The World Cup Discussion Thread (OOC, version II)

[Qazox]

Even I thought it was getting spammy towards the end there.

Qazox=

FIFA- USA
Elo- Argentina

[Jeruselem]

Even I thought it was getting spammy towards the end there.

Qazox=

FIFA- USA
Elo- Argentina

Don't like smoking pot/dope/stuff with Maradona?

[Dancougar]

Been awhile since I played this game. 6th, so...

FIFA: Russia. Guuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuus.
ELO: Italy. OH GOD HE TOUCHED MY FACE, IMMA ASPLODE NOW. CARD HIM, DAMMIT!

[Aguazul]

Just a couple suggestions it's always a good idea to ask yourself before you post (here or anywhere else, really);

*Is this the best place for the post? If the post is about RL football, probably not--there's even a RL football (gridiron too) discussion thread in General for that sort of thing. I personally wouldn't post in the General forum with a ten-meter pole, or something, but I generally keep at least eight-and-a-half meters between myself and matters of RL football knowledge anyway...
*Has somebody else already said it? If so, you probably don't need to say it again.
*How many people care? An update of the KPB rankings is a useful, community-wide resource. Extolling the virtues of your own rise through the rankings and how you equate to Mediumtopia is less meaningful to the forum at large, no matter how clever you think you are.

Remember that the WCDT is a means to an end, not an end in itself. There is never any reason to bump the thread (we haven't had any problems with that lately, but it's just good policy)--if people have a substantive issue to raise, they know where to find it.

This is probably unnecessarily stringent, and I'm not proposing it as official guidelines. There've been plenty of groans about the signal-to-noise ratio over time, and to my knowledge we haven't hammered out any clear rules as to the purpose and content of this thread. If--and it's a big if--we can find some way of doing so, by all means...not necessarily something as serious as Newmanistan's proposal, although that's a starting point. I'm not expecting that to happen, but self-moderation never hurts--and I find that a whole lot better than having people less familiar with sports RP do it for us.

Sorry for being pretentious.

[Bears Armed]

Well, the Belles managed to go up two places -- to 21st -- so _

21st = Chile (FIFA), Republic of [South] Korea (FIFA, Women’s), Czech Republic (ELO).

[Krytenia]

Just a couple suggestions it's always a good idea to ask yourself before you post (here or anywhere else, really);

*Is this the best place for the post? If the post is about RL football, probably not--there's even a RL football (gridiron too) discussion thread in General for that sort of thing. I personally wouldn't post in the General forum with a ten-meter pole, or something, but I generally keep at least eight-and-a-half meters between myself and matters of RL football knowledge anyway...
*Has somebody else already said it? If so, you probably don't need to say it again.
*How many people care? An update of the KPB rankings is a useful, community-wide resource. Extolling the virtues of your own rise through the rankings and how you equate to Mediumtopia is less meaningful to the forum at large, no matter how clever you think you are.

I agree with most of this - the comparison of KPBs to the FIFA and ELO rankings, though, has been around since...at least WC15 - and probably earlier than that.

[The Archregimancy]

Sorry for being pretentious.

No, no, no... you weren't being pretentious, you were being pedantic.

Hello kettle, this is pot - you're black.

Anyway, the monks seem to have inadvertently brought the apocalypse down on the previous thread - which may or may not seem appropriate - and if that's inconvenienced anyone, I do apologise; my thread in the mod cave asked for a polite 'please cease and desist', not a full lock, and I'm as surprised as anyone that the mods decided to go down the latter path. Though I do at least hope that one increasingly spamtastic nation that apparently can't find the delete button is feeling slightly chastened this morning.

Over the last couple of years, we've become far, far more tolerant than we used to be over spam in our discussion threads, and while a little bit of friendly banter helps make the community what it is (though I'm grateful that posts about baseball died out about a year ago), I agree that this may give us an opportunity to usefully re-evaluate the focus of this thread.

As to some of Aguazul's specific points, I'm not myself fond of the FIFA / ELO posts, but I'd never dream of trying to ask people to stop them because many nations get a vicarious thrill out of seeing how their nation's ranking develops over time. I don't care who the 10th and 27th-ranked teams are in real life, or why I should compare my nations to them, but if it floats someone else's boat, why should I be a killjoy?

I don't mind the occasional mention of a RL event so long as the bulk of the post is relevant. For example, I can briefly mention here how depressing I find Portsmouth's start to the Premiership season, and even the 3-1 victory over Carlisle in the League Cup last night hardly makes up for the doom of impending relegation, but because most of the rest of my post is based on substantive discussion, you'll probably let me get away with it.

