I once compiled a list of observations of the Off-Topic forum. Although some are more specific to that forum, many do apply in the others as well. And it gives a bit of history as well.
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I've been perusing the threads of the ancients. I looked back over the whole last year of threads on this Off-Topic forum. And I can come to several conclusions:
1. Some posters are not missed.
2. Some posters will be missed.
3. Zeratural apparently was missing, shot, returned, then went missing again and remained so for some time and has returned, disappeared, reappeared and is declared to be alive until his next pending disappearence.
4. Mindless/General topics get repeated 5 or more times.
5. Jokes/Stories have generally been heard elsewhere by most readers.
6. Links to other sites are, for the most part, dead.
7. The moderators use to have a lot more to say.
8. Popular Sci/Fi & Fantasy films often get repeated 4 or more times.
9. Links to Outwar are stupid.
10. At this rate, the number of stickies first in the thread list will take up an entire screen in 12-15 years.
11. The longer your username, the more likely your thread will be locked. (ie: lord of sunsystem & DEATH AT THE DOOR)
12. The likelyhood of your thread being locked increases 20% if you have the word "sig" or "signature" in it.
13. What you may think a poster is like will be altered dramatically when you see an actual picture of him or her.
14. There are too many modern day products/movies/games that start or end with an "x".
15. Everybody has a birthday. (Gee, imagine that!
)
16. Most of the Privateer conversationalists have moved to other galaxies.
17. Pleasingly, there are relatively few discussions on Star Trek.
18. Server Error 404 has been linked to at least thrice.
19. Amazingly, for the number of males this forum has, the topic of women appears less than 1% of the time.
20. Posters are as affected by fads as anyone else, certain types of topics will appear more often for a time until a new topic has taken precedent in the interest of the posters.
21. Every so often, someone has to take a poll of preference between food products.
22. The majority of our time is spent posting about things that annoy us and reading what annoys others; which is annoying.
23. Reaching the rank of Fleet Admiral is NOT an admirable achievement, just an admiral achievement.
24. About 6% of the topics are unintelligible.
25. Stinger is slightly obsessed with post and user counts.
26. There is a 75% chance in threads, with 10 posts or more, that there is at least one example of
bold type.
27. Very few people read or think about signatures as they are probably too often over used.
28. If you dig up old threads, you dig up old posters.
29. Forums are a microcosm of human endeavor, where evolutional societal traits can be witnessed over a short period of time.
30. The crime of thread hijacking & piracy does not have a sentence of capital punishment (unfortunately).
31. Those with at least some technical knowledge will often discuss such related topics to excruciating detail.
32. Strangely, of the 1% of posts about women, CG & hand drawn women get lengthier discussions than real women without wandering from the topic.
33. Topics with even minimal relevance to all will have a post by almost everyone at least once.
34. Some of the most useless topics go on for weeks sometimes months, while other more useful threads die off within the week.
35. Perception of what is useless and useful is unique to all of us.
36. One can threaten cannibalism on an internet forum, but one cannot make good on those threats.
37. If not for the efforts of a small few, the forums would be utterly lifeless.
38. Every generation of posters has their own forum jester unique to them.
39. There is never a moderator around when you need him to deal with a rampant poster.
40. It is not the length of time, but the quality of the time spent that matters most!
41. When an elder poster returns it is customary for current posters to say "You were gone?" And recent newbies will respond "Welcome back. Who are you?"
42. The answer to life, the universe & everything. But what is the question? (See error 404)
43. One can wager with great certainty that a topic will be lamentable when the first post starts off "This'll probably get locked," and the subject of the post is unintelligible.
44. Edits are a way to take back words you regretted posting, but a straightforward poster suffers silently from mispellings.
45. Strange sounds threads are more stupid than links to Outwar.
46. Typically in a 30 day period there is an average of 30 locked threads, any more than that signifies a spamfest.
47. To exaggerate his ever-presence and ubiquitousness, if you repeat "Fear Factor" 5 times he will appear to menace the thread with his click!
48. A diverse multitude hailing from around the world visit the forum and not everyone has English as their native language.
49. At times of extreme posting & spamming, confusion can set in, where a reply to whom it was meant and what thread it was meant to be in is more likely to be inadvertantly misdirected.
50. Poster frequency can be measured in a bell curve; in the beginning with a few posts of moderate size then growing until a point where interest wanes and it decreases until one returns in single sentence intervals every once in a while.
Edited by - Sir Spectre on 8/20/2004 8:27:40 AM
Fri Aug 20, 2004 2:13 am 
