Discussion point: "Results threads"

[pi]

Furthering the "posting results by commenting on own profile" remark, could it be possible to have separate section in the profile, that shows the results of the user. For example, under the 'Show posts' and 'Show stats' option, we could have a 'Show results' option, which people can edit in their account settings, much like a forum signature. Then the user would be able to post as little or as much about their results as they want, and it would make it easier to view the results of other users (if that's what people want to do). It would also allow for the removal of the results threads. Although, I admit that this wouldn't stop people from posting their results in other threads.

Would probably be another thing to add to David's long to-do list hahahaha

I think it would gradually stop the culture though, culture shifts do not happen overnight, small steps. If such a rule was enforced, I wouldn't be expecting it to be completely successful over a single results period. As it stands the General Chat threads are already results free and this is good news for the proposed rule as there is already a culture in those threads of not posting results there.

[auds]

Would probably be another thing to add to David's long to-do list hahahaha

Yeah that's what I thought

[Zealous]

Furthering the "posting results by commenting on own profile" remark, could it be possible to have separate section in the profile, that shows the results of the user. For example, under the 'Show posts' and 'Show stats' option, we could have a 'Show results' option, which people can edit in their account settings, much like a forum signature. Then the user would be able to post as little or as much about their results as they want, and it would make it easier to view the results of other users (if that's what people want to do). It would also allow for the removal of the results threads. Although, I admit that this wouldn't stop people from posting their results in other threads.

So something like this?


(just made up a random University Result to put in auds ...)

I should stop procrastinating now.. though there is some good discussion here!

[keltingmeith]

I'm not sure how good a system like that could be. If someone sees your's and says you've done well, you're going to feel compelled to see theirs and make a comment. This can very easily turn into a cycle of compliment fishing, and the only difference to what we have now is it'll just have moved from a forum to someone's profile. I guess an upside is we'd be seeing that they're just compliment fishing, but are you really going to let that bother you if the alternative is being rude?

[pi]

This can very easily turn into a cycle of compliment fishing, and the only difference to what we have now is it'll just have moved from a forum to someone's profile.

It already is a huge circle-jerk, at least now it's one that more behind the scenes and "opt-in".

I guess an upside is we'd be seeing that they're just compliment fishing, but are you really going to let that bother you if the alternative is being rude?

Well if people realise just how ridiculous it is, then that's a /good/ thing and is part of the AN culture that we need to improve on.

[Russ]

This entire thing is an overreaction to what isn't much more than an annoyance. Comparisons to media portrayal of 'beauty', mental health disturbances or creating a separate system to display them are, from my perspective, asinine. I find the idea of banning the posting of content that isn't intrinsically offensive, in a self contained location, to be absurd.

[vox nihili]

So something like this?

(Image removed from quote.)
(just made up a random University Result to put in auds ...)

I should stop procrastinating now.. though there is some good discussion here!

I do like that.

[ninwa]

David is too busy, we are not going to do anything that requires him to take on more work

[pi]

This entire thing is an overreaction to what isn't much more than an annoyance. Comparisons to media portrayal of 'beauty', mental health disturbances or creating a separate system to display them are, from my perspective, asinine. I find the idea of banning the posting of content that isn't intrinsically offensive, in a self contained location, to be absurd.

Let's, for a minute, accept that none of the reasons put forward by anyone against results threads were actually valid reasons and were simply manifestations of annoyance. Does that still make it wrong to make a complaint? The reason theaters ask that mobile phones be turned off during a movie is to not annoy everyone else so that the experience can be maximised, I guess this is an over-reaction too? As you can see from the comments, results threads are clearly ruining the experience of what otherwise is a fantastic community for some, whether that be due to the multitude of reasons put forward, or whether that be to it being simply "annoying" to have these threads clog up the forum for weeks on end. It's a valid complaint.

You acknowledge it is self-contained in it's own board. Which is great, but it was annoying to people before, and it is still annoying to people now. Hence, it's probably suggesting that this is not enough and not actually solving the issue if you consider the issue to be truly only "annoyance".

Granted, I don't actually see the issue as one that is an "over-reaction" and I don't see the solutions being put forward as "absurd" either.

[Hancock]

Are we treating this issue as only Uni results threads, or extending it to VCE as well?

Going to be blunt here: the only issues I see with results threads are people with lack of social skills and tact. I agree that it is a mass circle-jerk, which I participate in every semester, but to delete it because some users get upset will lead to a whole range of "what should/shouldn't be acceptable on the forums."

Edit: when I say lack of tact, I'm talking about humble bragging and being disappointed in anything above average. It makes you look like a pretentious douche if you pull that sort of stuff.

[pi]

Going to be blunt here: the only issues I see with results threads are people with lack of social skills and tact. I agree that it is a mass circle-jerk, which I participate in every semester, but to delete it because some users get upset will lead to a whole range of "what should/shouldn't be acceptable on the forums."

lol ok, I don't think it's as much of a "delete" as it is a "move" to people's own profiles. If the circle-jerks want to continue there that's fine with me. We're not removing it from the forum completely, it's obvious given the amount of posts in these threads that some users really like the world to know their results for whatever reason, and that's /fine/, but putting it behind the scenes seems to be a good compromise that caters for them and also from those who really don't want to see a thread full of scores from the intellectual top-end for whatever reason. Honestly sounds like a fair win-win to me.

Are we treating this issue as only Uni results threads, or extending it to VCE as well?

I believe the current discussion is primarily regarding uni results. This makes sense given the large amount of VTAC/course questions we get (in comparison to the small amount of uni transfer questions) that would require one to disclose their study scores and whatnot anyway.

