I've been on DSF for nearly 4 years, and I've made nearly 4,000 posts at the time of this writing. Recently, though, I recieved a couple of PMs from admins saying that certain posts I made are off topic. Most recently, I got one saying that the thread I created in the General Gaming forum about Amanda Lucas is off topic.

However, I remain confused as to what constitutes being off topic, and I have never yet recieved clarification when I've sent replies to the PMs. For example, I don't understand why the thread I created on Amanda Lucas is off topic but at the same time the thread in General Gaming on Iron Man is not off topic, or the thread where someone was asking for keywords to better search for commercial security training programs. Similarly, I'm not sure why the threads in the Shadowrun forum about Japanese vending machine disguises or thumb-sized revolvers are on topic and acceptable but the Amanda Lucas thread is off topic and unacceptable.

I enjoy coming to DSF and consider my moments spent here to be some of my most enjoyable ones. I have had the extraordinary privledge of corresponding with such luminaries as Raygun, and I feel as though I never would have truly understood the SR3 ruleset if I hadn't recieved commentary and pushback from the other posters here about my various interpretations of the rules. Far be it from me to want to antagonize the administration or otherwise make it harder for them to keep this site running smoothly. Fundamentally I just want to have fun and help others have fun.

But, I really feel like I need clarification about this off-topic issue. If someone could just explain to me why Japanese soda machine disguises, security training keywords, and Iron Man are more topical than Amanda Lucas + Star Wars + combative sports, I'd really appreciate it. Otherwise I am feeling like these PMs are just coming out of the blue and it's rather stressful for me since I don't know how to react, especially since most of the time my posts seem just fine, as evidenced by the fact that so far I've got ~4,000 posts but just 2 negative PMs. I feel like the people who send me the PMs assume that I'm on the same page as them, but I'm really not. The truth is I'm very confused, and I feel frustrated when people take the time to send me negative PMs but then don't take the time to follow up with clarifications when I explain that I don't fully understand.

This is a board dedicated to the discussion of games & gaming, primarily Shadowrun. A great deal of latitude is given when scrutinizing the topics posted and their relation to said gaming. Where as soda machine disguises and super hero movies tread that fine line, a topic of "George Lucas' daughter gave me a pantsplosion" easily fails that litmus test.

While this is not open to debate, in the past we have summarized the basis for determining the difference in marginally on-topic vs. off-topic in the words of Justice Stewart: "I know it when I see it." To that end, the moderation team work from a common, shared perspective in order to provide a position that, to us, is consistent. As a poster with nearly 4k posts and only a couple of topics closed, you seem to have mostly mastered that in the past.

I will also add in that sometimes it's not entirely about the thread itself.

If someone posts something that we feel is interesting and can be tangentially connected to gaming, we'll let it go (Iron Man discussion, for example). But if that same poster hits the board with a half dozen different off topic discussions in the same day, or even the same week, that's when we step in and say "ok, back off and let up".

<shrug> We try and be lenient with the Gen Gaming board, because we know there is no off topic boards, and hey, few people like the occasional off topic conversation more than myself. Ask any of the old timers about the old RN Mailing List days. But we do have to keep a little bit of a reign on it to keep things from getting out of hand.

Bull

So it seems like you're saying that the issue isn't threads tangentially related to gaming per se, but rather the amount of such threads within a given peroid of time?

Thanks for the clarification, Bull. I'd been feeling a bit stressed out earlier because I didn't feel like I understood.

In my experience, when the mods talk about 'bring this thread back to gaming', they really mean it. For instance, when I was asking about security training, I made sure I was clear to say, where would I go for skills appropriate for Shadowrun GMing? Here are the requirements my boss put on, but here are the Shadowrun details I'm looking for. I'm thinking if I"d just said 'hey, what's a great security course', they may not have seen it as on-topic.

Before people think I'm abusing the system, my Shadowrun comments were honest. I got into security primarily because of Shadowrun, so when I get the chance to expand on that, I go back to that; what would I LIKE to learn? What makes this job fun?

So in the example of Amanda Lucas, if you'd talked about how this might be a great character for Shadowrun, the rich corp's life who also happens to be a world-class kickboxer, or how I want to make a run around that, or if you made the thread about how you saw this gaming con where she attended and, oh, by the way, she's also a kickboxer. Apparently martial arts are not, on their own, Shadowrun related, but they aren't hard to make SR-related.

Again, this isn't meant to take advantage of the mods' generosity. These topics generally really ARE related to Shadowrun, and speaking for myself, I feel like I'm at the level where most of what I'm still learning about SR applies to the periphery, so the things which are half Shadowrun and half something else (or very little Shadowrun at all!)