Why are recent Doomworld threads stupid?

[Redneckerz]

2 hours ago, VICE said:

Discuss in earnest.

Personally, I think it's a byproduct of ''GenZ'' and ''Gen Alpha'' discovering a highly moddable game, attracting the same types of crowds as something like minecraft or roblox or whatever.

 

Not gonna lie, some of this leads to hilarious discussions, but honestly General and Everything Else feel like I'm visiting a nursery.
I think a feature common in other forums, where new members must make an arbitrary number of posts before they can start their own topics, might help mitigate this phenomenon. Maybe add some kind of mod-approved element to that as well.
Just sayin'.

Since you said discus in earnest i have to comply

 

Not really agreeing with the GenX manifest here, as Gothic points out, crapshoot threads are as old as the internet.

 

Personally i believe the difference is this: Those old crapshoot threads were done by people who knew how a forum worked, and misused it. Compared to today's shitposter, this is more in trend with social media as a whole - memeposts exists solely because the meme's themselves exist.

 

A shitpost in 2024 is akin to your average jokewad: They aren't funny, and the best ones have been done before and were actually clever.

 

Personally i prefer a shitpost to be clever. The Grungo shtick is an example of shitposting done cleverly, if not recently overblown. But if we look at the dental advices (and ignoring the feedback anyway) and asking yourself why Caco's are red, the red herring is this:

• There is no thought behind them.
• If there is thought behind them, then there is no thought given on the feedback that thought recieves.

What does shake my linedefs however, is that all these crapshoot threads get a ton of responses, and a geniune thread asking for advice never gets any. Before calling the kettle black i realize i am pretty much the antithesis to this by contributing snarks to said crapshoot threads, and it sucks. But its my way of saying: Hey, we should get a little tighter around here.

 

(But i should also help the other fella out.)

 

It may also not help that forum software/search/post history is wonky for quite some time, which inevitably invites shitposters to well, ask the obvious questions we all know about.

 

1 hour ago, Lucius Wooding said:

Yes, it's a boomer forum for a 30 year old game. It's going to be a lot more dead than reddit or other more widely exposed platforms, and that's okay. And yes, almost everything has been made and discussed before at some point. But if you make a post that makes you seem like a thoughtful or interesting person, someone might actually have a discussion. 

I literally bumped up a thread on COLORMAPS and colored lighting because that to me is the kind of discussion i'd like to read: Those taken for granted aspects on Doom that are yet so underutilized. Far more interesting than Why does the spectre take its name from that 007 movie or stuff like that.

 

1 hour ago, Gothic said:

I agree, Doom General has been very braindead recently, take a look at this shit:

Stop making sense Gothic, gosh dang it.

 

17 minutes ago, Maximum Matt said:

Well, go and post some 'quality' threads then, if you're so upset about it.  

Why do you keep making this post as if you are equally upset yourself? Quality comes from within.

[Snaxalotl]

I think it got worse with the popularity of My House. Good wad and all but its wide reaching appeal probably drew in a bunch of children. As others have said Summer vacation gives kids a lot more free time to spend online.

[VoanHead]

Personally, (and this is just my opinion) I think the threads where some OP starts a topic and says something dumb (and most of the time I notice that it’s always on “Everything Else”) on said thread and everyone in said thread jumps to dogpiling OP is frankly stupid. Part of me thinks it might be some sort of attention seeking behavior from whoever started said thread, sounds harsh ik, but the people giving them what they want on said thread is also no better. This all gets done until it gets locked, and rinse and repeat with another thread. I find it best to not really engage in threads like that and instead look for better threads that don’t devolve into sarcastic, snide responses.

Edited May 21 by VoanHead

[Maribo]

There are quite a few people on this website who see a thread they deem as trash, pointless, useless, whatever, and their instant reaction to this low quality thread is to post in said thread about how bad it is, or they drop a one-liner joke, or they say "mods will close this soon". These people also don't bother to report the thread themselves, and their post actually pushes the thread towards more eyes since more posts in a shorter time frame means it will show up on the Popular Now sidebar (this thread is at the top, right now!). I would really keep this in mind next time you see a low effort or shitpost-tier thread, because engaging with it to point out to its OP that it is a shit thread (beyond reasonable circumstances) or piling onto it with others just pushes the thread into even more people's view, for a longer period of time.

