Let's Remake Let's Play! A discussion on Reforming/Remaking the LP Rules

Make a master list of Video LPer's channels so people can subscribe to the ones they want. Let them post in the thread when they update or start a new one, but let's keep youtube on youtube guys.

So basically this

Also with no queue do recall that lilfut would have something like a dozen one-post LPs.

Limit 3 abandoned threads before you're banned from starting a new one. Trying to start a new one anyway will result in moderator action, in order of warning, temp-ban and finally perma-ban.

And they'd fall off and we'd never see them again. Or once he's actually made the thread, he might be encouraged to stick with it. Either way, it's not a problem with the queue.

Okay, I love PappilonReel's suggestion to be able to tag threads as Screenshot, Video and Hybrid, doubled with possibly just allowing video LP's to each get their own thread.

we can tag threads now already. It's just a matter of standardizing things if we want to make them more than just jokes (for the most part).

I'm talking about visibly tagging threads so it appears on the forum itself. Like so:



I guess label would be a better term, in order to avoid confusion.

Can we get a time constraint on this one? "3 Abandoned threads in a year" or two years would be a bit more attractive, IMHO.

Clearing any abandoned threads from an LPer's record after a year sounds like a fair compromise, yeah.

It's worth pointing out (someone might have mentioned it already) that the queue only exists because the forum became flooded with them after they picked up steam, necessitating regulation. These days I notice that the queue really is pretty empty a lot of time. Folks just ain't linin' up to do 'em any more like they used to.

On the subject of video lps, Pappy's suggestion of video embedding would be ideal if it can be implemented. I'm not entirely sold on a megathread unless someone really wanted to micromanage it, which is ehhhhhhhh.

I say kill the queue altogether, implement embedding (if possible), and just have separate threads for stuff.

Sure, but video LPs take much less time than traditional ones. If you force them to go through the queue, you are either saying "don't do more than a couple video LPs a year" or "you can do as many video LPs as you want, but we don't want to hear about most of them".

Imagine if you had forced me to go through the queue for every single one of my video LPs. I would have gotten frustrated and stopped doing them. That was the entire reason for my catch-all thread in the first place.

That's actually why I okay'd your video LP thread in the first place, Brick. :P I don't disagree with you about the queue - I was just baffled to hear that video LPs weren't allowed their own threads at all, is all.

Your first one is, sure, but after you finish that one and start on your next one, that one isn't, at least not until a month has gone by (assuming there are spots open that month).

Make sense now?

For me (reader/viewer only, I will never produce a LP), if I just have a tiny thing to say about the video it's easier to just put it in the video's comments. A more involved comment would go into the TT thread. For example, while I said little or nothing about TirMcDohl's Roguecraft videos here, I commented on several of them on YouTube.

Edit: after reading some of Eddie's comments more thoroughly, never mind.

"Video LPs aren't viable" =/= "no video LPs in the queue at all". Again, I don't disagree with you - I just misunderstood what you meant.

I've done nearly a dozen LPs on that other forum, and only participated in one mass LP here.

The queue is largely why. In the time it takes my turn to come around, I could have finished already.

Something I've thought might be helpful would be a thread for advertising LPs. Maybe you just copy your first update in there, maybe you assemble something specific for it. I've sometimes felt like nobody was reading my LPs (even knowing I have a few regular readers, when you go two or three updates in a row without comments it starts to feel pointless), but there isn't really any standard way to attract attention if people aren't in the thread already. I've posted .gifs in the Gift of Gif thread, and I've linked to my Monster World LPs in the MW Collection thread, but it'd be nice to have a place to go within the subforum itself. Also as a reader I know I don't open every thread to take a look, so I might find something I'd be interested in that I otherwise wouldn't see.

It's a shame the LP forum doesn't have a front page, per se - if there was, we could do a "Reader's Choice" sort of dealie and advertise whatever LP is starting at the time.

Maybe I'm just missing something about the rules, but it only specifically states that you can have one thing queued at a time, not only one thing running at a time.

If you know you're staggering series, there's kind of nothing stopping you from starting one this month, and then queuing the next one for next month once it "clears". And given the queues have been not filled up all that often lately, that doesn't seem like much of an issue. And even if you DON'T expect to be running 2+ at a time all the time like Brick does, but want to start another in the middle of one you're already running, the rules as stated still let you jump right on that right away. Like if I wanted to jump into the next Uncharted while I'm running STO (which is going to be likely; I need to get around to processing those videos, and STO is going to be a long-haul series).

Sure, the presence of a max per month queue means it's possible you need to wait. But I'm not entirely convinced that a queue is entirely unnecessary, given there WAS apparently a valid reason for it. At the same time I'm not wedded to it, sure, but deregulation may not really be necessary. I just want to make sure that the reason the queue exists is considered.


