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
Doom_of_Valyria says... #3
Oh sorry, my bad, Epoch, I was typing while this page was growing. I get your point that people can be quicker to the punch instead of waiting for a card page to be started. I do like that the combined forum isn't rigid. "Ermagherd" posts are good for that one, but it's nice to know that if I wanted to discuss a card I wouldn't be obligated to try and force discussion of it between all of the "Ermagherd" posts, and I could start my own thread (assuming one doesn't already exist). Again, sorry if it sounded like I ignored what you were all saying, I was just typing while you were discussing.
March 7, 2015 4:42 p.m.
Epochalyptik says... #4
I don't like having a rigid prohibition on things like this. When you implement controls to help address community issues, you need to balance ideal solutions with practical limitations.
It's not practical, nor is it really necessary, to prohibit users from creating threads in addition to the main spoiler thread. They're going to do it. We can't stop them. Even if we lock SRS, someone will post in another forum. Why not use the main discussion as exactly that: a main discussion. Let the community organically generate additional discussion as needed. Worst case, we close a thread because there's already a discussion on the card in question.
Now, I haven't been crunching numbers or anything, but it seems that having a featured discussion for DTK as a whole has indeed helped to reduce the number of new SRS threads overall. That's exactly what it was meant to do.
March 7, 2015 4:42 p.m.
So if that's the case then, to return to the original post by Jay, this line isn't accurate: "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 seems not true??
March 7, 2015 4:47 p.m.
Because having the megathread has some users interpreting it as them being unable to post additional threads.
March 7, 2015 4:50 p.m.
So i agree with epoch largely but I think our explanation is poor. It just needs to specify what's ok and what isn't.
March 7, 2015 4:51 p.m.
Rasta_Viking29 says... #8
Just pointing out that even though the tram handling card submissions is on top it most of the initial discussion happens well before the can be added and linked to in the forums.
ChiefBell says... #1
Ideas:
We post all discussion on card pages. The problem with that is that this isn't necessarily intuitive (unless we give people instructions!) and we might take too long to upload a card and people get frustrated. Sometimes it takes ages for us to upload new cards.
We only allow the sticky thread, or we allow some specific discussions elsewhere.
We allow the sticky thread and any discussion the users want elsewhere.
We lock the spoilers/rumours forum during spoilers season. Approved members post an individual thread for each card as its spoiled. The problem is that we might be too slow, and there are like 250 cards so that'd be a lot of threads haha.
We let users post the threads they want but encourage the user of the search bar. Hopefully then people will stop multiposting. Whoever makes the thread first gets it to become the official thread about that card. All others are deleted.
March 7, 2015 4:35 p.m.