Secure Beneath the Watchful Eyes

[Terran]

And this makes you mad, why? Does someone feel left out? It just seems silly is all....whats the point of keeping track of post numbers as an indication of ones activity and contribution to the forum if someone can just spam a whole bunch of nonsense to get their numbers high....

[_liam_]

they can/will do it without you even knowing how's that? (btw i dont mean than in a defiant, raised eyebrow way, i mean will they be bluetoothed chips that hold info within the card? haven't heard of that, sounds kinda fanciful, but technology is getting pretty cool) and surely that would be a good thing, got nothing to hide, they aren't intruding on your space or time...what's the problem? i will say i don't like the *sound* of it all (in fact i renewed my passport recently just to avoid all the paperwork ), but if you just calm. down. and consider everything that will be involved, it surely doesn't sound that bad, does it? the only highly questionable element for me is the penalties for not updating/informing the man when you lose it. but then tax is bull**** too. we don't live in utopia. i think the cards will help more than they hinder, ultimately. with regards to whether one document would be easier to misappropriate than many, i guess that really is a matter of opinion, and a something where statistics will eventually reveal the truth. but to give a very simplified analogy, who is at greater risk from credit card theft/fraud, a guy with one card or a guy with 5? there's really only one answer to that which kinda relegates it to the category of rhetoric, but nonetheless... It just seems silly is all....whats the point of keeping track of post numbers as an indication of ones activity and contribution to the forum if someone can just spam a whole bunch of nonsense to get their numbers high.... yeah but the way i see it, when it gets to the stage where there are people with 20,000+ posts, and everyone else (newbs excluded) have a few hundred or thousand, you'll be able to discern who plays a lot of post games and who just talks & chats. lol...surely it's no biggie anyway

[Arcades057]

It just seems silly is all....whats the point of keeping track of post numbers as an indication of ones activity and contribution to the forum if someone can just spam a whole bunch of nonsense to get their numbers high.... Hit the nail on the head, Terran. A lot of posts here seem to be hijacked by folks taking things off on a silly turn (yes, I know I'm sort of doing that now, but I don't necessaily feel that this warrants another post) by members to raise their post count. Does it make me mad? No, just a little annoyed. You have a post that you're interrested in, suddenly you have a silly conversation going on in the middle of it that you have to sift through. Does it matter in the Grande Ol Scheme O' Things? Not in the slightest; just annoying, and it leaves questions, which I already asked: HTF do you get that many posts in such a short amount of time. Terran hit the nail on the head: they post a bunch of news stories and whatnot to get the post count up. Question answered. Yes, MZ, I know the shoutbox is seperate, I was using that as an example.

[capncnut]

I disagree. Sometimes it's a friendly way to interact with some of the other members. People are not just spamming in there or using it to boost their post count, there are communicating. I know that's what the chatroom is for but hey, I'm not breaking any laws. If no one wants to wade through the heavy postage then stay out of that particular forum. If someone is posting too much news crap and you think it's spamming then report them. Why does it matter to people if someones post count is 5 or 5000? If it's that psychologically bothersome then let's ask the mods to see if there's some kind of post count hide tool . It's a bunch of numbers underneath someones avatar, that's all.

[Arcades057]

... says the guy with 3k posts in four months. Seriously, there's just something odd about that. And no, I'm sure it isn't against any rules and I wouldn't report it if it were. Just stating my opinion on the matter. And there are also PMs to consider.

[capncnut]

... says the guy with 3k posts in four months. Seriously, there's just something odd about that. What's so odd about being actively involved in a discussion forum? After all, it is there to cater for the online chatterboxes isn't it. The posting games forum could disappear tomorrow and it wouldn't bother me in the slightest, I only post in there because there's generally an ongoing story/quiz and it can be fun to participate. As long as it doesn't harm anybody or lead to flaming then what does it matter? A 3k post count is easy to accumulate if you spend more than an hour a day at HPotD. What can I say? I like the place, shorry.

[MinionZombie]

PMs have, again, absolutely no impact on your post count. And also, there are very, very few instances when someone says something that is completely off-topic and specific to one, single person - in those cases we say "use PM's", but we very, very rarely have to say that. I can certainly vouch for Capn (whose count is closer to 2500 than 3000) and say that he doesn't spam the place up, the vast majority of people don't spam the place up. What is wrong with an active forum, what is wrong with active members who love to come here and chit chat with folk about a whole range of different topics? I'm personally skeptical about some of the posting games, like word association, and I only posted in the 3-word-story thread for a short amount of time before finding it boring and moving on (like many others have done before and since). There's a huge difference between spammers and people who just like to talk, and this incarnation of the forum has been around for a year now. With so much discussion, it's easy to post a lot and make a totally valid contribution to the boards. Back on topic and: Liam - I think we'd best stop talking politics with one another, it's like two brick walls talking to each other.

