"Salt Mine Plans & Feedback" Salt -

[OwO What's This?]

Despite my liking for it, the Salt Mine is being looked down upon by many users and members of the staff. In fact, the reason I was offered a supervisory role in the first place was because I objected to one of the staff members regarding the subforum as a dumping ground for bad threads.

I've personally never understood the vitriol, which makes receiving feedback that much more important. I'm only leaving this thread open for the duration of the weekend, so get your shit in now (and if you have anything important to suggest after the fact, PM me).

Here's a collection of my thoughts, hopefully not too tedious of a read...

Thread Tags
The two I have planned which I 'beta tested' with text (which led to Null getting mad about 'Search Engine Optimization', oops!) are for threads in which we have a lot of in-house salt, and threads regarding people who generate salt. 'Locally Sourced' and 'Pillar of Salt', respectively.

Regarding Locally Sourced...
I often hear complaints about threads that, intentionally or unintentionally, turn into heated arguments between kiwis regarding the subject. (i.e. 'Locally Sourced'). But to me, not only is this entertaining content, the idea of trying to shut this shit down feels like it would turn the subforum into an echo chamber. So far, Trump dissenters that despise the way the left is handling themselves have been getting along well enough with the Trump supporters in the Megathread. When something comes along where opinions clash (like the militranny thing) I'd rather it just play itself out -- with obvious exceptions like a-logging and what have you.

Regarding Pillars of Salt...
What makes a Pillar of Salt different from our typical people-watching threads is they generally aren't embarrassing enough to be considered a full-on lolcow. These are people of interest that generally have their shit together, but they lack any sort of restraint and will use twitter or whatever other platform to angrily rant about things like politics, daily life, gaming, et cetra, and they do so in a manner that tickles our sense of schadenfreude. Tara Strong is our first entry, and I hope to see many more.

Gaming
This issue, in my opinion, has been blown out of proportion. There was a breadth of gaming-related salt threads due to the events of E3 (an industry-ran games convention) and it seems like those who weren't into games all that much felt like it was turning into a gaming-based forum or something.

It's not; I think the fact that those threads have come and gone demonstrates that, and now it's just the Dream Daddy stuff. But even if it were? I don't understand what the problem would be. Nor would I see the problem if the forum became incredibly focused on politics or television or whatever else. I'm a believer in just letting shit happen organically and only taking the wheel only when absolutely necessary. Hopefully that philosophy will lead to further growth.

ok i love you bye bye

 

[CatParty]

How about people actually posting salt rather than just sperging for pages

 

[AnOminous]

I don't see what could go wrong with the board policy that any celebrity who says anything about anything at all is automatically a salty lolcow.

 

[OwO What's This?]

How about people actually posting salt rather than just sperging for pages

I'm surprised to hear this from you, actually, given you commonly enjoy watching Kiwis sperg about things.

I feel like I addressed this in my thoughts regarding 'Locally Sourced' salt, but I'd like to see examples of what you think is not entertaining content.

I don't see what could go wrong with the board policy that any celebrity who says anything about anything at all is automatically a salty lolcow.

There is a countless amount of embarrassing people on the internet that would easily qualify as lolcows, but not all of them make for good threads despite meeting all the criteria. Pillars of Salt will be handled in the exact same fashion.

 

[CatParty]

I'm surprised to hear this from you, actually, given you commonly enjoy watching Kiwis sperg about things.

I feel like I addressed this in my thoughts regarding 'Locally Sourced' salt, but I'd like to see examples of what you think is not entertaining content.

youre talking about arguments. Then just call it a debate forum. However the idea of the salt mine was to find funny reactions to issues that wouldn't be normally categorized as community watch or smaller things that aren't full on cows. But no one really does the leg work to dig up salt.

 

[NumberingYourState]

I think we should focus only on the most prominent sources of outrage instead of niches on Reddit or DeviantArt. Trump (as well as Twitter in general) has set a precedent for salt mining I think, not everything is as salty as can be compared to the clusterfuck that was 2017's Twitter Meltdowns or what our current POTUS provides.

Everything else seems like a very minor contribution tbh.

 

[OwO What's This?]

youre talking about arguments. Then just call it a debate forum. However the idea of the salt mine was to find funny reactions to issues that wouldn't be normally categorized as community watch or smaller things that aren't full on cows. But no one really does the leg work to dig up salt.

I understand the sentiment that people should be doing more work to dig up salt and I'll see what I can do to encourage that. But I personally think the slapfights are entertaining and I'm not sure I like the idea of funneling those away just because it doesn't fit the original concept for the forum.

 

[CatParty]

I understand the sentiment that people should be doing more work to dig up salt and I'll see what I can do to encourage that. But I personally think the slapfights are entertaining and I'm not sure I like the idea of funneling those away just because it doesn't fit the original concept for the forum.

