity and content quality. RZ is no exception.

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Originally Posted by Ron

Just to touch on the post count issue... Tons of extremely popular forums hide post counts. Making post counts irrelevant improves quality of content. People no longer spam to get their post count up because most users will never see their post count. This in turn would make usergroups more "valuable", as the only things distinguishing between users after post counts are removed would be like counts and the usergroups.

Post count is also a number used by new members to see who is the most active and who to "respect" on the forum. This causes new members to spam as fast as possible to increase their own post count so that they can get that same "respect", because they make the mistake of thinking post count means more than length of time on the forum or quality of posts.

Post count is a useless figure that causes user spam when it is visible. Make it hidden in the postbit. The only people who will complain are going to be the spamming users who actually care about the useless figure. There is a reason all popular forums now have post counts hidden... it increases overall quality of content. I have post counts hidden on all forums I am a part of running now and I've seen drastic changes in user activity and content quality. RZ is no exception.

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Glad there was a bit more discussion to come from this. While my vision of post counts on some forums is different, I do very much understand where you are coming from as the bigger picture. As I said while I'm for removing post counts, your view does further back the idea of removing them completely where I'm now fully agreed.

If post counts were to just get hidden to profiles, moving the LPP thread to OW and removing the section would be viable yeah?

Now the hardest part is getting those changes into effect lol.

We are watching this thread guys so don't feel your efforts are going to waste this time :wink:

I'm loving all the flow of ideas in this threads, feels like we're getting something accomplished and makes me happy. I'd like to thank everyone for their input.

Hiding post count in the postbit would make a lot of sense, at least in the Evo sections, if it had to come down to that. I could understand that a post count might be necessary in the dev sections, but it really has no use at all in the Evo sections. I think Marshal said it best with removing spamzilla and cutting the fat. We could bring the LPP threads over here (either in OW or a subsection - but subsections are kind of lame, stated by Marshal as well), and then remove Spamzilla as a whole because the only reason that section exists is for those threads.

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Originally Posted by Junkers

We are watching this thread guys so don't feel your efforts are going to waste this time :wink:

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:):5char

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P.S. just a small thought here, but if post count should be removed, I think reputation should as well. Rep contributes to people spamming as well, doesn't really add to anything on the forum - besides people going on "rep parties" and negative rep sprees, which is basically the whole idea against​ having rep.

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Originally Posted by Savage

P.S. just a small thought here, but if post count should be removed, I think reputation should as well. Rep contributes to people spamming as well, doesn't really add to anything on the forum - besides people going on "rep parties" and negative rep sprees, which is basically the whole idea against​ having rep.

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I wouldn't mind seeing the reputation system going because it doesn't really have much use, I always use the like button over reputation and also the reputation system isn't always easy to read on how "Respected" people are because it's only bars not numbers like the likes.

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Originally Posted by Shoelace

I wouldn't mind seeing the reputation system going because it doesn't really have much use, I always use the like button over reputation and also the reputation system isn't always easy to read on how "Respected" people are because it's only bars not numbers like the likes.

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Reputation has been removed and brought back countless times I think. I don't know why, because everyone just +reps each other to max rep. The only people with negative rep are the occasional dumbasses who wander in to spamzilla and can't take a hint to smarten up.

At least the likes give a small impression on quality of post content. It takes more than an average post to make someone use the extra effort to locate and click the like button.