What's new

Deleted thread?


Bryanis

Evard's Tentacles of Forced Intrusion
Joined
Mar 14, 2014
Messages
2,248
Reputation score
631
Well, I don't know how much I'm representative of the forum's members, but I'm kinda getting sick of seeing peoples cry for their lost thread.

Sure, it's sad. On the other hand, just like Darkfire and the other mod are telling everytime someone come crying : we've been warned.

Thread have been save because peoples have care enough about them to do the work required.
Thread I had create / followed have been put in the dreadful "to be destroyed if not updated" section - and I got warning in my alert tab every time.
So yeah, I took the time to see that they get safe. But that the minority of the info I had about them.

Every 2 weeks we had a new batch of thread put to death and another batch to the death corridor. It was pretty easy to see because they always where in the same place, and every time a new batch arrived, everyone could knew instantly because the thread about the updating of the forum was updated - meaning he was appearing in bold front - on a sticky ! That should have got your attention.
And checking the thread ? dunno about you, but checking the 5 pages of the first batch took me less than 30 mins everytime.

I'm not here to say who or who did / didn't do a thing. But it was easy to be aware of what was happening, easy to check if a thread was of concern to you.
Did you do it ? did your budy do it ? - I can't tell. But if you didn't act, then you can only have regret.
Trying to undo some harm that got your way is a very human thing, so I can't really fault peoples for asking....
But I really feel it's been going on for too long.

I know I let die some of the thread that are missed by peoples because I wasn't interested in these game (how does I know ? simply because if I see a 40+ page thread about a game I'm not interested and let it be destroyed, I can be sure some peoples will miss it). And who know, maybe in future time I'll take an interest in that game and regret not having save the game.

But that's the thing about a community - it's made of many peoples. You should be able to count on the others - and since we're all the other of others, we all need to get some work done or the community don't exist.

I'm not a mod or anything, but I really thing it's time to stop mourning the deleted thread because of laziness or lackadaisical whim and get on with the forum life to make sure the new thread are made according to the rules and save the other thread.
 

dood

Mystic Girl
Joined
Jun 2, 2010
Messages
850
Reputation score
435
Once again, and for the last time, you are all missing the point. The deletions are not just happening because the OPs are poorly written. The deletions are happening because I am forcing you all to actually give a damn about having some standards. There have been biweekly announcements, a global announcement, multiple threads of discussion, Discord discussions, private messages and alerts to thread watchers and OPs, and even PM conversations with moderators for some people, ALL telling the forum that threads are being deleted. If you guys are paying so little attention that you are missing every single one of these messages and/or refuse to put any effort in saving the threads, then all you're telling me is that either these threads are not worth saving or you don't care about not making this place a shithole.

Do you all really think I haven't thought about just locking threads or moving them to a different place? That I went straight for the nuclear option without considering something less drastic? This is an ultimatum I'm issuing to everybody because it's clear the vast majority of you have stopped caring: Either start taking better care of this place, or start losing threads.


Also,



Well then you really shouldn't be surprised threads are being lost then. Posting double digit amounts of threads to be saved in less than a month is an insane amount of work for even a group of people. I'm just saying, remove the time limit, and you might actually get what you want. Lock the threads and if people want to actually fix the shithole problem, they'll do it because they have an interest in the thread. Deleting the thread means people will never bother to fix the shithole problem, they'll probably either continue to lurk or stop reading this site (which I guess could be good, from a certain point of view). If you want people to do good things, you don't penalize them, you need to provide bonus incentive to do it, its basic psychology for this stuff unfortunately.

But if you have been posting to make sure subscribers find out about deletions, then I guess that means I haven't actually lost any threads I was subscribed to anyway (though I do remember getting a message a while back telling me that notifications may not be working). If possible then, may I suggest keeping a list of the names of threads that were killed so at least people can see how little others care?
 

habisain

Tentacle God
Joined
Jul 15, 2012
Messages
1,447
Reputation score
465
Once again, and for the last time, you are all missing the point. The deletions are not just happening because the OPs are poorly written. The deletions are happening because I am forcing you all to actually give a damn about having some standards. There have been biweekly announcements, a global announcement, multiple threads of discussion, Discord discussions, private messages and alerts to thread watchers and OPs, and even PM conversations with moderators for some people, ALL telling the forum that threads are being deleted. If you guys are paying so little attention that you are missing every single one of these messages and/or refuse to put any effort in saving the threads, then all you're telling me is that either these threads are not worth saving or you don't care about not making this place a shithole.
Personally, I'm all for tidying the place up - there's a lot of threads that should be deleted and restarted if people want, because as they exist here they're basically just noise (although figuring out which threads those are is obviously way too much moderation work). However, I do think that the reason why there is a lot of pushback on this is that even though this is just enforcement of rules which existed for a long time, there's a lot of people who actually like the idea of "ULMF as a shithole".

