Ending the Testing Page 3 Lock

[Uraniun235]

Part of me wonders if page-three keeps a bit of a churn going in Testing, such that we have to keep moving on lest we just lazily hammer some threads into unentertaining mush (heck even my brilliantly incisive parody thread of the "why are sci-fi authors lazy rejecting science??" thread kinda drifted, and I'll admit I was part of that). I could be wrong, I'm just tossing ideas at the wall.


On the other hand sometimes it's annoying to run into the page-three lock (again I still think the parody thread should have run at least as long as the original) so I'm totally down with undoing page-three lock.

I don't think locked or unlocked, outside of polls, ever made any difference on the auto prune.

I love how Dalton put "IT WILL BE DELETED AND YOUR THREAD LOCKED" in all-caps, as if such a fate were a witheringly shameful punishment.

[Hotfoot]

It's page 3, and I have a horribly juvenile urge to lock this thread to illustrate the banality of the process.

I'm sure that by mentioning it, someone will do it anyway to prove a no-point.

Or did I just preempt it?

Did I jinx it now?

Or did I double-un-re-jinx it?

Damn.

[Havok]

I was waiting for a mod to do that, so that I could laugh. *You should have done it. Now you have spoiled my laugh.



*I would have if I was a mod.

[General Zod]

It's page 3, and I have a horribly juvenile urge to lock this thread to illustrate the banality of the process.

I'm sure that by mentioning it, someone will do it anyway to prove a no-point.

Or did I just preempt it?

Did I jinx it now?

Or did I double-un-re-jinx it?

Damn.

Isn't there some rule against treating the HoC like testing? I'm sure that'd be frowned on. Might even get your lock split.

[Duckie]

Part of me wonders if page-three keeps a bit of a churn going in Testing, such that we have to keep moving on lest we just lazily hammer some threads into unentertaining mush (heck even my brilliantly incisive parody thread of the "why are sci-fi authors lazy rejecting science??" thread kinda drifted, and I'll admit I was part of that). I could be wrong, I'm just tossing ideas at the wall.

Uraniun has a point here- most threads end up sucking after a couple pages anyhow.

But maybe we could just have a gentlemens' agreement not to make threads lame by dragging out the funny until page 12.

Gentlemens' agreements are cool, but only if we get to wear monocles during them.

[Thanas]

Such an agreement would fail due to a lack of gentlemen/commitment.

Not that testing is that funny in the first place.

[Rye]

It's the burden of the free internet, people. You can't avoid lamers, hell, everyone has their off days; the page 3 lock doesn't force good funny posts anymore than the pro-evidence rules force continual well evidenced posts elsewhere. At any rate, as with editing video, it is better to have more material than less, people who aren't .303 or similar munchkins will leave a shit thread to die or potentially troll the crap posters for increased hilarity quotient.

I vote against tradition, for tradition is only tolerable as a justification when it's for something silly and fun, like birthday cakes.

[Civil War Man]

I rise up from the sewer of Testing to express my opinion on a forum that I tend to ignore.

The only fun thing I've seen with the Page 3 lock was when someone posted a lame topic and Shroom spammed the thread with pages of "WHORES WHORES WHORES WHORES" copy-pasted in huge bold letters, then posted "Now the mods can lock the thread" when it hit page 3.

Most threads die long before page 3, so more often than not the lock simply kills a perfectly reasonable thread before its time. Testing is SDN's court jester, and the page 3 lock is like shooting the jester in the face whenever they happen to tell a funny joke.

The way I see it, there are other forums that could use a page 3 lock rule more than Testing.

[Oni Koneko Damien]

We're looking at this from the wrong angle. Testing and some of the mods have had a mild rivalry going on, with bickering back and forth about how some of the mods are dolts with no sense of humour and Testing is... well, Testing. Yeah, the three-page lock is a tradition for mods to be oppressive douches and for people in Testing to bitch about how mods are oppressive douches, but it's getting stale.

Isn't this forum suppose to thrive on innovation and adaptation? End the three-page lock and everyone will win. The mods, despite occasionally being assholes with no sense of humour, are smart enough to quickly whip up a brand new way of oppressing Testingstan. They can jump into this new oppression/tyranny project and draw joy and happiness from the novelty of the experience. Meanwhile Testing will actually have something new to bitch and whine about and can be re-invigorated with the rush of fighting the good fight against the man!

