Expanding scope: dealing with not-so-lolcows

[CatParty]

What @Dynastia said but also with tags. People of interest subcategorized by what field of interest they'd have

 

[champthom]

I know I'm rarely active on here but here are my thoughts:

I may be viewing this situation a bit differently than Null, or at least my reasoning may differ from what Null is going for here, so bear with me.

When I first started the forum, I focused on Chris - it was what I knew but also I felt like there were other places online that covered the general lolcow niche well. Also, I mostly didn't want to deal with repercussions of people dealing with lolcows who aren't Chris (who has a very unique psychology where you can pretty much say what you want about him and he'll never bother to actually read what you wrote online about him). Null wanted to expand this to general lolcows and I was very hesitant - I felt that this niche was covered well and I felt it would attract all sorts of unsavory characters and I was concerned about people using it as a personal army - "I don't like this person, therefore he's a lolcow." But it's always been my philosophy to give people what they want and there was a significant demand for it, not to mention there was a pragmatic reason that it gave people something to talk about other than Chris for when Chris was relatively inactive. In retrospect, I think this was a wise move - sometimes having too narrow a focus limits growth. I always imagined that the forum would eventually evolve into a general interest type forum, with the General forums being the interest because that's essentially what happened with PVCC. I think a Lolcow forum was a wise idea though as it manages to capture a niche that's a bit broader and I think we're unique in that people can discuss lolcows and that we have a really great community.

I don't see harm in letting people talk about Internet drama on here. I think at that point, the forum would be more of an Internet gossip forum, in the same vein of celebrity gossip. I don't see the harm in that, but it would broaden things even more. My concern is this may make us a bit more tame than we are now and I'm concern it might be a transition like what EncyclopediaDramatica did when it became OhInternet. I don't think it'd necessarily alienate the user base, more or less letting people talk more about what they want.

This was my concern but it's valid but as long as people aren't using the forums to launch personal attacks or using lolcow forums as a personal platform, I don't see the harm. Posts about how North Korea is a lolcow nation irks me because it's not really that North Korea is somehow humorous and dramatic, it's really a politics post in the guise of a lolcow post. I've seen Scientology posts in the same vein - "Scientology is such a lolcow religion" but it'd be mostly a critique of Scientology's practices. Don't get me wrong, I don't like North Korea or Scientology but discussion about these can easily be done elsewhere on the forum but it's really not a lolcow. I understand Null has a broader definition of what a lolcow is, and I disagree with him on that, but I think if you have a broad definition of what a lolcow is, as long as people aren't using it to using the lolcow forum as a personal platform or to make personal army requests (I'd often see posts on /cow/ along the lines of "This guy bullied me in school, he's really a total lolcow and deserves to get trolled"), I don't really see the huge harm if that's what the forum users want.

 

[Null]

This was my concern but it's valid but as long as people aren't using the forums to launch personal attacks or using lolcow forums as a personal platform,

Yeah this basically sums it up. No politics, no anger, no kids. Everything else is fair game.

 

[Clown Doll]

2. Subforums. Organizing threads using a subforum defines a specific scope and completely removes it from another forum's view. People who only check Lolcow, for instance, do not see anything in Tumblr. This can create a good sense of categorization and adds room to grow (that is almost always filled by new users joining), but it also segments the community and isn't a very streamlined approach to organization.

I think the points you raised are imo in favour of the subforum approach. The current problem with borderline lolcow threads(that would fall under the "not-so-lolcow in the current classification) is that people who aren't interested in them or do not consider them lolcows still feel compelled to reply to them and most of that is that they dispute that the person isn't a Lolcow. Now, in many cases I do agree with them, but this clogs up the thread with noncontent meta, like happened with the Sargon thread. When the Tumblr sub hadn't been made yet, people complained endlessly about the Tumblr cows, now they can happily ignore it. Also, the unsavoury posting culture of the Tumblr sub had less chance to infect the Lolcow board due to the separation.

Another issue is that non-lolcows in the same subforum as actual lolcows would also water down the definitions of actual lolcows as people would be used to seeing threads made on people who aren't Lolcows, but are still in the same subforum.

If a subforum is too niche or weird, like Loveshy is, then it will languish.

Then that's a good signal that it can be demolished or reformed. Having it work in a subforum also allows for a mass deletion of all the content in the sub in case it is deemed unfit. Having a separate subforum would also allow us to fine-tune the posting guidelines of the edrama subforum separately from Lolcow.

