The Issue with the Spoiler Dump Thread
TappedOut forum
Posted on March 6, 2015, 4:42 p.m. by Jay
To preface, I may be completely alone in this gripe, in which case feel free to disregard what I'm saying. I have a hunch, however that I'm not, so I'll post in the hopes of improving the current spoiler system on TappedOut.
As of right now, as I'm sure you know, we have the mass thread for general discussion and announcement of Spoilers for the new set, Dragons of Tarkir. This system was implemented rather recently to try and quell the usual floods of redundant threads during spoiler season: people see a spoiler and get excited and post about it without first checking if someone beat them to it, leading to more clutter for mods to clean up.
While this system does reduce clutter, I believe it greatly reduces accessibility to discussion of spoiled cards. Generally speaking, when I see a card spoiled which interests me for whatever combination of reasons, I would like to discuss it on a thread, or at the very least leave a short opinion on it. The current system requires doing so amidst, at current count, 54 pages. That is a lot. This, ironically, has the potential to lead to redundancy, however that's not the most frustrating part in my opinion. It leads to numerous overlapping conversations which make communication a nightmare; not to mention light up the notification box nonstop.
I understand that making a format-specific post to discuss the impact of a card on an archetype or somesuch is accepted, however I often find that there's no appropriate way to do so with some vague thoughts about the card in general which, I believe, have just as much value as ind-depth analysis when providing a new opinion or point of view.
I'm not suggesting we go back to the old system of clogging the forums at our whim, merely suggesting that we try and find a new system for streamlining the spoiling process while allowing card-specific forum use. A few ideas which come to mind immediately are:
-Having a spoiler page instead of forum which depicts all currently-spoiled cards as updated by upgraded users (in a similar fashion to the card database, I'd imagine, though I can't be sure of the technical elements).
-Leaving out threads which simply announce a card (like the "lookie-here, a new common!") which take up space for no reason. This would be difficult to enforce, though, I imagine, particularly with TO's general hands-off moderation policy.
-Not actually spoiling cards on TO at all, but rather giving reference to dedicated spoiler sites and focusing on promoting discussion of cards in the forums here. Again, this would be difficult to make ubiquitous amidst the huge number of users, but I think a few sets' worth of transition would be enough.
These are simply some talking points, and I'm sure there's a better solution out there somewhere; please suggest it! This will be a more and more relevant topic, I believe, what with the increased rate of set releases we will be seeing soon.
Again, if nobody else is irked by the current system, call this a non-issue and me picky, but I believe as it stands it is severely wanting.
Thanks for any input.
-Jay
If you couldn't gather, I've also given up on the mass thread. It's an overwhelming amount of conversation to try and discuss at once.
March 6, 2015 4:45 p.m.
Servo_Token says... #4
This post is quite the read, and to be honest, I didn't finish it, but I agree with the notion that the single spoiler thread is dumb and I never take part because trying to keep a decent conversation going on one card in a field of everyone trying to talk about everything seems like a huge waste of time and effort.
I like your ideas, and have no new ones of my own to contribute, more so just backing that this is a valid thing to be concerned about.
March 6, 2015 4:45 p.m.
it doesn't seem to be updated but i can try to fix that.
March 6, 2015 5:10 p.m.
Epochalyptik says... #6
The spoiler discussion is meant to help reduce general DTK discussion threads. You're still welcome to make specific threads to talk about a card, especially if you're discussing implications for a specific format.
The issue is that we'll always have people posting tons of SRS threads during spoiler season. This is pretty much just damage control. A couple months ago (i.e., before we started doing the general Community Discussions for spoiler season) we'd have a new spoiler thread every hour or so. It was really tiresome. This has at least helped to cut down on that nonsense.
March 6, 2015 5:16 p.m.
I had no idea that Spoiler page even existed! We should definitely try and publicize that more, it's a great tool :)
March 6, 2015 5:23 p.m.
Femme_Fatale says... #8
It's because this site is relatively unexplored. It's right in front of people's faces, but they don't bother to click it.
And yeaGO, I'm going to ask that you fix the dragons of tarkir set. It doesn't show all the cards that are in it. And also, make a Modern Masters 2015 Edition set. So that way I can add the cards to there.
March 6, 2015 5:37 p.m.
What about just a spoiler season forum? Does that solve anything? From there, we could feature a discussion but it by no means has to be some official exclusive discussion and people are still free to post whatever random offshoots they like.
March 6, 2015 5:49 p.m.
Femme_Fatale says... #10
That doesn't solve the problem of people posting the same thread 50+ times in a row.
