Viewing Thread:
"Stop destroying this forum."

I got a lovely haircut
My console is da bestest evah
I fink god mayde a massive boldor - discuss

This is the sort of rubbish destroying this forum.
Really, it is. Times used to be you could come here and have a decent conversation about things on an adult level with other like-minded people capable of sentient awareness and able to string sentences together indicating complex thought patterns.
Take a look at the topics here now:

Revision Help
Jenson Button uses an Athlon (there's even a sport forum here)
Why do fruit polos hurt your mouth
What do I eat?
Considering growing a beard

It's turning into Fog Chat.
Yes I'm annoyed. Call it snobbish, call it what you want.
Why the hell should I have to deal with pointless gibbering about the most inane, purile, mindless idiocy it seems humans are able to muster.
We're in the middle of a war, and "haircuts"???
Go post this crap in chat, leave Life for people with a desire to work out the world and how they see it.

This crap is driving people away, it's ruining this place.
The movie forum is dead. It used to be fantastic, used to be absolutely worth reading. But slowly the gate was lifted and complete toss is there now.
"What's your favourite"
"Which band do you"
"Top 10"
That used to be good, quiet and for those able to use their thumbs to live indoors and use tools.
But it went the way of other edifices to intelligence.

And the same's happening here.
Maybe the post count is rising, and some of you feel you should post your utterly worthless stupidity in here because more people might see it?
Maybe, but the people that do are shaking their head and wondering how you haven't been eaten and assimilated into the pack for our progression through evolutionary stages.

Feel annoyed by this post?
Maybe that's because you know you're guilty of posting absolutely irrelevant stuff in this place and contributing to the rising tide of moron level writings.
"Goatboy just talks about the bloody war all the time"? That right?
Feel like pointing that out? Well before you do, go and do some research.
Then come back and post about Arie Fleischer's blunder concerning Bush's visit to Ireland to discuss the peace process.
I may talk about the war, but it's a damn sight more important than "mi teacher mayde me stay late! discuss" or whatever else profundity you feel fit to espouse today.

And what really annoys me, what really makes me want to smack a few of you in the face is this:
Snuggly tried to do something about it, something to prevent the stupid cowman posts that are rising each day.
And what happened? People screamed him down bleating about exclusions and unfairness.
And I said then and I'll repeat it now:

Don't moan because you feel slighted at being called stupid.
Raise your game so you see what pointless feculance is vomited up here in an ever increasing amount.
I'm taking a couple of days off, going somewhere where stupid kids dont feel the need to tell everyone about every single pointless little detail of their lives in the vain thought that someone cares.
We dont.
Post something interesting, something personal. Something that took thought, time and intelligence.

And I can see the indignant bed-wetting that will follow. Deal with it.
I won't apologise for being intelligent and wishing to have a forum where that's the norm instead of being drowned under waves of childish gurning.
Why should I have to wade through rivers of rubbish, just because you feel you shouldn't be left out of every single post going.

Jesus christ, go look at the Customer Service forum.
It's a joke. Maybe 1 in 5 posts is anything serious, and the replies are almost immediately from stupid posters. What gives you the right to just post willy-nilly? When will you take a moment before wadging the keys with your big sausage fingers and think "Maybe I dont belong in this thread?"
I'm amazed Flanders hasn't prayed for the destruction of a lot of people when they try and engage in religious theorising.
You can't even decide which game you like most, yet you feel able to tackle the largest questions that have eluded mankind since the dawn of time????

Don't make me laugh.
Learn to spell before you even think about tackling dogmatic principles and the notion of divinity.

What's the general view on serious/amusing stories?
I know there's the "Story" forum, but from what I've seen, no one goes in there.
I don't want to post a short story and feel like I'm poking y'all with a big stick....

Thing is, Snuggly wanted ideas on how to sort this out ages ago. A lot of ideas were put forward, but we've heard nothing more of it.

Well, I haven't, but I haven't been about that much recently, so anyone know anything?

Rosalind wrote:
> There is a chance that everything could change with the removal of
> GAD1. Isn't it worth holding out to see? Or is that contributing to
> your decision?
---

The removal of GAD for discussions, I hope, would eliminate a lot of idiocy that seems to be contaminating.
As Sagacious said, some threads do turn into surreal comedy, but even that has a level of effort to it.
Not just "i blow u away wiv my gun"

I've been posting here forever, and it's frustrating to see so many forums here collapse under the weight of stupidity forced upon them.
Not every single post has to be serious, god knows I tend to post somewhat less-than-serious efforts about Iraq.
It's not the subject of the post, it's the total lack of effort or thought behind them.

