What if Off-Topic Forums were removed?

[schwank05]

this topic is totally not at all being posted for sort of hidden agenda type reason....nope.
why is there no option for....not at all?
i would stop completely. met a few nice friends here. would hate to see it go. wow is dead to me.
this forum doesn't need to be removed it just needs more moderation.

I say it needs less moderation, Let everything go. It will be so much more entertaining then.

- - - Updated - - -

I don't understand the people who say they'd visit more if OT was removed. They can already choose not to read it.

It's like the people that think removing Raid Finder will magically fix all of WOW's problems.

[NED funded]

An increase in the quality of life of the users.

[LinkR]

If they did, they better be ready to take on more moderators, because that's their safety net.

[DarkAmbient]

lol! Exactly. It is almost like some feel like their arm is being twisted to read it.

There are people who react to controversial opinions, or even simply opinions that differ to theirs, as if they are being brutally oppressed, and will demand total censorship of the offending material. No doubt for some the mere existence of OT is 'triggering' and its removal would make MMO-C the glorious safe space of their dreams.

[Reaper0329]

Gen OT is an absolute cesspit and a cancerous growth on this site, and politics is nothing more than the same plus a circle jerk. The others are alright.

Gen OT and politics also where almost 100% of my post count comes from. So, I don't know what that says about me.

I think the topic would have been more interesting if limited in scope.

[vindicatorx]

Well seeing I haven't played WoW actively in like 2 years not much of a reason to come here

[Afrospinach]

Traffic would take a major hit.

I am always surprised at how much more busy wow general is than GenOT.

Right now it is 533 vs 420. Hard to believe(maybe because I just find a lot of things on this site wow related to be highly redundant including discussions about the game) but this is still a WoW site. Even with all these other games coming out and all the petitions for sub forums for them because they will "kill wow". Actually the alternative forums are struggling to break double digits according to the forum page lol.

I think traffic would be ok.

[avitush]

People would probably do what they do on the official Blizzard forums and just use other forums as Gen-OT instead of their intended purposes.

iirc, Blizzard doesn't have a forum specifically for general/off-topic stuff, but they do have an "off topic" section with subforums like movies, books, non-Blizzard games, etc. People just use those as Gen-OT forums. There's stuff like "food/drinks you like that nobody else likes" and other random threads in the movies forum. I imagine the same thing would happen here if they did away with General Off-Topic. And yeah, a lot of people would probably just flat-out leave and go shitpost somewhere else too (which may or may not be an improvement, /shrug).

But yeah, if people just start using other forums as general OT, that probably just creates more work for the mods because they'd regularly have to clean all the general discussion crap from the other forums (depending on how heavily they'd want to enforce keeping things on topic in those forums, I guess).

[Queen of Hamsters]

I'd be 100% fine with it. They're usually a crapfest of 'Muricans doing the Left vs Right dance anyway.

[Kumorii]

People would seep into other subforums.

[Flarelaine]

I'm not here for Off-topic forums but removal of them also would scatter a lot of topics into different threads - we would once more have, can X setup play X quality in WoW in the GenD and such. I have no problem with Off-Topic being around as long as it is kept in check without users coming out of the woodwork, whining about why their conspiracy theories or gender/country/whatever bashing got removed.

I don't see many complaints these days about moderation happening, but a lot about moderation not happening.

[IIamaKing]

The actual gaming section of this website would only benefit from this.

How do you figure?

- - - Updated - - -

An increase in the quality of life of the users.

How so?

10chairs

[Darkeon]

How do you figure?

I think that MMOC, as a gaming forum, only has to benefit if it focuses on it's gaming material, as well as the community doing the same.

[Daedius]

The saturation of politics driven drivel is what makes it shit. Ban that, and infract people breaching it not posting in the politics section, please.

[IIamaKing]

I think that MMOC, as a gaming forum, only has to benefit if it focuses on it's gaming material, as well as the community doing the same.

The gaming portions are seperate. I fail to see how there would be any impact. There Is no focus from MMO-C on the OT forums. And which OT forums are to be removed? Anything not related to WoW? Just the Gen-OT because some of you dont like but cant seem to avoid it for some reason?

[Darkeon]

The gaming portions are seperate. I fail to see how there would be any impact. There Is no focus from MMO-C on the OT forums. And which OT forums are to be removed? Anything not related to WoW? Just the Gen-OT because some of you dont like but cant seem to avoid it for some reason?

I would say keep it gaming related, yeah. Mainly WoW and other Blizzard stuff if they so desire.

Keeping the fun section should be enough. Letting the off-topic section grow and fester clearly had a negative effect, overall, to the website.

[Shadowferal]

I think that MMOC, as a gaming forum, only has to benefit if it focuses on it's gaming material, as well as the community doing the same.

The community isn't here for gaming. So...this site would have far less traffic...which I'm sure isn't a benefit.

[Darkeon]

The community isn't here for gaming. So...this site would have far less traffic...which I'm sure isn't a benefit.

Maybe the core of the issue is that the community isn't here for gaming. On a gaming website.

[Shadowferal]

Any traffic for a site that relies on such is good traffic.

[IIamaKing]

I would say keep it gaming related, yeah. Mainly WoW and other Blizzard stuff if they so desire.

Keeping the fun section should be enough. Letting the off-topic section grow and fester clearly had a negative effect, overall, to the website.

And what is that? MMO-C puts out the same content now as they did ~10 years ago. Patch notes and general WoW news.

Specifically, what has been negatively impacted in terms of content provided by the site?