I don't care when it's started. I just want it to be started by someone who cares enough to add the poll. The episode threads and polls are an important part of the forum and I think starting them should be left to established and active posters. I'm amazed it needs to be said.
I don't care when it's started. I just want it to be started by someone who cares enough to add the poll. The episode threads and polls are an important part of the forum and I think starting them should be left to established and active posters. I'm amazed it needs to be said.
The Zygon thread starter never had any intention of adding a poll. They created the thread specifically so that they could have some fun by not adding the poll. (Their promise in the OP that they would definitely add the poll at the right time was all part of their hilarious joke). Petty payback spoiling the fun of completely innocent Dr Who fans, because of a dispute with a small number of people. Pathetic.
(btw, I wasn't among the critics. In fact I reprimanded the critics at the time and stood up for him).
No excuse for the childishness of the thread starter, but they really got it in the neck very badly because they made a mistake with an earlier poll thread. The criticism was well over the top, and obviously they felt burned enough by it all to concoct their childish payback. (That's the problem with poking the sort of people who like starting the thread early in order to wind people up who don't like the thread being started early - they're also the sort of people who'll be spiteful if they get it in the neck.)
I couldn't care less how early the thread is started - and I don't know why others care. It's a doddle to skip over posts made before the episode ends, and if you don't like people who post during the episode then....don't read their posts. It's about formatting the thread title correctly, getting the blurb right, adding the CD93 type links and adding the right poll options at the right time.
In the meanwhile I guess people will need to be on guard to contact the Mods much earlier in the evening should the poll not appear - especially if the thread starter isn't around. (I can't do it as I can't watch the episodes until Sunday morning.)
That sounds like the beginnings of an exclusive club atmosphere. It's already bad enough with the sense of entitlement some members seem to have.
It's an unfortunate reaction to a series of problems with adding the poll this year - incorrect poll options, polls not added (mistake), polls not added (deliberate), thread not pinned etc etc.
Nobody likes an exclusive atmosphere with self appointed forum police etc, but then nobody wants to see the episode review thread cocked up repeatedly either. It's the one thread most visited by general DS users who might come here only on Saturdays to use that thread and vote in the poll. It's a shame if that little bit of fun isn't done properly - it gives the impression the sub-forum's falling apart a bit.
Unfortunately I don't think all the hullabaloo having a pop at people for starting the threads "too early" (in their opinion) has helped with the "fun" much.
[Snip perfectly good points]
In the meanwhile I guess people will need to be on guard to contact the Mods much earlier in the evening should the poll not appear - especially if the thread starter isn't around. (I can't do it as I can't watch the episodes until Sunday morning.)
Ah, but who decides if it's too early to ask the mods?
[Snip]
Unfortunately I don't think all the hullabaloo having a pop at people for starting the threads "too early" (in their opinion) has helped with the "fun" much.
Purely because the mods locked the other thread...
Mods- you say it's 'unbelievable' no one has attempted to reach a mature solution in the DW forum community to the issue of episode threads? Well take a look at this thread. Doctor Blue Box has and the preference is clear. Alas it has been ignored. Quite honestly the best thing would be if Mods do start the threads and how about actually doing something about the wind up merchants purposefully starting threads to cause disruption and annoyance? Seeing as you actually run the forum it's not an unreasonable expectation for you to manage it properly eh?
Purely because the mods locked the other thread...
Mods- you say it's 'unbelievable' no one has attempted to reach a mature solution in the DW forum community to the issue of episode threads? Well take a look at this thread. Doctor Blue Box has and the preference is clear. Alas it has been ignored. Quite honestly the best thing would be if Mods do start the threads and how about actually doing something about the wind up merchants purposefully starting threads to cause disruption and annoyance? Seeing as you actually run the forum it's not an unreasonable expectation for you to manage it properly eh?
I think Saladfingers is quite right here. Your comments on the closed thread were unfair. However mature a solution we may reach, we on the forum have no way of stopping idiots from starting episode threads when they like, or of preventing anyone from posting in them. Only you can do that.:)
If an idiot creates one of these threads then just ignore it. Don't waste a moment of your life entertaining their childish games. Leave them to their pathetic lives.
