Successful Forum Posting

Aside from spending more time on Channel9 than is healthy, I’ve only been involved with a few Internet forums. In my time posting, (and frequently killing threads dead.) I’ve come up with a simple rule for getting replies to a thread.

The key is to not present a balanced argument, this may seem obvious to some, but it comes hard to me. You want to start a debate, if you present a balanced point of view you leave respondents with little to say. So the single rule for successfully posting on a forum is to be as one-sided as you dare be. Be careful though to be rational in your criticism – ranting and raving like a lunatic isn’t going to get you any replies. (Unless you’re criticising Microsoft or Dubya Bush, where you can be as rabid as you like and you’ll still get responses – although you may not be taken seriously.)

If you don’t believe me, you can experiment for yourselves – start a thread with a post along the lines of: "X product sucks." or "Y Politician is an idiot." and you’ll notice that you’ll get a healthy number of replies.

SLOTD 19th October 2006

Silliness:

Quite possibly the best advert for a feature of a car ever!

I don’t know what inspired the essay, but someone knowing something about Oedipus makes it funnier.

Geekiness:

A list of physics related games. Some of these I’ve played and are very cool. The rest, I dunno.

SLOTD 18th October 2006

Silliness:

Wow… I mean, wow! Art drawn into the dust on the back of a man’s car.

Armando Iannucci in reflective mood on the role of comedy as news in modern society. (And I’m guilty of getting more info from "have I got news for you", than from listening to today on radio 4)

SLOTD 17th October 2006

Silliness:

Now that’s what I call recycling.

Predatory teenage girls lure bands to her basement for lurid free music depravity. (genius)

Ellie’s Link:

China is trying to eliminate bad English before 2008. Good luck on that one, we’ve been trying since the middle ages.

SLOTD 16th October 2006

Silliness:

Umm.. The Game Poets Society? What the hell is going on here?

This amused me, what happens when you mix sweets and drink?

This man has been developing easy ways to move large lumps of concrete – and claims he could build Stonehenge. I just want to know how to get the crossbars in.

Geekiness:

The delicious irony. Here’s a page supposed to be about the art of 404 pages (y’know "page not found") but what happens when I try to visit it? (I’m not telling you if you can’t guess.)

Ellie’s Link:

Man skateboards halfway across Australia to be injured by a small piece of metal while having his photo taken. He’s determined to finish the journey though.

SLOTD 13th October 2006

Silliness:

Hmm.. Chad Vader – not scary, not scary at all.

The campaign for real beauty show you how (exaggerate for effect) beauty magazines achieve unrealistic images.

Seriously abusing the groovy physics sketching program.

Ellie’s Link:

Awww, it’s the end of the series of unfortunate events. Although to be honest 13 books in any series is pushing it.

SLOTD 12th October 2006

Silliness:

Useful, yet obvious, tips for improving your productivity.

A very long list of useful books for games developers – anyone want to guess what’s being added to my amazon wishlist?

Wow, apparantly according to a totally factual and authorative source (y’know, wikipedia) our army is smaller than Germany’s, France’s and Japan’s) cool.

Curious, curious – psychologically being a paedophile, and being gay / straight are non-compatible. Paedophilia (how long until I get black-listed somewhere?) is a sexuality in its own right. Mainly interesting for the dog quote though!

This is plain odd, a water powered car. Not exactly practical though.

Quite possibly the most astonishing, and appaling thing I’ve seen in a while – these chickens are alive through the entire process of being scooped up by a mechanical head.

What’s with these ancient comic covers? (Photoshop perchance?) However, the title given to the link where I found it says it all. "Superman is a Dick".

Geekiness:

Steve Ballmer talking straight on various issues, interesting guy – and a hard one to dismiss.

OK, OK, so it’s another list – like the world isn’t already full of those! – but I agree with it. The 7 most annoying fonts.

Ooohh… 3D models generated from pictures – pretty funky.

SLOTD 10th October 2006

Seriousness:

Ok, so the first serious link in SLOTD, but what the hell. Chinese border patrols were seen killing Tibetan refugees by mountain climbers on their way up Everest.

Silliness:

Sublime, meet ridiculous – woman’s bum burned as lightning passes out of it.

A very groovy staircase in New York.

A seriously cool, but ultimately pointless "Distance Printing Machine" in the style of all those machine gun writing stunts you see in cartoons.

Awesome advert, don’t have a clue what it’s for though.

Geekiness:

New phone concepts. I love concepts, they’re all the fun of imagining without any of the drawbacks of doing.

SLOTD 9th October 2006

Geekiness:

Text based Pong! (Need I say more?)

Hmm.. The guys who make MythBusters decided to test the theory you can destroy your car with a subwoofer. Is it me, or are they really struggling for myths?

One simple question, do you want to burn things with a laser? Yes… Then here’s the one for you.

Silliness:

Amazing picture of Batman and Robin drawn on the pavement. You just have to stand in exactly the right position for it to work that’s all.

Apparantly attractiveness is related to the ease with which people can be processed – bizarre idea.

Brilliant time-waster this one, JacksonPollock.org. As you move and click you’ll get a trail of paint splatters following the mouse.

This is actually pretty cool, hard to explain though.

Ellie’s Link:

(via Dorothy) Albino lobster airlifted to safety.

SLOTD 6th September 2006

Silliness:

Wow… What an amazing dull sounding job, but then to each their own; if he enjoys watching paint dry then good on him.

Weird chair – but quite funky, and Matt’ll like it.

An analysis of Wikipedia Vandalism, tongue firmly in cheek. I hope it doesn’t get vandalised though.

How to get people interested in science. Hmmm…. I don’t think that would have worked on me.

Awww.. Children’s letters to God.

Geekiness:

Interesting article on design in computers, I’m sceptical about the usability of the more cutting edge designs.

I really really like this search engine – I’ve heard critical reports about its performance, but haven’t seen any evidence. The results could probably do with improving, but the idea is very sound.

Ellie’s Link:

A man found trying to reverse several hundred miles across Australia. Try that in Devon and see how far you get.