Feedback The 'Be Civil' rule and dealing with cows -

[Ginger Root]

[tl;dr post ahead but my main point is can we discourage shitposting at cows]

One of the main trends that I seem to be seeing among members recently is that there's a disagreement on how to deal with cows that visit the site and if they should be allowed to visit at all.

I think the site for the most part does a good job of balancing out encouraging members to be civil to each other whilst also giving some leniency to jimmy rustlers who in good fun prevent this place becoming a hug box, which allows people to engage in having a discussion on the abnormal psychology of cows whilst also having a laugh and not taking it too seriously. However this balance seems to go out of the window whenever a cow visits as suddenly threads with potential become shitposting havens for those wanting sempai to notice them and chimp out. Not only does this prevent those wanting to discuss the cow but for the most part usually stops content from being made (other than poorly worded ad hominem attacks which read like an RSS stream of YouTube comments) and the posters become just as embarrassing as the cow themselves.

As much as I prefer to watch from the sidelines and not directly engage, I understand cows are going to come here from time to time and want to talk. I personally don't think they should be banned, but I would like to see people being more polite when cows come here. Now I'm not saying in any way that this place should become a hugbox for cows at all, you can still be critical of someone and do it in a well worded way. I guess I think of this place more as a neutral party that documents crazy shit on the internet that is critical of both trolls and cows (a lot of time the lines between troll and cow are blurred anyway) and that dealing with people of interest in a more civil but critical manner is going to get more information and content out of them. Besides, somebody becoming hostile over well worded criticism is far more funnier than someone that says fuck you to a guy pretending to be Clyde Cash.

 

[catparty]

Threads tend to become an autistic a log circlejerk when cows show up. Maybe issuing warning points would deter that, though that might be too fine of a line to tread.

 

[Night Terror]

I can't help but think that people don't even realise what they're doing as they try and make senpai notice them. They get too caught up in the moment of the cow showing up and start expressing their autism in imaginative ways. People need to stop and think to themselves 'is this post meaningful or am I just calling the cow a faggot in a roundabout way?' before they post.

 

[Durable Mike Malloy]

I can't help but think that people don't even realise what they're doing as they try and make senpai notice them. They get too caught up in the moment of the cow showing up and start expressing their autism in imaginative ways. People need to stop and think to themselves 'is this post meaningful or am I just calling the cow a faggot in a roundabout way?' before they post.

As a sort of corollary, it's worth noting that threads like this can be plenty fun to participate in as they unfold, yet become nigh-unreadable after the fact. Sometimes a cheap shot can be very funny because of the timing, but this aspect is lost to subsequent readers. I've noticed some people will go back and clean up their shitposts; depending on how charitable one is inclined to be, this could either be seen as a courtesy to other users trying to catch up on a thread that's been active, or an attempt to backtrack and conceal embarrassing behavior.

Moreover, shitposting in an active thread tends to be rewarded with plenty of upvotes; it's an easy way to likefarm if one values the accumulation of internet points. If people don't enjoy seeing these kinds of posts, though, it's easier to scroll past than assign a neutral or downvote that will potentially set some loser on a revenge-rating spree. Good posts aren't necessarily highly rated posts, because an actual reasoned opinion is easier to disagree with than a reaction image.

When new cows show up to the site, it would be nice if users unfamiliar with them would do some research and figure out if this person is more likely to respond to measured critique, or be provoked to humorous effect by cheap shots.

 

[Null]

This has been the case even since the days of Moleman. Even well established users do the sempai notice me thing. I remember Salto and Satan, two really well respected and integrated people, were constantly replying to Moleman in his threads even if Moleman usually said nothing to them. There has been one lolcow in the history of the forum to reply to literally every single thing ever addressed to him and the first day he joined the forum is the only time we've had over 6000 posts in 24 hours.

(Can YOU tell what day Holden joined the forum?)

But I don't know how to deal with it. It's a part of the guideline, "don't post if you have nothing to say". Everyone thinks they're much, much clever than they actually are. People tend to repeat each other frequently because they don't even read the thread waiting for their turn to talk. It's not like smaller trolling cliques where they start PMing each other or set up a group chat and designate good-cop bad-cops to milk people the most. The forum becomes a mob, and you're lucky if someone participating doesn't die along the way.