Let's talk : Guidelines

Community General Chat
1

Hello! We all know about the lovely 1,000,000 replies thread and its closing. It was a topic that has been debated for a while.

There are a lot of confusing guidelines and I’m hoping to get some clarity on them. Exactly what is allowed and what is not.

Could we please have a response from anyone of the mods? Something? Anything?

A lot of the older members are very upset at the closing of the 1,000,000 replies thread and are wondering what will happen to other threads in the general chat.

I ask you to share your opinion on this topic.

Do you think the forum guidelines should be clarified?

  • Yes
  • No

0 voters

3 Likes
2

I did like the 1000000 replies post, but Trinady and other Moderators specifically said that it does not follow the guidelines.

“We know you love the 1,000,000 replies thread and are determined to hit that one millionth response. However, as we mentioned in the moving forums post we are unveiling new rules for the forums and some of these include stricter guidelines around post content needing to be related to Episode or a specific topic. The bulk of the comments in this thread aren’t in keeping with the new rules and so this thread will be closed. We know these rules are new & different, but the community rules are here to help keep the forums organized! We appreciate all the help!” -Trinady

In my opinion, they are right. It’s a huge unnecessary post, that has no actual use. The guidelines are pretty clear. If you still have questions after you read all of them, you can contact the Episode team via private chat and ask about what is right and what is not. Hope that helps.

1 Like
3

A huge, unnecessary post? What about the people who rant on it to let their feelings out? Chat to friends? Support one another? It may be useless in your eyes, but in the eyes of so many others it’s not just another thread. It’s a place to rant on, chat on, spam on, let feelings out on. At first it was more of a game, to see if we could get it to 1,000,000 replies. But it turned into more than that. It turned into a place where people lift others up, and where everyone is one big family. That my two bits. Bye now.

5 Likes
4

I didn’t mean to offend you, I’m just stating my opinion. First of all, promoting spamming isn’t good. And I’m sure you can chat with your friends via private chat, or in another discussion that does not take the form of a spamming center. I can understand it has some kind of sentimental value to you, but I’m sure Moderators have a good reason for locking it.

5

First of all, it’s not spamming. It was a place where we could talk about whatever, share stories about our lives and just connect with other likeminded people. It would have not been great in private chat as it was a thread that was welcome to anyone. Have you even visited the 1,000,000 replies thread? Have seen how much support there is there? It has use to many people on these forums, especially the older ones. How long have you even been here? You haven’t experienced the real, true forums yet.

1 Like
6

I liked the idea of the 1,000,00 replies thread. People could just chat, type random things and make new friends. I understand they closed it down because of the new guidelines and they are trying to keep the new forums tidy and organised. Such a shame though :neutral_face:

7

I’ve been here for 3 years. And of course I’ve talked to friends in the old thread. Don’t get defensive, I’m just saying what I think.

8

the 1m replies thread was brought up several times on the “we’re moving!” thread on the forums, and no mod or admin said we couldn’t RECREATE it. they simply said they couldn’t transfer all the replies that were already on it over onto the new website.

if they were unveiling new rules for the forums, wouldn’t they try to prevent us from starting the thread in the first place?

also, it’s the fact that these mods & admins aren’t practicing what they’re preaching. i’ve seen at least two of them comment and even join in on discussions in the thread, and none of them gave us any forewarning that the thread was going against the guidelines.

2 Likes
9

They did, tho, didn’t they? So

10

Anyways, I just said my opinion. It’s no big deal, after all.

11

To some extent, I do agree with you. While I wouldn’t call it a ‘waste of time’, I can see why the moderators ‘locked’ it. Forums aren’t a place where you talk about your personal life, not only can that endanger you, because, stranger danger, but it was unorganized as well. Forums are a place where you ask questions, or start up a debate about a certain topic. You CANNOT share personal information about your personal life on the internet. And if you had a terrible life, I am honestly sorry, and I feel bad for you. But you need to step away from your own thoughts and feelings, and think about things from a 3rd perspective. And there are plenty of websites that are specifically designed to get help and to share your life experiences, and to feel connected. However, EPISODE is for writers, it is not a seek help website.
I apologize if I sounded rude, but this is the harsh truth.
Cheers,
R.

2 Likes
12

Yes, it is clear that they told us it doesn’t follow guidelines. However, taking into consideration the sheer volume of other threads on the forums that do NOT relate to a specific topic (IE: forum games, story games and roleplays, chatrooms, etc.) it is unclear to us currently WHY this does not follow the guidelines. Some clarification there would be beneficial so we know what to look for in the future when creating threads. What about it is SPECIFICALLY against the rules that isn’t against the rules in any of those other examples? I have read all the guidelines as you have said to do, and it is still unclear in my opinion.

Although it has no PRACTICAL use, this is a very emotionally founded thread, as those above me have said. It is the heart of the forums arguably- a hub for making friends, for planning things, for inspiration, for vents, for philosophy and spam and conversations and anything. The forums are NOT just for people seeking directing tips, they are for people seeking friends and ideas and other things as well, and the implication of it as “unnecessary” is a very narrow-minded opinion if you ask me.