[Burgish]

50 minutes ago, Desfar said:

unfortunate downside of some highquality mods getting attention on youtube.
MyHouse brought many people here, some good some shitposters.

I came here after playing Hedon, but got stuck in the asset zone.

 

We love you in the asset zone.  Please don't leave us in the asset zone.  The asset zone desires adherents....

[Trigsy]

Yeah, the threads won't stop. We really need to address how we engage with them as individuals, if we want to rein them in.

Edited May 21 by Trigsy
reworded for clarity

[VoanHead]

5 minutes ago, Maribo said:

There are quite a few people on this website who see a thread they deem as trash, pointless, useless, whatever, and their instant reaction to this low quality thread is to post in said thread about how bad it is, or they drop a one-liner joke, or they say "mods will close this soon". These people also don't bother to report the thread themselves, and their post actually pushes the thread towards more eyes since more posts in a shorter time frame means it will show up on the Popular Now sidebar (this thread is at the top, right now!). I would really keep this in mind next time you see a low effort or shitpost-tier thread, because engaging with it to point out to its OP that it is a shit thread (beyond reasonable circumstances) or piling onto it with others just pushes the thread into even more people's view, for a longer period of time.

This the equivalent of someone starting a dumpster fire and lots of people pulling up to throw some kindling onto the fire until the firefighters show up to put it out ngl. But this is just what I think.

[Logamuffin]

 

2 hours ago, Zerofuchs said:

"The children now love luxury; they have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for elders and love chatter in place of exercise. Children are now tyrants, not the servants of their households."
- (Socrates, supposedly, according to Plato, supposedly)

 

I don’t think us as humans will ever escape this type of generational mudslinging. 1000 years from now, they’ll be a few middle aged dudes sitting at the space Waffle House being like “Bah! Kid these days with their stupid cyborg eyes and warp speed drives! Back in my day, we actually had to…” Blah blah blah blah blah.

[DannyMan]

We will and always see stupid things happen in our eyes.

[TheMagicMushroomMan]

I hope nobody takes offense to this, but I think a lot of people aren't so good at recognizing when someone is purposely acting out for attention. Like, let's say there's a guy with a name like Nathan, okay, not that anyone would have a name like that here. Now, let's say this Nate B fellow is constantly getting the 404 error in his brain and posts dumb shit all the time, which would never happen in a place like this. But if it did, I think it would be important not to enable their behavior and recognize that they're just wanting attention when they talk about things like how hard it is going through puberty at 20. Otherwise they might just continue to get dumber and dumber, and eventually they might even start purposely saying offensive things just for attention. When they see other members taking them seriously and falling for their trap/bait, they're almost certainly going to do it again.

 

I don't like seeing people get in trouble/banned/whatever, and I also don't want to backseat moderate, but I would support punishment being a little harsher for habitual offenders. I think that if a simple verbal warning doesn't fix their behavior, they're probably the kind to just keep doing it until they're banned or hated by everyone else.

 

Sometimes the threads can be pretty funny, and in that case they provide value in my eyes, but many are just mundane filler threads that are watered down clones of other clones of watered down mundane filler threads. Those are the worst.

 

10 minutes ago, DannyMan said:

We will and always see stupid things happen in our eyes.

My favorite Shadow Warrior fortune cookie.

Edited May 21 by TheMagicMushroomMan

[DankMetal]

11 minutes ago, Maribo said:

There are quite a few people on this website who see a thread they deem as trash, pointless, useless, whatever, and their instant reaction to this low quality thread is to post in said thread about how bad it is, or they drop a one-liner joke, or they say "mods will close this soon". These people also don't bother to report the thread themselves, and their post actually pushes the thread towards more eyes since more posts in a shorter time frame means it will show up on the Popular Now sidebar (this thread is at the top, right now!). I would really keep this in mind next time you see a low effort or shitpost-tier thread, because engaging with it to point out to its OP that it is a shit thread (beyond reasonable circumstances) or piling onto it with others just pushes the thread into even more people's view, for a longer period of time.

Oh man, i've been thinking about this recently, and i've been trying to avoid this when i see a "dumb post". We should really try to avoid this by either doing a community effort or moderators getting more strict.

