Please Change Your Ways Dallas-Mavs.com

[Stressboy]

I used to love reading this board, in fact years ago I even wrote a few posts and I think made a little sense. Well I have stayed away from this board for the past 3-4 months now because of your insistance on keeping 1 thread on any topic. The Howard/Butler trade thread is now 13 pages long. It moved from rumor, to fact, to God knows what topic to the current debate on minute distribution.

Only people with no lives will read 13 pages to pick up where that started and only the real die hard mavs geek wants to read 3 pages of minute distribution debate which should have been in its own thread.

If you guys want to keep a decent community not made up of your die hards please break these threads up so those of us that try to maintain a real life can read the thread titles, and decide what is worth our time and what is not. Otherwise visitors such as myself will continue to look elsewhere for our Mav's conversations.

Stressboy

[mavsfan1000]

Just leave man if you don't like the setup. This is how we do things here. We're not changing things for your lazy ass.

[Nowitzki4President]

Threads evolve, that's how it works...

[dude1394]

I think you should start more threads then. To be honest I agree with you as stuff gets lost and it's difficult to pick up the sense of the board without wading through 7 pages or so.

[mavsfan1000]

Originally Posted by dude1394

I think you should start more threads then. To be honest I agree with you as stuff gets lost and it's difficult to pick up the sense of the board without wading through 7 pages or so.

I've seen boards with multiple threads complaining about the same thing or one play. It is lame to start a thread on a simple idea. It just looks messy on the front page.

[kg_veteran]

Originally Posted by mavsfan1000

Just leave man if you don't like the setup. This is how we do things here. We're not changing things for your lazy ass.

Actually, it's not how we've always done things here. Stressboy pre-dates your newbie butt, so pipe down.

[Stressboy]

Mavsfan1000 you did not do things like that for years. If you notice I've been a member for 5 years longer than you.

Nowitzki4president, sure they evolve but what happened to hitting the new topic button once in a while. You guys are trying to turn your threads into novels which again make it impossible for people who don't read them day and night to keep up.

Dude1394 I'm not much of a topic starter unless it was around trades which I loved to play with back in the day and still do but I do like to read and trust me the owners of this board should love to have readers come every day and take a peek even if they don't participate in the discussions.

[jacktruth]

I kindov agree here. I used to participate a lot on this board, but now people get attacked for starting threads. Everyone has the choice to NOT read a thread. Why is it so hard to just ignore threads you don't want to be in? That seems better than adding endless discussion in each thread on why it does not deserve it's own thread.

It's economics. If threads aren't good they will disappear as people stop posting to them. To add criticism about a thread only keeps a bad thread on top. Or makes a 1 page thread into a 3 page thread.

I think the average age of posters is probably around 18 these days, and that is pulled low because most posters appear (based on behavior) to be 13-14.

But hey, I have the choice to not come here also, so I usually don't.

[sike]

I hated it when there was 9 closely related, yet separate threads...because inevitably the conversations bleed together.

I understand that weighing through 13 pages is no fun...but neither is having the same conversation in 5 different threads.

I can see both points of view...but for someone like me who was here for the entire Bulter/Howard trade conversation...it was wonderful to be able to follow the whole thing in one place.

[Stressboy]

ok I've said my peace so I'll keep checking in with you guys as I do respect a lot the opinions on this board.

[mavsfan1000]

Originally Posted by Stressboy

Mavsfan1000 you did not do things like that for years. If you notice I've been a member for 5 years longer than you.

Nowitzki4president, sure they evolve but what happened to hitting the new topic button once in a while. You guys are trying to turn your threads into novels which again make it impossible for people who don't read them day and night to keep up.

Dude1394 I'm not much of a topic starter unless it was around trades which I loved to play with back in the day and still do but I do like to read and trust me the owners of this board should love to have readers come every day and take a peek even if they don't participate in the discussions.

Mabye so but the board I grew to love is the way it is setup now. db.com does it the other way with tons of threads with hardly any posts and I didn't like it.

[sike]

Stress, like dude said, just start a thread when you have something you wanna say that isn't already being talked through.

The mods are never against a new thread when a quality poster has something of quality to say that isn't currently being discussed.

[sefant77]

Actually i hate multiple threads about one topic because it always leads to parallel discussions etc.

[Zki41]

If you have other hobbies, like video games, you would realize the community here is really ORGANIZED, WELL MAINTAINED, WELL MODERATED, and EASY TO NAVIGATE. Other forums, like video game forums, are filled with 100+ page threads filled with spam and flaming. This place is simply awesome compared to those kinds of forums.