I imagine we'll see an upsurge in RL-related posts when a certain little event in South Africa is underway next year; I find discussions of the RL World Cup more forgiveable (given that our event is a form of World Cup) than discussions of RL club sides. For example, a post about "Ghana are almost as much of a dark horse this time around as Surprisistan turned out to be in WC52!" seems to me more forgiveable than a post about Landon Donovan's form in LA's last match against the Seattle Sounders.

But yes, I wish we could cut out the spam. I have a serious proposal on the table about reforming the interaction between friendlies and the WCC, and I'd still like to see it go to a vote, but it's probably been lost in the backwash of irrelevant verbal incontinence that was afflicting the previous thread towards the end.


Edit: You know, it occurs to me that the monks (less directly, but equally accidentally) also killed off the original Jolt WC discussion thread. Orthodox monks - your harbingers of the apocalypse since St. Anthony the Great.

[Taeshan]

Last time i checked it was called the World Cup Discussion Thread with a little thing on the end that says ooc. This means that it shouldn't have to be about NS Football because it is not implied in the first post of the thread that it is in fact about NS football. OOC to me means that as long as your talking about Football, either NS or RL, and it wasn't like that rant i had on the last one, it really should not matter as to what it is overly about.

[Peisandros]

Tae what sub-forum is this in? I'll answer for you, NS Sports. It can therefore be implied that this 'OOC' thread is for discussion on NS footy.
If you want to discuss RL footy, go the the general megathread.

Edit (see what I did there Sarz?) : this comes from a spammer from way back, but when the powers at be and general populace decide it's time to clean the shit up, then that's what happens. Arguing will just make for moments.

[Sarzonia]

My take is that if we're not doing anything to excess, I have no objections to some "spammish" content. However, the spam posts were very much excessive the past few days.

Those of us who made them need to own up to it and move on from here. I'm not going to call out any one particular poster, but those of you who made those posts know who you are.

Again, before you hit Submit, think hard about whether your post adds anything to the discussion. If you've already made a post and you have more to add, consider editing your existing post, especially if you're the last one to post.

On another message board I'm on, I'll sometimes delete a post I've made just because I've made two posts in a row, even if it adds something to the discussion. I'm not suggesting we be that draconian, but I am suggesting that we all take what happened yesterday to heart.

[The Archregimancy]

Last time i checked it was called the World Cup Discussion Thread with a little thing on the end that says ooc. This means that it shouldn't have to be about NS Football because it is not implied in the first post of the thread that it is in fact about NS football. OOC to me means that as long as your talking about Football, either NS or RL, and it wasn't like that rant i had on the last one, it really should not matter as to what it is overly about.

Well, you are of course welcome to take that opinion up with the mods who locked the last thread as a direct consequence of your excessive irrelevant spamming.

'OOC' means 'discussion of relevant issues doesn't take place in-character', not 'Taeshan can discuss whatever he bloody well pleases so long as he thinks its even vaguely relevant'.

I would perhaps advise that you take some time to consider whether your current preferred approach is helpful given yesterday's events.

[Nethertopia]

This thread is lacking Nethers.

...

Blarg.

[Krytenia]

This thread is lacking Nethers.

...

Blarg.

Aaaaand this would be an example of DO NOT DO.

[Nethertopia]

This thread is lacking Nethers.

...

Blarg.

Aaaaand this would be an example of DO NOT DO.

Thank you all for your attention. Now, if you would turn to your right, you would see the Cup of Harmony. Who's gonna win it this time?

My money's on Bostopia, if he returns in time from his foreign trip to Canada.

[Euroslavia]

This thread is lacking Nethers.

...

Blarg.

Aaaaand this would be an example of DO NOT DO.

Very much so. I'll try and keep an eye on this thread every once and a while. If there's an issue with spam, just send me a telegram, and I'll do what I can on cleaning up the topic and keep it on track.

[Delaclava]

This thread is lacking Nethers.

...

Blarg.

Aaaaand this would be an example of DO NOT DO.

Thank you all for your attention. Now, if you would turn to your right, you would see the Cup of Harmony. Who's gonna win it this time?

My money's on Bostopia, if he returns in time from his foreign trip to Canada.

And meanwhile, you have the dark horse here, Delaclava. Look out!