 

[chimpburgers]

I also think that this would be a good compromise all around for the growing diversity of people who come to this site for different reasons, catering to both oldfags and those who really want to talk more about Internet drama like all that Nicole Arbour shit that happened. The thread wasn't bad but the OP got flack because the woman herself wasn't much of a cow. I suggested at the time that it could have been moved to multimedia for instance. It would also make the site easier to market to a wider audience.

 

[CatParty]

just throw edrama in news and events

 

[Clown Doll]

I'm starting to think a little bit over it... Kiwifarms is about Lolcows.

I don't think that falls into the "People of Interest" Category, pretty much a cow needs to be milk-able or milks itself (produces interesting and lulzy content).

People of Interests kind of don't fall into that same wavelength. Like there would be little to work with and so much content about people and they would unlikely be interested in them. Lolcows produce dozens, hundreds or even thousands of pages worth of content, a Person of Interest is pretty much a shivelled up unlactating lolcow that just has a few moments then phases away, we'll only be interested in the thread for like a day and discard it like a washed up whore. like in internet terms drama that happened over 3 years ago is like ancient history for us..

I would very much agree if People of Interest weren't currently forced on the forum under the guise of Lolcows. I don't see the idea as much as "introducing a whole new brand of cows" as redirecting the non-lolcow content that's been cluttering up the Lolcow board into it's own section. The way I personally see it is that with the introduction of a new category like this, the standards of what passes as a ~*real*~ Lolcow could be tightened.

a Person of Interest is pretty much a shivelled up unlactating lolcow that just has a few moments then phases away, we'll only be interested in the thread for like a day and discard it like a washed up whore. like in internet terms drama that happened over 3 years ago is like ancient history for us.

If the threads don't hold people's interest enough they fall into obscurity, it's an automatic sorting system. Meanwhile people who are interested in actual Lolcows can skip looking at the People of Interest subforum and go straight into Lolcow.

 

[Vitriol]

If a new edrama general sub is created it might be worth placing it in the off topic section to try and limit the amount of personal army reqests.

 

[Cthulu]

If a new edrama general sub is created it might be worth placing it in the off topic section to try and limit the amount of personal army reqests.

I don't think the PA request will be a huge deal. We've had them before and then laughed them of the forum. It may even provide more amusement and maybe even a chance to discover a new cow.

 

[Vitriol]

I don't think the PA request will be a huge deal. We've had them before and then laughed them of the forum. It may even provide more amusement and maybe even a chance to discover a new cow.

I'm just wary of ending up like certain Reddit subs where initially they focussed on entertaining drama but are now used as brigade fodder and flooded with irrelevant threads every time someone finds someone else who disagrees with them. We don't want to end up like a glorified tumblr call out blog either. I think limiting our discussion on non cows to the private areas of the forum would help avoid this.

I also think as a general rule the OP should never be directly involved in whatever drama or person they are describing.

 

[chimpburgers]

I'm just wary of ending up like certain Reddit subs where initially they focussed on entertaining drama but are now used as brigade fodder and flooded with irrelevant threads every time someone finds someone else who disagrees with them. We don't want to end up like a glorified tumblr call out blog either. I think limiting our discussion on non cows to the private areas of the forum would help avoid this.

I also think as a general rule the OP should never be directly involved in whatever drama or person they are describing.

This is something I'd really wanted to emphasize here. I feel that the more neutral someone is about that kind of drama and less involved they are, the better so the thread won't devolve as quickly into a whole "fuck you, I disagree with this I'm gonna make a thread on you lolololol" kind of nonsense.

 

[GS 281]

If a new edrama general sub is created it might be worth placing it in the off topic section to try and limit the amount of personal army reqests.

If it was in off-topic then new users would have no access. Some people join KF just for a single thread. If we had threads in off-topic such as these, then they wouldn't have access. Also, I don't understand the consternation here. A new sub simply a.) shuts up autists like me who balk at non-lolcow material in lolcow and b.) can be closed down if it doesn't work much easier than parsing out threads if it is a failure and left mixed with lolcow. Also, I don't understand this concern with PA. This hasn't happened with lolcow, comm watch, tumblr or loveshy much and when it has there was a rain of shit on the person's head. If something smells like PA request it will be bombed on pretty rigorously.

 

[Vitriol]

If it was in off-topic then new users would have no access. Some people join KF just for a single thread. If we had threads in off-topic such as these, then they wouldn't have access. Also, I don't understand the consternation here. A new sub simply a.) shuts up autists like me who balk at non-lolcow material in lolcow and b.) can be closed down if it doesn't work much easier than parsing out threads if it is a failure and left mixed with lolcow. Also, I don't understand this concern with PA. This hasn't happened with lolcow, comm watch, tumblr or loveshy much and when it has there was a rain of shit on the person's head. If something smells like PA request it will be bombed on pretty rigorously.

i like the idea of a new sub generally and agree with most of what you put about the benefits of one.