[Duckie]

The only fun thing I've seen with the Page 3 lock was when someone posted a lame topic and Shroom spammed the thread with pages of "WHORES WHORES WHORES WHORES" copy-pasted in huge bold letters, then posted "Now the mods can lock the thread" when it hit page 3.

Man I forgot about that. Yeah, Page 3 Lock peaked then. There's no way it could get any better.

[Stark]

ITT Thanas implicitly agrees that Testing is 'oppressed' by tryhards mods because it's funny.

It's all about what he doesn't say! He's amazing.

[Thanas]

No, Stark, trying to beat the three page lock is funny.

[Stark]

Wait did you just go from having no sense of humour to having a stupid sense of humour?

By all means let's keep timewasting posturing stupid redundant crap around because it's allegedly 'funny'.

Hypocrisy? Not round here! That's why everyone respects the idiots hardworking professionals involved. Cycle of macho posturing = funny = don't stop it.

It stuns me that anyone things anything will EVER change on this board. Being both pompous and hilarious is great entertainment for the masses. Play-act serious some more!

I said it pages ago, but while nobody with a brain thinks anything will change, the laughable 'justifications' presented here are the best indictment of the board. I'm glad it's in HoC where we'll always be able to look back and laugh.

We'll all start using 'no, I'm a cunt' as an argument. See how that goes.

[Thanas]

Wait did you just go from having no sense of humour to having a stupid sense of humour?

Apparently so. Forgive me for indulging sometimes in a forum that does not matter. I am so sorry that I do not measure up to your exorbitant standards of what is funny or not 100% all the time.

It stuns me that anyone things anything will EVER change on this board.

A lot of relevant things change. The recent new moderator appointment in AMP is proof of that. But nobody really cares about testing ATM. And unless somebody who matters and does have the power to change it does start to care (like the Admins or SuperMods), you're out of luck. Your empty posturing does not matter one bit, nor do my replies to you.

Might it be because testing is of no relevance whatsoever? Nah. That can't possibly be the case.

We'll all start using 'no, I'm a cunt' as an argument. See how that goes.

Try this outside testing and we'll see how that goes.

[Pablo Sanchez]

Basically if any testing thread was good enough to continue past page 3, there is no rule preventing people from creating a new thread explicitly for the continuation of the locked thread, as long as it is still just Testing bullshit. The fact that this has NEVER HAPPENED is sufficient proof that the page 3 lock is an inviolable and totally logical rule.

Are the mods really that desperate for things to do that they fight to hold on to a pointless task?

YES

To be honest, I don't even remember why we instituted the Page 3 lock. I became a mod in...'05, I think, and I think the policy was already in place by then.

I believe we did because at that time Testing was actually a forum for posts testing BBcode and various other tasks, rather than being a RANK and DISGUSTING sewer pipe for the DREGS of the forum.

I have a vague idea that it started because people were making "+1" posts (literally; some people were posting "+1" and that's it) in threads.

I don't know, maybe so. I can't recall when the post-count resynch policy was instituted, which basically meant that any deleted posts (e.g. all posts in Testing) would not count.

This was back when anybody gave a shit about post counts. I remember some mods (shit, I may have been one of them, for all I know) getting deeply pissed off that people were padding out their post counts with content-free Testing posts*. So that's probably how it started, and it's definitely why Testing posts don't go to your post count anymore. The auto prune was added....I think it was added because it was easier than occasionally sending an admin into Testing to delete all the dead threads. I can't be sure about that one, though.

I think it's just a feature in BBcode that was added because it made sense.

But at any rate, if Testing posts don't go to post counts, and Testing automatically cleans itself out, then there's no reason left to keep the Page 3 lock. By the mods' own admission, its primary function is to provide a reason to lock threads for fun. Which, I gotta say, isn't much of a reason.

I think it also serves a purpose in that it kills discussions and creates a constant turnover of threads rather than letting the forum stew in its own juices.

*This is before we learned how to make content-free posts in every other forum. The trick is to just agree with everyone else, and you're golden.

Groupthink is magic, it is.

[JointStrikeFighter]

Basically if any testing thread was good enough to continue past page 3, there is no rule preventing people from creating a new thread explicitly for the continuation of the locked thread, as long as it is still just Testing bullshit. The fact that this has NEVER HAPPENED is sufficient proof that the page 3 lock is an inviolable and totally logical rule.

HOLYSHIT ARE YOU RETARDED! Thread continuations happen ALL THE FUCKING TIME in testing.

