Improving GD

[Timmay]

So kinda like the Pienaar rating on the previous previous incarnation of the board, but for threads rather than posters. Good idea.

[TraceyQ]

Um, there was already a thread rating thing on the board that went bye-byes. It didnt get used much.

[Purple Tentacle]

Um, there was already a thread rating thing on the board that went bye-byes. It didnt get used much.

Probably because it took the form of little numbers at the bottom of a thread, all tucked away. I THINK it only existed on VWClassic as well.

[Vermschneid Mehearties]

PT's idea is great. Something quite visible, and deliberately exaggerated.

[The Region Legion]

Yeah, I'm in favour of that too.

[Darrell]

Renaming General Discussion to Off Topic Discussion (and moving it to the bottom)  would probobly encourage new people and visitors to the other sections more.

This is the best idea yet.

[Rats]

But then they'll think we're all darrells ;) How's about we have a CB forum right at the top?

[hands cold, liver warm]

general bullshit is the centre of the forum.  There are some that like to avoid it and spend their time abusing non comedy historians in other forums. Thankfully most people aren't like that and spend a lot of CaB time in general bullshit.

Hooray for bullshit!

[gazzyk1ns]

I remember being very puzzled about how some people used that thread rating tool. I recall once I had started a thread, and looked at its ratings about three days afterwards. Someone had come in, not replied, and rated my thread a 4 (out of 5 for anyone who doesn't remember). I was baffled that someone would enter a thread, read it all, then go to the "rate" bit, and think

Hmmmm, well, whilst this is amongst my top ten Verbwhore threads of all time, it certainly rates above what I would class a mediocre thread. Therefore it deserves a 4.

...And then bang, out of the thread, no thought to replying. Weird.

Darrell and Neil: What are you hoping to achieve by getting new people to go straight to the comedy forum? I don't want to sound "anti-newbie", but most new people posting in there will either post news which everyone already knows, a question which could be answered by actually looking at the rest of the site/forums, or a home-cooked Blue Jam monologue. Any exceptions are usually from another comedy site, and/or they'll be intelligent/determined enough to find the comedy forum anyway.

[Timmay]

It could well have been me rating a thread and not replying. And what's wrong with that anyway? A thread may have made me laugh, made me cry, or made me think, and perhaps what I thought had already been echoed by someone else in the thread. No point saying "I agree with Dave." And no point elaborating more than that, for the sake of it.

[Rats]

I agree with timmy
I am hillarious

[Timmay]

I am kloot.

[Almost Yearly]

...which means "bollock" in dutch.

I've found a lot of threads a bit shite lately but I'd be lying if I said that sometimes I want to put my brain out of gear on here and just have a bit of a joke and piss about with people who I know aren't idiots.

Halleluyah for this small paragraph.


When I came to General Bullshit I found a heady mixture of (i) very well-informed and witty jamming on current affairs and all topics salient to the sort of intelligent people who would appreciate Cook and Morris, and (ii) silly shite about wanking and who you fancy which was subsequently derided, or preferably hijacked, with wit and aplomb. More wit and aplomb than "what a shit thread", hopefully. It seems to me that if, say, Dudley Moore and Peter Baynham were here, they'd spend longer in threads of type (ii) than type (i), but there you go - certainly type (i) is understandably more important to those who are concerned with what the outside world and 23 Daves' girlfriend thinks.


At the moment the place is very drab-looking. I hear you, Neil - the avatars will be back, and jolly welcome they will be. After all, one does need at least a hint of decoration in one's environment if one is to feel inspired. Sincerely hope you enjoyed your break though, sir.


Of course I disagree with Darrell that Comedy Chat is the "heart" of the place. Maybe you could call it the brain...

...having watched the programme openly for about 1 minute I came to a conclusion.

What a piece of fucking crap

Or maybe not. A lot of the time it just looks like the spleen. Certainly hardly ever the humerus. Whatever - it's definitely useful. As is Stereo Excursions, lest we forget Mr Morris' very obvious qualifications in that department and our universal need for music, which I believe outstrips our need for comedy. And Multimongia - well, we all know how sublime that place can sometimes be.


In summary - Christ, it's all alright.


Don't see why Techy Queries couldn't be a forum. Does it matter that it would be slow-moving? You could even spell it Queeries for the gigantic comic impact that would have.