I've never opened this particular thread till today, it didn't interest me at all when the episode threads were started, as long as there was one on the day after episode screening. However, I agree with comments above, the comment from the moderators was stupid. If someone who doesn't have the ability to create a poll - goes and creates one - then how are we supposed to be able to prevent this happening? STUPID.
OK, there is only one solution here - Someone with an ability to add a poll makes all the threads for all the remaining episodes now and be done with it. We ask the mods to lock the threads and make them pinned. Then ask them to unlock them on the day of the episode and then unpin them after 5 days.
I echo the opinions above that it is a bit unfair to demand that the 'community' come to its own arrangements in regards to the starting of episode threads when said community is powerless to stop the creation of premature threads - a position that falls to the admin in any case. The thread created tonight for next week's episode was by someone with less than 30 posts... nobody here has the authority to stop them, and nobody could have pre-empted it.
My own personal opinion, for what little it's worth, is that a thread should maybe be made available for posting the day before an episode is broadcast - simply because it's the majority view conveyed in the poll on this very thread. That's regardless of my preference, it just seems the most sensible. It gives anyone the chance to talk about pre-episode stuff in the thread should they wish, without cluttering the thread with needless chat that has a tendency to go wildly off-topic.
A thread made available consistently for posting on a Friday would be ideal. As to who creates it - well I should just hope that that's more trivial once the actual routine has been agreed upon.
I kinda agree with DS admins tbh, and we should take them up on the offer that they set the thread and poll.
There are too many people with short attention spans, and mobile devices, and whatever else, to contain for long.
Let the mods do it. Simple.
I would agree with the offer, if it was an offer, but it wasn't. It's tone was a telling off and it indicated that as a forum community as a whole we are all to blame for the failings of the minority. Very disrespectful and I don't like being bucketed into a category by someone just getting annoyed at being asked to do the same thing every week and venting their frustration at us.
I'd be more than happy for the mods to do as suggested, I don't like being patronised as being part of a collective group of people who ".... can't come up with a mature system". We can come up with a system and we have suggested many I believe. But we can't stop people making threads - we're not sitting in front of people as they launch their computers, we're not in a position to stop them creating "so called" official threads when they can't create their own polls. Downright silly comment by that mod.
Like I said, if we don't pre-emptively create all future poll threads, this will happen again every week. If we don't pin them, they will drop off the first page and people will forget about them and create a second thread. Best create them all now in one go now.
I echo the opinions above that it is a bit unfair to demand that the 'community' come to its own arrangements in regards to the starting of episode threads when said community is powerless to stop the creation of premature threads - a position that falls to the admin in any case. The thread created tonight for next week's episode was by someone with less than 30 posts... nobody here has the authority to stop them, and nobody could have pre-empted it.
My own personal opinion, for what little it's worth, is that a thread should maybe be made available for posting the day before an episode is broadcast - simply because it's the majority view conveyed in the poll on this very thread. That's regardless of my preference, it just seems the most sensible. It gives anyone the chance to talk about pre-episode stuff in the thread should they wish, without cluttering the thread with needless chat that has a tendency to go wildly off-topic.
A thread made available consistently for posting on a Friday would be ideal. As to who creates it - well I should just hope that that's more trivial once the actual routine has been agreed upon.
It's odd that Digital Spy's comment has disappeared isn't it?
If an idiot creates one of these threads then just ignore it. Don't waste a moment of your life entertaining their childish games. Leave them to their pathetic lives.
That implies that the rest of the forum can act as one. It's can't. The threads don't get ignored and we don't want to have multiple parallel discussions about the same episode.
It's a real shame that a couple of very silly people have led us here.
How amusing to look back it is to look back on the earlier parts of this thread, with posters saying things like 'what's the problem' and to just ignore an early thread, as if those of us like me, saldfingers81 and others who thought there was a problem were just some hardliners trying to tell everyone what to do.
Now of course, this thread's attempt to be hear from anyone who cared to comment or vote, and it's subsequent result that most who had a preference preferred it to be started closer to the episode than not, were completely ignored.
As a result, the form front page looks total chaos. with duplicate threads, ridiculously early christmas threads, and parody threads just to make light of the whole mess, all because some couldn't care less what others think, and seem to think there is some magical honour, or some boost of self worth, to race others to create an episode thread way before it is needed.
