BackSet

BackSet

Ray of Sunshine From Camp Half-Blood, Half-Blood Hill, Farm Road 3.141
Joined
Messages
7,919
Reactions
7,093
Medals
0

Profile posts Latest activity Postings About Post areas

  • BackSet
    • Custom Title Desecration Axiom: On a board which hands out free custom titles, there will always be at least one user who sets their title to something that cannot, by any stretch of the definition, be called a "rank" or a "title". 60% Of these off-topic ranks will be internet memes.
    (I can't help but feel personally attacked by this one)
    BackSet
    • Location Axiom: There is always another clever location field entry that you haven't seen yet.
    BackSet
    • The Internship Principle: The longer a community-driven site exists, the less welcoming (and interesting) it becomes for new members to get involved with. As a community accumulates its own backlog of history, rules (both written and unwritten), members and their respective reputations, and inside jokes, the more new members are expected to conform to the already-existing community environment rather than bringing their own ideas to the table, and the less likely new members will be willing to accept the tradeoff between obligation and fun.
    BackSet
    • Unused Equipment Request Procedure: If announcing on a MMORPGforum that they are leaving the game, especially in anger, there will be at least one response of 'can I have your stuff?'. Also, they will never actually quit.
    BackSet
    • The Reverse Boomerang Law: If a user comes back after an extended hiatus from a forum with a lengthy "I'm back" post, the user will almost certainly leave immediately again. The length of the post is directly proportional to their likelihood of disappearing forever — this is because, the more promises the user makes in this post, the more they will feel ashamed of them and wish to run away from them forever. See also the Nail in the Coffin Law.
    BackSet
    • CAD's Boomerang Law: If an active user creates a post announcing they are voluntarily leaving the community, they will almost certainly return. The length of the post is directly proportional to their likelihood of returning and inversely proportional to the time it will take for them to return. However, if an active user suddenly disappears without announcing themselves, and it was not because they were banned, the chances of them returning are much less, let alone the chances of them being remembered outside of the occasional "hey, what ever happened to MacGuffin?"
    BackSet
    Ah, Perry the Platypus. How unexpected. And by unexpected, I mean COMPLETELY EXPECTED! *click* *clang*

    Now that you're trapped allow me to explain my evil plan. You see, I have created a serum that will make me the strongest person in the entire Tri-State Area! Once I inject myself with the serum, I will be so strong that I'll be able to simply walk in and take over because who's going to challenge me. I'll be stronger than them.

    There's only one small problem, you see. I'm terrified of needles and the only way to take the serum is to inject it into myself. Unfourtanetly I had spent the last of my monthly alimony check on the serum so I couldn't create a beverage version but lucky for me I found some old inator parts in my closet which I used to create this:

    Behold! The Fear-Remove-Inator! It will remove my fear of needles from me, leaving me free to use the serum. And there is nothing you can do to stop me!
    BackSet
    • The Workshop Paradox: Most sites with a submission process will have a "workshop" forum dedicated to refining a work before it is submitted. The judges in charge of accepting or rejecting the submission will not visit this forum, even though they will cite the forum as a place for newbies to go and receive help and feedback for their project. The result is that no matter how much help the project receives in the workshop, it is not assured a passing grade by the judges.
      • Corollary: Any attempt to remedy this by having users vote for/against pending submissions will only worsen the problem, as this will only result in submissions being accepted or sent back to the workshop based 90% on how many of the author's friends vote it up and only 10% on actual quality.
    BackSet
    • Blast from the Past Rule: If a user resurrects a very old thread, the post will usually be devoid of content.
      • Corollary: In the event that a user posts a well thought out, meaningful, in-context reply that actually adds something new to an old thread, the thread will attract users asking "Why haven't I seen this thread before?", reducing the quality of the resurrected thread again.
    BackSet
    What if we got a remake of the first generation pokemon games with fighting game elements. It would be called Pokemon Blaze Blue.

    ...