The basic thing is that if people were happy with the status quo, then they react negatively to pretty much any change they notice - and note that the complaints do all seem to be triggered by someone noticing that a thread they cared about is gone. There's no complaints about the majority of thread deletions, because the majority of thread deletions are for games that no-one cares about.
 

kiko

aka the Asian rapper Kikkoman Flowsauce
Joined
Feb 18, 2013
Messages
1,735
Reputation score
844
I'd trade standards for having a thread where there's a bunch of useful information in a thread, and it gets deleted just because OP is either inactive or refuses to edit the post to conform to said standards. Losing information in exchange for nothing is not worth it imo. I get that deleting new threads with poorly written OPs and I support that, but I can't get behind the moderators deleting old threads just because they're not satisfied with one petty post out of 50 in a thread, that being the first post, and I'm sure that many others think this way.

No offense to the mods, they're doing their jobs, but the new rules are way too harsh
 

dood

Mystic Girl
Joined
Jun 2, 2010
Messages
850
Reputation score
435
Yeah its just weird to me the first option is the nuclear one. I just don't see how it actually improves compliance. The rules are already being enforced on new threads (and I guess we could do something like F95zone does and have an auto template thread that shows up while making a thread that must be filled out before posting). Looking back, I don't think I lost any threads I was subscribed to. But I wouldn't be surprised if I booted up an old game, lost the save file, came back to see the ULMF thread that had the save file and found out that the thread was gone because I picked up the save well before I even became a member of the site. Oh well I guess.
 

DarkFire1004

Tentacle Goddess of the H-Section
Staff member
Administrator
Super Moderator
Joined
Nov 10, 2008
Messages
4,897
Reputation score
1,783
C'mon guys. You are bringing up points that I addressed in this thread. This is exactly why I'm feeling absolutely no sympathy over deleting these threads and am very incredulous when people say to me that the rules are too strict; very few of you are even putting forth an effort to read what I'm saying, much less putting forth an effort to making the forum a better place.

@dood
Well then you really shouldn't be surprised threads are being lost then. Posting double digit amounts of threads to be saved in less than a month is an insane amount of work for even a group of people.
This is a point others have made that I will never, ever, ever accept. I've made many counterpoints about this in this thread and various other discussion threads, which I don't want to rehash anymore, so this is the succinct version: No. It is not a lot of work. If one moderator (not even me) can spend like an hour of his time every day or two and manage to edit TWO THOUSAND THREADS on his own in the course of two and a half months, then the 130 or so active members ( ) are more than capable of writing 5-10 sentences each for about 10-20 games within two weeks. Which, by the way, isn't even accurate at this point. At the time of me posting this, there are currently eight threads that still need to be updated before they get deleted.


I'm just saying, remove the time limit, and you might actually get what you want. Lock the threads and if people want to actually fix the shithole problem, they'll do it because they have an interest in the thread. Deleting the thread means people will never bother to fix the shithole problem
You have all been informed that threads are being deleted. I make announcements every single time I've started a new batch of threads to delete. It is a matter of clicking a single hyperlink to visit the H-Section and going, "Oh hey, I like this game. I don't want to see it deleted. I'll just write a short description of its gameplay and acknowledge that I have read the announcements and want to preserve this."

If you have any interest in any of the threads that could potentially be moved there, then I would at the very least expect you to notice that these biweekly announcements have been talking about thread deletions, and you would take the smallest of cursory glances at the H-Section and realize that the thread you may be interested in is going to be deleted.

Again, this entire effort is not just to have better quality posts, but to also make sure everybody actually follows the higher standard. This includes being able to read announcements made by the moderation team. So if people can't even be bothered enough to do that, then it's their own fault for ignoring all the warning signs and letting it happen.


they'll probably either continue to lurk or stop reading this site
This is not a bad thing.


If possible then, may I suggest keeping a list of the names of threads that were killed so at least people can see how little others care?
This, I can do. I'll have a sticky out in the H-Section later this weekend.

@kiko
I'd trade standards for having a thread where there's a bunch of useful information in a thread, and it gets deleted just because OP is either inactive or refuses to edit the post to conform to said standards. Losing information in exchange for nothing is not worth it imo. I get that deleting new threads with poorly written OPs and I support that, but I can't get behind the moderators deleting old threads just because they're not satisfied with one petty post out of 50 in a thread, that being the first post, and I'm sure that many others think this way.

No offense to the mods, they're doing their jobs, but the new rules are way too harsh
You and Fenril are focused on the completely wrong perspective here. You two seem to think that the issue here is just that the OPs are bad and because of that, the threads deserve to be deleted. This is not the only reason why threads are being deleted. This is all I have to say on your post because I've addressed this at length already.

And I have, since the beginning, told everybody that ANYBODY can help contribute to preserving a thread. The OP being inactive does not necessarily mean the thread is doomed to be deleted.
 

Fenril

Grim Reaper
Joined
Jul 26, 2013
Messages
878
Reputation score
274
You and Fenril are focused on the completely wrong perspective here. You two seem to think that the issue here is just that the OPs are bad and because of that, the threads deserve to be deleted. This is not the only reason why threads are being deleted. This is all I have to say on your post because I've addressed this at length already.
That's not really the point I'm making. The point I'm making is that deletion doesn't have to be the answer AT ALL. There could simply be a subforum called the "trash heap" where every single thread in it automatically gets locked and any thread there is "non-standard." And if someone cares about it, they'll just PM you with a link and updated OP to get it moved out.