Then yes I totally agree with you that we should continue mocking the posters of the salt forum

 

[bearycool]

I love how people are being salty about the salt mines. Like this is the epitome on what the salt mines are for, and I love it. It's suppose to be enjoying slap fights on random topics that a group of people get mad over.

And if that includes people being getting salty over salt, then I'm all for it.

 

[OwO What's This?]

Then yes I totally agree with you that we should continue mocking the posters of the salt forum

We're all on this website in the first place. I don't think that lends that high of a pedestal to stand on.

 

[Replicant Sasquatch]

youre talking about arguments. Then just call it a debate forum. However the idea of the salt mine was to find funny reactions to issues that wouldn't be normally categorized as community watch or smaller things that aren't full on cows. But no one really does the leg work to dig up salt.

Yeah this. Honestly at this point Salt Mine kind of just feels like a watered-down amalgamation of other boards. Right now it's basically just a place to sperg over movies, vidya, and politics. It's suppsoed to be about finding funny reactions to those things but because Kiwis are terminally autistic it just turns into slap fights over who's the biggest Mary Sue in Star Wars or why Trump is right. All that shit already has a place.

Basically I'm kind of struggling with how Salt Mine fits into anything. Because right now it just sorta feels like the worst aspects of /tv/, /pol/, and /v/. I don't know if I support removing it entirely because as a rule I don't like drastic removals of anything but it just all feels superfluous right now.

 

[OwO What's This?]

Then yes I totally agree with you that we should continue mocking the posters of the salt forum

We're all on this website in the first place. I don't think that lends that high of a pedestal to stand on.

Let me put this another way. The whole purpose of this website is to have fun, first and foremost. If people are having fun slapfighting and they aren't breaking any rules, I don't see why I should stop them. It certainly fits the theme of people being salty.

If that leads to a certain amount of mockery, so be it - there are plenty of subforums and threads where the posters are mocked, and that in itself is fun. What is important to me is that the subforum is seen as fun, whether to read or to participate in.

I draw the line where it's something that reflects particularly badly on Kiwi Farms as a whole, but if we're speaking honestly, that is an extremely low bar. If someone is a-logging or whatever, I will take care of it.

 

[Feline Darkmage]

I personally feel the place for debating amongst ourselves about things (dumb or otherwise) is Deep Thoughts since that's where it would actually be on-topic.

 

[GS 281]

gotta be honest. the more i hear from everyone about all this, it seems that the salt mine is best fit as a subforum under Events and News.

 

[OwO What's This?]

I personally feel the place for debating amongst ourselves about things (dumb or otherwise) is Deep Thoughts since that's where it would actually be on-topic.

Something I took to heart when Null was talking to people in chat about subforum ideas is that the audience is far more important than the designation. The Tumblr forum works because it's a bunch of ex-Tumblr people that woke up and saw what they were a part of. The Beauty Parlor forum works because it's a bunch of catty mean girls talking shit about other, hopefully worse catty mean girls.

Perhaps the slapfighting would be more thematically appropriate in Deep Thoughts, but would it really resonate as well with the same audience? I don't think it would. I think people who want to get into internet arguments about Trump's tweets will want to come here, and inversely I think the people who are regulars in Deep Thoughts have other shit they'd prefer to talk about.

 

[bearycool]

gotta be honest. the more i hear from everyone about all this, it seems that the salt mine is best fit as a subforum under Events and News.

I disagree. The Salt Mines need to be their own thing-- it really is a thing of its own when it comes to events and people sperging.

Sure, there are events-- but salt mines should cater to special events that trigger a shitton of people, or a good subgroup of them. (See: trump's transgender ban, or anything related to Something Awful). We should maybe define salt mines better, but I don't believe it should be a subforum in events.

 

[GethN7]

I think the salt mine does it's job when it's focused on MINING SALT.

The Donald Trump thread is great for this. It's a mostly unbroken collected montage of salty assholes unable to accept Trump is POTUS.

When the kiwis are getting salty, it's all but alogging under a different name and everyone guilty of it should be threadbanned at the very least.

 

[Mister Loser]

Regarding thread tags, I think having "Left Salt" and "Right Salt" as tags would make sense. It seems a lot of threads either focus on tears from liberals or the Alt-Right, and it would make sense to catagorize them as such.

 

[OwO What's This?]

When the kiwis are getting salty, it's all but alogging under a different name and everyone guilty of it should be threadbanned at the very least.

I have seen very little a-logging in the Salt Mine, all things considered.

Regarding thread tags, I think having "Left Salt" and "Right Salt" as tags would make sense. It seems a lot of threads either focus on tears from liberals or the Alt-Right, and it would make sense to catagorize them as such.

And it would also form cliques. I do not like this idea.

 

[An Ghost]

gotta be honest. the more i hear from everyone about all this, it seems that the salt mine is best fit as a subforum under Events and News.

Especially since threads auto lock after 2 weeks, but don't even do that in the news sub.

People just need resources to screen cap people literally cryin and shakin on twitter.