    I'll see myself out.
    BackSet
    Search Button Paradox:
    • The forum's search feature is often cited as a useful tool for those seeking information, yet is entirely useless for finding answers to most questions (especially to newbies who really need to know answers to obvious questions). Users who ask these questions will often be flamed for not using the search button.
    • The use of the search button by new users is one of the leading causes of unnecessary resurrection of dead threads. The people who subsequently complain about the thread resurrection and the people who encourage others to use the search feature often have a significant overlap.
    BackSet
    BackSet
    • Search Uselessness Corollary: When using the search button to search for "Topic X", the probability of any of the results being relevant is roughly 6%. The probability of the results consisting solely dead threads involving "Topic X" and people asking "why don't we have a "Topic X" thread" is 97%.
    • If a user claims to have used the search feature when starting a thread on "Topic X", there is a one-in-three chance of an existing thread on "Topic X" on the first page.
    BackSet
    • The Third Law of Online Motion: For every notable action there is a vile and opposing overreaction.
    BackSet
    • The Second Law of Online Motion: The amount of force (F) a moderator needs to use is equal to the number of morons (m) in the community times how aggravating (a) they are, F = ma.
    BackSet
    • The First Law of Online Motion: An object in motion tends to stay in motion to the point of steamrolling over anyone who tries to tell the object that what they're doing might be a bad idea.
    BackSet
    "Aren't you a little young to be roleplaying?"
    "Why yes, yes I am."
    Kaerri
    Kaerri
    No >.> RP is just "Let's Pretend" ^D^
    BackSet
    BackSet
    I was gonna say old but I didn't feel like offending all you old fogies.
    Kaerri
    Kaerri
    >.>
    <.<

    Nah. Never too old to RP!
    BackSet
    • The Third Law of FAQ Dynamics (The Law of Inverse FAQ Importance):The importance of a FAQ/forum rules sticky is inversely proportional to how much importance it places upon itself.
      • "General Information Thread": What you get: All the answers you seek pertaining to your specific problems in the domain of the forum's topic exactly.
      • "!!! MAIN F.A.Q. AND RULES THREAD! ABSOLUTELY MUST READ THIS before you post (or do ANYTHING else) OR FACE THE CONSEQUENCES!!!" (post is linked to from the registration page, the main page, the New Thread page, the Reply To Topic page, and every other sticky at the top of the page): What you get: 2 paragraphs of why you absolutely must read the post you have navigated to, accompanied by several quotes pertaining to how many times you should read the FAQ, followed by the 4 lines of the FAQ which are all rephrasings of "Be specific when you ask questions".
    BackSet
    • The Second Law of FAQ Dynamics (The Law of FAQ Entropy):
      • Troublemakers and Loophole Abuse have a cumulative effect on the strictness of the community's rules. Thus, over time, the rules of any given community become increasingly formal and bureaucratic, which in turn causes the entropy of the FAQ and rules pages to approach a maximum. (This also applies to legal contracts and government laws, as demonstrated by the DMV.)
      • Corollary: Any community based around a common goal, no matter how informal it starts out, will gravitate towards treating the goal as Serious Business over time. The lower the barrier to entry, the faster this happens; for example, a wiki will gravitate faster than an open-source software project.
      • The Generalized Belady-Lehman Curve Corollary: For any collaborative project, the numbers of flaws and errors in both the FAQ and the project itself will initially decrease towards a minimum, but then start to increase without bound, after which these counts will continue increasing for the remainder of the project's lifespan.
    BackSet
    • The First Law of FAQ Dynamics (The Law of FAQ Fatigue): Most forum FAQs are assumed to be essentially identical.
      • Most users will read the rules of the first forum they join, then never read the rules for any others.
      • People will repeat a question answered in the FAQ at least once a week.
      • People may reply to questions by simply going "Read the FAQ" without actually giving an answer. If this happens, there is a 50% chance the question is actually not covered in the FAQ, either completely or not to an adequate degree.
    Kaerri
    Kaerri
    #2, so much...
    BackSet
    BackSet
    I just hit to close to home for most of the mods, didn't I.
    BackSet
    • The Fan Handle Rule: If a board is themed after a series, users who sign up with a screen name pertaining to the series will do one of three things:
      • Lose interest in the forum and vanish very quickly,
      • Change their name when they become a respected member of the community,
      • Consistently act like an idiot and be liked by nobody.
      • Corollary: If users without a related username are in the minority or the ratio is around equal, this is prevented from happening.
    BackSet
    • The Loss of Childhood Effect: Performing a forum restart will, in general, cause a decrease of activity in all forum members.
    BackSet
    • Reverse Briar Patch Rule: The instant a popular topic is stickied, everyone will spontaneously lose interest. Mods who dislike said topic will actively encourage this effect.
    BackSet
    • Kelter's Law ("Silence in the Library" Effect): Forum administrators who are strict about keeping all threads on topic (merging or locking duplicate topics, splitting out off-topic chatter, encouraging users to use the search button before posting, having many sticky threads at once) will find their forums full of 100-page threads which nobody will want to read all the way through. It follows that, since most intelligent users are inclined to fully read a topic before posting to it, this will lead to an overall decline in the activity of intelligent users across the forum.
  • Loading…
  • Loading…
  • Loading…
  • Loading…
Back
Top