[Civil War Man]

So basically what we've learned, to reiterate what Stark said, is that we hold on to an outmoded and obsolete policy in Testing because there are mods who don't like Testing.

Also, I predict there is a better than average chance that even if the page 3 lock policy got lifted, at least some of those mods would continue locking threads anyway. (Seriously, removing page 3 lock doesn't prevent bad threads from being locked)

By the way, is there any argument in favor of the page 3 lock that couldn't be just as easily applied to other forums? If Testing benefits from more thread turnover, why doesn't N&P or OT?

[Thanas]

^Because N&P has higher standards, the two are not comparable.

[VF5SS]

^Because N&P has higher standards, the two are not comparable.

The forum where people mistake the Onion articles for the real thing and make threads about hemming and hawing over political cartoons is clearly up to a higher standard.

Just go with your gut feeling on this one.

[Lagmonster]

When it gets right down to it, Testing gets abused by the staff for the same reason that it gets abused by the members: it's not a legitimate forum, it's for testing things. The fact that people have noticed that this gives it a required content quality standard of zero, is irrelevant. Whenever people fuck up and post an actual discussion in Testing, we don't say "Hey, Testing produces valuable content sometimes!", we say, "Hey, some moron posted relevant content in the wrong forum again".

Which brings us to point two, which so far only one of you have realized; eliminating the 3-page lock does not, in fact, mean that testing will be moderated any differently. In fact, if you read the full list of rules, you'll notice that one of the reasons for locking a testing thread is "because the staff feels like it". This entire thread is, essentially, comedy fodder from the point of view of allowing Testing more leniency. If that's your goal, and you're serious about it, PM Mike directly and ask him to change the purpose of the forum, or its rules, and the staff will follow the new rules as he lays them out.

[ray245]

^Because N&P has higher standards, the two are not comparable.

The forum where people mistake the Onion articles for the real thing and make threads about hemming and hawing over political cartoons is clearly up to a higher standard.

And for some reason, people found out their mistake quickly and move on in regards to their discussions. Moreover, it is funny to see you trying to use the worst examples of N&P section to defend your views.

Apparently, it is so easy to ignore tons of other threads that has nothing to do with Onion articles and political cartoons.

When it gets right down to it, Testing gets abused by the staff for the same reason that it gets abused by the members: it's not a legitimate forum, it's for testing things. The fact that people have noticed that this gives it a required content quality standard of zero, is irrelevant. Whenever people fuck up and post an actual discussion in Testing, we don't say "Hey, Testing produces valuable content sometimes!", we say, "Hey, some moron posted relevant content in the wrong forum again".

Which brings us to point two, which so far only one of you have realized; eliminating the 3-page lock does not, in fact, mean that testing will be moderated any differently. In fact, if you read the full list of rules, you'll notice that one of the reasons for locking a testing thread is "because the staff feels like it". This entire thread is, essentially, comedy fodder from the point of view of allowing Testing more leniency. If that's your goal, and you're serious about it, PM Mike directly and ask him to change the purpose of the forum, or its rules, and the staff will follow the new rules as he lays them out.

So testing is an area where mods can have their fun by pissing on everyone else? Who knew?

[Thanas]

^Because N&P has higher standards, the two are not comparable.

The forum where people mistake the Onion articles for the real thing and make threads about hemming and hawing over political cartoons is clearly up to a higher standard.

Because that is so very representative of N&P?

If you think N&P and testing are somewhat on the same level, you are an idiot. There is no other way to phrase it.

[Lagmonster]

So testing is an area where mods can have their fun by pissing on everyone else? Who knew?

Not directly. The mods are doing their job, in that Testing's rules are set up with the idea that it is not a discussion forum, but a technical aid that happens to go unmoderated for content. The fact that some find their job enormously fun is besides the point.

[Lagmonster]

I'll be the first to say that it's impossible to collect a bunch of intelligent people based on a method of voluntary registration, and then keep them dedicated enough to maintain a high standard of quality in their discussions over many years. That's fine; that's the need to be entertained meeting up with the average human intelligence. But it is trivially easy to keep the quality higher than zero.

In other words, if the expectation is 10, and we average a 7, we generally feel pleased. We do not say the same if we score a zero. For all that the standards of discussion on SDnet's 'serious' forums require improvement, they are still better by far than most places on the net, and that's saying something.

[Mr. Coffee]

I'm still waiting for someone to give a reasoning for continuing the page three lock that isn't a variation of "cause that's what we always done..." or "because our mods are really this bored and don't have anything useful to do with their time".

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