March 6, 2015 5:51 p.m.
Doom_of_Valyria says... #11
Super complicated, but what about this:
The spoiler page, but when you click on the card it takes you to a discussion thread about that specific card. That way, when a new card is spoiled people wait until it's added to the spoiler page before they make any comments about that specific card.
I'm sure the coding n stuff would be a difficult, and it'd require someone to add the card ASAP after it's been spoiled, but that would cut down on extra posts while giving everyone a designated area to discuss an individual card without getting lost in 54 pages of discussion.
March 6, 2015 6:21 p.m.
well those pages already aggregate global mentions of cards, is the problem that discussion might be happening in a few different threads? so what?
March 6, 2015 6:25 p.m.
Epochalyptik says... #13
I did say that the official discussion is not mean to be the only discussion, nor does it prevent people from making other threads.
March 6, 2015 6:29 p.m.
ZooGambler says... #14
Maybe restrict access to posting threads to mods. Create a modern/standard/etc for each card. That way there's one thread per card per format.
March 6, 2015 6:33 p.m.
I think we could make the spoiler page more publicized and once each card is confirmed you could click it to go to the discussions specifically about that card, like whatDoom_of_Valyria said, except it would specifically be in a spoiler season forum and each thread would have be tagged with a card name so that when you click the card it takes you to a page that filters any posts having that card tagged. I know it doesn't sound that great and is probably fairly complicated, but I think it might work pretty well. Granted, it'd only be active for a bit every few months or so.
March 6, 2015 6:40 p.m.
I threw the spoiler into the top menu. I think it helps something. Epoch, you can control this behavior in the sitesettings 'current spoiler' field. It can be blank.
March 6, 2015 6:42 p.m.
Epochalyptik says... #17
Good to know.
@ZooGambler: That's needlessly complicated and micromanagerial. The end goal should be to require as little upkeep as possible.
March 6, 2015 7:09 p.m.
we used to have card level comments on this site but i removed them before because people weren't really using them. would people really use them?
March 6, 2015 7:29 p.m.
Femme_Fatale says... #19
More detail on the card level comments?
And I think what this site needs is a whole round tutorial for all the places. There are still some places that I've never been to yet.
March 6, 2015 7:34 p.m.
more detail? i just meant a comment form on card pages.
and yeah, that sounds awesome. if you google, there's a funny youtube video where someone does a walk-through of my site. haha. i have no idea who they are. documentation and design aren't my strong suits, apparently.
March 6, 2015 7:36 p.m.
Femme_Fatale says... #22
I'd be more than willing to write up a site tutorial for you yeaGO.
March 6, 2015 7:44 p.m.
Femme_Fatale says... #23
The problem is is that the site changes so frequently that most things in the tutorial would be hard to manage.
March 6, 2015 7:44 p.m.
Epochalyptik says... #24
Gatherer has those. I just wonder if they'd get looked at. I can't imagine many people are going to stop by the card page to see what people are saying about it. I almost never use the card pages, myself.
March 6, 2015 7:45 p.m.
Epochalyptik says... #25
And honestly, I can't trust that people would actually use the tutorial. Look how much information we already put out in conjunction with some features. It all gets ignored already. Why invest effort in a tutorial?
March 6, 2015 7:47 p.m.
Epochalyptik says... #27
Well, look how many people still post questions in the wrong location or don't read the forum descriptions. The Q&A has an entire page that's supposed to help people not post nonrules questions there, and there's a banner over all the new thread fields that reminds people about the Q&A.
March 6, 2015 7:58 p.m.
well yeah but i don't really take that as evidence things are being wholesale ignored. sure, people are going to miss things / forget / ignore etc. the goal is to encourage those numbers towards 0, for sure.
March 6, 2015 8:22 p.m.
Epochalyptik says... #29
Right. I suppose if we created a tutorial and revamped the help desk a bit, it might get use. I also think the help desk might be best linked in the header bar for visibility. We could probably remove "Events" if it doesn't see much use.
March 6, 2015 8:30 p.m.
Femme_Fatale says... #30
The tutorial when people first start out does absolutely nothing to teach people about the site. It took my daughter 3 and 1/2 hours to figure out how to do basic functions on this site (and she is quite smart and is 16). If the tutorial people first took actually told people about the locations of everything and what they do, and have a very easy place to access it (like when you click on your profile icon) then we would have less problems.
March 6, 2015 8:50 p.m.
yeah, the tutorials and the help desk are all kinda unloved.
March 6, 2015 8:56 p.m.