I used the Tales of Undercrust thread before simply as an example. The one thing I don't like about this strictly lies in the loss of information, because of "cleanup" and "holding to a higher standard" reasons. Have you ever had ANYTHING in your life, porn or otherwise, that you enjoyed a long, long time ago, and wanted to go back and revisit it? Like, say for example, I grew up watching the old TMNT cartoons and had a hankering to go buy a boxed set of the original cartoon run. But then when I go to search for it, all records of the TV were lost because some industry giant shut it down for some bullshit reason like "each episode was 23 minutes long rather than standard format of 22 minutes long, so all copies had to be destroyed."

Again, another example for the sake of example (and I'm stretching with how realistic of a situation it really is), but that's the kind of point I'm driving home. Sure, the cleanup is happening now, but what'll this place be like in 2020? 2025? Will this place tank like a sack of bricks because it got a reputation for "a buncha trigger-happy mods wanted standards but now so much good info in the tens of thousands of posts that used to be here has gone up in smoke because I wasn't there to save the threads I liked because I didn't visit during the 5 months when they did their so-called cleanup effort."

Don't get me wrong. I like this place and it's been a great place to find eroges. And I'm still finding more and more these days, both the new and the ones I missed out on. But if all the history and the paper trail vanishes, this place will become less valuable and less active. And that's why I'm against all the deletions and all the loss of information. And it's also why I'm against the mindset of "you could've spent a few minutes to save the thread." That's bullshit. The threads don't need to be "saved or deleted," but rather "saved or archived."

Again, I'm more for a "trash heap" or "purgatory" or "archive" section for all the old "non-standard" threads. With a section like that, you don't have to worry about necroposting, link begging, or a bunch of all the evils you're trying to prevent. And the information is still there for the people wanting to look back on times past or for reference in the future (for example, if Devs come back from the dead to make a new game - and yes it does happen).

P.S. One very real-life situation that's going on RIGHT NOW is the shit show known as Tumblr. The entire website is being gutted down hard because they made a policy change to disallow adult material. And now the site is one its way out. How much stuff has been removed from the site? How much wasn't backed up? How much has already been lost forever in the past month that this has been going on? ULMF is going through something similar though it's less extreme.
 
Last edited:

zipetya

Evard's Tentacles of Forced Intrusion
Joined
Nov 13, 2013
Messages
1,037
Reputation score
230
Well, since like 90% of the deletions have already occured, I guess it's too late to be making waves... I'll admit I haven't too much right to say something in the matter (if it is even that) since I saw that there was a discussion about this and didn't say a damn thing - and was actually too lazy to read through all the arguments / counterarguments in the -quite- many posts regarding the question... lol

But I guess the best would have been an archive for the not-up-to-par threads, the threads themselves locked... Info is there, and if anyone wants something added or asked, then by all means, rework the OP. And if someone were to post in other threads about things which are in an archived thread - *wham* a 3-day ban, or something. So the trigger-finger itch can be relieved as well. xD
Just my 2cents.
 

super_slicer

Lord High Inquisitor
Staff member
H-Section Moderator
Joined
Nov 17, 2010
Messages
12,489
Reputation score
30,465
What kind of motivation would anyone have to update those threads then? "Oh noes it's locked, boo hoo, guess I'll just ask in the gen discussion sub" is about the reaction that would have. Because that's the way most of you are. You scrape by doing the bare minimum necessary to get what you want. Honestly this was the ONLY way to motivate users, though the community at large didn't even manage to meet my low expectations, were it not for the efforts of a few select individuals the pagecount in H-games would be under 50.
 

dood

Mystic Girl
Joined
Jun 2, 2010
Messages
850
Reputation score
435
What kind of motivation would anyone have to update those threads then? "Oh noes it's locked, boo hoo, guess I'll just ask in the gen discussion sub" is about the reaction that would have. Because that's the way most of you are. You scrape by doing the bare minimum necessary to get what you want. Honestly this was the ONLY way to motivate users, though the community at large didn't even manage to meet my low expectations, were it not for the efforts of a few select individuals the pagecount in H-games would be under 50.
Well if someone does ask in the gen sub about the locked thread (probably because they wanted to post something like a plea for help or request for a save file or reupload) then I'm sure they'll be more than happy to fix the OP description and then ask the question they wanted. You said it yourself, people will do the bare minimum necessary to get what they want. So if the bare minimum to post a question and have it answered is to fix the damn thread OP, surely they'll do that.

Regarding your expectations. Expecting people to fix threads that haven't been relevant to them or for games they haven't played is not low expectations. Expecting people to not get mad once they realized the thread is now relevant to them but the content is gone is also not a low expectation. People may do the minimum necessary to get what they want but that's because they don't go to a forum to do a job. As seen by the enforcement of link begging and new thread requirements, people are more than happy to fix things and make amends once they've been told what to do. If you really had such low expectations, then telling people they had months to prepare or should have seen this coming because of the announcements is a weak argument. Expecting people to pay attention to forum politics for a place they either lurk or casually use is pretty damn heavy expectation (how many of us pay attention to our homeland's politics and remember to stay involved and up to date?).