Yes, those kinds of posts are dumb and all but you are not helping by replying with some stupid joke, not giving them attention would actually make some change because the original poster will notice this and will probably think "Oh, maybe i shouldn't have post that", or who knows, maybe everything will stay the same.

[Downcologo one]

The answer is easy, what happens is that we are in: La era de la boludez

Lately I saw several quite stupid posts, like things about Pibby's digital circus and other things or even stupid discussions like when the freelook thing happened about whether it had to be optional or not.
They are things that make no sense and that show that we are in: LA ERA DE LA BOLUDEZ 

 

Although I feel that the page as such is not in a good moment, in my opinion the moderation is sometimes bad and they penalize the wrong people.
The other time I was banned for a month for putting a meme in a post about something related to a wad that I did with some friends and in fact the person in the meme took it so well that he even has it as a profile picture.

 

(I use deep translate) 

[VICE]

3 hours ago, Jayextee said:

Zoomers think this shit's Discord.

Pretty much what I meant. I don't mind the randomness or the eclecticism in general, I even like some of the lingo, I just don't think these things warrant their own threads.

I think Zoomers et. al don't grasp how forums work because they grew up on reddit and discord, and this is how they're used to communicating. Surface-level throw words around to see what happens.

 

When I was in that age group I was posting on other forums and it seemed obvious to me that not every passing thought or random question I might have should be turned into a discussion. With some exeptions, most people inherently understood that. I don't think this is only age related.

 

 

2 hours ago, Milkeno said:

I think this is a byproduct of forum legends like esco and sephiroth leaving so the posting quality declines

This is shit, but this is still written as an actual thought formulated by a person capable of thinking - an entire paragraph with substance and an idea - i.e ''This person is x,y,z, this is my dumbass opinion on it''. It got nothing on 'Y Caco Red? Idk'' (which was probably a joke. A lame one).

 

1 hour ago, Maximum Matt said:

Well, go and post some 'quality' threads then, if you're so upset about it.  

I am only disappointed, but I think I will.
(This one doesn't count becasue of proximity-to-shit-threads.) 

[The Royal We]

“Lord, save little children. The wind blows and the rain's a-cold. Yet they abide...They abide and they endure”.

Edited May 21 by The Royal We

[Helton342]

I think it started happening around the time Myhouse became a mainstream thing. It drew attention from the new generation raised on modern media

[VoanHead]

can we stop pointing fingers everywhere, especially with this whole “oH tHiS Nu FanGlEd GenEraYsHuN”, bro I am literally part of Gen Z myself on ‘01

Edited May 21 by VoanHead

[Lucius Wooding]

It's not like we want to dunk on good threads, we leave those alone to develop decent conversation. But if that's all anyone wants to do on your topic, then that tells you it's probably shit. Heaping scorn on poor threads, from a wide group of people, is a lot more entertaining and has more finality than just downvoting them (which some platforms attempt to utilize to combat poor content) and gives a much clearer signal to the OP to do better. Usually somebody will be fairly specific as to why the thread is bad in the hopes of OP improving, but very often certain posters just don't want to make any kind of effort (and often start tons of threads). It's rarely just one or two haters going against the majority who respond positively to a thread, and in those cases the negative posts get steamrolled anyway. 

 

Usually if one of those threads gets locked or hidden with few responses, the OP will think it's a personal attack by the mods and they're being muzzled. If there's a consensus from 2-3 pages of dismissal by everybody, the mod can put it out of its misery and seem merciful instead. It's like all of us are being the bad cop so the mods get to be the good cop.

 

It's fine for the forums to be slow and lacking topics. It doesn't help just to fill them with poor content, it stirs up the wrong kind of activity. It's better to just let there be silence sometimes. And if you must get instant gratification and faster interaction, just use one of the many discord servers. They're literally built around that posting style and nobody cares if you post dumb memes or flippant stream of consciousness shit.

 

10 minutes ago, nathanB404 said:

I’m still not even old enough to legally drink in the US

 

But you are allowed to legally think in the US, or any country at any age. In case you need a reminder.

[Logamuffin]

34 minutes ago, Trigsy said:

Yeah, the threads won't stop. We really need to address how we engage with them as individuals, if we want to rein them in.