The only problem I saw yesterday was that someone failed to check to see if there was an episode thread already before creating their own. Checking for the existence of a matching thread before creating one of your own is just normal forum etiquette, and not restricted to episode threads.
None of what happens yesterday had any bearing on the habit of people creating the episode thread 7 days before the episode is broadcast. It was only on page 2 - it's not much to ask that people flick through 1, 2 or 3 pages or so of thread titles before creating a thread of their own. Glancing down page 1 isn't really enough.
I'd suggest people used the search function, but that doesn't seem reliable these days. If the existing thread had been on page 10 or something then fair enough, but it wasn't.
It was just a simple error by the 2nd thread creator and I'm sure he meant no ill will. You then chose to use that as a launch pad for your "I hate early thread creation" thing and the joking launched from that. But it was all rather contrived on your part. Funny though!
The episode threads have been problematic this year - but mostly because the polls have been done wrong over and over again. Not because they've been started early.
The only problem I saw yesterday was that someone failed to check to see if there was an episode thread already before creating their own. Checking for the existence of a matching thread before creating one of your own is just normal forum etiquette, and not restricted to episode threads.
None of what happens yesterday had any bearing on the habit of people creating the episode thread 7 days before the episode is broadcast. It was only on page 2 - it's not much to ask that people flick through 1, 2 or 3 pages or so of thread titles before creating a thread of their own. Glancing down page 1 isn't really enough.
I'd suggest people used the search function, but that doesn't seem reliable these days. If the existing thread had been on page 10 or something then fair enough, but it wasn't.
It was just a simple error by the 2nd thread creator and I'm sure he meant no ill will. You then chose to use that as a launch pad for your "I hate early thread creation" thing and the joking launched from that. But it was all rather contrived on your part. Funny though!
The episode threads have been problematic this year - but mostly because the polls have been done wrong over and over again. Not because they've been started early.
But that hasnt got anything to do with someone starting the Xmas episode thread three weeks early though which i think was something of the last straw for many.
But that hasnt got anything to do with someone starting the Xmas episode thread three weeks early though which i think was something of the last straw for many.
That's the kind of thing you get when you let everybody and his dog know how best to get on your nerves! It was even suggested by doctorbluebox as a specific something he didn't want to see happen! It seemed inevitable that this is then exactly what would happen.
By repeatedly poking people who don't mind the threads being created early, you agitate them into deliberately doing exactly that.
DS isn't moderated the way GB is. Anyone can create the thread so it is inevitable people who want the thread early will create it early. You tried to get the mods interested in taking note of the poll on this thread and hoped they would step in and help organise things along those lines. Unfortunately for you they don't seem to care when the thread is created. Bad luck.
That's the kind of thing you get when you let everybody and his dog know how best to get on your nerves! It was even suggested by doctorbluebox as a specific something he didn't want to see happen! It seemed inevitable that this is then exactly what would happen.
Well that sort of attitude seems to suggest a forum in which everyone takes what you don't like and purposely does just that.
Excuse me for thinking this was generally a quite agreeable forum where, even though heated debate is often had, I was under the impression that where possible people did there best to be polite to each other, or at least not go out of there way to purposely try to aggravate others.
Besides, it wasn't exactly something I said I didn't want to see as though I said 'this must not happen'. I simply joked on another thread, in response to someone else's joke about a possible early christmas thread, that some people had got to the point where they'd probably start it next week (and I thought it was a joke to say as early as next week, didn't even consider in joke terms someone doing it before the finale)
Also, don't act as though it's just me and saladfingers having a gripe. If you look at the now locked first Christmas thread, practically the entirety of posts consist of various posters all voicing annoyance at the extreme earliness of the thread. Not to mention once again this thread's poll, which still shows 'the day before' and '2-3 days before' as the most popular options of what people want.
Clearly the problem here is that this is not an OFFICIAL When to Start the Official Episode Thread.
That is a very good point!
I will start the OFFICIAL When to Start the Official Episode thread right now.
And I wish someone would hurry up and start an official thread for the Christmas episode. I want to vote in the poll.
Sorry for making light of what's rather an annoying subject. Previously I didn't much care when the episode threads began and voted as such (although consistent poll options would be nice) but now that the situation seems to have gotten rather out of hand I can see the point of not starting the threads until a few days before.