My thinking is that this new sub will probably fill with threads on semi political figures like Sargon, Lacy green, the buzz feed people, tgwtg stuff etc and if in the public section of the forum will, as you say, attract new users. An influx of users coming here for political reasons is imo something to be avoided. This happened to an extent with gg and I do think we've had a problem with pa's relating to that- from both sides. In my opinion we do not want to become a battleground for places like SRS or KIA to try and rally support.

I don't mind new users having access but I wouldn't want unregistered users to be able to see it. I think there is appetite here for edrama discussion and that appetite should be met, however I think we should be careful in its implementation.

 

[Clown Doll]

This hasn't happened with lolcow, comm watch, tumblr or loveshy much and when it has there was a rain of shit on the person's head. If something smells like PA request it will be bombed on pretty rigorously.

One of the reasons personal armies fail is because the thread subjects have been established to not be a Lolcow, if there's no requirement for the subject matter to be a lolcow, highlighting them is questioned less. I think that people of interest should have a degree of notoriety to them, for example if it's just someone from Deviantart who doesn't generate drama, that person is hardly of interest. People who don't generate any buzz on the wider Internet aren't those who in my personal opinion this is about.
People like Jonathan McIntosh/Daniel Keemstar here seem much more like this sort of thing would be intended for :
Basically people involved in internet drama who warrant discussion, but not non-noteworthy benign spergs who don't matter to people other than a really small group of obsessives around them.

it's gonna happen however

Depends on what kind of consensus about the possible subforum ends up being built, but it's already what can happen on the current forum setup.

 

[CatParty]

but not non-noteworthy benign spergs who don't matter to people other than a really small group of obsessives around them.

it's gonna happen however

 

[GS 281]

This happened to an extent with gg and I do think we've had a problem with pa's relating to that- from both sides. In my opinion we do not want to become a battleground for places like SRS or KIA to try and rally support.

I agree 100%, however if management feels that these threads have a place here, then putting them far from the lolcow sub is more appropriate. People are whining about the non-lolcows in the lolcow pot, and people are whining about the whining about the non-lolcows in the lolcow pot. The best way to end this is to categorize or admit we aren't a lolcow board.

 

[AnOminous]

i like the idea of a new sub generally and agree with most of what you put about the benefits of one.

The problem with containment threads/subforums is they encourage the kind of content that isn't welcome in the first place.

Also, some of these marginal characters have the possibility of causing morons who admire/hate them to show up despite having no connection to the general board culture, e.g. the Mr. Enter disaster.

 

[Vitriol]

The problem with containment threads/subforums is they encourage the kind of content that isn't welcome in the first place.

Also, some of these marginal characters have the possibility of causing morons who admire/hate them to show up despite having no connection to the general board culture, e.g. the Mr. Enter disaster.

This is why I would favour an off topic board- it should provide a place for segregating such threads but as it is inaccessible to new members should not attract or encourage a great deal of new members with a focus we do not want.

Kinda like DT functions as a dumping ground for discussion as to what counts as a tranny or CP but no one (except maybe ADK) comes here for that board.

 

[Clown Doll]

This is why I would favour an off topic board- it should provide a place for segregating such threads but as it is inaccessible to new members should not attract or encourage a great deal of new members with a focus we do not want.

Off-topic also could set the tone for the threads in a way that even if these people/events/groups generate discussion, you can talk about them without having to adjust your attitude to be that they're Lolcows, or that the thread should necessarily be pointed towards being against them instead of about them. For example, in the Sargon thread or some of the other Lolcow threads there have been people who were fans of the people who were highlighted, and they were giving their views about how this person isn't a Lolcow and how their work is actually pretty good and so on.

While for a Lolcow thread that can fall under white knighting somewhat, having a neutral environment to discuss people of interest would be good to bring the insight of the people who are their fans or follow them to the table, without them being guilty of "white knighting" or discrupting the flow of the thread. If the people of interest aren't Lolcows, then the threads would benefit from people who aren't seeking to hate them being able to participate in the discussion as well without it being detrimental to the tone of the thread as whiteknighting in most Lolcow threads is.Otherwise people who make the thread could just choose the angle that they're presenting the person in(This guy is a totes non-Lolcow, let's talk about much of a big faggot he is!") while the people who have counterpoints about that person's involvement in whatever drama or the person's merits would be shooed off of the thread for "white knighting" even if they have interesting things to put on the table.

 

[Null]

We could just make new threads in Lolcow / Drama a mod-approval type thing. We have that ability.