First of all, let me just say that this is a singular thread. It does not throw off the organization of an entire forums website to have a singular disorganized thread. You may choose to avoid it if you would rather not see it. There’s a little mute button in your notification bar if it is really that disruptive to you.

Also, while there are sites designed to get help, this thread is in part to get help from our friends who we already know and trust. We can not possibly fit all the perspectives of the forums into one PM chat, nor can we resolve everything ourselves- a lot of us trust our fellow forumers enough to ask for insight as we make our own decisions and follow our own paths. All of us are above 13 (generally), all of us have received cyber safety lectures time and time again, all of us have made or are making our choices on how much to share or hide online, and for the most part, forumers, despite talking about their problems openly are very private about their lives still and reveal only as much as they feel are safe revealing. I believe your point isn’t fully valid because you claim this is not a seek help WEBSITE. It is not. However, this is a single THREAD. It isn’t taking over the entire forums site, as I have said before. And it is not solely a “seek help” thread- it has other previously mentioned uses as well.

As for the topic that begun this thread, I do believe that clarification on the guidelines should be made. The worst case scenario from a little bit of clarifying is some wasted time on the part of the mods because nobody reads them, which considering our open request for clarification, will not happen. The more likely scenario is that we receive clarification and use it to guide our posts on the forums. It is to the benefit of all, and the disadvantage of none.

6 Likes
13

actually, they never told us that the thread couldn’t be remade. unless you can find proof that they did??

and i’m saying my opinion too. this is a public forum website, everyone shares their opinions here yo.
you can’t not expect to be replied or disagreed with whenever you voice your opinion.

14

I have never said that this one singular thread will ‘take over EPISODE’ or whatever. I just stated, that EPISODE isn’t the place for this type of issue. And I am quite insulted that you would think that. But think of it this way. EPISODE is for people above 13 years old, what age group does that then include? 13-17 year olds. Teenagers who are not yet adults, nor are they children, their words, not mine. But because they’re teenagers, they don’t know how to properly make decisions, and if we have posts and forums that these teenagers see and start posting about their lives, potential pedophiles or those who wish to harm people can see these and get these ‘not children’. To an adult, this is the single most scariest thing they can imagine happening to a minor that was suppose to be under their protection. And trust me, it is the most scariest thing you can ever experience, teen or adult.
You stated that EPISODE doesn’t take down other posts about games, talking and other stuff, but if you worked there, constantly getting requests and drawing/coding and fixing bugs EVERY moment of EVERY day, you wouldn’t have the time to go through every single section of every single forum that has existed on the internet, or at least this website.
And while it may have had other intentions to begin with, the whole 1mil goal, that is classified as spamming. And it can not only slow people’s internet down, but it can cause the website to crash. Because if you understand a single thing about websites and coding, it’s that they’re not some sort of thing where you can do whatever you want without consequences. There are limits as to what you can do, in real life and on the internet.

I’m sorry if this sounded harsh, but it’s true.
Cheers,
R.

1 Like
15

but the thing is that we’ve had the 1m replies thread for at least 3 years over on the old forums.
if there really was a spam issue or if the thread was causing the website to crash, the thread would’ve been locked by then.

i also think that you’re overestimating how much we post on that thread.
there might be a new post every minute, but that’s not very often. the thread usually gets a reply every 6 minutes or so at the most busiest.
at most, maybe 2 or 3 people are posting at the same time. i highly doubt 2-3 people can cause an entire website to slow down or crash.

i do agree that it’s not safe to share personal information online and that minors should know their limits of how much of their private life they can share, but the majority of the thread doesn’t even have content that’s considered too personal for the private eye.
it’s usually just silly memes/jokes, general descriptions of how people’s days are going, general and harmless questions like “do you like dogs or cats better”, and talking about tv shows and such together.

16

Episode is not. This single thread? Yes, it kind of could be at times. If you take a look at both our old AND our new 1,000,000 threads, you’ll notice that they are less dominated by problems than they are by other things. Personal problems are just a very small part of a larger picture.

This is a generalization and a pretty invalid assumption. SOME teenagers do not know how to make decisions. SOME of them. Not all of us here on Episode. Although there are exceptions, although things CAN happen, all of us have either had the training to be able to avoid those situations by being careful with what they share. We know our limits. Nothing of the nature you’ve discussed has occurred on this site in the almost two years I’ve been here. And even if someone does happen to slip up, if something does happen, 1) that’s not forums-specific, it’s a danger present everywhere on the internet 2) everyone has access to the resources to prevent things from getting out of hand.

I believe anime’s post sufficiently covered this.

17

…I am seriously shocked to hear those numbers at what you just said. “Sometimes there’s a new post every minute, but not always, it’s usually 2 or 3 people at a moment”- did you just hear yourself?! That will SERIOUSLY mess up the system! And remember, these forums are NEW. EPISODE is still working on bugs on these new forums! That’s why they shut it down for a couple of hours a day or so ago! They also probably spent that time looking for forums that could potentially cause the website to crash. Or at least the forums.