What if we just created a "new" official thread that's a continuation of the old one? when it got to some thumb-rule length that everyone can agree is unmanagable?
the old one would remain open to let any lingering conversations simmer down.
March 7, 2015 3:45 p.m.
I've been a bit of authoritarian about this to be honest. If I see someone post a thread in spoilers that literally says 'look at this new card it looks really cool, I want to build a deck around it', I'll post something like:
"Please can you not post individual threads about spoiled cards. As it says at the top of the spoiler thread -
In an effort to cut down on the number of spoiler threads, this Community Discussion will serve as the site's official Dragons of Tarkir spoiler and speculation thread!
However if you want to post a format specific discussion then feel free to do so in the relevant forum instead."
We made the stickied spoiler thread to STOP people posting individual threads. The last thing we should do is turn around and say it's ok to post individual threads or we just go back to the system we had before which clearly didn't work. I would be a fan of a spoiler forum in which mods/admins/a select group of people made threads for each spoiled card and all discussion was kept there. If only SOME members could make these threads then we wouldn't have a large influx. BUT the problem with that idea is that people would either start posting spoilers in a different forum OR we'd have to lock out the existing spoiler forum which would be a bit unfair. Therefore whilst it sounds like a good idea to only allow certain people to make threads I just don't think it'll work in practice. Until we have a good solution I think the best thing to do is to keep with the stickied thread.
If I'm being really honest I keep hearing a great deal of moaning about the changes and fixes we make but I never hear anyone offering solutions. Getting a tiny, tiny bit tired of it.
'the current system is bad'
'ok, what do you propose we do?'
'don't know'
That's not useful.
March 7, 2015 3:48 p.m.
Maybe have a master thread that's more for discussion of the entire set than the cards in it, and then allow threads for individual cards to come up as they are created? People can discuss the general impact of the set, new archetypes they might expect, etc., but card-specific conversations will be more left to the regular forums. If a conversation about a particular card starts up, those involved can start a new thread and move their discussion to it so they don't get in the way of other discussion (and vice versa).
March 7, 2015 3:49 p.m.
ChiefBell, this thread was created for the purpose of improving the system. I was hoping it would start up discussion of how to improve it- which it did. Hopefully that didn't come across as whining.
March 7, 2015 3:51 p.m.
Chief it seems to me by my reading (and forgive me if I am incorrect) but Epoch's earlier explanation of the policy doesn't really seem to match up with yours. That's not to say you or he are right, but there shouldn't be different approaches depending on who is managing forum business. And that is to say that, no, it wasn't meant to make people "STOP" creating other discussions, and other discussions do not become invalid because of the megathread.
March 7, 2015 4:02 p.m.
I like how your post says "That's not to say you or he are right"
But then you say "And that is to say that, no, it wasn't meant to make people "STOP" creating other discussions"
So then you DO think he's right and I'm wrong haha.
My opinion is that we've made a stickied spoiler thread to stop people posting their own threads. Use it. If you don't want to use it then there's no point in us bothering to make one. What there is even less point in doing is allowing both, or we're all just wasting our time. That's how I see it.
March 7, 2015 4:07 p.m.
Epochalyptik says:
The spoiler discussion is meant to help reduce general DTK discussion threads. You're still welcome to make specific threads to talk about a card, especially if you're discussing implications for a specific format.
I would just change that to:
The spoiler discussion is meant to help reduce general DTK discussion threads. You're ONLY welcome to make specific threads to talk about a card if you're discussing implications for a specific format.
Otherwise we might as well not bother with the sticky, no?
March 7, 2015 4:08 p.m.
We get your opinion :P
Those need to mitigated before any administrative actions are taken, such as cough
March 7, 2015 4:10 p.m.
Indeed. I understand.
I just think the current system is..... really clunky.
March 7, 2015 4:13 p.m.
Perhaps its just my ignorance, but wasn't that thread that you curtailed doing what you said you'd like to "ONLY" allow?
March 7, 2015 4:13 p.m.
It's not a format specific discussion of its place? If it was like 'hey I wonder what impact this will have in modern?' and it's posted in the modern forum then sure. That was literally a post in spoilers just saying 'i like this card, it could do this'. It's a bit of a one liner, which could be placed elsewhere.
I'm just super confused about the system. We make a stickied thread which says at the top 'we're making this to stop people posting their own threads', and then we allow people to post their own threads. We at the very leat need clarity and consistency. If I'm wrong then so be it, but I would advise removing that message from the stickied thread in that case, or even just getting rid of it altogether because then..... what IS the point of it?
