The Source: "Quality Issues"

[klaus]

3. You know what would be great ? If the primer of a thread would be updated to include links to relevant discussions in the thread when they appear. For example, if people argue for a page whether Chalice deserves a maindeck spot in Aggro Loam, using relevant arguments, that page could be linked to in the primer, making it easy to find. Searching for "Chalice" in that thread will turn up a lot of results, most of them just being decklists which include Chalice. Of course, that wouldn't solve the problem that people that are new to a thread don't seem to read the primer anyway.

I digg that.

[Phoenix Ignition]

3. You know what would be great ? If the primer of a thread would be updated to include links to relevant discussions in the thread when they appear. For example, if people argue for a page whether Chalice deserves a maindeck spot in Aggro Loam, using relevant arguments, that page could be linked to in the primer, making it easy to find. Searching for "Chalice" in that thread will turn up a lot of results, most of them just being decklists which include Chalice. Of course, that wouldn't solve the problem that people that are new to a thread don't seem to read the primer anyway.

Yeah, this would be great. Can we somehow get the mods to get people who own the threads on the specific decklists to just put in a link like he said of which page or post to start looking at of why they should/shouldn't play a specific card? Granted noobs won't read it right away, but then we could just say "read the primer" instead of going into another endless detailed list of reasons.

[dahcmai]

I hate using the ignore. Sometimes in a blue moon a person comes in a posts something groundbreaking on total accident. It's not common, but occasionally, a card that was forgotten is brought up again and fits perfectly.

TES is a good example of a deck that is tricky to play. It's not intuitive at all from a person's point of view who's never touched something similar before. Hell, I figured it was easier to ask than to run through that mess looking for the Doomsday stack that was mentioned in it. I can understand how people would have questions on it. It takes a certain amount of finesse to play properly. A lot of "try to go for this" if you're "playing against this" type things.

It reminds me of Chess. That thread is going to get a lot of stupid crap no matter what. Until you have played the utter crap out of it, you're not going to get most of it.

[Jaiminho]

I just wanna thank everyone for making me reconsider using the Ignore list. The UGw Thresh thread is so much cleaner now and I only needed to ignore one user.

[Parcher]

Ignore lists work fine ; ). They're like a ban that still allows people to "express themselves" on the forums, they just don't know that no-one reads it anymore.

If this were true, you would be able to place Mods and Admins on the ignore list as well.

[TheInfamousBearAssassin]

Sub-threads for each thread, such as a "Don't play Dark Confidant in Sui", etc., would be immensely useful. If you had a way of clicking directly to them from the first post.

[herbig]

The overall quality of the majority of The Source's posts (I'm talking content here) appears to be decreasing . . . I'm not an old-schooler either, I joined this site some time in 2007. Nevertheless, I'm confident to be able to judge quality when it comes to posts concerning Legacy. And I feel TheSource has seen better times.

The quality is remaining the same. What's happening is your judgment of quality is improving. Those better times were when you were ignorant of the state of things.

[Dark_Cynic87]

From what I understand [...] Bryant runs Mystical Tutor now because Ad Nauseam was printed, whereas before I agree wholeheartedly that it didn't belong in the deck. You can't fault him for changing the deck as a response to a change in the card pool. Mystical wasn't good TES, and now it is. That's why he runs it.

It wasn't as a response. GreenOne and I had to convince it into the build after AdN was printed.

As for the quality of posting, I agree that the signal:noise ratio is incredibly unbalanced, but it's always been that way and always will be for the foreseeable future because the number of people posting noise is always going to be so much higher. Take it from someone who has roughly half his posts in Mish-Mash, it is much much easier to post one- or two-line fluff posts than it is to type something thoughtful up with actual merit. But really, what can you do? Ban all the people who we think are being stupid? But who makes that call? The Admins? Some independent "post quality enforcement committee"? The point is that people here are allowed to post just about anything they want (within reason), and it's always going to be on the reader to seperate the wheat from the chaff.

I like the chaff. It really adds flavor. I can seperate on my own what/who I listen to as far as quality goes, but I like the little tidbits and all the mindless nonsensical tidbits left by people. I'm not condoning stupidity, but off-topic (and even some on-topic) random or funny quotes are important to us. A whole thread has been made for quotes from people, and I'd say 99% of those quotes posted have little magical seriousness involved. Use your ignore user thingy if you don't like the chaff, or enjoy the comedy of the people. I suppose it's just what you want to take away from here that determines how happy with the site you are.

