That's what excessive off-topic spam in the test-patch threads does. If you want to thank scawen, start a thread with "Thanks Scawen, for X" where X is what you appreciate Scawen or Eric or Victor has done.. Or if you have suggestions that aren't going to directly help out with squashing bugs introduced by the test patches, start one in GD or Improvement Suggestions.. At most you could succinctly introduce it to Scawen by a link to it in the Test Patch thread. It's unlikely they won't notice those.

But posting off topic stuff in the test-patch thread just clogs it and forces Scawen to wade thru it all trying to get some work done. That's no way to thank him for his efforts.

+1


When I want to read new patch thread, I only look for Scwen posts, and it is a hard work because the thousends of useless posts

yes, i don´t like the cluttering of the posts either, but if you just like to see scavens posts use the search function and let the forum show you posts sorted by username. (that is "s c a v e n")

+1 on the seperate thank you topic

peace mo

Quote from molocco :

yes, i don´t like the cluttering of the posts either, but if you just like to see scavens posts use the search function and let the forum show you posts sorted by username. (that is "s c a v e n")

+1 on the seperate thank you topic

peace mo

Strange, I can see them fine

+1

When reading test patch threads I simply search for Scawen's posts to see anything that might be remotely interesting, e.g. he actually replies to a legitimate question.

I'm not slagging the other mods, but I reckon they should at least be working together with Scawen to seriously prune those threads. It is blatantly obvious which posts are spam. It's a thankless task I know, but I reckon it should be done. It shouldn't HAVE to be done, but some people just ignore all the guidelines and rules for the Test Patch area on the forum. I'll save my thanks for the full patch when it is released in the General section.

Quote from mrbogeyman :

[...]but some people just ignore all the guidelines and rules for the Test Patch area on the forum.[...]

And here is the problem, people don't care if they spam or not, they can't be even bothered to read the thread first.

Quote from three_jump :

And here is the problem, people don't care if they spam or not, they can't be even bothered to read the thread first.

Nor can they be bothered to read & heed this thread.

Quote from mrbogeyman :

+1

When reading test patch threads I simply search for Scawen's posts to see anything that might be remotely interesting, e.g. he actually replies to a legitimate question.

I'm not slagging the other mods, but I reckon they should at least be working together with Scawen to seriously prune those threads. It is blatantly obvious which posts are spam. It's a thankless task I know, but I reckon it should be done. It shouldn't HAVE to be done, but some people just ignore all the guidelines and rules for the Test Patch area on the forum. I'll save my thanks for the full patch when it is released in the General section.

Totally agree with this. Either delete the spam posts or give me the keys . Then give em a little time away from the forums (about a month or two), hopefully cutting down on future thankless tasks.

As for a separate Thank you thread. O yes new idea.

You know it's pretty simple to just search for all Scawen's posts in a thread, though..

Quote from Breizh :

That's what excessive off-topic spam in the test-patch threads does. If you want to thank scawen, start a thread with "Thanks Scawen, for X" where X is what you appreciate Scawen or Eric or Victor has done.. Or if you have suggestions that aren't going to directly help out with squashing bugs introduced by the test patches, start one in GD or Improvement Suggestions.. At most you could succinctly introduce it to Scawen by a link to it in the Test Patch thread. It's unlikely they won't notice those.

But posting off topic stuff in the test-patch thread just clogs it and forces Scawen to wade thru it all trying to get some work done. That's no way to thank him for his efforts.

Hear Hear, my "cringe o meter" usually goes off the scale when reading the test forum. Its embarrassing and I feel bad for Scawen. How many times do people have to be told not to spam :slap:? Scawen must have the patience of a preschool teacher.

Quote from Gnomie :

You know it's pretty simple to just search for all Scawen's posts in a thread, though..

I know it, but that is not the matter... Scawen have to read hundreds of useless posts to find 1 o 2 bugs for doing his work.

Posts like "weeeeee" and "thx for the patch" don't help to nothing at all, even if they are not requests nor criticisms...


Sorry for my english by the way

Quote from DratsaB :

Scawen must have the patience of a preschool teacher.

That's the thing though. This place is becoming more and more like preschool every day. There's many more kids (mentally or physically) fequenting this forum now than before. It has basically reached a point where there's not enough people to knock them down a peg or two when they're being stupid, resulting in the little spambots feeding off each other with this nonsense until a moderator comes along with the key. It's exactly like letting a group of children alone without adult supervision. There will be noise, bloody noses and property damage at the end of it.

Personally I'd really like to see the moderators hit down on this behaviour harder than they're doing right now. I know the poor sods are overworked as is, but if being a spamming idiot actually had real consequences people would eventually learn how to behave, eventually decreasing the workload as well.