[Ummmmm Ok]

I agree with stressboy about this. It gets old having to go through a million pages just to find one topic talked about through 20. I do miss the old days..

[sike]

Originally Posted by Ummmmm Ok

I agree with stressboy about this. It gets old having to go through a million pages just to find one topic talked about through 20. I do miss the old days..

First off, very few threads ever make it past a couple pages.

Secondly, The only thing that has changed over the years that I don't like is that as we've grown the quality of the average poster has drastically fallen off. (Which is inevitable I suppose)

[Flacolaco]

I think that if you've been following along, it's not hard to keep up with a large thread.

This place is optimized for everyday use, not once a week use. It always has been.

Threads evolve organically. I think it's nice, personally. If you want the mods to stop everyone in mid conversation and say "hey hold on, we should start a new thread for this"...well I just don't know if that can be accommodated.

[Stressboy]

I'll take the advice and soon start a new thread but the first time I get my head chopped off for starting a thread that is/was being covered on page 5-8 of the current 20 page thread might be my last one.

[sike]

Originally Posted by Stressboy

I'll take the advice and soon start a new thread but the first time I get my head chopped off for starting a thread that is/was being covered on page 5-8 of the current 20 page thread might be my last one.

Well Stress, that will be your call...you will not get any flack from the mods about starting a thread. But you gotta have a willingness to suffer through the scrubs sometimes.

I agree with you flac.

[mavsfan1000]

Originally Posted by Stressboy

I'll take the advice and soon start a new thread but the first time I get my head chopped off for starting a thread that is/was being covered on page 5-8 of the current 20 page thread might be my last one.

Alright I'll give you that. People really like the system here and don't want a bunch of new threads on every little idea. But if it's a good thread, there shouldn't be any complaints.

[Usually Lurkin]

Originally Posted by Stressboy

I used to love reading this board, in fact years ago I even wrote a few posts and I think made a little sense. Well I have stayed away from this board for the past 3-4 months now because of your insistance on keeping 1 thread on any topic. The Howard/Butler trade thread is now 13 pages long. It moved from rumor, to fact, to God knows what topic to the current debate on minute distribution.

Only people with no lives will read 13 pages to pick up where that started and only the real die hard mavs geek wants to read 3 pages of minute distribution debate which should have been in its own thread.

If you guys want to keep a decent community not made up of your die hards please break these threads up so those of us that try to maintain a real life can read the thread titles, and decide what is worth our time and what is not. Otherwise visitors such as myself will continue to look elsewhere for our Mav's conversations.

Stressboy

I'm conflicted over this. I hate it when good topics get buried inside a larger thread and I hate it when you've got to read 5 rather isolated posts spread across 10 pages in order to keep up with one subtopic.

On the other hand, I'm all for making this place more pleasant for die-hard mavs geeks and less pleasant for everyone else. And if forcing people to read 3 pages of minute distributions in order to gossip about a trade will do it, then that's the way we should go.

[dude1394]

Originally Posted by Stressboy

I'll take the advice and soon start a new thread but the first time I get my head chopped off for starting a thread that is/was being covered on page 5-8 of the current 20 page thread might be my last one.

If it happens tell em to stick it in their ear. Of if you cannot, tell me and I'll tell 'em to stick it in their ear. They won't care if I do, but I won't care if they do either.

[dalger]

There's another highly frequented Mavs forum run by a 75-member staff ( ) that should satisfy your needs, Stressboy. To me, that said forum is incredibly confusing and seems to lack any sort of moderation. As a result, there are tons of new threads every day and it's hard to follow them or have an ongoing discussion about a given topic that has at least some sort of structure to it.

However, I do agree that opening threads should be encouraged in case those new threads add aspects to our discussions (or accentuate them) that cannot be found in the existing threads.

[jthig32]

We actually have two threads about the Butler trade. How many should we have exactly? Should we have a post limit that automatically spawns a new thread?

I hate complainers.

[Underdog]

The only thing I hate more than flipping between 2 or 3 different threads to have the same exact conversation is reading posters bitch about the quality of a user-run forum.

If a majority of posters on this site wanted a new thread for every idea that popped into their heads, then that's exactly how things would work around here... But we don't, so it isn't.

[Rhylan]

I agree with Stressboy. I don't have time to read the meandering threads that go from topic to topic.

I think people need to be just a little less afraid to start new threads and we'd be back to the way that most people probably prefer it.

