Has anyone else felt that finding game impressions in a typical thread as hard to find as a needle in a haystack? This has really started to bug me alot, but I'm glad that someone has finally got some sense and did a great example here, on the Blades Of Fury thread: http://forums.toucharcade.com/showthread.php?t=24778 Not only did Qasim post up the video trailer of the game, but he also Copy and Pasted impressions from other forum members onto the first post, along with screenshots too. Those who do want to have a quick one-page view can do so! And those who want to dig further into strategy, options, bugs, etc can also look further into the thread. The impressions only took hold from page 4 onwards (discounting the summaries currently on the first post). (Eyemh8 post #33, Sashnan #34, Squarezero #41, Sizzlakalonji #42, Diabolus #52, Ssahnan #61, Twentyone #69, Hodapp #72). Which is actually pretty good going, given that RE4 had something like 11pages before an impression was posted! Why do we have to browse through FOUR pages before we we get to see a decent discussion about the gameplay? As Hodapp stated on the Sticky at User Reviews Forum, "We'd like to encourage everyone to post any detailed reviews of games in here, but keep "first impressions" short posts to the other forum still." We'd like to see First Impressions but there's still so much bulk. Nothing agitates me more than wanting to follow a thread on a potential game purchase, but finding endless posts using valueless comments. Gryphon23 (post #79) posted a quick SOS asking for a review, because he didn't have time to scour through the other posts. SquareZero corrected him that there were some impressions, but it's all hidden in between posts. Surely me and him aren't the only people to feel this way? Most of us are on the move when we browse, and despite having 3G (or in my case 2G), its not an efficient way to look for information. Some might even be on limited data plans, and loading up entire pages of threads eats up the data usage, which ends up not containing the information we seek. I think that we can, and need to, collectively help TA by restraining ourselves and avoid posting entries that do nothing but bulk up the thread that have little value to the thread. Here are a couple of examples: - "Impressions please!" -> Anyone who buys it and is suitably impressed will usually post anyway. If they don't, they won't. Encouragement won't make much difference. - "Anybody TOFTT?" -> As above. Also, why not you? - "Downloading" -> Congratulations! We look forward to your first impressions and week-later review, but this just bulks up the thread, especially as more members have longer signatures. - "Meh." or "I'll pass". -> What kind of contribution to the thread is that? If you're not interested, just pass on the entire thread! We don't need to know that its not for you. Lets say that I don't like racing games. That doesn't mean I have to post on each of them saying "I'll pass". I'm open to listen to any positive reasons for justifying the above, and similar spam posts. I'm sure that unbridled enthuasiasm makes up a central part of it. Add in a good dose of "freedom of speech!" too. But lets try to look at this objectively: The reason we look to TA and its threads is because we all love our iDevices and our games. We all want to listen to each other's experiences on the games before buying. So why don't we try to slim down the threads so that when we do look for them, we can see the key issues and discuss them, rather than seeing post after post of "Meh". I hope that everyone reads this can do their part to help minimize spam posts and help keep TA running efficiently for everyone's benefit. Thanks for reading.
I agree but the problem is you can't prevent this such as toftt anyone and the very annoying "ill pass"...though the first post then adding the impressions sounds like a great idea so people won't post nonstop for impressions, when there are already some.
It helps a lot if you go in to 'Edit Options' on your profile page and set posts per page to 40: With this set, the Blades of Fury thread is only 6 pages long, and the less useful posts are easy to scroll by.
Yea, I thought about that when I saw that thread earlier - It was helpful being able to get the best info off the first post and being able to skip all of the "TOFTT", "I'm buying this", or "I'll pass" posts
Yes, there's no system to stop that other than the braincells of the poster. That's why I'm hoping that most of those offenders will read this and understand that what they're doing does have an adverse consequence. I'm sure that they're just too excited to contain their emotions, but a little restraint from everyone will help so much more. The other alternative is to have TA moderators actively monitoring all posts and adding them onto the first post. And then deleting the "impressions please" posts... but I think will bring out the pitchforks and torches and that won't be good at all.
They have their right to speech so i don't think it will go away no matter what and as deleting posts it will not go well at all
Thanks. That is useful for those on desktops/laptops, but I'm thinking longer-term for those on iDevices. The best thing would be to educate the newbies (irrespective of how many posts they've made -they're still newbies to me if they're unable to control their post contributions) to avoid unnecessary entries. Then it wouldn't matter how many posts per page we see.
Yep, you're right. I'm sorry if I misled you to think that the posts should be deleted. It's never a good thing to do, and I've edited my post to reflect that position clearer. I can only hope that they will understand that it could be easier to view these threads if they hold back a little.
Me too. It felt so refreshing to see a first post that had virtually all the information you needed: Cost, file size, screenshots, video, and impressions summary! Over the past few weeks, I've always had to skip to the 10th page or so, because I always felt that anything beforehand would just be the usual "TOFTT?" and "DLing" crap. There's so many games, and not enough time to play them, let alone go through so many entries. I've set the posts per page to 40, so we'll see how that goes.
Thanks to Eli for directing me to this thread. Even though the "I'll pass..." and "TOFTT anyone.." post are destined to continue; this type of constructive information is helpful to those who are truly trying to contribute to an already informative and entertaining forum site. Richard
Point noted. Given that I too post quite a few games releases here, I'll try and add impressions in the first post only in the threads. But given the fact that most of the times I'm on iPhone only it'll be a hard task to follow all the times. It'd be helpful if the mods also add a few impressions in the first post if the OP hasn't already. Also TOFTT, impressions requests and I'll pass and the inevitable "it's too steep" & "I'll wait for a sale" are always going to be there and nothing can be done about them really. I've been using that 40 posts a page ever since I joined and it really helps as you don't need to go through dozens of pages to find something useful. But they also create another problem as scrolling down such long pages on iPhone is a real PETA. There is a a jailbreak utility called "Quick Scroll" which helps you scroll through fairly easily. But in case you don't want to use jailbrokes apps(like me) there's another simple solution. You can use "Scroll to bottom" bookmarklet which let's you easily scroll to the end of the page. Prab described how to use those bookmarklets in a thread. I'll post a link to the thread here in a minute in case any one is interested. Bookmarklets for navigating in TA
I suppose one way to deal with this is to have forum members have the ability to rate the quality of each post, although a system like that could be abused...
Thanks man. That would be extremely useful if you, or the mods following the thread, could help paste the impressions to the first post! I really think that it would do so much to cut down on alot of spam posts. Afterall, we won't have so many requesting others to TOFTT or impressions if they're already visible on the OP. But agree there's nothing we can do about cost complainers. thanks to everyone for making contributions to this thread.