If you think posts like those are slowing down development.... you really need to get your head out of your arse.....

It should only take around 5-10 minutes to skim through the posts and spot the bug posts. He already knows he is going to get countless irrelevant posts in the Test Patch forum, and I have yet to see "I am going to throw a hissy fit because I cannot develop the game with you guys posting like this"..... :rolleyes:

If it gets really bad, sure the Mods need to do their thing and clean it up, but do any of them have the patience for this bloody forum anymore???

It may not be a huge timesink, but god damn is it annoying. The rules of the test patch forum are very clear and Scawen has posted several times that there's too much spam. There's even a bloody popup when you visit for the first time. It's impossible to plead ignorance here, so it must be idiocy and just plain spite. People who can't follow simple instructions annoy the hell out of me.

I'm waiting for Scawen to just say "I can't work under these conditions!" and never be seen again

If he has a problem with the spam, he's well able to tell people explicitly not to, and then have the moderators back that up with infractions. You're not the development team, so I don't know why it's bothering you. Maybe Scawen likes reading a few posts that praise his efforts over the last few months? So what if it delays things by a few seconds as he skims through the thread and picks out useful posts? What's a few seconds worth every 6 months?

Quote from Tweaker :

If it gets really bad, sure the Mods need to do their thing and clean it up, but do any of them have the patience for this bloody forum anymore???

We try really hard to keep out of the test patch threads because Scawen has his way of dealing with them and we don't want to move out apparently numb posts that contain pertinent hints at bug explanations for Scawen. That said, I think even Bob was at the end of his tether the other day and yanked some really blatant rubbish out.

It is frustrating to sit and watch the crap accumulate, but yeah.. if ever Scawen got to the point where he REALLY was desperate or utterly pee'd off (an unlikely scenario, I reckon) he could shout the mods and we'd pile in and gladly sweep up

Quote from SamH :

We try really hard to keep out of the test patch threads because Scawen has his way of dealing with them and we don't want to move out apparently numb posts that contain pertinent hints at bug explanations for Scawen. That said, I think even Bob was at the end of his tether the other day and yanked some really blatant rubbish out.

It is frustrating to sit and watch the crap accumulate, but yeah.. if ever Scawen got to the point where he REALLY was desperate or utterly pee'd off (an unlikely scenario, I reckon) he could shout the mods and we'd pile in and gladly sweep up

Oh em eff gee!!! I want your f'ing avatar -.-.

You can delete this after you read it.

Quote from dougie-lampkin :

Maybe Scawen likes reading a few posts that praise his efforts over the last few months?

Praise is one thing. That's not the issue. A friendly thank you isn't spam. The problem is all the other inane comments of people who obviously haven't even read the damn first post, let alone the forum rules and the rest of the thread. These people wouldn't know a constructive comment if it hit them in the back of the head, and they do nothing but clutter up the thread with noise, or stuff that was discussed and fixed 4 posts earilier.

Why does it bother me? Because Scawen has repeatedly expressed his feelings on these posts, and that he'd really like to avoid them so he can get down to business as efficiently as possible. People flat out ignore his comments, and things actually gets worse every test patch. That annoys me, because if it was me trying to get work done it'd put me off the whole damn thing. It just creates a bad atmosphere which kills morale.

Quote from a.numpty :

Hehe. First post weeeeeeee . fantastic patch. brilliant. excellent. superb. can't wait to try it. i wub u devs.

Inspirational stuff

Quote from Tweaker :

If you think posts like those are slowing down development.... you really need to get your head out of your arse.....

Right. Filtering pertinence out of a 50% spam solution is faster than one 90-100% spam free.

I'll close this thread now, all sides have been posted. I thought the thread would die away but it keeps popping back.

I have learned to deal with the Test Patch threads, understanding the discipline will never be perfect there. Gone are the days where I tried to keep the test patch thread as an actual bug sheet. Now I just come back and read the new posts a few times a day and I save a link to each reported bug in a text file. So I only have to read each spam post once.

That said, sometimes it is annoying when there is half a page of people asking a question about a feature that is so obvious, someone MUST have mentioned it, surely they could take 20 seconds and go and look at the first few posts to see what the answer is, before making a new post. Sometimes people just don't stop and think.

But that's just an irritation, when you see the exact same point made by a new person 10 posts later (or even 3 posts later)... some people strangely can write but not read!

So yes, test patch users, please try to keep down the spam in the test patch forum, observe the rules of that section.

http://www.lfsforum.net/showthread.php?t=9866

But there no need for a thread about that in "General LFS Discussion". So I'll now close this thread.