Unwritten "rules" forum etiquette proper

I hate the people who can't stick to 1 post and think they're better than others by posting 4+ times in a row.

@skydragonv8
LOL XD

Well then I must be a forum "elitist."

I see nothing wrong with some of these rules, some of which ARE actually written...

The reason that your forum elitists don't like it when people bump old threads is because, among other reasons, that thread has become irrelevant, old news. For my high school peers here, it is like when the teacher is giving a lecture, and then you raise your hand. The teacher either does not see or does not answer your question and begins rambling on about a whole new topic, making your once valued, important question mostly irrelevant. (Yet they still post). Another reason would be that people who replied to a thread two years ago will get an alert. While this isn't much of an inconvenience, for some it is a pet peeve.

Double posts are simply annoying and show that you are lazy, which is usually bad, because you either didn't think about your post before you posted it or you can't be bothered to edit it. (Of course it's fine in auctions)

The whole strayed from topic thing, no. No. *Shakes head with a frown* No. People don't accuse you of "Thread Hijacking" when you stray from the topic. People (at least I) will generally only ask you to stay on topic when you have strayed from a serious topic. If it is just a general discussion about ONE thing specifically, ex. My Boston Bomber thread, or a price check thread, or an auction, the people are going to want you to stay on topic.

Never heard of the "You didn't use spoilers, noob" thing.

If someone is spamming, it is not true that people respond with spam to get them to stop. People will usually ask them nicely the first time, then ask them a little more affirmatively, then borderline yell at them to stop, then report them to a mod. Three posts is not considered spam in most situations, especially when the other person is spamming a lot.

"Trolling the troll is troll you troll" - please clarify.

Fixing grammatical errors has become less common overall, but when it does happen, it is usually unspecific. Meaning, instead of saying "isnt --> isn't" they will say, "Your grammar makes the post very hard to read, please review it."

That's just my two (and a half) cents, if anyone wants to respond to this I am open to constructive criticism.

Regarding the bumping of old threads... I had a very specific protocol for dealing with these offenses.

1. Delete any post about "old thread lol bump why" because that's just as bad.
2. Lock the thread and delete the bump if the bump was unnecessary or irrelevant (if it would make more sense to just make a new thread).
3. Add a note to the latest post on the thread prior to the bump stating the reason for the lock and who to PM to get it unlocked, if you had a good reason.

This removes the thread from the recently active list, removes all unread notifications about the thread, and puts it back in the archives like it belongs.

For the rest of the things: nobody cares
Seriously
"Oh no someone double posted let me clutter the thread more so everyone knows this person double posted"
If you see someone doing something incorrectly, try to inform them of this fact in as discrete a manner as you can. No need to publicly shame people for making an honest mistake. If people are breaking rules more overtly, it isn't your responsibility to tell them so. Inform a staff member of the infraction and move on your merry way.

I think this is great. It's annoying how dumb some people think you are here, I use pretty good grammar (most of the time ), whenever I make a post. Especially in auctions like Bro was talking about, also the whole deal with waiting a certain amount of hours before you can bump and stating when the auction ends exactly when it has to. I think it's important that when someone makes a thread, others need to recognize that the person who made the post is the person that regulates it, not some hotshot that just wants to become a mod, in which they try to regulate the thread for you cuz u ain't good enough fo dem. Unless a mod sees something wrong, there's no reason for other people to see something wrong.

The most "annoying" (it doesn't actually affect my life in any way) thing to me on forums is when people have unnecessary background conversations in threads. They may have been minimally relevant at the beginning, but then it's just a conversation that could easily happen in PM. (Example in this thread)

Yes, it may seem like I'm nit-picking, but I would never mention this in another thread. It's just pretty ironic/funny to me that it happened in this thread.

I wouldn't mind it if it happened to my thread, but I understand why you would not appreciate that.

Every "issue" brought up is completely relative, and thus there is no right or wrong unless defined by EMC. The conflicts that surface in this thread stem from ideological differences. Everyone has the right to have their own ideological beliefs. The point of this thread appears to be to expose an informal group of people who "police" the forums even though they hold no authoritative title.

So basically we have ideology A attempting to expose ideology B for doing certain actions that ideology A finds unacceptable, all the while going through this process using the same methods as ideology B.

If there is an elite around here, then what does that make those most affected by them? I see no "oppressed" groups around here other than banned players.

If people who act like this bother you (no one in specific), then PM Krysyy about it and discuss what you find to be issues. If they are issues, then they will be dealt with.

In general though, I have no issue with people trying to help others. Telling someone that a bid they made is invalid is probably not going to be helpful unless you are the OP or serious bidding confusion has occurred. If someone has illegally bumped their auction several times, passively explaining the auction rules to them is fine, and the staff have confirmed that in the past. While PMing the OP may seem like the right way of going about it, posting in the thread in a non-demeaning way makes sure other players know the rules too, eliminating many cases of "If AAA can do it, then why can't I?" Reporting is the officially correct thing to do, but it gives the staff an unnecessary workload.