[hencole]

You'll be wanting a nappy changing forum next? Where will it end I asks you.

[Vermschneid Mehearties]

This is the best idea yet

Ever think that if all did decide to talk about comedy all day in one forum, you'd get so annoyed by our opinions, you'd kill yourself, or at least move somewhere else. Sheesh. Some people don't know a good thing even when it's right in front of them.

[23 Daves]

When I came to General Bullshit I found a heady mixture of (i) very well-informed and witty jamming on current affairs and all topics salient to the sort of intelligent people who would appreciate Cook and Morris, and (ii) silly shite about wanking and who you fancy which was subsequently derided, or preferably hijacked, with wit and aplomb. More wit and aplomb than "what a shit thread", hopefully. It seems to me that if, say, Dudley Moore and Peter Baynham were here, they'd spend longer in threads of type (ii) than type (i), but there you go - certainly type (i) is understandably more important to those who are concerned with what the outside world and 23 Daves' girlfriend thinks.

What she thinks is probably irrelevant as she doesn't even like Cook, Moore or Morris, therefore wouldn't be a part of the demographic we'd be getting anyway.  And I think that's actually a salient point you've made - Cook and Moore specialised in crude, filthy humour with a slightly surreal edge, and you could argue that Morris specialises in surreal humour with a periodically crude and filthy edge.  Therefore, of course you're periodically going to get people who know nothing of the forum turning up and making minge and wank jokes, or doing very bad Derek and Clive impressions, or wittering and wibbling in a """comedy""" surreal fashion.  Personally I think the problem isn't that the threads exist but that most people do them very BADLY.  If the average person starting a wank thread had even one ounce of the wit of Cook - hell, I'll even settle for the wit of Billy Connelly - then it would be fine.  But for the most part it's just the kind of rubbish you hear in the pub after ten pints.

General Discussion does seem to be in a state of disarray at the moment, but I wouldn't be so hard on people like Tom Rad.  I myself started a poll once on people's favourite type of cheese, and I haven't forgotten that misdemeanour, even though it happened a couple of years ago now.  We're all allowed to slip up now and then.

And yes, my responses to most threads at the moment are clipped, harsh and basic, but I'd say that's largely down to the sheer volume of overtime that's weighing me down at work at the moment (thanks to my bosses amazing idea of firing an administrator, then passing all her work on to us instead alongside all our other stuff, thereby causing as much to be claimed in overtime fees as they would have paid to hire her anyway.  DOH).  I don't want to hang around fucking about on this forum for too long if I can get home for my tea at a reasonable hour.  That doesn't mean to say that I haven't had ideas for topics recently, just that I really haven't had the time to put the effort into a good first post.  Hopefully that will change soon and I'll spit them all out at once.

Don't see why Techy Queries couldn't be a forum. Does it matter that it would be slow-moving? You could even spell it Queeries for the gigantic comic impact that would have.

It might be a problem in that nobody would ever look at it apart from the computing dunces (like me) who had the problems in the first place.  I think the monthly sticky sounds like a good idea.

[Vermschneid Mehearties]

A technology page then. Somewhere where we can talk about games, the latest RIAA abominations, techie help, xboxlive, new mp3 players and general techno news.

[Jet Set Willy]

Erm, what's wrong with going to other websites for that kind of thing?
+
I agree with Daves.
=
Downloading the new GLR show is going to take forever.

[Vermschneid Mehearties]

We'd have to go there.

Good, solid point though.

[23 Daves]

Here's a thought- alongside techy threads we've also had threads asking for advice about universities, legal issues, estate agents, holidays, etc. etc.  

Why not start some sort of "Help" forum?  We could even call it "We Make People Need Help" or something.  I think the reason people ask this sort of stuff on here all the time is because they know there's a pool of people in various professional industries who frequent these forums and can offer them sound advice - and whilst it might be boring to outsiders, to me it does sort of add to the community feel once you're established here.

It's just a thought.

[Johnny Yesno]

*Why not make the general discussions link the size of a pinhead. Then we'll see how many of you cunts visit. Arf, arf!*

Or make it so that whatever comment you post comes up as
Curb Your Enthusiasm is great!

[Almost Yearly]

I myself started a poll once on people's favourite type of cheese, and I haven't forgotten that misdemeanour, even though it happened a couple of years ago now.  We're all allowed to slip up now and then.