Pce,

--DC

[Van Phanel]

I like the chaff. It really adds flavor. I can seperate on my own what/who I listen to as far as quality goes, but I like the little tidbits and all the mindless nonsensical tidbits left by people.

You misunderstood the OP. Nobody complains about The Source being ... well ... The Source. What you call chaff are all the little nuances that make this site so great. What Klaus called chaff were all the stupid posts that are meant to be on-topic but just dwell with stupidity.

And he's right, there are a lot of them. This is the price of a public forum though and the more I think about it, the more do I like herbig's interpretation of the issue.

[Mayk0l]

I for one would like to see more posts by the adepts in the adept threads. Those are always good reads, and I feel like the number of posts in those threads have gone down.

On the "st00pit peeoplez" thing: I believe all ideas are ideas, not all of them are as good as others, but all of them are still worth considering regardless of who came up with the idea. All people are eager to contribute. The thing that bothers me is that people keep repeating the ideas that have been discarded. I consider the Mystical Tutor issue in the TES thread an exception to this, but you should try and read the Dragon Stompy thread. After 20 pages, you're done, but there'll be like 80 more. I stopped reading there too.

I feel like quality could go up if people just read the threads before posting, but sometimes I get the feeling people are posting in threads for the sake of posting and "to keep the discussion alive". The Ichorid thread has been "dead" for some time (the LED thread), which is perfectly fine to me; nothing new has come up for the deck.

[KillemallCFH]

I feel like quality could go up if people just read the threads before posting

To be fair, telling someone to read 100 pages about a deck is pretty unrealistic. Still, you should at least read the last 10 pages or so.

Also, I really like Jack's suggestion of somehow having sub-threads to separate different ideas within a thread. However, the logistics of doing so seem like a nightmare, and it is probably unrealistic that such a thing would ever be implemented.

[herbig]

sometimes I get the feeling people are posting in threads for the sake of posting and "to keep the discussion alive".

Prime example.

[Zach Tartell]

I for one would like to see more posts by the adepts in the adept threads. Those are always good reads, and I feel like the number of posts in those threads have gone down.

I love responding to good adept questions, but I feel like it's unfair to ask us to answer questions that haven't been posed yet (no slight to you, Mayk, just saying that I wish we had more decent questions).


The thread's right here, folks. Make some noise.

[Afro]

I for one would like to see more posts by the adepts in the adept threads. Those are always good reads, and I feel like the number of posts in those threads have gone down.

I don't know if I am the only one who this happens to but when I go to post I read over what other Adepts have said and anything I am preparing to write has pretty much been said. Leaving me with either a post full of quotes or me just wasting my time.

[Pinder]

I don't know if I am the only one who this happens to but when I go to post I read over what other Adepts have said and anything I am preparing to write has pretty much been said. Leaving me with either a post full of quotes or me just wasting my time.

Yeah, if you don't get in on the ground level with the Adept Q&A, there's not a whole lot you can say without repeating what others have said. Take the current question for example. I don't know if we need deeper questions ("What's your perfect Sunday?") or whatever, but this man speaks truth.

[Mayk0l]

Prime example.

What do you mean? My post is a prime example of what I'm talking about? I disagree


Zach, Afro, Pinder;
you guys make very valid points. I'll sit down and think of some questions more sensitive to different views and opinions.

[dahcmai]

I wouldn't mind if the mods went through threads that have gotten long and deleted the posts along the lines of "have you tried this <random card>". Those are so annoying. The ones that have something like "omg, that's amzing" and they post nothing else, I think I'd smile seeing deleted also.

Would help when trying to find something in search if anything.

[Bryant Cook]

I wouldn't mind if the mods went through threads that have gotten long and deleted the posts along the lines of "have you tried this <random card>". Those are so annoying. The ones that have something like "omg, that's amzing" and they post nothing else, I think I'd smile seeing deleted also.

Would help when trying to find something in search if anything.

Moderators don't have the time for this. They're real people too! With problems, jobs and lives. What people need to do is search threads, it's not that hard.