This attitude that somehow forum users deserved to have this happen to them because they didn't meet expectations needs to stop. I should not be hearing that it is a good thing that people are being persuaded to not participate or leave the site. I have asked to have actually explained as to what exactly the mechanism is that deleting threads as opposed to locking them will actually improve the content of the website. Most people google the title of the game + ulmf to find the game, so adding a gameplay description is practically pointless. The punishment for failure to meet demands is to punish everyone involved in the thread and everyone not involved by completely deleting all content. The punishment obviously does not meet the severity of the violation. I do not like to get involved in decision-making processes because I don't have the time to. I have saved any threads that I can and I have not lost (to the best of my knowledge) any threads that I was interested in. Yet it still is perplexing how deleting valuable content and blaming the userbase for violating retroactive rules could be beneficial to the forums. You say its easy to write 5 sentences or 10 sentences for a games description yet logic isn't really being applied here. I just had to write a game-play description for a visual novel game. Who is going to be helped by a gameplay description fora visual novel game? The benefit of adding this tiny description is completely outweighed by the sheer loss of data and history should no one provide a description and the thread get nuked.

But I guess the question to ask is, did the deleting the thread actually improve the community. Given the attitudes of the people implementing it? I guess not.
 

Bryanis

Evard's Tentacles of Forced Intrusion
Joined
Mar 14, 2014
Messages
2,248
Reputation score
631
Well if someone does ask in the gen sub about the locked thread (probably because they wanted to post something like a plea for help or request for a save file or reupload) then I'm sure they'll be more than happy to fix the OP description and then ask the question they wanted. You said it yourself, people will do the bare minimum necessary to get what they want. So if the bare minimum to post a question and have it answered is to fix the damn thread OP, surely they'll do that.

Wrong. If you've been looking at the forum the past couple of month, you'll have see that there have been a lot of question asked in translation thread or sequel / prequel thread after the initial thread was deleted. Not peoples trying to recreate a game thread to discuss it.
Even worst, have you looked at the "hentai" section at all ? where the thread where stored before deletion ? Any idea of how many thread where still active during the 2 week warning period ? Peoples where hurrying to get their question answered instead of saving the thread. I've seen it happen for thread with 40+ pages. True, I could have try to save the threads. I save some, but my priority was to take care of the thread of game I care / enjoy. If a game thread has 40+ pages, shouldn't that mean there peoples interested ? Why no one did anything to save the thread ? Lurker don't post, so it's not only them. Are all the members counting on others instead of getting a move on ?


Regarding your expectations. Expecting people to fix threads that haven't been relevant to them or for games they haven't played is not low expectations. Expecting people to not get mad once they realized the thread is now relevant to them but the content is gone is also not a low expectation. People may do the minimum necessary to get what they want but that's because they don't go to a forum to do a job. As seen by the enforcement of link begging and new thread requirements, people are more than happy to fix things and make amends once they've been told what to do. If you really had such low expectations, then telling people they had months to prepare or should have seen this coming because of the announcements is a weak argument. Expecting people to pay attention to forum politics for a place they either lurk or casually use is pretty damn heavy expectation (how many of us pay attention to our homeland's politics and remember to stay involved and up to date?).

A bit extreme but why lurker should get stuff free of effort ?
More realistically, peoples just didn't bother. That's all. There was discussion about the forum evolution before the change, there was thread to announce the incoming change. There are thread update everytime thread are going to be deleted. If peoples don't bother to read what's going on at the place they go, don't they somehow deserve it ? (if you want an illustration, I take you back to your's, think of a government announcing on TV / newspaper / Net... an incoming debate for a law to suppress some civic right. No one did anything until the law is voted and they found themselves in the shit and start crying ? You have right as well as duty. If you don't do your duty, you may well lose your right(s)...)

This attitude that somehow forum users deserved to have this happen to them because they didn't meet expectations needs to stop. I should not be hearing that it is a good thing that people are being persuaded to not participate or leave the site. I have asked to have actually explained as to what exactly the mechanism is that deleting threads as opposed to locking them will actually improve the content of the website. Most people google the title of the game + ulmf to find the game, so adding a gameplay description is practically pointless. The punishment for failure to meet demands is to punish everyone involved in the thread and everyone not involved by completely deleting all content. The punishment obviously does not meet the severity of the violation. I do not like to get involved in decision-making processes because I don't have the time to. I have saved any threads that I can and I have not lost (to the best of my knowledge) any threads that I was interested in. Yet it still is perplexing how deleting valuable content and blaming the userbase for violating retroactive rules could be beneficial to the forums. You say its easy to write 5 sentences or 10 sentences for a games description yet logic isn't really being applied here. I just had to write a game-play description for a visual novel game. Who is going to be helped by a gameplay description fora visual novel game? The benefit of adding this tiny description is completely outweighed by the sheer loss of data and history should no one provide a description and the thread get nuked.