I feel like you bring this up in every thread you can. Instead of continually hinting at it, why not just make dedicated thread to forum appropriateness and PM the relevant with a request for explanation of what is and isn't allowed? Ask them and the rest of EMC if they have issues with said threads their relation to "family friendly" and bury the hatchet for good.

But to respond to each individual option...

The problem with bumping old threads doesn't come from the thread asking about the best way to create a hopper furnace setup, it comes from the very old and now irrelevant staff threads, especially those made by members who are not around anymore. This causes confusion, makes people think that new things have been implemented, and can occasionally reignite old conflicts. There have been many times where someone has bumped an irrelevant staff thread (Any EMC-geezers remember when the Arenas thread was bumped?) and people posted on it and acted as if it were current, only to realize that the work they were doing was because someone made a mistake.

That being said, 1546451 people responding with "don't bump" is not helpful. If it is very near the top of the recent threads list, ONE person making a mention of the red text is not an issue and can both help the bumper learn, and eliminate any possible confusion.

Thankfully we rarely see this. I have witnessed one post where someone used "reply" on a ridiculously long image chain, and a spoiler would have been nice.

Double posting is tolerable, but when someone posts on their thread 3+ times within a small time frame (generally less than an hour), it is spam. Just like when you are in game you are encouraged not to post multiple consecutive sentence fragments, don't do it on the forums either.

This depends on the topic at hand. If the topic is a loose discussion, straying off topic isn't really an issue and posting a new topic about the subtopic is unreasonable. Using an auction thread or topic that the OP does not want to be derailed (ie a computer recommendation thread where the OP says "No OSX vs Win arguments") to discuss something other than the topic at hand is not ok, but let the OP (or yourself if you are a relevant member of the OP (outpost Czar)) fix it if it is recent. If it is getting out of hand, bring a staff member.

This area is the responsibility of the OP (or relevant as stated above) or staff. This is similar to being in game when someone uses caps, then 354645 people say "caps", it just creates/extends the problem.

I like watching people duking it out if they are both trolling. This doesn't include negative trolls, which are against the rules.

Alright, I think I am done...

Never mind, I have one more problem with this thread. I don't mean to be an elitist nazi forum warrior, but this should be in the Misc section, as this is an internet "problem" as stated in the OP, not a Minecraft discussion.

As a hypocrite, I agree with you.

I prefer to think of it as twice. Every time possible seems less than accurate. As for the thread idea, it'd do no good. It's the collective decision of the staff that those kind of topics are okay. I also feel I was less than subtle.

A couple of these issues that I've felt strongly about are off topic postings in Auction threads, bumping a thread to tell someone not to bump a thread, or complaining about posting in an old thread if the topic and post are still relevant.

I agree with some of the others who feel that these issues are relative to the specific post. I also get what Gawadrolt is saying in that I interpret some posters as trying to make themselves feel that they are better than another person or to make the other person feel bad. If that is someone's motivation for correcting posts, then I would agree that they are practicing elitism. You can't usually tell what someone's motive is though.

I think people go through phases or growth where they start out making mistakes, then as they start learning they begin correcting others. Initially they might call out everything, then eventually they see that not every incident needs to be corrected. I like to think that most of them are trying to be helpful at least after they have been around for a while.

I would just like to point out that the first option, before being modified(and before all the bashing of the thread, and taking away from what the thread was actually supposed to be, humorous venting) was just short of 30% of the vote(at this time there was 18-19 votes) and since it has been modified... and makes no sense now... it hasn't received a single vote. There has been another 19-20 votes since then.

The first option was showing that there are a lot of current threads that get bumped for no understandable reason while there are old threads that are relevant to current events, discussions or changes within the game or minecraft that if they get bumped someone will cry foul. The way it was worded was supposedly a problem so it got changed and no longer expresses that but now expresses something along the lines of I think old threads are more important than new threads... which makes no sense at all XD

I'm curious what in the thread was borderline or what on the thread has been mean so far? I didn't think I had seen anything close to mean except:

which from context, I think most of us can figure out that they are friends and he is joking?

What? There is no specific context too it. Just personal experience.

I think you misinterpreted what I meant when I said "from context" I was just saying that the way you worded it seemed like it was obviously in a joking manner and not antagonizing as for the rest of the thread I have read through it three times since my last post on it trying to find anywhere where people were being rude here and I... just cant? Unless of course its referring to me? I don't feel like I took anything toward being rude or mean though. I thought everything I posted was pretty lighthearted. And what everyone else had too excepts shells angry before bed post and even that wasn't really rude, just seemed like he was annoyed with the thread itself because of a misunderstanding which was hashed out.

I have no clue what you're on about. My post is in regards to someone else, not you, or even hasn't commented on this thread.

If it was bad enough it was likely removed.