Let's just say that it is rather depressing to see half of the topics in the off topic section starting with "R.I.P.". I wanted to open this poll up and see what others thought.
A subsection dedicated to "RIP" is just as depressing, I think. Game related deceases should be in the Tributes section and all others in off-topic. That's the way it is now, isn't it? A sticky for "RIP" posts would be OK. On the other hand it would get cluttered pretty soon. Edit 2: I agree with @mairsil though that there are a lot of RIP threads recently.
Agree, either that or an obituary sub-forum in Offtopic? (sounds depressing as well, but at least there could be separate threads?)
Came here to make the same suggestion; noticed, that its been brought up already. Although my line of thinking is to put the RIPs in the Off Topic Discussion into a single thread/sticky as mentioned by @cez.
A single thread is rather disrespectful. They're there to pay tribute to people and inform those who may not have heard the news (e.g. some well-known UK celebs may not reach Japan or the US). To be honest, just like any content, if you don't wanna read it, don't click it. Simple. Sorry if you're depressed by the fact that people die - but it's a fact. In fact, over 150,000 people die every day - is it really so bad to hear about a couple per week? My thought is that it's nice to be able to pay your respects to someone who was known by many for a few minutes. Is it not less depressing than having posts of Ethiopian kids starving, the refugee camps in France, beheadings in the Middle East and such? As for the Gaming Pioneers thread, that's not an obituary. It's to bring awareness to the pioneers and share interesting content. Yes, obituaries for gaming people are welcome in there... because this is a gaming community. If you don't want to hear what's going on in the real World, see silly pictures or what random stuff GOH is on about this week, maybe stay out of Off Topic and concentrate on the gaming sections that brought you here? I know I've spent weeks without going in OT personally before... bit hard as an admin not to check up now and then, but I do tend to skim.
Alright, no need to get overly defensive about it. This was put up in January, not as a result of your recent posts. I wanted to see how other peple felt, which is why I put up the poll with little commenting from myself. You have a point about the Gaming Pioneers section being for the living as well. It just doesn't come across that way by taking a look at the topics in there, hence my "conversion" poll option.
Oh don't worry, I know it's an old thread and I didn't comment originally. Not wanting to sound harsh, but January is probably a month for deaths - cold weather and all that! I know it doesn't seem to have died down much (no pun intended), but that's just the way it is. There's always going to be someone well-known "of an age", I guess. Personally, I try to limit it as it WOULD get to be a drag if everyone were posted! I try to keep a mix of the obvious (often someone else beats me to it) like David Bowie, and the ones that may well be missed but either you'll say "oh yeah, I remember him!" or it'll be someone with an interesting past. And, without being disrespectful to anyone or any nation, most people probably wouldn't care to know that the former German Foreign Minister died today, unless they're German. Same probably goes for a lot of sportsmen, especially a sport that's really only followed in one country (baseball, ice hockey or American football, for example), unless they had significant impact. For example, Joe Santos died today - he was in The Rockford Files. Larry Drake died yesterday - he was in L.A. Law. Frank Sinatra Jr. died the day before - more famous for being kidnapped than his career, if truth be told. I didn't post about Nancy Reagan's death, although she was a significant person. Actual stats of what's been posted: March: 5 ("notable person" deaths on Wikipedia: 359) February: 2 ("notable person" deaths on Wikipedia: 520) January: 7 ("notable person" deaths on Wikipedia: 626) December: 3 ("notable person" deaths on Wikipedia: 472) November: 2 ("notable person" deaths on Wikipedia: 485) October: 0 ("notable person" deaths on Wikipedia: 531) I think January was just an unlucky month - and maybe time of the year played a part in some cases. (going beyond that - September: 0, August: 4, July: 5 shows that it's kinda been slow of late, other than January!) Were there more deaths in January? Well, yes... but there were 618 last January, with 535 the following month and 517 the month before, so the statistics show it's probably just how it is in January. So there ya go... more depth than you ever wanted to go into on death statistics Briefly on Gaming Pioneers, it's often the way they're paid tribute to after their deaths, but anyone's welcome to share an interesting documentary or similar!
Don't click on it? If there are particular forums that interest you (and others you don't want to see), spend a few minutes going through and watching them (click the forum, then click Watch Forum above the title bar) - you might want to disable e-mail notifications, too! You can then click Watch Forums up the top to view only that list. That will give you a less cluttered "home page" (and was mentioned in the stickied guide to using the new forums)
Recent Posts in the sidebar is just the last five posts. That's uncontrollable - it's just whatever's been posted last, and should change frequently! Considering most RIP threads only have one or two replies, I highly doubt they stay there for long. As for unread posts or the New Posts page, if you clicked on them they'd no longer be unread (and would disappear from New Posts) - that's your doing!
I visit the website, I click New Posts, I then sort by recent posts. This is where it would be a nice feature to exclude off-topic posts from showing.
Hmm, so hide everything from one forum? Not possible by default, but interesting question. I will take a look.
I feel like having a subforum in the off topic forums area would clean up the clutter without being disrespectful to the people that have passed away.
It's the off-topic forum. What is it that you'd rather see? From the "quality" choice we have.. maybe cringeworthy images on the Internet? What car everyone drives? The state of modern hip hop? The most WTF item on eBay? I'd say calling it "clutter" is disrespectful and that's just sweeping it away. As I said, people die - it's a fact. If you don't want to read "clutter", maybe steer clear of off topic? lol. At any rate, a celebrity's death has just as much right to be first item in off topic as Mountain Dew collectors unite!
I guess calling it clutter wasn't really the best choice of words, I meant it more of keeping the off topic area a bit more organized than it is right now. I could also see the Gaming Pioneers forum area being changed into a tributes area with different subforums for gaming pioneers and other celebrities so it doesn't get confusing.
As I pointed out before, the Gaming Pioneers forum is NOT for deaths, it's for tributes. If you wanna write a tribute to Shigeru Miyamoto as a gaming pioneer, go ahead. I posted an interesting series of videos on the history of game music in there. It just happens to be where gaming RIPs go, to separate them from the regular. You'll never declutter the off topic forum. You'll always have users who post things like what's your favourite pie. Yes, that was a real post.