Because the forum is mostly missused. The goal of the forum is to discuss the game, not just share file & save. How do you get peoples to participate if there no description ? Would you buy a book in a bookshop just by the title, without being able to look into it, no description on the back cover, the bookshop owner refusing to say anything about it ? Hell no ! You'll want to know about it before that.
The OP goal is to explain thing a bit to make peoples look at the game and get the minimum infos required to follow the ensuing discussion.
It's true that most thread are more "here the new #### !" "look nice !" "link here !" "save ?" "thank !"


But I guess the question to ask is, did the deleting the thread actually improve the community. Given the attitudes of the people implementing it? I guess not.

I've nothing again anyone on the forum, not even the peoples crying for their lost thread. I realize I may have been harsh in answering. But really, I think by know I've said and said again what I had to say and I'm starting to get in a bad mood when answering so I think I'll leave the whole subject to peoples who're better at keeping their cool.

I think the 2 mains points here are :
1) What's done is done, you can't get back in time. Recreate thread you miss if you need them
2) If you care, get involved in the forum, don't expect other to do everything and gave everything for you (and yes, it apply even to me or the mods, forum => community => many peoples working together)
 

DarkFire1004

Tentacle Goddess of the H-Section
Staff member
Administrator
Super Moderator
Joined
Nov 10, 2008
Messages
4,897
Reputation score
1,783
Well if someone does ask in the gen sub about the locked thread (probably because they wanted to post something like a plea for help or request for a save file or reupload) then I'm sure they'll be more than happy to fix the OP description and then ask the question they wanted. You said it yourself, people will do the bare minimum necessary to get what they want. So if the bare minimum to post a question and have it answered is to fix the damn thread OP, surely they'll do that.

Regarding your expectations. Expecting people to fix threads that haven't been relevant to them or for games they haven't played is not low expectations. Expecting people to not get mad once they realized the thread is now relevant to them but the content is gone is also not a low expectation. People may do the minimum necessary to get what they want but that's because they don't go to a forum to do a job. As seen by the enforcement of link begging and new thread requirements, people are more than happy to fix things and make amends once they've been told what to do. If you really had such low expectations, then telling people they had months to prepare or should have seen this coming because of the announcements is a weak argument. Expecting people to pay attention to forum politics for a place they either lurk or casually use is pretty damn heavy expectation (how many of us pay attention to our homeland's politics and remember to stay involved and up to date?).

This attitude that somehow forum users deserved to have this happen to them because they didn't meet expectations needs to stop. I should not be hearing that it is a good thing that people are being persuaded to not participate or leave the site. I have asked to have actually explained as to what exactly the mechanism is that deleting threads as opposed to locking them will actually improve the content of the website. Most people google the title of the game + ulmf to find the game, so adding a gameplay description is practically pointless. The punishment for failure to meet demands is to punish everyone involved in the thread and everyone not involved by completely deleting all content. The punishment obviously does not meet the severity of the violation. I do not like to get involved in decision-making processes because I don't have the time to. I have saved any threads that I can and I have not lost (to the best of my knowledge) any threads that I was interested in. Yet it still is perplexing how deleting valuable content and blaming the userbase for violating retroactive rules could be beneficial to the forums. You say its easy to write 5 sentences or 10 sentences for a games description yet logic isn't really being applied here. I just had to write a game-play description for a visual novel game. Who is going to be helped by a gameplay description fora visual novel game? The benefit of adding this tiny description is completely outweighed by the sheer loss of data and history should no one provide a description and the thread get nuked.

But I guess the question to ask is, did the deleting the thread actually improve the community. Given the attitudes of the people implementing it? I guess not.

To your first point, that is not the bare minimum. The bare minimum effort you would need to make to post a question is asking in the general discussion section, asking in the translation section, or in cases of a sequel, asking in the thread of the previous game. Which is exactly what people are doing instead of fixing the OP or making a new thread. Furthermore, there're even more examples of threads being moved into the H-Section for deletion, and then discussions CONTINUING, despite being informed that the thread will be deleted in the coming weeks if the OP is not updated. So I'm sorry, but you are just completely wrong. People are not "more than happy to fix the OP description and then ask the question they wanted". They will actually allow the thread to be deleted, ask their question in a semi-related thread, and then leave.

To your second point, I cannot speak for Slicer, but those were not my expectations. What I expected out of this userbase was to actually read the many avenues of information I provided to them to find out about the changes in the rules and either follow them, or offer a different opinion on how it should be handled, much like what we're doing now. Anybody who knows how I moderate would know that I'm extremely flexible in the way I implement and enforce rules and can be convinced to change them, given enough compelling arguments. The fact it took five months for this to even occur shows that instead of trying engage in discourse with the moderation team, people would rather just complain about it without trying to change anything. What you're also telling me is that expecting people to read and follow the rules is now considered high expectations. If even this is considered high expectations, then feel free to consider me unreasonable. This is not forum politics; this is seeing a sticky about new rules, reading up on them, and following them.

