What ARE general threads? Can we put together a working definition of one for internal use? Obviously we all "basically" know what a general thread is but I'd like a concrete definition that we can use as a basis for further dicussion.Side discussion: please offer your thoughts on general threads both within the boards you use the most, and in general.
an ancient evil that has awokenalso there's an official definition:>>>/vg/rules/1>..."general" threads, which are long-term, recurring threads about a specific topic.Most anons try to start generals just by making a topic and adding "general" to the end of the subject, but they usually fizzle out because you can only have so many recurring threads about the state of new jersey before it becomes boring even for the posters. I learned the hard way when you actively try to remove them, they actually have a better chance of sticking. My advice is unless we get the WEAPONS FREE from hiro, to ignore them if there's no superseding mod decisions.theyre still gross and i dislike that they go against the spirit of the site. but thems the rules
>>6076I feel like this is a terrible definition. Referring to a thread labled "X thread" for the general discussion of X topic as a "general thread" feels exceedingly natural whether that thread was made for the first time ever or has been recurring every day for years. If I got to decide how the language is used, I'd try and make distinctions between "general threads", "recurring general threads", and "eternal general threads.">My advice is unless we get the WEAPONS FREE from hiro, to ignore them if there's no superseding mod decisions.Yeah, the current policy looks like it's to allow them except for the boards in which they're banned for specific reasons. I mostly made this thread because I thought it might be useful to have a discussion about it.
>>6076How can a thread be both general and yet "about a specific topic" at the same time?
>>6077>I mostly made this thread because I thought it might be useful to have a discussion about it.I totally agree with you, it's definitely become a creeping issue. I like more unrealistic solutions like opening up textboards for boards with a lot of generals and pushing them all there. They get the chatroom they all want and there's less moderation overhead since we wouldn't have to police images. From a technical standpoint (4 the real deal) the most that would have to be done is porting old CSS to the "new" html. We could reskin yotsuba and turn off images to make it look like it's still shii's old script. That way it hooks in to the reports system, mod tools and the users think they have the old text boards back.>>6078>How can a thread be both general and yet "about a specific topic" at the same time?that's what makes generals dumb
>>6078They're threads which encompass any/all discussion of a topic, as opposed to having a specific line of inquiry. The "specific topic" in question is generally broad enough that it encompasses a great deal of more specific discussion. For example, all discussion relating to a certain series (such as Attack on Titan or Game of Thrones), or relating to a certain activity (such as skateboarding or military enlistment), or object (such as boots or makeup).In some boards almost all threads look like this.
The thing about general threads is it's only as good as the willingness of the participants to be engaged with the topic at hand rather than spamming tired memes and gossiping about the other users. It's more of a problem with low-effort chatroom-tier posting than being about a general topic necessarily. I'd say it would become a 'general' if there is no new content and it's the same flood of people doing the same things over and over.
I perceive different classifications of threads that people umbrella under as a "general". Since we've been talking about generals on /a/ lately, I might as well get some thoughts in on that here.By my loose-ish definition, a true general thread is an uninterrupted/chaining thread that exists essentially 24/7, most obvious with backlinks/"new thread/"next thread"/"previous thread" etc somewhere in the mix. Quite often a new one will be made around the time that the old one is falling off a catalog and people will even try to compete for which one gets picked for the routine, expected migration to the new edition. Quite often these harbor an enclave that seems to never leave the thread.However though there are also what I call scheduled threads - miuna monday, waifu wednesday, etc. People know/expect these are coming, and use them for a few days every week. They are objectively not the same as the actual 24/7 generals as they don't literally chain the threads. To me this method at the very least communicates some awareness or attempt of quality control, hence is better than an actual 24/7 gen, because those users at least know to not force a subject to be up 24/7 and are aware of what a break/pause is. They are still something worth discussing though because they are by nature deeply repetitive and like a casual/lite general in function. Lastly on /a/ there are functionally two types of 24/7 gens - ones for very popular recent series that retain lots of momentum powering extra discussion, and what I call the "evergreen" generals for series that constantly have new content year-round i.e they are not season-based. Evergreens are things like One Piece, Precure, SnK etc. The vast majority of the gens that remain on /a/ (as well as the most frequent targets of complaints) are evergreen subjects. Recent popular series with momentum tend to die out on their in ~1-2 years (ex: Re:Zero is less frequent now and not 24/7), while some /a/ evergreens are 4-5+ years old.
>>6084also at the end there, >tend to die out on their own
