Odd request -- filtering posts on board page

Olgar Shiverstone · Sep 27, 2012

I have a bit of an odd request -- is it possible to have a setting to filter within a board page to cause threads not to appear?

I'm getting a bit annoyed at WotC Golem's news postings popping up in Next (particularly when many of them aren't exactly Next related). I prefer to keep my news separate; plus it feels like the news bot is spamming the board. I thought that there might be a way to filter those particular posts out so they just don't appear to me.

Tried putting WotC Golem on the ignore list, but the thread titles still show up on the main page (though it is successful at hiding the post itself if clicked on).

Any suggestions?

Dice4Hire · Sep 27, 2012

I would like to see the bots in News only, personally.

Umbran · Sep 27, 2012

Dice4Hire said:
I would like to see the bots in News only, personally.

The problem with that is splitting discussion. Someone who doesn't look in News invariably starts a thread on the same topic, so that we end up with two discussions on the same material.

Olgar Shiverstone · Sep 27, 2012

So is there a way to filter out the bots for the viewer? Seems like that's potentially the best of both worlds -- those that want to see them can; those that don't, don't.

Mark CMG · Sep 29, 2012

Umbran said:
The problem with that is splitting discussion.

That's happening anyway. I put a thread up in Media regarding the new Hobbit trailer recently. I didn't recall that ever being News before for EN World, or I might have sent in the scoop. The next day there was a Golem thread on the News page mirrored in Media for the same thing (perhaps the poster didn't see the previous thread) and the two threads split the discussion. I think part of the problem with the WotC Golem is that WotC is very active on their website though it begins to look sometimes like even WotC sneezing would prompt a News story. I like the mirroring when it doesn't duplicate discussions already taking place and when it doesn't spam a particular board. Maybe it could just be done more carefully.

Put in another light, WotC essentially just needs to dash off a quick blog post or mention an upcoming item to get someone else to automatically begin a forum discussion and if they do this four or five times a day then within a week there are a couple dozen threads in a forum from them steering the local discussion, which makes local EN World discussion much less organic. If any EN Worlder posted in that manner, even if they were a WotC employee, they'd be ask to curtail that behavior a bit even if they were all generally decent gaming-related threads being started.. Maybe not everything needs to be mirrored in a forum. Maybe whoever posts as WotC Golem might want to be more judicious on which get mirrored, perhaps reserving that distinction for threads on which there is some real EN World editorializing or input from someone not working for WotC. Maybe "scoopers" could be encouraged to include their own take on the news they send in and be given some credit within the news item for their opinion. Sure, sometimes news is just bland and there's nothing to be said beyond the reporting of it, but when it happens over and over again, so much so a special Golem must be created, it starts to feel a little puppet-stringy.