March 7, 2015 4:16 p.m.
Epochalyptik says... #44
"In an effort to cut down on the number of spoiler threads, this Community Discussion will serve as the site's official Dragons of Tarkir spoiler and speculation thread!"
This isn't a prohibition against additional spoiler threads. It's a statement encouraging people to use the main thread unless they have a reason to post an individual one (the "conditions" for which are listed later).
The way I see it, the featured thread is a good way to get people to talk about the set as a whole, and it's a suitable place for the "omg look what just got spoiled" posts. Additional threads may be created for people who want to talk about the economic merit of a certain card, a card's viability in a format, or just the general potential of a card. It doesn't have to be limited to card-in-format contexts, nor does it prohibit the creation of individual threads. It's difficult to maintain an ongoing discussion about one card in the main thread anyway.
March 7, 2015 4:24 p.m.
Oh, because it wasn't in standard or modern or whatever. I gotcha.
As for the point of it I guess I'd have to let epoch clarify (and hopefully he will, oh I refreshed. he did! yay.). I just thought it was kind of a convenience.
I am not a heavy forum user and so I try to be sensitive to the regulars while not really having much of an understanding myself of the irritation caused by duplicate threads (or necroing, etc). On a philosophical level, I consider forums to be a moldy swampy abiogenetical pangean goo of unstructured internet communications. Contrast with discussions around user created objects with specific direction (such as deck discussions). So, I guess I think the business of getting very preoccupied and trying to implement rigid structures in order to arrive at an "organized forum" is kind of an oxymoron. Just an opinion :P
And as far as I can tell by people's behaviors, all you can really do is try to nudge them along in a direction. That's all I thought the megathread was, a nudge to bear the brunt of discussion activities.
March 7, 2015 4:25 p.m.
Epochalyptik says... #46
As for alternatives, I'm open to suggestions.
It was proposed that we hold discussions on card and maybe on set pages, but I think the issue with that is twofold:
First, I don't think people would intuitively look for those pages in order to contribute to a discussion. The site is largely forum-oriented as far as discussions go, so people will be looking for a thread, not a separate page.
Second, we would never be able to preempt the posts that come before the card is uploaded into our database. Some people post a new thread as soon as they see a spoiler. If those threads are going to exist, we might as well not implement a system that would be redundant with them.
March 7, 2015 4:28 p.m.
Ok well let's make this structured. Next time we make a megathread or now we note the following:
ALL SPOILERS MUST BE POSTED HERE UNLESS:
You want to post an individual discussion about a cards viability in a certain format.
You want to post an individual discussion about a cards economic future.
Let's make it just as clear as mud so no one can get it wrong.
I don't necessarily agree with your point Epochalyptik where you said that user should make separate threads regarding " just the general potential of a card". I think that's EXACTLY what the sticky thread is for?
Thoughts?
March 7, 2015 4:30 p.m.
Doom_of_Valyria says... #48
Ok so here's the main reason why I'd like to see card specific threads. It's gonna be a long story, so if you're interested then settle in.
Say I don't check the spoiler thread for a week, a day, and hour. Card A has been spoiled while I was away, and I'd like to see what people are saying about it. The last time I visited the spoiler thread it was... idk 5-10 pages shorter than it is now. So I can either try to navigate through those pages scrolling for what I'm after, or start a comment about that Card A. I've done both, and the outcomes are not really great. It takes a lot of muddling to backtrack through the pages, but when I make a comment about a card afterwards here's what happens: It either gets skipped over because people are in the midst of discussing the newest spoiler or they've already given their opinions on Card A, or one person makes brief acknowledgement of my comment and then it's lost amongst the discussion. Either way, the discussion goes unentertained.
This is why I think there should be card specific forums. Somewhere I can go to find that discussion about Card A that I'm after. People's opinions on that card are easily found and I can jump right in to talk about Card A.
If these card specific pages were in existence then it'd absolutely be necessary to put a sticky at the top of the Spoilers, Rumors, and Speculation thread to please see the card specific posts if you are looking to discuss specific cards.
Idk, that's just how I feel and what I think the best solution is. I understand that I may be wrong and there's a better way, I just wanted to put that out there. Thanks everyone for reading.
March 7, 2015 4:30 p.m.
Doom_of_Valyria : the sticky thread does have problems, yeah.
canterlotguardian says... #2
I don't bother even going on the spoiler thread anymore. I just go on MythicSpoiler and post a Facebook comment on the individual card pages.
March 6, 2015 4:44 p.m.