[Bongholio]

Since changed the topic people get that many posts from dumb "it's my birthday" cries for attention or the old favorite "circle jerk of backslapping clusterfc**" IE they don't say anything much more than "you are right" like its something to be proud of

[bassman]

I love how you guys are whinning and moaning about an internet message board as if it's some big, important part of your life.

[Arcades057]

I love how you guys are whinning and moaning about an internet message board as if it's some big, important part of your life. I love you automatically assume that since I bring it up it qualifies as a whine. As I said, and I'll see it again since it went over your head: It makes no difference to me; I was just wondering how some of you have posted so much. Terran provided the answer. Back to your regularly scheduled posted news story that could've been found on the 'net.

[bassman]

What makes you think I'm talking about you, dude? I didn't reference anyone in particular. And I'm sure some of, if not all of the things posted on this board can be found "on the net". Isn't this technically "the net"? Maybe not everyone visits alot of different websites. Maybe they have a select few that entertain them so they stick with them for the most part. One of those people: me. It's entertainment, man.... And I wasn't attacking you. Stop taking it that way.

[_liam_]

well, if you complain about something that doesn't really matter, it's a whine in most people's book.

[coma]

it's not that i can't see where youre coming from, i read 1984 and brave new world in school too! - but frankly it sounds like paranoid hysteria. what do you think will happen if we have to carry ID cards, that they will check everyone in the street "vere ah your paperz?!" style? i mean for god's sake, of course they wont. police forces are stretched enough dealing with crime and now increased terrorist threats, they wont bother you unless you appear to be up to something, and if you aren't, then nothing will happen! - much the same as things already are, and have always been. show me something non-speculative that proves they would be a bad idea... Sure they wont bother you unless you appear to be up to something, and up to something may mean they don't like your looks. When I was a younger guy I got stopped almost every time a cop drove by. Thats walking and driving. These things start as a "crime deterrent" that ends up taking the form of harassments of undesirables (that includes thought crimes. ie; you dont think "right") and goes to surveillance to non stop surveillance where all information is connected.. You get used to it bit by bit until you are in Big Brother land and the its too late. The gov speculates on whose undesirable until everyone is undesirable. Speculating in the consequences of surveillance is totally valid. Should one wait until all the bad things come to pass? "I had to let it slide because, though there was ample evidence of a diminution of privacy, I couldn't speculate ON THE OBVIOUS PATH WE WERE ON" (whoops, capslock) I mean, that ludicrous to me. You can never trust the govt and especially the cops, to ever do the right thing on their own. EVER.

[MinionZombie]

Exactly - it's all part of the grand scheme, slippery slope. And a lot of Labour's efforts have been put to criminalising people for things that really don't need to end up with custodial sentences (we are after all, insanely close to being out of prison spaces now). Just look at their proposal for legislation against "violent" pornography. They themselves - in their own proposal - state that there is absolutely no evidence (conclusive or otherwise) that supports their proposal - yet they continue. The proposal seeks to make criminals out of people who like it rough - if it's consenting then who gives a sh*t. It's not everyone's cup-o-tea, but if people aren't being hurt - who cares? Each to their own. Not under Labour it seems - the proposal is purely based on taste, the views taken against 'rough porn' are typical of people who haven't bothered researching or getting to know the respective communities. Now, I don't dig the whole rough porn thing, but if others do - why should I care? Horses for courses. If people just keep letting everything get by without challenges then Labour can just get away with anything, and they're getting away with far too much as it is. I most certainly would not trust all my data (and all the other fall outs of the ID card scheme et cetera) to one system under this government - heck, I wouldn't trust it under any government. They can't keep the home office running smoothly, they leave our borders totally uncontrolled and they change the law so that people can't protest within a mile (or is a km?) of Parliament - whatever happened to freedom of speech and the right to protest? I'll shut up now, you all know by now how far reaching my disdain for this gubment is. Any good they've done has been farrrrrrrr outweighed by the bad...

[Wooley]

Seems old George Orwell was off a bit on the year, wasn't he? The Americans on the board shouldn't be too smug about this. You know deep down that this is coming here too. Just a matter of time until we too find ourselves sadled with identification papers we must carry with us, our every bit of daily life logged into some government database to be scrutinzed lest we be a 'terrorist' or a 'drug dealer' or a 'pedophile' or some other horrible thing that must be defended against, rationalized by that old horrible saying "if you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear". "If you want to imagine the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face, forever." -1984 "Why don't you just shove a leash up my @zz?" -Demolition Man