If you're asking how this is going to improve the forum, it's quite simple: either people will realize that there is a much lower tolerance for low-effort posting and begin putting more effort into it, or they will leave. And from what I'm seeing, and what you're not noticing apparently, it IS working. I would like for you to take note of the threads that have been created as of late. I have not had to delete a new thread in weeks now because most everybody have begun following the new guidelines and are even going far and beyond what the requirements are. At this point, the only threads being deleted now are the older threads, and even that's beginning to reduce as well because more and more people are coming forward to offer an updated OP to preserve the threads.

Quite frankly, I don't care about how many people visit the forums. Whether there are ten members or a million, I am only concerned if the people behave in an unruly fashion or if posts are unconstructive. So your concern about hearing me say that I don't care about people leaving isn't really going to ever be addressed.

You're also contradicting yourself. You say that adding gameplay descriptions are pointless. If that were true, why are you so concerned that threads with discussion about gameplay are being deleted?

Also, you call them retroactive rules, but they are not. As stated before, these standards have always been in place; just never enforced due to a number of reasons. You also claim logic is not being applied, and the only reason I can come up with that would lead you to think that is because you've only ever attempted to do this once. Your proposal for the Liru thread that you sent me for instance was a good write-up and appreciated, but as you said, it was just a VN. As the requirements stated, all you needed to do is tell me what the gameplay is like. If you had sent me a write-up that said, "This is just a VN. Not much to say, as it's just standard click-to-advance mechanics." I would have understood and accepted it as well. As I've said in multiple different threads, the requirements for an updated OP are not high. I am not an idiot; if gameplay is so simple that there's almost nothing to talk about, then I'm fine with being lax on the rules.
 

Fenril

Grim Reaper
Joined
Jul 26, 2013
Messages
878
Reputation score
274
What kind of motivation would anyone have to update those threads then? "Oh noes it's locked, boo hoo, guess I'll just ask in the gen discussion sub" is about the reaction that would have. Because that's the way most of you are. You scrape by doing the bare minimum necessary to get what you want. Honestly this was the ONLY way to motivate users, though the community at large didn't even manage to meet my low expectations, were it not for the efforts of a few select individuals the pagecount in H-games would be under 50.
I keep going back to this one game as an example, but it's an example I keep finding to be relevant. The game I keep mentioning. It came out roughly less than a year ago. It is now getting a sequel, slated to come out some time early this year. One fact about video games is that sequels generate interest for prequels because a new audience discovers a series because they found the sequel first. So they dig into the history of the game, find the prequel, and then play the prequel, and the prequel becomes relevant again. Discussion begins again and the thread could've been pulled out of the archive and even the first post could be fixed so it's once again a thread in good standing.

But after some time, if they get stuck playing the prequel (or even the sequel), they turn to the internet for game help. One example in Undercrust I can think of off the top of my head that someone might get stuck on is a "Lost Woods" situation with looping pathways. One might get stumped on the solution, yet the solution no longer exists because.... someone decided to delete the thread because they deemed the first post to be "lacking." Another thing that happens later in the game is where you have to punch in a number to access a new room, but the solution is written in Japanese. It's not exactly an "anti-gaijin" puzzle like some games have (the game contains an in-game picture with a number on it), but the puzzle actually has two solutions with one of the game's gallery items locked behind the other solution. The thread contained all the gallery items within a guide in one of the posts, but someone searching for 100% would've had a hell of a time finding it. Yet, someone already did. But the thread is now gone because it used to be in good standing before the cleanup effort happened, but then got deleted after someone in charge changed their mind.

This is exactly why gaming sites like GameFAQs decided they would no longer purge threads and instead automatically lock threads after they go inactive for some time, and even add additional ways to find answers to common problems in games (for example, the Answers section).

Basically what's happening around here is like this.... you have a library in your town. It's been kept up fairly well (it might've been a little messy at times, but it was still a good library). The people who ran it did a good enough job but they eventually got old and had to retire. New management came in and they really hate books that don't have a Table of Contents. So now that they're the new management and can call the shots, they decide to burn every single book that doesn't contain a table of contents. People find out months or years later that this has been going on and the new manager is like "sucks to be you, because you could've printed out your own table of contents and stuck it in the book to save it but alas, you were unaware of such of thing in the months we were doing it." And now all that information contained within that book is lost because of one rash decision.
 
Last edited:

dood

Mystic Girl
Joined
Jun 2, 2010
Messages
850
Reputation score
435
@darkfire
Actually I'm just concerned about the save files, walk-through tips and other miscellaneous data (you know stuff that would be found in attachments). A gameplay description isn't going to tell you the password to the keypad on level 1. Or the exact weakness of a boss. Those are all gone because of a gameplay description not on the OP. So unless you're telling me a gameplay description on the OP is going to give me cheat codes and other secrets, I'm not contradicting myself. I sincerely doubt this stuff is coming back if someone were to post a new thread.

