There's been a movement to ban "lack of rants" threads and their type (i.e., threads with no theme or purpose except to rant) as bringing the forums down. What are your thoughts on the matter?

I think as a thread, "Lack of Rants" doesn't make sense and is harder to maintain. I think if you're angry enough to complain you can make a new thread. The forums existed for a year without a singular thread, and based on what other people said elsewhere, I think Shiri and Daganev made the right call.

I don't really understand... I enjoy reading the Lack of Rants thread, I enjoy being able to vent abotu every little thing I want, rather than wait for it all to explode out in a torrent of words.

Closing the lack of rants thread is like resolving a snub-circumvention issue by turning off the issuing player's channels. It makes the player more bored rather than addressing the actual problem.

Half of the entertainment from the game for me comes from the forums, with at least half of that entertainment from the Lack of Rants.

I thought the Lack of Rants thread was first started way back when as a self-parody or joke =/ No opinion for now.

Just so people know, some of the discussion was found here:

http://forums.lusternia.com/index.php?showtopic=14304

There are plenty of little things about Lusternia and the interactions therein that are frustrating, but not worth penning a 3-page diatribe in a new thread. It's nice to be able to post them, get them off my chest, and move on instead of mulling over and thinking about them because I can't discuss these things in-character. I think it's perfectly fine for the "Lack of Rants" thread to exist, and it should only really be moderated when the posts there break the forum rules. It's a ridiculously simple exercise in self-control to prevent yourself from reading what's there if you really don't want to see it; if you keep reading or contributing, you really can't complain. I don't agree with Orwellian maneuvers meant to "protect" my poor, fragile mind from the abject horror of someone's impassioned complaints, and I certainly don't think that the people with whom I interact regularly are so emotionally sensitive that a single thread comprised of general angst would leave them morose and crying for succor from the moderators. In fact, I'm fairly certain that if they were in the least bit bothered, they'd stop reading it.

There was nothing wrong with Lack of Rants that wasn't a problem with the forums at large.

Negativity is a complete non-issue. Some things and some people quite frankly deserve to be met with negativity. The bigger issue is that the entirety of the forums are so well-travelled that the game isn't played in the game so much as played on the funky middle ground between the game and the forums.

I don't need a forum moderator to tell me what I should and should not be reading. Perhaps, however, the moderating team feels that the majority of forum-goers DO need that kind of babysitting.

Negativity, last I checked, isn't against forum rules. Keep the rants thread, and please allow people the freedom to moderate themselves with regard to what they can and cannot read.

I'd like to offer up a reason to ban lack of rants and other megathreads above and beyond the negativity. I don't have a problem with the negativity, nor did I feel it was out of hand.

What I do have a problem with, is having to slog through posts of menial drivel to get discussion on a given rant/whatever. Consolidated superthreads (regardless of the topic, be they rants, raves, or sports threads) are not a good thing because it's very easy to have good stuff lost in all the background noise.

The good ole days of the rants forum was back when there was a new thread for every topic, so people could see at a glance if a subject was of any interest to them.

There's a reason forums have threads. Let's remember that.

I agree with Amarysse.

I think the argument was, against Lack of Rants, that as a single thread, it actually encouraged people to rant instead of thinking about it. In other words, designating a thread encouraged people to use it.

Let's face it. If it was just catharsis people were looking for, you could get that by punching a stress toy and letting it out that way, or you could use the energy to spend the extra 30 seconds it takes to create a new thread. People rant because they want an audience, or they are secretly hoping the target of their rant listens and gets hurt by what they say.

This does bring up what Xavius says is a problem. People don't separate IC and OOC well, and people spend more time on the forums talking about the game than actually trying to deal with it IC. The forums primary purpose is for people who play or care about the game. If you get more enjoyment out of what goes on in the forums, then Lusternia is doing things wrong. The forums supplements the game, not replaces it...or it shouldn't.



EXACTLY! Putting everything into one thread makes it harder to filter stuff out, it makes it harder to maintain and ignore things you don't care about. Why not just shut the forum down and create the Lusternia Rant L-Server then. Nobody ever said "stop ranting", but just "stop putting everything into a single thread". People are misinterpreting the shut-down of a single thread as them trying to get rid of the idiots section.

Just my opinion, not that it means much since I'm only here sporadically and don't play the game the forums are associated with anymore:

The intent of the rants threads were to keep negativity centralized and sufficiently buried that no one has to hear about it unless they actively want to. Imagine if every rant in that thread was it's own thread instead - forum goers who ignored the thread would now see more specific angry/negative titles when they click "view newest posts" instead of an ambiguous "Lack of rants" blanket topic.

I also don't think the admins should act or effect change based on what they read in there - that only encourages disagreement in the thread used to show that a poster's rant isn't backed by everyone, and encourages people to read the thread that's impacting their game even though they don't want to.

Best way to handle this:
Make Idiots! a secret forum and people who want to be able to read/write in it need to ask a Moderator to be added.
So people know what they are getting into, the more sensible ones don't need to see it, all is good!

Personally I think the concern about the Lack of Rants thread is understandable but misplaced. There's a small extent to which it does encourage vitriol by making it easy to vent, but I think it's very small. The vitriol is still there. I think a "Lack of Rants" thread can be a perfectly valid part of the forum, but it might need some moderating to keep the vitriol from growing. I think that's the same moderation that'll be needed without the thread to keep that vitriol from growing in other places. But I suppose that's easy for me to say if I don't actually do the work of moderating.

Or the more sensible ones could just not read it.

No more 'Lack of Rants' thread. Yes, go on and Rant - but don't put all hate and anger on a six-page-or-more thread. Start your own.

A little venting out won't hurt; actually, it can be quite good for you. But it really depends on the attitude of the community listening to you. A lot depends on the attitude.

Without a Lack of Rants thread there's no room for "a little" venting. You're creating a new thread. It better be more than a little. And that's the problem here!

As much as I enjoyed the thread, the forums already feel like a better place without it.

There's no rule against starting threads for "little" vents. See: the idiots forum pre "lack of rants". People posted little rants all the time

Most rants on Lack of Rants never grow beyond a single post. For those that do, moderators have a powerful tool called "thread splitting." That and a bit of comon sense (Don't post long diatribes in Lack of Rants, don't respond to Lack of Rants posts in the thread, go make your own thread about the subject.). The notion that it was somehow "negatively" affecting the forums or the game is ludicrous, as is Phred's (And apparently other people's) entire crusade against negativity. Negativity is part of this. Cope.