No misdemeanour in my book: cheese is universally accepted as an inherently funny thing, like ducks. Once a thread has been floated, it's up to us lot to try and do it justice or let it sink. As you say, if we must occasionally do wanking, we must endeavour to do it well - erm, so to speak. For my own sins, I tried a straight "Yes or No" poll once. It could have developed into a quick page of surreal funniness as intended, and it nearly did, but an early interjection of  "what a crap thread" or "why did you do this?" scuppered all chances of that.

Thanks for taking the girlfriend comment in the throwaway spirit it was made by the way - and I didn't even have to temper it by flashing my Clique membership card. (I got a counterfeit one down the alley behind Website Whines. Very reasonable.)


Again - how many techie threads actually come up per year? More or less than wanking threads? I must be looking at a different forum.

[hencole]

Help Forum?

Good idea, lump all the pleas into the one forum. Be they which dishcloth should I use to which broadband supplier should I be exploited by.

Or make it so that whatever comment you post comes up as
Curb Your Enthusiasm is great!

Agreed, it would solve a lot of the boards problems.

[Almost Yearly]

Oh that's right, leave those of us who've been exploited by dishcloths out of it. Racist.

[Johnny Yesno]

Or make it so that whatever comment you post comes up as
Curb Your Enthusiasm is great!

Agreed, it would solve a lot of the boards problems.

Including the one "We're not all Neil".

[Neil]

Oh, up yer arse.

[Rats]

hehe, smelly nelly, smelly nelly, smelly nelly poo bum

[Neil]

When I came to General Bullshit I found a heady mixture of (i) very well-informed and witty jamming on current affairs and all topics salient to the sort of intelligent people who would appreciate Cook and Morris, and (ii) silly shite about wanking and who you fancy which was subsequently derided, or preferably hijacked, with wit and aplomb. More wit and aplomb than "what a shit thread", hopefully. It seems to me that if, say, Dudley Moore and Peter Baynham were here, they'd spend longer in threads of type (ii) than type (i), but there you go - certainly type (i) is understandably more important to those who are concerned with what the outside world and 23 Daves' girlfriend thinks.

If Dud or Baynham were posting on here, and chose to post about wanking and who you fancy, I imagine they'd be a lot more entertaining at it than the likes of sore bottom mum.  Look, that's not a good argument anyway AY, you would usually be as dismissive of "What would Chris Morris think?" style posts anyway, shirley.  No, I'm not overly concerned by what Daves girlfriend thinks, but I do want more posters of the caliber of, say, Surfer Ghost, instead of more wankers like "sore bottom mum" or even dekionplexis.  If that makes me a snob, fine, I'm a snob and happily so!

CC and SE are generally great as you get proper discussions that you can get your teeth into.  GD can throw up good discussions, but is prone to lazy rubbish.  I'm sorry, but I don't like seeing lazy rubbish and I will probably continue to moan about it!  I just don't want childish rubbish on here that I find embarrasing and pointless.  

Don't see why Techy Queries couldn't be a forum. Does it matter that it would be slow-moving? You could even spell it Queeries for the gigantic comic impact that would have.

Why should it be?  It would just encourage more bloody posts about boring techy trivia.  I can think of much better uses for the sites bandwidth!

[Neil]

Oh balls to it, I don't know what to do really.  I'm sick of having sneery little jibes aimed at me just because I want people to make a bit of a bloody effort!  

Thank you to gazzy and the rest who have come up with sensible ways to improve things round here.  Not sure about the idea of a media forum as I like having somewhere to go and talk about comedy exclusively.  

I've tried to be as reasonable as possible in this thread, I can't see why some people get so annoyed by me and TJ pointing out that things are a bit crap, if anyone else does that noone bats an eyelid.  

Oh bollocks to it, what's the point:  If any of you are ACTUALLY INTERESTED in Chris Morris then there's an incredibly rare 1993 GLR show up in the Comedy Chat forum at the minute, presuming you can fight your way through all the bile cause, y;know, we only go in there to slag comedy off, don't we?  

This thread is shit.

Better?

[european son]

Not sure about the idea of a media forum

i think that'd be a bad idea myself. it'd be a bit confused as to what it was there for and cross over CC, SE and a big chunk of GD unnecessarily i reckon.

i think keep the separate music and comedy forums.