"If you had sent me a write-up that said, "This is just a VN. Not much to say, as it's just standard click-to-advance mechanics. "

Well shit that makes things easier now doesn't it. That means for a lot of RPG Maker games we could just putting "Standards JRPG game, kill enemies to level up, grind stats and money for equipment" Then write "CG on loss or CG on event". That would have been helpful to know. I've been told to make a small paragraph as a minimum (or at least that was my impression, taking a look at the post suggested one or two lines would only work temporarily. So being exhaustively descriptive is safe).

As for the whole issue of Deleting the threads vs archiving them and whether we could have gotten the same results either way, I'm just going to agree to disagree. I'm rather worried you're making more work for yourselves than necessary especially since you went out of your way to edit all the titles and with the deletions your getting rid of your own work too. If it is improving the community then its a good thing, I'm sure we'll get back a lot of what was lost once that list of deleted threads shows up and people remember what was lost.
 
Last edited:

mayaktheunholy

Cthulhu
Joined
Mar 17, 2012
Messages
895
Reputation score
704
@darkfire
Well shit that makes things easier now doesn't it. That means for a lot of RPG Maker games we could just putting "Standards JRPG game, kill enemies to level up, grind stats and money for equipment" Then write "CG on loss or CG on event". That would have been helpful to know. I've been told to make a small paragraph as a minimum (or at least that was my impression, taking a look at the post suggested one or two lines would only work temporarily. So being exhaustively descriptive is safe).
https://ulmf.org/threads/your-op-must-contain-this-information-or-it-will-be-deleted.12507/

There's been a stickied thread in the H games section that says exactly that since November. It's even in red in a large font.
"If a game uses a common control scheme such as RPGMaker games, or point and click visual novels you only need to state that. "

To your first point, that is not the bare minimum. The bare minimum effort you would need to make to post a question is asking in the general discussion section, asking in the translation section, or in cases of a sequel, asking in the thread of the previous game. Which is exactly what people are doing instead of fixing the OP or making a new thread. Furthermore, there're even more examples of threads being moved into the H-Section for deletion, and then discussions CONTINUING, despite being informed that the thread will be deleted in the coming weeks if the OP is not updated. So I'm sorry, but you are just completely wrong. People are not "more than happy to fix the OP description and then ask the question they wanted". They will actually allow the thread to be deleted, ask their question in a semi-related thread, and then leave.
I think what you are seeing there is more that people don't bother to read the stickied threads, so they don't even know why the thread was moved. Or they may not even know it was moved if they returned to it directly from a bookmark or browser history.
 

dood

Mystic Girl
Joined
Jun 2, 2010
Messages
850
Reputation score
435

DarkFire1004

Tentacle Goddess of the H-Section
Staff member
Administrator
Super Moderator
Joined
Nov 10, 2008
Messages
4,897
Reputation score
1,783
@Fenril
Basically what's happening around here is like this.... you have a library in your town. It's been kept up fairly well (it might've been a little messy at times, but it was still a good library). The people who ran it did a good enough job but they eventually got old and had to retire. New management came in and they really hate books that don't have a Table of Contents. So now that they're the new management and can call the shots, they decide to burn every single book that doesn't contain a table of contents. People find out months or years later that this has been going on and the new manager is like "sucks to be you, because you could've printed out your own table of contents and stuck it in the book to save it but alas, you were unaware of such of thing in the months we were doing it." And now all that information contained within that book is lost because of one rash decision.
You... do realize that the only moderators of the H-Section have been myself and Toxic, right? And I predate Toxic by about three years. There is no "old" and "new" management. It's the same management, and they've decided to reinforce the same rules that've been in existence because the majority of people checking books out have been pissing on the covers and they're deciding that they're either going to burn them or ask the community to come back and start cleaning the urine off the cover, while they can do it themselves, it would take them months to get through all the books and it'd help them recognize whether the community is going to just piss on the books again, or if they'll be more careful next time.

And people are not finding out "months or years later". It's like the management sent out letters to everybody in town, with big bold letters that books are getting burned, had multiple town hall meetings to talk about this, and everytime the books were burned, he did it in the center of town for everybody to see, then pulled out a list and told everybody this event is going to occur again at this location two weeks from now and that this list was a list of which items were getting burned next time and it would be put up on a sign in the center of town for people.

... Wow, I actually really like this analogy.

@dood
@darkfire
Actually I'm just concerned about the save files, walk-through tips and other miscellaneous data (you know stuff that would be found in attachments). A gameplay description isn't going to tell you the password to the keypad on level 1. Or the exact weakness of a boss. Those are all gone because of a gameplay description not on the OP. So unless you're telling me a gameplay description on the OP is going to give me cheat codes and other secrets, I'm not contradicting myself. I sincerely doubt this stuff is coming back if someone were to post a new thread.
That's fair. I would argue that if you did care about that thread, you'd probably want to add those sorts of things to the OP. I distinctly remember threads like Shinobi Girl doing that and thought that was far more helpful than just digging through the pages to find them. But that isn't the minimum requirement I've set, so that would easily be something that could get deleted if nobody did anything.