You know, considering some of the discussion the last time we brought up LP forum overhauls, why not move the historical section from the queue's post to someplace else, and instead make that some kind of advertising or highlighting location?

I don't think there is a reason for the queue. I didn't think so in 2008 (or whenever it was) either. The queue doesn't seem to have done anything to curtail low-quality or unfinished LPs, and who knows how many finished, high-quality ones we've missed out on.

The people who have said "the queue is the reason I haven't done an LP at Talking Time" are evidence enough, for me. Retire the queue and open the floodgates, I say.

Post icons could take care of that, but we'd need relevant ones.

I think I'm in favour of putting video LPs in their own threads. I rarely watch video LPs, so I usually ignore the video threads completely. I went and had a look at some after reading this thread (the mentions of roguecraft caught my eye), and there's some interesting stuff in there that I'd never have looked at normally. At least in their own threads I'd know what was in there just from the titles. Or if we had an advertising thread, they could mention what they were starting in there.

I think we can probably do without the queue, too. I think I'm in favour of some kind of gatekeeping, though. Just "I'm gonna start GAME next month/week/tomorrow".

I'm going to stay clear of the queue dicussion, but this? That is a fantastic idea I wholeheartedly support.

There have been a couple of good ideas that have never gotten traction. There was a suggestion that a monthly "LP Roundup" written for the telebunny blog, but JP (to my knowledge) is not interested, which is a shame. Perhaps something similar could be instead posted in the Meatspace Games section? Many other suggestions seem to require some tinkering with the forum settings. All I can say is "good luck".

Here's another suggestion: do you think there might be some value in having a Telebunny LP Twitter account? Something to say "hey, new LP started!" or "this LP updated!" I don't know if that would be interest to anyone but us nerds. Could attract some new viewers tho.

Highlighting failed ones also doesn't help for keeping people going or wanting to start a new one, which is why moving the historical list somewhere else is a good idea.

Also, I would argue that more of a problem then the queue is how hard it is to register for the forums. Eddie makes a valid point that the goal we should be going for is fostering a community HERE, instead of making TT another place you advertise at for your hub somewhere else. But it's REALLY hard to do that when any random person can't easily register for the boards and post in order to comment.

That's not to say that there hasn't been evidence that the queue is a problem as well.

It is impossible to say this without sounding shit eating, but if you have a better solution for screening out spambots I am positive people would jump to implement it.

Man, why you people gotta be racist against spambots?


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I do, in fact. On my own forum, which I will start off by mentioning is IPB which has it's own very good automatic anti-spam system, but also has different settings from vB, I enhanced this by doing one very simple thing: Setting all new accounts to require one approved post before they can post regularly.

A spambot that manages to make a successful account will almost always make one post, and if it doesn't SEE it, will tend to go away for a while. This one post may not be right away, but it will be eventually. Since the post is unapproved and thus hidden to non-mods, normal users don't see them, and it gives the mods the opportunity to filter the bots out. This is further enhanced by the fact that spammers have NONSENSE names and e-mails.

Putting up an impassable wall is not the answer to fighting spam, because you are entirely defeating the purpose you are even going for with this thread, let alone with this forum. If people are going to insist that new users must leap through such terrible and NOT EVEN ADVERTISED hoops in order to even post, then nothing we discuss here will even matter.

Spammers is a fact of life on the Internet these days. It's something that does need to be dealt with, but is sacrificing new users really what you want?

Let's not throw the baby out with the bathwater here; this discussion is about make the LP forum better - within the limits of what we can change.

I don't disagree with your comments about employing different measures to combat spammers, but that's something to take up with Parish and the admins, not in this thread.

p.s. put me down for allowing YouTube videos to be "played" in a thread. Wasn't that possible some time ago?

actually ... couldn't we do something like that through the blog? Parish has done sub-domains in the past. www.lp.telebunny.net?

So I think what I would like most, as a reader/viewer is for video LPs to be treated like regular LPs and have a new video LP get it's own thread, but to also have a megathread for shorter or one-off LPs, kind of like the micro LP thread we already have. What I don't like is having several "My video LPs" threads scattered around. I don't think that really helps anyone.

I also really wish we could embed the videos for this to work optimally. I don't know if that's an option we just have turned off or it's impossible with this software (though I suspect the former).

I think for this to work, we need to have an organization of LPs like we have now, and "claims" that only go out a short distance, so people know if someone is starting and LP next month or something, but otherwise get rid of the queues and long-term claims so that someone can start an LP, video or screenshot, without jumping through a lot of hoops.