And even if they used to get only a new post every 6 minutes, 60divided by 6=10 so 10 per hour, doesn’t look so scary, but then you multiply it by 24 hours, then it ends up being 240 per 24 hours on a SINGULAR post. But wait, it doesn’t end there. 240 multiplied by 30 (as that’s the most common amount of days in a month) and you get 7,200 per month. Then you multiply that by 12 and you get 86,400 per YEAR. But that’s just the sometimes days, right? You’ve got to add in all the SOME days where it gets really busy. 1 per minute you said? Okay, so lets say that at least once a day per week is when the forum was at it’s busiest.
60 divided by 1 is 60, so 60 per hour.
60 x 24 is 1,440, so 1,440 posts a DAY.
Here’s where it gets a little scary (math wise).
If we’re still going by the average amount of days in a month, not including the 31 days or 28, so 30 divided by seven, is 4 rounded, so about 4 days.
So our earlier number of 1,440 posts a day and multiply it by the number of days it should be active in a week, then it’s 5,760.
So how many days are in a year? 365 days. So every month which is 30 days our average, but we’ve gotten rid of the 30 days for the time where it’s busiest, so it’s 4 days a month. So divide 365 days by 4, then you get 91 rounded days. So that’s around 3 months worth of full day posts, so multiply it 3 times over by the original monthly number with itself? 17,280 posts a year for once a week busiest day. At LEAST. So put those numbers together and you have…
103,680 posts a year. And like I said, AT LEAST.
Then you times that by 3 (for the amount of years you said it was at least alive for) and you get the (should be) final calculation of…
311,040 AT LEAST.
Now imagine this scenario, if you will.
You’re a programmer, who’s spent countless hours working on a website that you know is going to be overrun by teenagers who can’t really think for themselves, and that website, is incredibly glitchy(to a programmer)because you just put it out. And suddenly, you have this thread that’s threatening to crash the website you spent countless hours on with COUNTLESS posts a day. This is HORROR to a programmer, to anyone really. And the only conclusion they can come up with, is, while not deleting, locking the thread, hopefully, for the time being until the website’s better and can handle it better.

Now if you excuse me, I need an ice pack for my brain, haven’t run it that hard in a while.

Cheers,
R.

1 Like
18

i appreciate the math you just did and your concern for the programmers, but they didn’t close the 1m replies thread because the “spam” was overworking the servers or crashing the website. they wanted to organize the forums & keep the topics episode related.
you are not a moderator or an admin. you can’t put words in their mouth as to what the 1m replies thread was exactly doing to the forums. you can do all the math you want but that doesn’t justify or clear up anything.

311,040 AT LEAST.

you’re taking my estimates as if they’re exact, concrete values. this number is completely incorrect. the thread was made dec 28th, 2014 back on the old forums, and it only has…
59%20PM
hmmm…

i understand that the forums are new, but if the thread’s existence was threatening it so badly and horrifyingly in the way that you put it, they would’ve advised us to not remake it before they opened up the beta. the mods & admins that JOINED IN with our talking in the thread and TOLERATED it would’ve locked it themselves before trinady did.

they were not clear as to which threads go against the guidelines. with these new rules in place, any thread in the general chat topic is (unfairly) susceptible to deletion and that makes us concerned.

19

Sorry I didn’t reply to your post sooner, I was calculating big time. Anyway, like I have stated, EPISODE’s forums is a place for writers to ask questions, receive feedback, and to give criticism. While, yes, I do agree with you that some teenagers have the ability to think for themselves, most don’t. Because of all the hormones that their bodies are focusing on, there’s little time left for decision making. So far in my life, I have only met 1 teenager who can think for themselves, and they were 17yrs old, living alone, and I met them at my local support group for people who need help with mental issues. (Aspergers/Autism and BPD to be exact.) And people with those types of mental issues do actually, while unfortunately do sever and make it harder for social interactions, give them the ability to think outside the box easier.

And like I said to anime , if you can put yourselves in the programmer’s shoes, and be empathetic for just one second instead of getting triggered by whatever people say that is actually good points, you’d see this as well. If you can understand the math, look how big of a number that is! Seriously! I feel bad for EPISODE having to deal with ungrateful younger people that don’t understand how much time and effort it takes to do these kinds of things. I SHOULD KNOW. I program websites! Well, I did, I quit a while ago. Anyway, not the point. Even if all you did was discuss for hours on end which is better, dogs or cats, it STILL does NOT relate in ANY way to EPISODE.

Sorry if I sounded harsh or mean or anything there, I was trying to state facts.

Cheers,
R.

1 Like
20

Well, I didn’t look at the old forums, I just calculated as it would’ve been if what you were saying was correct. Sorry I don’t understand/know when humans go on to post about trivial matters. (Sorry again if that sounded sarcastic, I actually wanted to apologize, I don’t know anything about social media.) Like I said, it might’ve not been a problem a while ago, but the guidelines have changed, and we should just accept them, no use barking at a wall.

I don’t mean any offense to EPISODE, it is just a saying.

Cheers,
R.

1 Like