Honestly, this too. I know it’s very very tempting to dunk on these people especially considering how easy and fun it is. But like just acting snarky and saying shit like “oh, the mods will close this soon” don’t help these younger people learn forum etiquette. And if anything, it drives a lot of potential new people away from the forum.

[Devalaous]

3 hours ago, Obsidian said:

I mentioned this in another thread, but this sort of thing could be mitigated to some degree if people used their status updates: if you have errant thoughts you'd like to share that honestly don't deserve an entire thread, you can post on your profile and get responses from the people that actually follow you for your content. It's possible that their usage dropped off some once status updates were no longer visible on the forum homepage and I will admit that I don't use my own nearly as much as I should: maybe I should pop some game reviews on mine, I remember doing that a few years ago when I first played Dead Space.

 

But I digress. It'd be cool to see more folks use their status updates and get into the habit of blogging a little to alleviate the sorts of tendencies we're seeing expressed in forum threads these days.

 

To be fair, status updates are *extremely* broken right now

[Gmg]

Typical ego boost nerd.

Edited May 21 by Gmg

[Napeyear]

Wise man once said, don't feed the trolls.... it never ends well.

 

Edited May 21 by Napeyear

[Mr. Freeze]

Decay was right

[Decay]

There's always been stupid topics but now you can't troll or flame people to discourage them from doing it again.

[fai1025]

I don't think it's just because GenZ or GenA, Internet as a whole just getting stupider each year.

[VICE]

8 minutes ago, Gmg said:

Typical ego boost nerd.

Son, you are wrong in at least two ways.

1. I got no Ego to speak of, barring what's required for conversation and normal everyday life. Meditated that shit away. Boosting my ego is the last thing I care about. If you fail to grasp why this thread exists, ask.
2. I know I can kick your ass effortlessly and have done more than you in any sphere of life - particualrly in the physical.

Check yourself before you mentally project yourself.

And if any zoomer or gen alpha here is butthurt over what I said, refute it, if you can muster the executive function.

[Lucius Wooding]

I'm just going to leave a funny copypasta from a Gamefaqs guide from 2000 to lighten the mood. It was written by an accomplished speedrunner and content creator who many of you surely know. If it bears any similarity to anyone in this thread or elsewhere, that's pure coincidence. I'm not trying to make any kind of point, I swear.

 

 

Spoiler

1.1 (4/11/00) My sucky parents band me from the 64 for a while so I'm F#@KING pissed off. You know, just because parents find no enjoyment out of video games, they find pleasure in taking it away from us young people. It sucks. We are brought up in a video game environment, video games are what we live for, it's not our fault, it's just the way things are. Anyway, as I write this, I am filled with f@#king rage, I need the n64 to write this FAQ, and because of stupid parents, I can't. They don't understand that by taking away the n64 and preventing me from writing FAQs(which is probably the most fulfilling thing I've ever done). They're not punishing me, I get the point already, they're just trying to make me pissed off, that's what I hate most about them.

 

I'm pretty sure he was only about 10-13 years old at this time. Take from that what you will. But the important lesson is, things you put on the internet don't go away and may be embarrassing 24 years later.

[Obsidian]

Thread has been pruned again and nathanB404 has been banned for their woeful conduct. Keep things civil and on topic, please and thank you.

[Maximum Matt]

1 hour ago, Redneckerz said:

Why do you keep making this post as if you are equally upset yourself?

I'm not upset at all - I laugh at this petty crap.

[roadworx]

1 hour ago, VICE said:

Pretty much what I meant. I don't mind the randomness or the eclecticism in general, I even like some of the lingo, I just don't think these things warrant their own threads.

I think Zoomers et. al don't grasp how forums work because they grew up on reddit and discord, and this is how they're used to communicating. Surface-level throw words around to see what happens.

counterpoint: i'm a zoomer that's been here for nearly ten years and i'm fully capable of using forums. it's not a generational problem, it's an issue with the website growing stagnant due to neglect 

Edited May 22 by roadworx

[Shepardus]

33 minutes ago, Devalaous said:

To be fair, status updates are *extremely* broken right now

Even when they work right, they're too out of the way to capture people's off the cuff shower thoughts.