Gonna Try An Experiment...

It had to happen someday.

I've decided I will only be posting on public forums occasionally, having taking my passion for RE opinions as far as I can. Sadly, however, I have been dealing with some creepy stalker relentlessly being a nuisance. Although I think people have mostly moved on from forums, particularly when it comes to gaming chat. This is evident from the lack of new posts on the ones I visit. And I really do struggle to find any active ones any longer, but the decline has been an ever gradual one. So maybe it is time to accept that things have changed, and we have to change with it.

I have seen other forums that still exist being spammed up by morons, with no moderation going on at all. And I am thinking, "Why pay to keep a forum running when you are not running it other than to plug stuff, yet you log in every week and should be able to see the trolling?" It's rather pointless.

From now on, I'll just be posting on forums if there is like a new game or something out, to talk about. But in order to maintain a degree of safe and productive socialising online, and have more privacy, I've decided that message boards aren't really suitable for that any more, unless I take out a new name altogether. Because you know how Google is.

I will be active from now on, only on forums that are part of specialty groups held on semi-private (or totally private) chat facilities. It is easier to block trolls on those type of platforms, which means once they are blocked, they cannot access your profile with that account. That's not the case on forums, or even YouTube. Google just hides their comments. They can still see your posts. But these other things I am referring to, actually allow you to better manage such settings.

While some groups may still publish public posts, I cannot see a troll misbehaving under lots of identities if it is gonna prove a lot of hassle to rejoin. They would need to be verified with a new mobile number, or whatever. Most of those temporary password-less ones probably wouldn't work. Another plus.

Even if a troll did infiltrate some group you are involved with, it is easier to deal with them when they slip up, due to moderators better running them, and like I said, one click and they disappear for a while. You can also make it that only select followers can see your links, photos, and other content. This I like too.

When joining such groups, you can also DM your buddies the link discretely. Of course, you can do that on ordinary forums anyway. But it is best to do whatever you can to halt weirdos who like to do this stupid crap for attention.

I wish I had thought about this sooner. While there is no need to 100% give up blethering away to people about the things you love, it is best to be able to have more control over who shows up at the dinner table. Which as I said, standard forums deprive you of.

 

It's kind of wild that we've reached the point where the biggest factor in choosing a community isn't "Who's talking about the stuff I love?" but "How effectively can I keep the weirdos out?"

I miss the old internet where you recognized usernames for years instead of wondering whether you're talking to a bot, a troll, or someone's twelfth burner account.

Have you found any groups that actually strike that balance between being welcoming and not turning into a free-for-all?

 

The ones I use are calm, usually, but they have no activity. Whereas GameFAQs has active members, but they like to bicker with anyone who disagrees with an opinion, and then the argument can derail the flow of a thread. I saw some people doing it in the past.

I don't like the layout either. They should update it, and make it that users cannot post without adding more than three sentences. There is no point in having a topic with just a few words in the replies, or only emojis, but nothing of value is being contributed.

 

Yeah, there’s a few Assassin’s Creed communities on FaceBook where there’s regular spam being posted but the admins do nothing, one member even created their own group because of it. Same with other groups there - groups/communities are created then the admins give up or just don’t bother to moderate the group.

 

I remember the old IMDb boards. You could even talk about RE on there. I had a pal on there called RoninGenesis, which was back in 2003. He was active on GameSpot too, but we lost contact a few years later. I got so distracted. Maybe I just naturally evolved.

At least with Prime, you only pay a tenner. Trying to get physical copies of movies any more is hard. Games are worse.

Out of print stuff is expensive. Some movies may only be available in combo packs, resulting in you unintentionally re-buying a film you own already. Others, you need a special player to make them viewable. Keeping up such a hobby any more is too much of a burden on my finances. This is why I gave up thinking I could start a top 40 U.S. collection, since scalping on eBay when it comes to rarer goods, is a common practice.

But I guess I cannot complain about Prime in general. There is loads to watch. I just struggle to select anything. I think I have already seen the best of every decade.

Well, no, maybe not really. But there are hundreds of films across the last century. So trying to choose one for to spend a few hours is tough. I have only seen a few good ones lately. The rest were boring, and "mundane" may be the right term here. I felt no desire to finish them.