[Quarterley]

Hello People of OT,

We are sorry to announce that we will be trimming down some game threads and continuation threads on this board, closing them for good. This decision was based on the alarming number of continuation threads on this board. We feel that it is time to cut down some and re-direct topic threads into the spotlight instead. Here are the threads that we have decided to elminate:

I Love...
I Hate...
I Wish...
What time is it where you are right now?
Person Above You
What is your posts per day?
Tell me something random about yourself?
Sing out song lyrics...
Last Letter Geography
Avatar Blog

We have made this decision based on a variety of reasons, such as the history of the threads, the function of the threads, and the posts we have seen on the threads. We understand that you may have really liked some of these threads or wish we'd choose to eliminate a different thread instead. But as much as we would like to allow posters to be random and have fun on this board, we can only allow those that would lead to more creative or interactive posting to stay.

Please don't be mistaken that we are not allowing you to do random fun posting of very few words on continuation threads anymore. There are still a couple we kept, such as Three Word Posts or the smilie thread where you can be random. We are only cutting out threads that are less ideal to keep given the situation right now. We still cherish the random culture we have on this board.

In addition to the cuts, we will also be combining these 2 threads into one:

Last night I...
What are you going to do today?

It will be a new thread where you can post what you did last night and what you are going to do today.

Example:

Last night- I went to a movie and dinner with some friends.
Today - I have to work in the morning, but I'll be getting off around lunch, then I can go shopping!

The selected threads above will be closed on Sunday, Oct. 21. After they are closed, please do not start them again. In the future, if you would like to start a game thread or a continuation thread, please PM one of us OT mods first, so we can decide if it's suitable for this board. We really need to keep the number of these threads down to allow more topic threads. We appreciate your understanding and cooperation.

Thanks,
OT Mods - Cin, Carol, Janet & Kris

[Jaymez_NY]

The Person Above you thread was quite good

[Lain]

Originally Posted by Jaymez_NY (View Post) The Person Above you thread was quite good

In retrospect, I thought it was okay. I think the problem with that one was that you have posters that post there that you have never met or spoke to and because of that, people do tend to get repetitive on saying stuff about their avatar/screen name/ signature/ etc.

By the way Cin, thanks for getting this up

[Cereal Killer]

Aww, I post in post of those threads. I loved Person Above You too. I guess I'll have to find another threads to post in or then just post less on OT. But I understand your decision.

[girl in a cardigan]

This sounds fabulous! Thanks OT mods!

[Lost in Translation]

Thanks for posting this Cin I realize many of you will miss the threads but there is great fun to be had elsewhere.

[Yellow Mustang Girl]

Cin Thanks for getting this thread posted and topped.

Yes, to all our posters, some of the regular games will still be here So, as the other mods have said, we can still have our random fun. However, we are getting pelthora of these game/star-posting type threads.

[~*Yuki*~]

Just as long as the bunny thread will be around, I don't have a problem with that.

[Lain]

Originally Posted by ~*Yuki*~ (View Post) Just as long as the bunny thread will be around, I don't have a problem with that.

Oh that could be closed "anytime"....by me

I'm just kidding of course.

[Yellow Mustang Girl]

Kris is being evil

[cuemypulse]

Aw, I post in all of those threads. I love person above you, it's a fun game. And tell me something random about yourself is cool too. This makes me sad. I agree with some of them though, like what time is it where you live right now and post per day. Never liked them much.

But I think 'What I ate/drank today' should be deleted instead of person above you or tell me something random about yourself....But that's just my opinion.

But I'm sure I'll survive.

[chasin' the wind]

Thanks for the notice.

[AmeliaBeck]

Thanks for the notice! I'm going to miss some of those threads too

[Lain]

First off, I want to apologize to everyone who's affected by this really

This issue has been a bit ongoing for a while and we have looked over the game threads to see which ones were really unnecessary and also the possibilities of how to handle this. We discussed key issues via PM as well as looked over this particular thread [omg, what happened off topic??] that was started this past summer and had posters giving their two cents on this whole issue.

However, as Cin had stated, the over excessive cluttering has been quite alarming and there are several people who had started to see some of the threads as being clique threads. There were some that were considered for closure but we decided to keep them. And there were some that were on the list that were considered keeping but after talks, that's where we drew the conclusion.

In my personal opinion (because I don't really know if my co-mods or anyone else would feel the same way), I was concerned with looking at what the main page of Off Topic looks like which is nothing more than games and a bunny thread. Some people would think that there's nothing wrong with going back a couple of pages (which I don't mind) but some people just don't like going through back pages. And yes, it's true that games will drown practically anything but I thought it was quite over excessive some of them. I'm not an anti-game person, honestly, even if I really don't do anything with those threads except closing them. But there's something about too much of one thing. I really hope somehow we could end up balancing discussions and games.

Could it work? Would it work? Is it even worth it? A skeptical person asked me this. All I can say is it's worth trying.

Also, we are aware that not all regular posters are part of the bunny thread (Getting to 10,000 Posts) nor choose to post there, which is perfectly fine. Granted, there are a lot of games left when you look at it, should you still participate. As said, those games were either getting too repetitive (people kept repeating the same things over and over), considered an easy way of star posting (there have been numerous instances where people post frequently right after the other in a short amount of time) , or those specific interests could be made in to discussions of their own.

Although we have our reasons for the closure of threads, one reason for Avatar Blog closing is that there is a thread like that at the Webmasters board.


All of us mods (Cin, Carol, Janet, and myself) encourage you to start or participate in various discussion threads so please don't feel discouraged. We are saddened about this but we also want to encourage some discussion going on as well. And we definitely still want to keep our randomness culture in tact. After all, it's the Off Topic. Anything goes

~+Kris

P.S Carol- Yes it's true. Didn't I warn you guys when they had the mod opening

[AmeliaBeck]

Hey mods, I think that you guys are making a really smart decision. I don't post here as often as I do on other boards and I haven't been posting for a really long time, but I do see that there is hardly any room for disscussion type threads here. I know that some of us, including me, will be sad to see some of the threads go, but I see that it's for the good of the OT board. So thank you guys I know this was a tough decision for you all and a lot of thought went into your choices

So I'm down for whatever is coming our way