[Sway]

This is the staff pet peeve thread. If something annoys us, we'll let you know here, and we may possibly warn you if it continues.

This is a closed topic that staff will likely post in from time to time. Better to have no discussion so new members can learn the ropes without sifting through comments.

We already know "I'm leaving"-style attention whore topics annoy us, and so does bitching about a topic you don't like, and furthermore we don't like bad spelling and grammar, so let's start with something new:

Using reeeeally tiny text to "hide" some comment. It was clever at first, but now it's just getting old and it's annoying as hell to C&P into Notepad just to see what mundane thing you have written. Knock it off, guys.

[Lord Shmeckie]

Notepad? Why not just do what I do and paste it to the address bar? So much easier.

Personally, I'm getting sick of off-topic bloviating from people too opinionated to contain their views. For instance, Shadow Tyrant posting his "brilliant" essay on the government in the Revolution controller topic was unbelievably retarded. Time "Lady" trying to turn the topic about australian bands into a crusade against The Man was also ridiculous.

If you have opinions on the world, please note that none of us but you care about them, unelss it's the subject of the thread. Threads evolving into other topics is one thing, but instances like the above are just stupid actions done by stupid people. Please, ladies and gentlemen, don't be stupid. If not for me, then for lovable ol' Sway and his board.

[Sway]

I understand that we strongly encourage the use of proper grammar and spelling here. However, recently it seems we have a nitpicking epidemic, turning the forum into a grammar police state. For example:

Poster A: Sonic, Tails, and Knuckles are obviously metaphors for Clotho, Lachesis, and Atropos, but this is merely superficial and a trap for the lazy. A deper reading reveals that they symbolize the partes tres into which Gallia was divided, but this too is merely another level of abstraction. I believe the true analogy is, of course, that of a superposition of the Trinity of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.

Poster B: Uh, excuse me, but for your information "deper" is not a word, and therefore I cannot understand your post at all. After much careful research, however, I was able to determine that the word "deeper" fits into the context very nicely, and I believe with 98.7% accuracy that this is probably the word you were looking for. In the future please do not make such glaring mistakes.

So someone used transposed two letters in a word, or left the "s" off of a word that was supposed to be plural, or by mistake left out a word entirely. You don't have to quote and correct every little thing!

[Master of AFTER]

Hey everybody, I want you to look at something:

 miffed.png (54.61K)
Number of downloads: 4

You see the part I circled? Look at it. I mean, really look at it. Closer. LOOK at it. LOOK AT IT DAMN YOU! It's called a date, and it exists to give an accurate record of when a post was made. The next time you're about to post in a topic, look at the date first. Look at the date and see when the last post was made. If it was over a few weeks ago, you're probably going to want to avoid posting anything in that particular topic. If it was over a month ago, definitely leave it alone. If it was over several months ago, then you'd damn well better not touch that topic for fear of death by unspeakably horrible torture.

Now, there are exceptions, such as reviving a topic that hasn't been active for some time to post information that's pertinent to the topic at hand. An example would be if someone starts a topic about a particular video game several weeks prior to its release, then the game actually comes out and you play it and you want to talk about, at that point you can go ahead and post in the original topic, even if it has already been inactive for a little while. In the long run it's more efficient to revive the old topic as opposed to starting a new one.

Do NOT, however, resurrect a topic if you have nothing of any real value to add to it. And if a topic is so old that it isn't even on the first page of a category listing anymore, then just let it stay dead. It's the natural order of things.

So, to recap: Do not revive old topics unless you have a damn good reason for doing so! In fact, don't revive them at all, since most of you lack the ability to correctly judge what a "good reason" actually is.

[Sway]

While I can appreciate the fact that most of the people here are very passionate about video games and care a great deal about the industry, stop spouting pure, unadulterated bullshit.

"M$ IS IN DEEP SHIT BECAUSE THE XBOX 360 CAME OUT EARLIER THAN OTHER SYSTEMS!"
"NINTENDO'S MARKET SHARE WILL SHRIVEL UP LIKE SHIGERU MIYAMOTO'S TINY ASIAN PENIS AFTER A COLD SHOWER DUE TO THE FACT THAT THE CONTROLLER IS A REMOTE!"
"SONY CAN'T WIN BECAUSE NINTENDO WILL!"

That all might fly on GameFAQs, but over here it is slowly driving me insane. And yes, I made up a cute quote for each side, but truth be told, it's mostly a few key Nintendo fanboys who are being irrational. This forum is overwhelmingly pro-Nintendo, which is fine, but some of you need to relax. Nintendo is not a juggernaut that will dominate the market with Mario Cervical Cancer and Super Smash Brothers Gangrape and The Legend of Zelda: Mario Metroid Prime. They are being quite smart by appealing to a different crowd in order to stay alive in the new market dominated by supercorporations, but they're not going to sell 78 billion units and not everyone is masturbating to MPEGs of the wireless receiver being repeatedly thrust in and out of the controller port. It's just you guys. Knock it off. And let me make it very clear this is just a few people, not all Nintendo fans.

We all have our biases. I think Nintendo is going to bring up the rear. But I don't pull evidence out of my ass. If you think Nintendo is going to be number one, Sony (who own everything) have shot themselves in the foot, and Microsoft (who have run almost everyone they have gone up against directly out of business) are fucked because they just don't get it, fine. Back it up with an intelligent post that will make people consider your point of view.

And now, to all rabid game fans, quit taking every thread about a new system you don't like as an opportunity to make some snide, thinly-veiled comment about that system. No one gives a shit if you think Sony changing the color of the LED light means that they are showing uncertainty in the face of stiff competition, shut the fuck up.

THEY'RE JUST VIDEO GAMES!!!