Start all the episode threads at the beginning of the series, make them official, the person who creates them should be in a position to add a poll (50 posts min right?).
As members we should take it on ourself to bump the respective thread in the week it's about to show. If anyone starts a thread not knowing there already is one (because they're new) - we get the mods to delete it and bump the proper thread which was created at the beginning of the series.
Should be done on the Saturday to reduce useless posts and this ridiculous banter as much as possible. The episode thread should be a reaction thread, and you shouldn't have to skip to page 2 or 5 to get to people who have actually begun to watch the episode.
Should be done on the Saturday to reduce useless posts and this ridiculous banter as much as possible. The episode thread should be a reaction thread, and you shouldn't have to skip to page 2 or 5 to get to people who have actually begun to watch the episode.
Comments
(btw, I wasn't among the critics. In fact I reprimanded the critics at the time and stood up for him).
No excuse for the childishness of the thread starter, but they really got it in the neck very badly because they made a mistake with an earlier poll thread. The criticism was well over the top, and obviously they felt burned enough by it all to concoct their childish payback. (That's the problem with poking the sort of people who like starting the thread early in order to wind people up who don't like the thread being started early - they're also the sort of people who'll be spiteful if they get it in the neck.)
I couldn't care less how early the thread is started - and I don't know why others care. It's a doddle to skip over posts made before the episode ends, and if you don't like people who post during the episode then....don't read their posts. It's about formatting the thread title correctly, getting the blurb right, adding the CD93 type links and adding the right poll options at the right time.
In the meanwhile I guess people will need to be on guard to contact the Mods much earlier in the evening should the poll not appear - especially if the thread starter isn't around. (I can't do it as I can't watch the episodes until Sunday morning.)
It's an unfortunate reaction to a series of problems with adding the poll this year - incorrect poll options, polls not added (mistake), polls not added (deliberate), thread not pinned etc etc.
Nobody likes an exclusive atmosphere with self appointed forum police etc, but then nobody wants to see the episode review thread cocked up repeatedly either. It's the one thread most visited by general DS users who might come here only on Saturdays to use that thread and vote in the poll. It's a shame if that little bit of fun isn't done properly - it gives the impression the sub-forum's falling apart a bit.
Unfortunately I don't think all the hullabaloo having a pop at people for starting the threads "too early" (in their opinion) has helped with the "fun" much.
Ah, but who decides if it's too early to ask the mods?
Quite.
Mods- you say it's 'unbelievable' no one has attempted to reach a mature solution in the DW forum community to the issue of episode threads? Well take a look at this thread. Doctor Blue Box has and the preference is clear. Alas it has been ignored. Quite honestly the best thing would be if Mods do start the threads and how about actually doing something about the wind up merchants purposefully starting threads to cause disruption and annoyance? Seeing as you actually run the forum it's not an unreasonable expectation for you to manage it properly eh?
@the mods -
I think Saladfingers is quite right here. Your comments on the closed thread were unfair. However mature a solution we may reach, we on the forum have no way of stopping idiots from starting episode threads when they like, or of preventing anyone from posting in them. Only you can do that.:)
If an idiot creates one of these threads then just ignore it. Don't waste a moment of your life entertaining their childish games. Leave them to their pathetic lives.
OK, there is only one solution here - Someone with an ability to add a poll makes all the threads for all the remaining episodes now and be done with it. We ask the mods to lock the threads and make them pinned. Then ask them to unlock them on the day of the episode and then unpin them after 5 days.
There are too many people with short attention spans, and mobile devices, and whatever else, to contain for long.
Let the mods do it. Simple.
My own personal opinion, for what little it's worth, is that a thread should maybe be made available for posting the day before an episode is broadcast - simply because it's the majority view conveyed in the poll on this very thread. That's regardless of my preference, it just seems the most sensible. It gives anyone the chance to talk about pre-episode stuff in the thread should they wish, without cluttering the thread with needless chat that has a tendency to go wildly off-topic.
A thread made available consistently for posting on a Friday would be ideal. As to who creates it - well I should just hope that that's more trivial once the actual routine has been agreed upon.
I would agree with the offer, if it was an offer, but it wasn't. It's tone was a telling off and it indicated that as a forum community as a whole we are all to blame for the failings of the minority. Very disrespectful and I don't like being bucketed into a category by someone just getting annoyed at being asked to do the same thing every week and venting their frustration at us.
