A Final Solution to the Proving Grounds Problem

Poll

  • Option 1

    Votes: 122 16.8%
  • Option 2

    Votes: 558 76.8%
  • I have a better idea / Those are both shit

    Votes: 47 6.5%

  • Total voters
    727
  • Poll closed .
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If the OP is perfect and includes all relevant information from the get go, then what's the point of the thread. Shouldn't an OP be about selling the the individual as a lolcow to other users, so that they can offer their own contributions? As long as the OP ticks that one box, in addition to meeting the other forum rules, it should be allowed to go ahead. If it doesn't gain any traction it will get buried soon enough anyway.

If proving grounds was just that, a way for a thread to be refined, through engaged criticism, with the OP incorporating in suggestions made, that would be great. However that's not what's happening at the minute.

I think what's really missing in many threads, is the constant evolution of the original Post akin to what the lolcow WIKI was intended to do. However that's not an issue that can be identified in Proving grounds.
 
If proving grounds was just that, a way for a thread to be refined, through engaged criticism, with the OP incorporating in suggestions made, that would be great. However that's not what's happening at the minute.
There could be ways to improve the board. For example, if someone writes a shitty OP (I know I have) and someone else helps that user write a better one, they can get some reward like a tag that says "Resident Tard Wrangler" or something.
 
I'd have voted option one and just try and get the mods to not be such hard asses or at least get a few with different tastes. A lot of the cows, at least in WW and AC, feel very same-y and I think it's good to have just a few select trusted people forcing some quality control. At least then someone can fast track PG threads into their respective forums instead of letting them sit there until someone feels it's good enough.
 
Option two with one or two strikes to reformat, posting excessive amounts of shit that gets deleted should result in a temporary ban
 
The entire point of Proving Grounds was for newbies to cut their teeth making horrendous threads in a containment zone where everyone could point and laugh at their ineptitude.

If you are not entertained, then yeah, lop its head off.
 
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I say go with option 2 and move deleted threads to some type of graveyard section where new replies are disabled. This would give people the chance to see these threads and take a better whack at it.

Now that's an interesting thought. Sort of a Purgatory Spergatory where threads rejected as shit can be reviewed to see if anything is salvagable, then after a week or two if there's no hope, auto-deleted. I like the concept. Dunno if Null wants to bother with the effort of that or not though.

Straight up letting natural selection go where good cow threads grow regardless of OP if the cow is viable, or shit cow threads dying on the vine and sinking below page 1 with moderators to catch the trollposts and other Internet trash that somehow made it through the registration filter to be nuked seems much simpler.
 
The heart of the problem is the failure of the natural sciences to formally recognise lolcows as an evolutionary dead-end in the taxonomic hierarchy, and come up with an appropriate nomenclature that sounds like it might be in Latin. It would make these exceptional individuals so much more easy to identify and would put an end to a lot of guesswork and speculation.

I favour the second option, simply because you never know what information the community will have to offer on a given cow. Let the cows roam free on the boards. Arm the mods with lassos to rein-in any interlopers that don't belong in the herd.
 
Everytime someone posts that OP is a phaggot video, I know someone’s potential is about to be buried beneath shame and trollshielding residue. As someone who joined in the summer of 2019 and has been a member here for years (look at my kiwi dating profile if you wanna unravel that fucking riddle), i’ve seen it time and again. I saw it with an old chat buddy, who told me to fuck off when I’d tried to participate in conversations in the earlier days when I was new. Only one of us retarded assholes is still here today, think about that shit.

Temp-ban people who aren’t mods that shit on new threads non-constructively. I see too many people get punished for trying to contribute to the site but not doing it in a way that meets a set of unofficial community standards you have to be here for years to even know about.
Ride and Zed
fucking this. People like Ride, Zed, and you are the gold standard when it comes to actual constructive behavior.
 
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I don't really know how you'd implement it, but having the ability for multiple users to contribute and edit the OP would do a lot. every major thread opened has two or three dudes in the first dozen pages who knew the subject from high school or the home owners association or something equally retarded, but they don't ever think about making an OP themselves. Having those people able to add to the OP manually would make keeping OPs up to date a lot easier. that would help fix the farms' biggest problem: thread bloat. there's a lot of information on dudes like DSP and moviebob no one will ever see because a logs cram the threads with their inane reactions to tweets.

other than that codifying and lowering the requirements of OPs would fix most of the issues. The only real definition of lolcow is someone who can be milked continuously. an OP doesn't need to be an autobiography, just prove this person is an on going source of ridicule.
 
I have an idea. Option 2 with a catch.
We have a pseudo proving grounds system on the relevant boards that hides new threads to non users (or possibly even only senior members and the OP if needed) for a certain period of time. This means that these threads are visible to the masses of users and can get quick critisism in while at the same time preventing tipping off trannies who'll insta nuke.
I'm interested in what you guys think.
 
Maybe make to to where posted threads are visible only to mods, and supervisors until feedback is given, and then the thread goes public. It would be a bit of a cumbersome solution, but it would most likely improve quality.
 
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