OOT. Time for a change.

[Dids]

Vehn,

I think any change in the quality of OOT mirrors a similar change in 2p2 as a whole, which is totally related to 1- the avg age of the poster dropping significantly and 2- just a much greater s/n ratio site wide.

[emon87]

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SC,

ever since i started posting in OOT, a long time ago, people have been talking about how it's not as good as it used to be. that doesn't mean it's going to disappear, and it's not really a relevant continuation of your absurd 'no point in keeping OOT anymore' argument.

no point in keeping 10% of overall forum traffic and arguably the broadest userbase of any forum on the site, amirite?

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Of course I understand that Mason et al won't just get rid of a forum that makes up 10% of their traffic. But does it not make sense that the more sub-forums 2+2 adds, the less usefulness a place like OOT has?

I don't have the answers for OOT. But I think it's currently a forum that is very strictly defined by what you can't do, rather than what the forum is supposed to be about.

What is OOT supposed to be about? I'm honestly not sure. The Lost threads are pretty good. I enjoy MSPaint, but there's a lot more of that in BBV4Life these days.

When you take away sports, politics, movies, food, video games, funny links, travel, health & fitness, student life, computer stuff and all the goofy-ass stuff that now belongs in BBV4Life, there is a very narrow range left that's acceptable. Then look at all the threads we've already had on just about every subject, and it's easy to see why this forum is so stifling.

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OOT is now just the 2+2 "farm team" where new forums are born, developed, and then spun off. Topics and themes get popular here, they develop their own communities, and then when they reach a critical mass, they spin off into their own forums.

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It might be just a recent trend, but I have been finding less and less interesting threads to read in OOT.

One reason might be because if a post has, say, sports content, it is immediately moved, even if it was big enough of an event to be interesting for OOT as well. (Like, allow a Super Bowl thread, or a World Series thread).

[SomethingClever]

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I'm going to pat myself on the back for a minute, but I think that I tend to put more effort into the posts I start than most folks. To me, that's a huge part of what the * system should encourage. I think tossing around *'s for bad threads is iffy, it's lazy threads that I think are really horrible, and that mostly draw NT's ire.

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Dids, you have been making lazy, blog-style posts on this site forever, it's just that you started making them in BBV4L instead of OOT once the culture changed.

Don't get me wrong, I think your posts are hilarious and usually result in good threads even if the original post is just a word or two. But you've started more than your share of threads that would get [censored] on if they had been made by a newbie.

[El Diablo]

SC,

I think OOT is still like the default catch-all forum, especially for the newer members. The best place to post a generic "fun" thread asking about some random situation or opinion is imo clearly OOT.

Sex in public restrooms
OpenTable users - where have you gone to dinner this year?
Poll: Middle-aged
The Warriors (poll)
BJ's Restaurant & Brewhouse
Tomato juice
OOT weekly thread: minor things that infuriate you
The physics of the last turd phenomenon
Science quiz linktarding
Maggie Q (and other hot halfies) tribute thread
Is Dave & Buster's a super ghetto place where you live?
Southwest Airlines Seating Poll
How often do you forget stuff instantly?
Teppanyaki (Benihana)

Those are the threads I've started in the last couple of months. Maybe a couple of them could have been as good or better if I posted them in EDF, but in all of them I was really interested in as broad a set of opinions as possible and thought they could lead to fun discussions that tons of people could relate to in some way. I still think OOT is the best place on the forum for that type of stuff (as well as stuff like TV show threads and other broadly shared events/experiences).

Now, if I want to have a more serious in-depth discussion about types of teppanyaki or foodie perspective on tomato juice or how culturally significant The Warriors is, I think EDF is the best place for those discussions. But for light discussions about things that lots of people can comment on, OOT is definitely still the place.

"Then look at all the threads we've already had on just about every subject, and it's easy to see why this forum is so stifling."

That's definitely true. And I don't even open lots of threads anymore that are about opinions or situations that have had lengthy discussions multiple times (stuff that is OCD, famous people who you find hotter than others do, various dating/tipping situations, etc.). But that's only true for those of us who are regulars who have been around a while. For people who don't visit OOT everyday or haven't been around for that long, many threads that we've seen in detail 3 or 4 times could seem very new and interesting to them. That's just part of the cycle of OOT and why almost all participants tend to spend less time in OOT and more time in more specialized forums after they've been around for a while - much of OOT, as a large catch-all type forum, is naturally going to come up time and time again, and that stuff will be much more interesting to the newer participants than the regulars.

[adsman]

I don't mind the star system. It helps me identify new posters who have a good chance of sucking. Lazy of me, I suppose.

The problem with the cruel undertitle idea is that a lot of sucky posters would like to have any custom undertitle and would probably use it as a bragging point, even if their title was something truly awful.

One thing that we all like is a good bit of OOT drama. This usually involves somebody being publicly fed to the lions. We could do somthing like a suckiest post/thread of the week thread. All nominations get pasted in there, (no links as I would find it annoying having to open a thousand seperate pages in the one thread.) We then have a little vote off and the loser gets banned or temp-banned or whatever. That could be fun.

[Klompy]

adsman,

The idea of a weekly thread about sucky threads and then temp banning the loser sounds like an awesome idea to me. I believe that this would be a good way for OOT to bring back some drama.

[tuq]

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The problem with the cruel undertitle idea is that a lot of sucky posters would like to have any custom undertitle and would probably use it as a bragging point, even if their title was something truly awful.

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Generally agreed, but this RJ gimmick account undertitle was pretty sweet for the five minutes it was up.

[emon87]

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One thing that we all like is a good bit of OOT drama. This usually involves somebody being publicly fed to the lions. We could do somthing like a suckiest post/thread of the week thread. All nominations get pasted in there, (no links as I would find it annoying having to open a thousand seperate pages in the one thread.) We then have a little vote off and the loser gets banned or temp-banned or whatever. That could be fun.

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OH MY GOD YES

[By-Tor]

more locking
more *'ing
more drama
more mass cullings
more survivor

[KotOD]

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One thing that we all like is a good bit of OOT drama. This usually involves somebody being publicly fed to the lions. We could do somthing like a suckiest post/thread of the week thread. All nominations get pasted in there, (no links as I would find it annoying having to open a thousand seperate pages in the one thread.) We then have a little vote off and the loser gets banned or temp-banned or whatever. That could be fun.

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I know the bar and the head-bobbing is taking up your time, so I was wondering if you could start browsing OOT on your phone so that there aren't large gaps in great things like this.