Well shit that makes things easier now doesn't it. That means for a lot of RPG Maker games we could just putting "Standards JRPG game, kill enemies to level up, grind stats and money for equipment" Then write "CG on loss or CG on event". That would have been helpful to know. I've been told to make a small paragraph as a minimum (or at least that was my impression, taking a look at the post suggested one or two lines would only work temporarily. So being exhaustively descriptive is safe).
Within reason, of course. If an RPG Maker game has unique mechanics, I have been telling people that their description isn't enough because they have to at least flesh that sort of thing out a little. But I have said this on page 1 of this thread:

I seriously can't stop reiterating this: we are not asking people to write essays on games. Just explain what the game is about. This is not hard. This does not require any more than 5-10 minutes of your time.
The reasoning for that announcement was because people had been sending me updates that explained almost nothing about the game except that it was an "RPG maker game. There's combat rape." This isn't an exact science and I'll freely admit that, but I'm employing the common sense rule and just filtering out who is just slapping on their keyboard to get the thread out of deletion, and who actually at least took the time to say something like,
"This is just an RPG Maker game with very little unique mechanics. It's got a rudimentary clothing system and most scenes come from combat. You go around doing quests by talking to NPCS or the guild hall, and this'll advance the story. Combat is basic RPG Maker combat, with no unique features or skills. You play as a warrior, so most of your skills are going to be melee based. Typical 'get quest, grind out xp and gold, progress story' game, but the art is nice and the story is humorous."


As for the whole issue of Deleting the threads vs archiving them and whether we could have gotten the same results either way, I'm just going to agree to disagree. I'm rather worried you're making more work for yourselves than necessary especially since you went out of your way to edit all the titles and with the deletions your getting rid of your own work too. If it is improving the community then its a good thing, I'm sure we'll get back a lot of what was lost once that list of deleted threads shows up and people remember what was lost.
The community often has us doing work that doesn't get noticed anyway. Deleting our own efforts is par for the course.
 

super_slicer

Lord High Inquisitor
Staff member
H-Section Moderator
Joined
Nov 17, 2010
Messages
12,489
Reputation score
30,465
I feel it important to mention that unless it's truly a generic game in it's genre it isn't acceptable to hand us a canned statement. Most RPG games do deviate from the standard system in some way be it clothing damage, battlefuck, relationship system, basebuilding, etc. I would expect them to be mentioned and explained somewhat.

Also, I think it important to address the general feeling of "this is unnecessary, OPs aren't important, nobody even reads them". This is patently untrue as I do read them, and even were it not my job to do so, now that they're forced to provide a modicum of information on what's actually in a game I would anyway. Moreover I don't just use google to find a thread on this site for a specific game and never have, often I just browse random threads to see if the game it's about has anything that would interest me.

A prime example of this is RPGMaker games. By and large they're uninspired and tedious as far as I'm concerned, however there are indeed RPGs that use said platform yet break the mold and offer genuinely enjoyable experiences. Previously I'd have to take the time to sift through all the titles to find those gems (and I wasn't fuckin doing that), now all I need do is read the OP of a thread to know whether an RPGMaker game is worth giving a try or not.
 
Last edited:

shi-no kissu

Lurker
Joined
Aug 20, 2012
Messages
1
Reputation score
0
I feel it important to mention that unless it's truly a generic game in it's genre it isn't acceptable to hand us a canned statement. Most RPG games do deviate from the standard system in some way be it clothing damage, battlefuck, relationship system, basebuilding, etc. I would expect them to be mentioned and explained somewhat.

Also, I think it important to address the general feeling of "this is unnecessary, OPs aren't important, nobody even reads them". This is patently untrue as I do read them, and even were it not my job to do so, now that they're forced to provide a modicum of information on what's actually in a game I would anyway. Moreover I don't just use google to find a thread on this site for a specific game and never have, often I just browse random threads to see if the game it's about has anything that would interest me.

A prime example of this is RPGMaker games. By and large they're uninspired and tedious as far as I'm concerned, however there are indeed RPGs that use said platform yet break the mold and offer genuinely enjoyable experiences. Previously I'd have to take the time to sift through all the titles to find those gems (and I wasn't fuckin doing that), now all I need do is read the OP of a thread to know whether an RPGMaker game is worth giving a try or not.
Hi I have similar sadness as a thread was move and contained guide for hgame Kyonyuu Hazard. I got permission error and sending email to contact abuse email I got response
"That thread has been moved to a "Trash" area on forum and only moderators can access it."

URL http://www.ulmf.org/bbs/showthread.php?t=26430
https://ulmf.org/threads/burakkumetaruu-1-circle-game-colection.6231/#post-683505
Is the URL that refers to check for more detail of Kyonyuu Hazard game from poster chibataue.

I would enjoy help be given if possible. Thanks.'
I think if possible we create thread for h games people did help with guides previously and that way gamers can refer back to. It will take effort of and members or players familiar with game. Is this good idea? Also unsure which moderator to speak with so please forward to attention of whoever looks after the h game section and the removal of necroposted content etc.

Regards
shi-no kissu
 
Top