Createspam, Createblog has created a monster Options

[NoSex]

Alright. I have noticed recently that these boards have been suffering from an obscene amount of spam and one on one conversation based posting. The entire vibe and feel of the boards have, in my opinion, reached a kind of low. The debate threads are more stagnant than ever. The lounge is a waste of time. The entertainment threads suffer any kind of in-depth or worthwhile posts. It just seems like the community boards are really beginning to suck.

The problem is, how would we solve this problem?
Do we need to punish those spammers? If so, will traffic decrease to a useless degree?
Maybe we can try to attract some older parties?
The debate thread could become exclusive. But, then it might actually become entirely stagnant.
The idea for an art subforum seems to be a push in the right direction.
Or maybe I should just find a more suitable community board?

What do you guys think?

[NoSex]

I think some people start to post things just because we have a subforum for it, making it hard to find the meaningful threads.

I definately agree. The kind of topics (most of which are "drive-by") we have in many of the subforums seem as if they would never have existed given that the subforum was not present. Plus, many of these threads really confuse me as to what everyone's intent is with their creation. It couldn't possibly be a genuine interest, given the nature and way people treat the threads.

But aside from that, you're exactly right—well-intentioned threads are often drowned out by the habitual posting that happens.

Agreed, and that is why I feel we need to start placing these general and impersonal "drive-by threads" inside of the sandbox. However that needs to be done, whether or not that means more rules, I think is becoming necessary. I don't think I could cringe at a rule that will, ultimately, benifit the community greatly without any kind of censorship or extreme control. I mean, the "drive-by threads" could live and breathe, but they would have to find living quarters inside the Sandbox, so that we can have room for more meaningful threads.

I don't think we need more active members, so much as different active members. New blood. Or old blood.

Agreed. We just need some new members who actually remain active and contribute to the community. In order for that to happen, we may need to fix our biggest problems first, so this place is that much more welcoming, entertaining, and interesting - for everyone (or at least, more people, different people. Can't make everyone happy).