[Lord Shmeckie]

What the fuck is WRONG with you people?! Why the fuck do you bicker and bitch constantly at every post by someone obviously too stupid to reason with. First, you all, with your god damn jump-the-bandwagon mentality, act like mother fucking jackasses every time Chaos Vegeto had something stupid to say, to the point where you were fucking over every topic he spoke in. Why? So you pissants could get in your dumbass little jokes that NO ONE FOUND FUNNY! Oooo, or when you all would make reply after reply of "shut up Chaos Vegeto ur so stupid". I mean, damn, I yelled at him once or twice, but you fucks couldn't go once without sidetracking shit with your lame jabs at him. Did me and Moab and Muzzy start some "make fun of people" comedy bandwagon or something? Whatever the reason, you're ALL failing at it, NONE of you can crack a joke worth a damn, please stop doing it.

Speaking of dealing with stupid people, how stupid can YOU people be?! Must you respond to every "omg lol bad tipng" post with detailed explinations of how stupid the person is, and a reaction to every one?! Mother fuck, if someone wanted to rattle this forum, they'd just have to act like that Shadow guy, AND THEY'D FUCKING SUCCEED! ALL BECAUSE OF YOU PEOPLE!

You people are fucking obssesed with this make-fun-of-people bandwagony bullshit. Before CV, it was STS, and I think the question mark guy before that. If you wanna make fun of someone, a crack or two is fine, but quit fucking replying to every post they make with stupid insult comedy. The "view all posts by this member" option is not your personal tool for hilarity.

Speaking of comedy bandwagons, please take heed to these words; NONE OF YOU ARE FUCKING CRAZY, ZANY, SILLY, GOOFY, HILARIOUS, AND I WILL NOT BE LOOKING OUT 'CAUSE YOU'RE A-COMIN'! You people are trying way too fucking hard to make Quote of the Month, and all these half-assed, unfunny, sprite comic-quality zingers are starting to annoy me. And for god's sake, must you fucking name-drop Muzzy CONSTANTLY?! Yes, we get it, we all love Muzzy and his drinking, drugging, sprite comicing antics. Fine and dandy, but mentioning him in your remarks doesn't make you funny, or observant, or cool, or with it, or in the clique, or what-the-fuck-ever. You've all been name-dropping him since I fucking got here. It's played out. At the very least, PICK SOMEONE ELSE!

[Muzzy Roberto]

I'm with Shmeckie. You guys really need to stop getting off-topic and attacking whoever posts something you don't agree with. Someone makes a stupid post? Ignore it. Don't make us have to punish you people for flaming, we really don't want to.

[Sway]

From time to time, we here at Sonic Online get a new member. Inevitably, this new member is borderline retarded and immediately breaks several minor rules. Some of you, as members, are sure to point this out to them. That's not necessarily a bad thing, but there are points where it crosses the line into assuming you speak for the moderation team here, and I've noticed it's becoming more and more frequent.

I appreciate letting a new member know he shouldn't do x or y, but some things should be left to staff. For instance, the old topic rule is not "over 30 days and don't post, period" There's a lot more to it than that. It's a staff judgment call based on a made up formula in our heads of how much the new post contributes vs. how old the thread is while adding in what forum it is, what the topic's about, the likelihood of continued conversation in the topic, what our current mood is, and whatever else we pull out of our ass, not two weeks period, not one month period, not even three years period if the post is that fucking amazing (though it probably deserves its own thread if it's that good).

Another example: A bit back, one member kept messing up uploading a picture, and posted a topic three times. Another member decided to state the obvious in all three threads, which serves no purpose except to pile up more shit and annoy me. The staff will see this, and merge the topics or delete excess posts or something. We don't need that sort of "help".

Spelling and grammar is another one. Yes, we encourage good grammar, but give a guy a break if he didn't capitalize an otherwise readable post. It's alright to politely ask someone to capitalize; it's not alright to say "Huur, ever hear of the shift key, dumbass?" or something else insulting. Kids who just totally AOL speak it up, go nuts on tearing into them, I don't care.

Sometimes, I admit, I just let minor things go, because I like to observe how the new member is likely to turn out, and it can also be easier to just ignore something than waste your time dealing with someone who probably won't be visiting within a week. I'll make an effort to stay more on top the little things if it helps, so just remember to do your part as well and leave the sticky situations to the officials.

Edit: I just realized I have simply reiterated a good portion of this thread in my post, so another thing you guys should do is remember this thread.

[Master of AFTER]

It's been awhile since we've had a new post in this topic, but gosh darn it, I've just got to get something off of my chest. I'm not so much miffed as I am slightly irked, but I think this is still applicable...

Okay, here goes: The one/two-word replies to introduction threads. Stop making those, please.

Don't get me wrong guys, I think taking a moment to make a newbie feel welcomed is a really nice gesture. However, if you're going to welcome someone, put a little effort into it. Simply posting "hey" or "hi there" or "welcome" with nothing else doesn't say "I'm glad you've decided to become a part of our community," so much as it says "I acknowledge your existence but I don't really care enough to be bothered spending more than three seconds welcoming you." Not only do the single-word responses seem coldly impersonal, but honestly, they pretty much constitute spam in my opinion. And I think we already have enough of that in every other forum.

Naturally, you shouldn't feel obligated to type up a five hundred word essay explaining why this new person has changed your life for the better by joining SOL, but one or two brief sentences can be the difference between seeming genuinely interested in someone and merely phoning it in for brownie points. And if you just can't think of anything original to say when someone new joins, maybe it would be better if you simply avoided their intro topic and made them feel welcomed some other way (I find offering new members cyber sex via PM is a great way to break the ice).

Thanks!