And you see it when someone wins a GAD in here, people flock and start trying to emulate whatever won for that day.
Call it snobbery, I really dont care, but there are some posters that simply should not be let out of the FoG Chat Pen.

Popularity often breeds contempt. There was a time when the life forum was either hilariously irreverant (and irrelevant) with Zero-G Monkey fighting taking place alongside more mature topics. A lot of these threads started under one premise and through spontaneous posts, evolved into something else. This was fun and nothing was pre-ordained with Topics like: bst scrapper eva? The serious topics, however, remained hallowed ground and were not hijacked by inane comments and attempts to provocate people unduly.

I know that this is an open forum and this is "only" a website, that many use to wile away the hours at work or school, but it is a good website and at times highly entertaining.

I for one have been guilty of posting random cr*p in the SR Customer section and in the WWE but that has often been a provoked response, frustrated by the Ameoba colony that seem to be mutliplying throughout the site.

Please make love, don't bore.

There is a chance that everything could change with the removal of GAD1. Isn't it worth holding out to see? Or is that contributing to your decision?

Meka summed it.
It's not the topics, it the utter waste of neurons it takes to read some of them.
There's another today

"There is no god"
And the subject?
"Opinions."

But hey, you guys are right. If I want intelligent, thought-provoking discussion then instead of hoping a bunch of no-brain infants will provide it, I should seek my stimulation elsewhere.
I dont want an elitist forum, I want a forum where spastics are prevented from posting because they have every single other forum here.
I wont apologise for demanding a higher level of effort in this place, because I enjoy reading decent posts.

But they're dying out.
So with a fond farewell and an amble towards more enjoyable pastures, I bid Special Reserve all the best in it's pursuit of mindless trivia and "who wuld win" topics.
I've blagged enough free games to justify posting here, and I've talked to decent people that have had influence in the way I view certain things.

But I'm fed up with reading post after post of mindless idiocy and posts that have taken all of 30 seconds to come up with.
A majority of people here,the life "regulars" are without fail a decent, intelligent bunch of posters.

Ros, you say I'd like to see a forum full of war. Not by any means, but what I want to see is a forum full of posts that mean something to whoever wrote it.
That's not elitist, that's not snobbery.
That's someone that has seen the movies forum die a death and become little more than The Box and this one is going the same.

You want that? You're happy with seeing yet another once-interesting place go down like Atlantis under a sea of plain?
Cool, good luck to you.
I've tried for a while now, I've asked people to please elevate their posts here politely.
And it hasn't worked.

So balls to it.

If I am understanding your post correctly it would seem that you would be happy for this forum to be filled with posts about the war. I don't want to talk about the war all day and if you do thats fine. I don't judge you on that. I just tend towards not clicking on threads that I know will contain such topics.

I have tried to post topics to generate disscusion. A lot of time I get greif from people who say I do nothing but winge, or I'm obssesed with stuff. I'm still posting regardless and to be honest the few people who support me make it worthwhile to post this stuff. But in general, people don't want to discuss philosophy, or the like.

Unfortuantly this forum isn't just about what the individual wants, its about what the majority wants. But just because people have started to post threads similar to those seen in FOG chat of late, doesn't mean that the rest of us can't continue to post and enjoy the same topics that we have always. It may take a little more effort to trawl through carp posts, but you can usually tell the difference between what you like, and what you don't like fairly quickly.

I thought that banning newbies from life was a bad idea, because it isn't newbies that are causing the problem. If you want some elite forum then you will have to talk the staff into choosing either who they let into this forum, or who they choses to ban. Mpost of the poinmtless topics are actually posted by regulars who have spilled over from Chat.

Just another quick point. Most of the Life Regulars are guilty of posting some pretty lighthearted short topics at times, which could be seen as Spam. Some of it is down to our own percerption, and because you don't enjoy a thread doesn't mean that it won't be enjoyed by others.

I have seen some threads which were posted perhaps as spam, turn into very interesting disscussions, one I can think of off the top of my head was the one about the chicken and the egg.