I'd be more than happy for the mods to do as suggested, I don't like being patronised as being part of a collective group of people who ".... can't come up with a mature system". We can come up with a system and we have suggested many I believe. But we can't stop people making threads - we're not sitting in front of people as they launch their computers, we're not in a position to stop them creating "so called" official threads when they can't create their own polls. Downright silly comment by that mod.
Like I said, if we don't pre-emptively create all future poll threads, this will happen again every week. If we don't pin them, they will drop off the first page and people will forget about them and create a second thread. Best create them all now in one go now.
It's odd that Digital Spy's comment has disappeared isn't it?
That implies that the rest of the forum can act as one. It's can't. The threads don't get ignored and we don't want to have multiple parallel discussions about the same episode.
It's a real shame that a couple of very silly people have led us here.
Now of course, this thread's attempt to be hear from anyone who cared to comment or vote, and it's subsequent result that most who had a preference preferred it to be started closer to the episode than not, were completely ignored.
As a result, the form front page looks total chaos. with duplicate threads, ridiculously early christmas threads, and parody threads just to make light of the whole mess, all because some couldn't care less what others think, and seem to think there is some magical honour, or some boost of self worth, to race others to create an episode thread way before it is needed.
None of what happens yesterday had any bearing on the habit of people creating the episode thread 7 days before the episode is broadcast. It was only on page 2 - it's not much to ask that people flick through 1, 2 or 3 pages or so of thread titles before creating a thread of their own. Glancing down page 1 isn't really enough.
I'd suggest people used the search function, but that doesn't seem reliable these days. If the existing thread had been on page 10 or something then fair enough, but it wasn't.
It was just a simple error by the 2nd thread creator and I'm sure he meant no ill will. You then chose to use that as a launch pad for your "I hate early thread creation" thing and the joking launched from that. But it was all rather contrived on your part. Funny though!
The episode threads have been problematic this year - but mostly because the polls have been done wrong over and over again. Not because they've been started early.
But that hasnt got anything to do with someone starting the Xmas episode thread three weeks early though which i think was something of the last straw for many.
That's the kind of thing you get when you let everybody and his dog know how best to get on your nerves! It was even suggested by doctorbluebox as a specific something he didn't want to see happen! It seemed inevitable that this is then exactly what would happen.
By repeatedly poking people who don't mind the threads being created early, you agitate them into deliberately doing exactly that.
DS isn't moderated the way GB is. Anyone can create the thread so it is inevitable people who want the thread early will create it early. You tried to get the mods interested in taking note of the poll on this thread and hoped they would step in and help organise things along those lines. Unfortunately for you they don't seem to care when the thread is created. Bad luck.
Well that sort of attitude seems to suggest a forum in which everyone takes what you don't like and purposely does just that.
Excuse me for thinking this was generally a quite agreeable forum where, even though heated debate is often had, I was under the impression that where possible people did there best to be polite to each other, or at least not go out of there way to purposely try to aggravate others.
Besides, it wasn't exactly something I said I didn't want to see as though I said 'this must not happen'. I simply joked on another thread, in response to someone else's joke about a possible early christmas thread, that some people had got to the point where they'd probably start it next week (and I thought it was a joke to say as early as next week, didn't even consider in joke terms someone doing it before the finale)
Also, don't act as though it's just me and saladfingers having a gripe. If you look at the now locked first Christmas thread, practically the entirety of posts consist of various posters all voicing annoyance at the extreme earliness of the thread. Not to mention once again this thread's poll, which still shows 'the day before' and '2-3 days before' as the most popular options of what people want.
That is a very good point!
I will start the OFFICIAL When to Start the Official Episode thread right now.
And I wish someone would hurry up and start an official thread for the Christmas episode. I want to vote in the poll.
Sorry for making light of what's rather an annoying subject. Previously I didn't much care when the episode threads began and voted as such (although consistent poll options would be nice) but now that the situation seems to have gotten rather out of hand I can see the point of not starting the threads until a few days before.
As members we should take it on ourself to bump the respective thread in the week it's about to show. If anyone starts a thread not knowing there already is one (because they're new) - we get the mods to delete it and bump the proper thread which was created at the beginning of the series.
People will eventually get the message .....