[psyxwar]

I'm all for moving to people's profiles, but like a few other users have said I honestly don't see it as a big issue, and the time spent implementing such a change could perhaps be spent on more fruitful endeavors. It just seems awfully trivial.

[alondouek]

I reckon moving results to people's profiles is very silly. Why are we attempting to stymie discussion in one area where people might take some offence, but not others? As Hancock points out, logically this should be extended to VCE results as well, which would be rather dumb given the purpose of this website. I don't think this point can be dismissed "given the large amount of VTAC/course questions we get (in comparison to the small amount of uni transfer questions)", because there are in fact a significant volume of the latter. There's no reson to treat one type of result differently to the other.

Further, if we're seeking to not offend anyone, why not extend this sort of censoring to other potential but barely conceivable sources of offence, such as the News and Politics board? Surely this seems ridiculous - and rightly so - but it's almost a parallel situation.

I am strongly against changing the system we have in place now. Having an permanent or semi-permanent 'opt out' option from a thread is far more communal and befitting a forum, rather than upending the system we currently have in one small area. As a side note, I also dispute that "it's a bit unrealistic to expect insecure people to have the agency to [opt out]"; someone with confidence issues relating to or triggered by other people's results would absolutely take the opportunity to opt out of seeing content that triggers them. I'm not sure where the view of the opposite is coming from.

In short, I agree with the above; this all seems trivial and I don't understand why any change needs to be affected. We don't dictate the availability of content by what some people want or don't want in any other way on the forum, so I dispute that there's any real reason to do it here. The only changes that probably needed to be made in the past was to create a new board for results (to allow people to opt out if necessary) and to remove voting from that board (to avoid gifting 'respect' for results, which isn't what respect is intended for). Both of these were done, and in my opinion nothing else needs to be at this point in time.

[pi]

I reckon moving results to people's profiles is very silly. Why are we attempting to stymie discussion in one area where people might take some offence, but not others? As Hancock points out, logically this should be extended to VCE results as well, which would be rather dumb given the purpose of this website. I don't think this point can be dismissed "given the large amount of VTAC/course questions we get (in comparison to the small amount of uni transfer questions)", because there are in fact a significant volume of the latter. There's no reson to treat one type of result differently to the other.

Please, the volume is hardly significant in comparison. And remember this is "ATAR Notes" not "GPA Notes" (lol, or something else), hence I feel lenience for high school is fine. But hey if you want to propose a more hard-line approach there too I have no problem with that

Further, if we're seeking to not offend anyone, why not extend this sort of censoring to other potential but barely conceivable sources of offence, such as the News and Politics board? Surely this seems ridiculous - and rightly so - but it's almost a parallel situation.

Sure, if you'd like to make a thread on that point be my guest. Regardless, those are threads for debates, if something offends you you can rebut it (or someone else will), you can't rebut a group of people setting a very high bar. Although given that that board gets about as much traffic these days as the road to Stony Point station at 1am, I think it's a non-issue and a very unfair comparison.
edit: made a mistake when cutting up this para oops haha

I am strongly against changing the system we have in place now. Having an permanent or semi-permanent 'opt out' option from a thread is far more communal and befitting a forum, rather than upending the system we currently have in one small area. As a side note, I also dispute that "it's a bit unrealistic to expect insecure people to have the agency to [opt out]"; someone with confidence issues relating to or triggered by other people's results would absolutely take the opportunity to opt out of seeing content that triggers them. I'm not sure where the view of the opposite is coming from.

I think we actually have a role to protect those who may be "vulnerable" (for lack of a better term). It's not up to me, or anyone else, to say "hey if you don't want to see this, then don't, it's not our problem lol", it's not up to me to dictate what those people should or should not be doing. The solution we've reached at this point in time isn't removing the problem, it's moving it to a place where it'll be less of a problem. This is an important solution because you are of the assumption that everyone looking at these results threads actually have accounts on the forum and hence can actively avoid looking at these threads (as you said they all should be doing), but this is actually not the case. As it stands, those threads frequently have as many guest views as member views, which furthers these "unrealistic" expectations of what uni results should look like for the average uni student. A quick google of something like "uom results sem 1" wills how you how easily accessible it is to find these threads. Guests cannot view member profiles, hence solving that issue too.

Honestly, it's a win-win. I'm not surprised that many who lovingly participate in these circle-jerks don't mind them being there, see any stance otherwise as a "trivial non-issue", and would prefer everyone seeing your results rather than those who would only care to look at your profile, so the ego can be maxed out. Despite how mind-boggling that logic is to me, that much was an expected and obvious stance from that group of people. And good for them.

What has been proposed seems like a fair compromise. The circle-jerking can continue (yay!), the egos can still be sky-rocketed (yay!), but at the same time we may be helping some people out regardless of whether they are forum members or not. Doesn't sound like a bad thing to me.

[simpak]

Haven't posted in this thread until now, but I've watched how it's all been going down and I must say how much I've enjoyed people alluding to my (and/or others) legitimate self worth issues as 'circle-jerking' and attempts to obtain 'ego-boosting'.

Idm what happens with the threads really - I think this semesters UoM results thread at least has been super good so far because it's great to see heaps of people doing really well as I enjoy celebrating with them and at the same time, as always, when people are disappointed everyone is really supportive and reassuring. If we must shove the camaraderie behind closed doors, so be it.

I will say that one issue with the results threads is how much easier it becomes to track a person based on their account, from the university's perspective (see: simpak unmasked saga), so perhaps in light of that they should die.