The bottom line is, if we take a pro-active approach and don't reply to topics that we don't feel are appropriate, then people are less likely to continue to post in a similar vein.

I don't think that it is so much what is being posted, but the manner in which it is posted.

FM is right to say that clicking on a topic is pretty much pot luck. Yes there are a number of users who you'll be pretty much guarenteed a good read with, but an interesting topic title does not a decent post make. Take the 'bolder' one as an example. All that was in the initial post was "Views?"

I like the personal topics that appear in this forum, but it's easy to see these lowering in number when you start to think that people will just laugh at you, because that's the mentality of too many of those that have crept into this forum.

It's really sad to go into the movies forum now. It used to be the case that you could click on a number of threads, and geta list of films you wanted to see, recommended by other users. Now? What are you listenning to at the moment? A thread started years ago by Grix in an attempt to generate some interest in a new forum.

Perhaps we need soem new forums to distribute some of the people a little?

I'm sure Food and Drink would be a popular forum, for one, given the amout of food-based topics!

I also suggest a 'who would win?' forum, in which we can discuss whether Willie Thorne could beat Duncan Goodhew in a head butting contest, and the like.

Dr Gonzo wrote:
> lots of stuff

I used to live in Lurgan and Portrush, I'm incessantly amazed at how small this world can be sometimes.

I'm kinda with Goatboy on this one. Whilst I think that Life, The Universe and All That Jazz 'should' encompass everything else that doesn't fit into the other forums, I hate clicking on a thread title to find that the thread starter has only invested 30 seconds writing about anything just to get a reply.

I say 'kinda with Goatboy', because essentially I don't care anymore. I've seen the forums fill up with jibberish more and more over the last couple of years, so much so that clicking on a topic is more pot luck than anything else to see if there's something worth reading inside, in ANY forum. So I'm used to it.

I blame one thing and one thing alone for this. 'word count'. And 'forum titles'. OK, so that's two things.

But being practical about this, the forums are here to generate business for Special Reserve. They're a nice place for gamers to meet up and chat about their favourite topics, and in other forums, like this one, it's a nice place to talk through issues, debates and more personal problems, but essentially if all of us who left who disliked the way the forums were turning out, it would still leave enough turnover for Special Reserve.

FM - Author of the recent 'My Ickle Parcel' thread in the Life, The Universe and All That Jazz Forum.

Goatboy wrote:
> Go post this crap in chat, leave Life for people with a desire to work
> out the world and how they see it.

While I sympathise with you (I miss the good old fashioned version of the Movies forum as much as anyone) look at the name of this forum. It’s called ‘Life, the Universe and All That Jazz’ not ‘Serious Talk for Grown Ups’. Taken totally apart from what actually happens in it (as a new visitor would) that name suggests general chat to me as much as a forum with the “chat” bit spelled right out in the title.

Unfortunately mindless posts snowball, eventually there comes a point where you’re going to have to jump on board or the momentum will crush your attempts to hold it back. Unless, of course, you step aside altogether. If I go into a bad club or bar I don’t start shouting at the people who are enjoying themselves about how the music is rubbish, the place too packed, the drinks too expensive, the lighting too dull, the people too loud etc… etc… I go to a different bar. I used to love going to Cub Scouts on a Wednesday night but eventually you out grow that. I loved drinking cider on the beach with mates and my acoustic guitar, I out grew that too. Meh, maybe I’m just too laid back to fight.

I’m not saying don’t post, just there’s some things you can’t stop from changing by shouting them down. The SR forums are a big place; there is room for everyone and maybe the title for this place is interpreted differently by people. Some will read ‘Life…’ and think this is a place to chat – the ‘All That Jazz’ bit certainly suggests an anything goes approach. Would something along the lines of a new Current Affairs forum be more what you’re thinking of?

Anyway, what do I know, I post as much childish junk as the worst of them (‘Dr Gonzo’s Oscar Diary’ anyone?) - but then I see this as a place to relax and not think about work/the problems of the world/the spirit and morals of the humanity today. That’s not to say I’m a moron unable to comprehend the complexities of the “high brow” discussion that goes on here – just I choose to use this place (and by that I mean the forums as a collective whole) differently.

Like I said, being from N. Ireland I’m well versed in segregation and the problems of different people having to live in the same confined area. Why not either give this place a title that is more fitting or create a new place to start afresh under less of a misnomer?

Sleep now.