[Swartaz]

This thread is lacking Nethers.

...

Blarg.

Aaaaand this would be an example of DO NOT DO.

Thank you all for your attention. Now, if you would turn to your right, you would see the Cup of Harmony. Who's gonna win it this time?

My money's on Bostopia, if he returns in time from his foreign trip to Canada.

me

[The Weegies]

79! I think I've jumped 81 places! Awesome.

Anyway, I'm just confirming The Archregimancy's post about our joint BoF bid on the previous thread; I see nothing that I'd personally object to. Whilst I am the less experienced of the hosting pair here, I will note I did previously host the 5th World Field Hockey Cup, which went as well as could be expected on the old forums, back before Jolt, where the dreaded "invalid_session" threatened often to get in the way of a good RP.

[Krytenia]

I'd say Nethers has a decent chance. God knows how he ended up not qualifying *cough*sixnil*cough*

[Krytenia]

I'd say Nethers has a decent chance. God knows how he ended up not qualifying *cough*sixnil*cough*

[Taeshan]

Last time i checked it was called the World Cup Discussion Thread with a little thing on the end that says ooc. This means that it shouldn't have to be about NS Football because it is not implied in the first post of the thread that it is in fact about NS football. OOC to me means that as long as your talking about Football, either NS or RL, and it wasn't like that rant i had on the last one, it really should not matter as to what it is overly about.

Well, you are of course welcome to take that opinion up with the mods who locked the last thread as a direct consequence of your excessive irrelevant spamming.

'OOC' means 'discussion of relevant issues doesn't take place in-character', not 'Taeshan can discuss whatever he bloody well pleases so long as he thinks its even vaguely relevant'.

I would perhaps advise that you take some time to consider whether your current preferred approach is helpful given yesterday's events.

I never said that i could talk about whatever the hell i fealt like talking. I said that as long as it a) has something to do with NS World Cup, and other NS Soccer Tourneys or b) uses real life soccer information to put in context put forth by someone, somthing or perhaps even what you have said, or c) pertains to a fact someone else had used earlier and that you want to make a fact about as it pertains to the World Cup Discussion.

[Dancougar]

I never said that i could talk about whatever the hell i fealt like talking. I said that as long as it a) has something to do with NS World Cup, and other NS Soccer Tourneys or b) uses real life soccer information to put in context put forth by someone, somthing or perhaps even what you have said, or c) pertains to a fact someone else had used earlier and that you want to make a fact about as it pertains to the World Cup Discussion.

Yes, except for the part where you didn't do any of that, and instead were responding to random posts to try and bump yourself onto the top of page 100. And admittedly, my facepalm.jpeg was an unnecessary response that didn't help matters.

Hey robotic drunk whores, you don't look so funky!
Hey robotic drunk whores, you don't look so funky!

Why, good sir, we take offense. Our drunk robots are VERY funky!

[The Archregimancy]

I said that as long as it a) has something to do with NS World Cup, and other NS Soccer Tourneys or b) uses real life soccer information to put in context put forth by someone, somthing or perhaps even what you have said, or c) pertains to a fact someone else had used earlier and that you want to make a fact about as it pertains to the World Cup Discussion.

No you most definitely did not. What you said - in the very post you yourself chose to quote, was:

"This means that it shouldn't have to be about NS Football because it is not implied in the first post of the thread that it is in fact about NS football. OOC to me means that as long as your talking about Football, either NS or RL, and it wasn't like that rant i had on the last one, it really should not matter as to what it is overly about"

Not only do you not argue that discussion of RL events should have some relevance to the NSWC, you explicitly and overtly state that you believe that you don't have to restrict yourself to NS football, and that you're free to discuss RL regardless of its relevance to the NSWC and what the topic is 'overly about'.

See this:



This is someone digging themselves a deeper hole. No doubt you metaphorically sympathise with the experience.

[Sarzonia]

Can we get on with discussing things such as our group draw, the Cup of Harmony vote & c. and NOT what constitutes spam with poorly-worded and reasoned arguments that don't hold up?

Put more bluntly: ENOUGH ALREADY!

[Dancougar]

All righty, then. Group draw. Let's see... what would be the most amusing draw? Let's assume, for a moment, that I've figured out the pots correctly, by rank and taking into account the hosts are in the first pot, then...

Dancougar - Bears Armed - Qazox - Newmanistan

Yeah! Two official rivalry games, and Qazox will of course want revenge for us pasting them in their new stadium back in 47 quals.