[grndmstr_c]

I love that this forum keeps the number of threads under control. Love it. It makes it so much easier to follow the conversation

If it's cumbersome to follow along with trade talk on this forum over the span of days between when a blockbuster first gets rumored and when it gets completed it's not because the posts are concentrated in 1 or 2 (in this case actually 3) threads. It's because there are somewhere in the neighborhood of 1500 posts on the rumored/completed deal. There's no way that's not going to be daunting if you only check in once a week, no matter how many or how many threads there are.

[Robillion]

I for one think that point of "stressing" over a new thread being made rather than keeping it all in one thread is more about message board politics/people wanting to look cool. I think this is a problem of quality of posters rather than thread count problem. If we had quality posters making quality threads, regardless if they are somewhat related then there shouldnt be a problem. There is though because wannabe thread police want to be owners of some dominion in life so they harp on what is "thread worthy" all day rather than contributing to the specific topic at hand. When horse makes a new thread saying "Mavs win! ~~" after a game when a recap thread is already made.. that is one thing. But when a quality poster makes a thread about a major trade being finalized, when another poster has already made a thread about the trade likely to happen, and another quality poster makes a thread about how these new acquisitions are going to fit in/how the rotation will work, etc.. I think that is OK. Some subtopics do deserve to be in separate threads for discussion. Not every thread needs to be at least a couple pages long in order for it to be quality.

[kg_veteran]

Originally Posted by Rhylan

I agree with Stressboy. I don't have time to read the meandering threads that go from topic to topic.

I think people need to be just a little less afraid to start new threads and we'd be back to the way that most people probably prefer it.

Utlimately, this is the answer. I start a thread whenever I damn well please.

[JamesVE]

Originally Posted by Stressboy

I used to love reading this board, in fact years ago I even wrote a few posts and I think made a little sense. Well I have stayed away from this board for the past 3-4 months now because of your insistance on keeping 1 thread on any topic. The Howard/Butler trade thread is now 13 pages long. It moved from rumor, to fact, to God knows what topic to the current debate on minute distribution.

Only people with no lives will read 13 pages to pick up where that started and only the real die hard mavs geek wants to read 3 pages of minute distribution debate which should have been in its own thread.

If you guys want to keep a decent community not made up of your die hards please break these threads up so those of us that try to maintain a real life can read the thread titles, and decide what is worth our time and what is not. Otherwise visitors such as myself will continue to look elsewhere for our Mav's conversations.

Stressboy

Man, I couldn't agree more. I've always thought that was a little odd about this forum as the forum I'm primarily on is an auto forum with nearly 100k members with LOTS of "newbies" and over there we don't discourage new threads or prefer meandering 10+ page threads, either. I've been there ten years now so maybe it's just what I'm used to. But still.

It's really hard to follow along the threads here unless you were literally in on them from their conception. Then if you miss a day or two, you have to read 10 pages to catch up so it's pointless. And if you weren't in on a thread from its conception, and it's a meandering 10 page type, then there's not really any natural human desire to care to read through the whole thing (unless you have no life, as stated). Plus, all the semi-crazy superstition thread rituals/procedures here..

Nonetheless, I guess that's why I have hardly any posts here, and in that regard I'm a n00b but that's still just my $.02

[Underdog]

Originally Posted by kg_veteran

Utlimately, this is the answer. I start a thread whenever I damn well please.

-You never start redundant threads.
-You never start needless threads.
-Nobody has ever given you sh!t about one of your threads.


Hell, for that matter - when is the last time a thread was closed or merged by the mods?

I mean, what's the problem here? Did someone tell the OP they couldn't post a new thread? Where is this coming from?

[DevinHarriswillstart]

But then people are going to complain about too many threads....

With more threads means less likely for your post to be read. If I post in one of five threads of the same topic, then are the complainers going to look through all five threads? No, so then people are going to repeat the same thing in different threads over and over. THAT is time consuming and annoying to boot. I don't want to jump from thread to thread to talk about the same thing...what is the point in that?

It doesn't take that long to go through a long thread...I promise. GDTs/Recaps this season haven't been long at all. (some games lately aren't even getting recaps)

[kg_veteran]

Originally Posted by Underdog

-You never start redundant threads.
-You never start needless threads.
-Nobody has ever given you sh!t about one of your threads.


Hell, for that matter - when is the last time a thread was closed or merged by the mods?

I mean, what's the problem here? Did someone tell the OP they couldn't post a new thread? Where is this coming from?

I think Stressboy just remembers the days when we didn't have 23,000 members.

I don't like the long, winding 40 page threads either, but I'll put up with it as a necessary evil. Plus, I've developed a system for getting quickly to the portions that I want to read.

