GD Introduction or: How I Learned to Stop Spamming and Love Spell Check

[deadguy]

Within this thread we will keep a collection of highly recommended suggestions and information related to both this forum and the community at large. Occasionally, this thread will gobble up info from other stickied threads, so if you're used to a sticky being at the top of the forum and it suddenly disappears, think to check here.


Retroboy's "How to start a non-annoying new General Discussion thread"

This has been a staple of GD and a virtual must for every poster who wants their thread to get attention, and by attention I mean the attention of respondents and not the good old lockstick.

Note that these aren't hard and fast forum rules that will guarantee lockage if you don't follow 'em. They're just general guidelines that (hopefully) make the forum a better place.

1) If it's one of the following, don't even post it.

• Some random dumb thought that just popped in your head
• Something that maybe one person in the whole forum crowd can actually discuss (e.g. "Where do I find a used Toyota muffler in New Hampshire?")
• Horrible spelling and grammar. As you wipe off the rotten tomatoes, you'll quickly realize that many people on the forums prefer threads they can actually read.
• Something that someone else just posted. If it seems like it might be news, it's a good idea to use the search link in the upper right to make sure someone else wasn't talking about it yesterday.

2) If you're posting a poll:

• Always include an "other - see below" option, for those people that don't agree with any of your answers.
• Make sure it covers all the bases. Polls with just the possible answers "good", "great", "excellent" and "not bad" are bad - better options might be "excellent", "good", "fair", "bad", "horrible".
  Oh, and "other - see below".

3) If you're posting links:

• Describe what you're linking to. Don't just stick up the word "click".
• Include the filesize, or warn if high bandwidth is required. There are a lot of 56k modem users here and everywhere.

4) Give your thread a reasonable title, that tells people what it is about. People don't like threads with titles like "What if...?" or "A thought I have."

Resurrected, summarized and reposted by moderator request.
-- Retro

RelicWiki

The RelicWiki is a collaborative resource about maintained by the community, for the community. From Sajuuk to Bears, from profiles of your friendly neighborhood overlords to in-jokes, from game intros to past members, the Wiki knows all. To quote:

The RelicWiki is a resource for the Relic Community as a whole. Right now, it's mainly historical information about events and people, but we encourage you to add any and all content related to Relic Entertainment, its products, and its community.

[Moe]

Over the years, we've had our fair share of threads which for the purpose of this post I'm going to call "conspiracy threads". Those range from UFO sightings to Loose Change and, most recently, Fall of the Republic.

These threads always follow the same pattern. The guy starting the thread will link to an hour-long youtube movie that has opened his eyes, and will post one or two lines about how everyone should watch it.

Next, about half a dozen people jump in and tell the first guy that he's a conspiracy nutcase. The OP responds by calling them sheep and blinded by mainstream media and pointing out that he refuses to engage in conversation with people who haven't watched his documentary, a lively flamefest evolves, and a moderator locks the thread down because it sucks.

We're really sick of that. So from now on, if you're going to post this kind of thread, you are required to put some effort into your first post. Summarize the video, because very few people here are going to spend three hours watching a youtube video about <conspiracy> just to participate in a discussion.

Secondly, you need to support your points. This means that simply posting OMG mainstream media has blinded you is unacceptable, you need to be able to make a rational argument, preferably one that's not merely a rehash of the movie.

If you post a thread that fails to live up to these standards, we'll lock it until you PM a mod with the changes you intend to make to your thread so that it'll meet these standards. There's no discussion to be had otherwise, just people yelling at each other.

On the other side of the aisle, if you do respond to one of these threads, you are required to not act like a complete douchebag. If you're going to make a smug, smartass post - don't. Rational arguments and real debate is what we're looking for.

TL;DR: Don't just spam youtube conspiracy videos without a decent summary and without supporting your arguments.

Don't be a douche.

[Dimension]

It is of imperative importance, that you heed these words.

Read the entire thread. You should always read the entire thread, unless it numbers more than say, 4 pages. If you do not do this, the forum staff might choose to punish you in a manner it sees fit.

There are a few good reasons to do this:
1) Not reading the entire thread is a disrespect to the other posters, who put some effort into their post. Reading those posts is part of the debate, and that is what forums are for. If you just want to spout your opinion without considering whats been said, please do so on myface or youbookplus or wherever.
2) Not reading the entire thread means that you run a high risk of repeating a previous statement that has alreeady been debated or falsified. This makes you look like a bit of a dunce. Do you want to look like a dunce? No? Take heed then!
3) Reading a thread with disjointed posts containing singular unreflected and repetitive quips or rants is somewhat like reading the comment section of youtube videos. Please avoid doing so.

Heed these three rules, and you shall be rewarded with fluid engaging discussion that will have you feel all warm and fuzzy participating in. This is so awesome that soon you shall not want to live without it.

Live the dream.