Rat King Subforum

[GS 281]

Discussion of the Rat King has become robust to the point where it is appropriate to create a subforum to house all the threads. The discussion is not only in lolcow anymore and it has become topical in community watch and general.

There is currently 19 lolcow threads, a thread in lolcow general and two community watch threads all focused on the Rat King, and this is only the beginning. With a subforum focused on only Rat King discussion it would be possible to have threads discussing the links between Rat King members, find new members and to find new places where they may be producing content much easier.

Unlike other tagged topics, Rat King is a topic where all the members are linked. Because of these links it is more appropriate to group them and to have the discussion housed in a single area for convenience and to more easily relate content that may stretch across different subforums on the board.

There will be more threads on members and the places they congregate (i.e. subreddits, atheism+, SJWiki, etc.). The current success of Rat King threads suggests that Rat King discussion will continue to be topical and relevant.

 

[AnOminous]

I'll take the contrary position. As many solid lolcows as there are who have the tag, it's a vein that will eventually be played out. I think the tag is sufficient to identify these threads for the people who want to follow them, or for that matter, who want to avoid them.

I think a whole subforum will create an incentive just to make threads on random boring-ass trannies and we're already about at saturation point as to how much of that shit remains funny.

 

[chimpburgers]

I'll take the contrary position. As many solid lolcows as there are who have the tag, it's a vein that will eventually be played out. I think the tag is sufficient to identify these threads for the people who want to follow them, or for that matter, who want to avoid them.

I think a whole subforum will create an incentive just to make threads on random boring-ass trannies and we're already about at saturation point as to how much of that shit remains funny.

Those are valid points, though I have seen this same argument brought up for a possible DeviantArt subforum that @cumrobbery has suggested a few times or a YouTube subforum that some others were wanting as containment. How would we prevent the thing that @Clown Doll has talked about where people might feel compelled to fill up the board with less entertaining topics just because they remotely fit the nature of the board? Right now I am pro Rat King subforum but I want to learn more about the contrary position.

 

[AnOminous]

Rated agree because I agree about not being very strongly against it. Another potential issue I see is that subforums like this tend to develop their own subculture and cows stuck in them don't get the notice that they might in the main Lolcow subforum.

 

[GS 281]

Rated agree because I agree about not being very strongly against it. Another potential issue I see is that subforums like this tend to develop their own subculture and cows stuck in them don't get the notice that they might in the main Lolcow subforum.

The idea of these cows not getting the attention they would in a main board is a valid concern, however it may be time for there to be other splits made from lolcow. Both tumblr and loveshy were successful in that the content was separated from lolcow proper where it would further clutter up activity. Granted the culture of these subs is less than great and loveshy was basically a battleground for spergs, lolcow has become cluttered and it may be time to start cleaning out old threads and putting them in a specific area and grouping others into subforums to clean things up a bit.

What is special about Rat King is that it is basically a community of lolcows for the most part, and these people are all linked together and have turned communities they involve themselves with into lolcow communities themselves. They get power and then change the culture into something laughable. This isn't normal. So for this reason it may be in the best interest to group these people and communities in a way that makes it easier to follow and observe.

 

[Cthulu]

Another potential issue I see is that subforums like this tend to develop their own subculture and cows stuck in them don't get the notice that they might in the main Lolcow subforum.

The ratking culture has brought people here specifically for them. While this is reminiscent of the entersphere, A lot of very good users find this interesting. Alot of users like chimps, sneasel, smutley, P&H, and ect. I think it will quell the autism and has so far for the most part.

 

[HoloSkull]

I wouldn't mind you guys having some extra space to map out the dimensions of the Rat King. Srsly that would be the first order of business in that sub forum how do they link up? Sticky that thread to the top and update that hater-hit list/relationship chart. It would help newcomers out.

 

[chimpburgers]

I wouldn't mind you guys having some extra space to map out the dimensions of the Rat King. Srsly that would be the first order of business in that sub forum how do they link up? Sticky that thread to the top and update that hater-hit list/relationship chart. It would help newcomers out.

I'd love to do a whole flowchart of that whenever I have the time.

 

[HoloSkull]

I'd love to do a whole flowchart of that whenever I have the time.

That is the #1 benefit of a Rat-King sub-forum you got all these separate threads on individual components of this community, but it is difficult to follow without some stickied threads that bring their relations into focus. The rat-king transcends a single community thread or a single individual cow.

This makes easy flowcharts sans software:
https://www.draw.io/

 

[Clown Doll]

cows stuck in them don't get the notice that they might in the main Lolcow subforum.

If there's too much clutter in the same board, none of the topics get enough exposure. Imagine if the Tumblr and Loveshy cows were dumped back into Lolcow, it would push all threads that aren't updated daily to the back pages and it would make finding the content you want fairly difficult and as such, limiting the exposure for all threads.

How would we prevent the thing that @Clown Doll has talked about where people might feel compelled to fill up the board with less entertaining topics just because they remotely fit the nature of the board?

Well, I believe that the problem mostly solves itself when most of the current "big" players and their connections are well mapped out(if it's possible since new connections are forming constantly) since the Rat King criteria is tighter than say, the criteria for a Deviantart cow.

I'm neither pro nor inherently against a Rat King forum at this moment, but the people who I consider more knowledgeable in tranny matters said they don't want to rush a subforum approach to not risk it ending up lame.

 

[Vitriol]

I think there may be merit to a sub or a demi sub-what crustpunk is to cis is what ratking is to lolcow.

I cant speak to the quality of their threads but lolcow is once again moving very quickly with interesting threads being pushed to the second page before a lot of people actually read them.

 

[chimpburgers]

I think there may be merit to a sub or a demi sub-what crustpunk is to cis is what ratking is to lolcow.

I cant speak to the quality of their threads but lolcow is once again moving very quickly with interesting threads being pushed to the second page before a lot of people actually read them.

Yeah. Threads literally are competing with each other just to stay on the first page and a lot of overlooked content gets lost in that sea. I do believe that Lolcow needs some clean up and better organization. I've also mentioned organizing featured threads by type of cow and having a sliding scrolling system there too.

 

[repentance]

While I enjoy the rat king discussions, I've seen many "not another tranny thread" type comments. The rat king discussions can push other stuff to the second page and I understand why that frustrates others. I don't know whether it discourages people from participating in Lolcow, but I do think we should keep that possibility in mind.

I'm not strongly pro or anti a Rat King sub-forum. A lot of Rat King members don't really produce much ongoing content so discussion of them tends to be limited to short periods after they've done something lulzy and then they're don't do anything noteworthy again for months. People like Laurelai and NekoArc - despite being key members - simply don't produce enough content to stay on the front page for long whether in Lolcow or in a separate subforum.