[JamesVE]

Originally Posted by Underdog

-You never start redundant threads.
-You never start needless threads.
-Nobody has ever given you sh!t about one of your threads.


Hell, for that matter - when is the last time a thread was closed or merged by the mods?

I mean, what's the problem here? Did someone tell the OP they couldn't post a new thread? Where is this coming from?

For example, the Barea thread

I believe you stated in there that a thread wasn't "warranted" for Barea, etc.

It just seems like here there's 4 or 5 people who are sort of the unspoken "owners" of certain thread types/categories, and if you aren't said "owner" then your thread-making-prowess gets questioned and/or you get bashed. Beyond that, it seems there's also a small group of people who are sort of unofficially forum police who determine how "worthy" a thread is, etc. It just seems a little hypocritical and kind of clique-ish, I guess.

But the latter happens in all forums to an extent, I suppose. It just seems inordinately prevalent here.

[Underdog]

Originally Posted by JamesVE

For example, the Barea thread

I believe you stated in there that a thread wasn't "warranted" for Barea, etc.

It just seems like here there's 4 or 5 people who are sort of the unspoken "owners" of certain thread types/categories, and if you aren't said "owner" then your thread-making-prowess gets questioned and/or you get bashed. Beyond that, it seems there's also a small group of people who are sort of unofficially forum police who determine how "worthy" a thread is, etc. It just seems a little hypocritical and kind of clique-ish, I guess.

But the latter happens in all forums to an extent, I suppose. It just seems inordinately prevalent here.

Funny, because that Barea thread was in response to what people were talking about in another thread altogether - it's the perfect example of a needless thread.

Not only that, but it was a confusing thread title since all the other "appreciation" threads going up were for recently-traded players - that's why there's about a dozen posts in that thread where people thought Barea was being traded.

And really - why the hell were we talking about JJB in the middle of giant trade that had nothing to do with him? Oh, I know - because the original poster wanted to create a "look at me" moment to declare his love for a player who has become completely irrelevant on this squad...

Yeah, thanks for wasting my time.

[grndmstr_c]

Just in case it hasn't been said yet...

Is this topic really thread-worthy?

[mavsfan1000]

Originally Posted by grndmstr_c

Just in case it hasn't been said yet...

Is this topic really thread-worthy?

lol

[JamesVE]

Originally Posted by Underdog

Funny, because that Barea thread was in response to what people were talking about in another thread altogether - it's the perfect example of a needless thread.

Not only that, but it was a confusing thread title since all the other "appreciation" threads going up were for recently-traded players - that's why there's about a dozen posts in that thread where people thought Barea was being traded.

And really - why the hell were we talking about JJB in the middle of giant trade that had nothing to do with him? Oh, I know - because the original poster wanted to create a "look at me" moment to declare his love for a player who has become completely irrelevant on this squad...

Yeah, thanks for wasting my time.

No doubt, I definitely see your point, and I don't necessarily disagree. But I mean, it's a discussion board.. for discussion. I guess my opinion is kind of - what's it matter if a new thread is started about something that just happened to be mentioned in another? I mean, nobody HAS to reply to a/the thread, and if nobody replies, then it dies. But replying to the thread just to "rate" its worthiness (or whatever) is counterproductive and gives the aura of internet-police/clique type deal. If a dozen people didn't reply stating things like "this thread should be deleted", then the thread would VERY quickly die on its own.. quicker than having everybody comment on thread's worthiness and teaming up to call for its deletion.

I think the problem here with new threads being created where such and such has already been discussed in X thread, is that X thread is usually 15 pages long. So, unless somebody comes on and spends half a day reading EVERY thread here FIRST, then the new thread is likely to be redundant to something that happened to be discussed in X thread. And, like the OP said, unless you have no life you just don't have the time to come here and spend half a day reading EVERY long thread just to ensure you won't be creating a potentially redundant thread.

[Underdog]

Originally Posted by JamesVE

I think the problem here with new threads being created where such and such has already been discussed in X thread, is that X thread is usually 15 pages long. So, unless somebody comes on and spends half a day reading EVERY thread here FIRST, then the new thread is likely to be redundant to something that happened to be discussed in X thread. And, like the OP said, unless you have no life you just don't have the time to come here and spend half a day reading EVERY long thread just to ensure you won't be creating a potentially redundant thread.

So what's the solution - have the mods split a thread in half whenever "people with a life" deem it to be too long?

Nobody is stopping a new thread from being posted, but if the content of the thread is irrelevant, then you're going to hear about it from other posters. Don't waste my time with a stupid thread and I won't waste yours with a stupid response...

[SMC0007]

(((BOATS AND HOES)))