Why was that thread locked? It is, indeed a general topic. It is, for sure in the forum that has always (at least for the past three years) been used for general discussion. So what’s the story?
Are the some of the mods on some kind of imaginary-power trip of something? Hall monitors busting people with a hall pass and such? Can we get an official response once and for all?
So in your context “general” would be covered by the third definition: not confined by specialization or careful limitation. By that logic every topic here should be closed since every topic is specific to something. Or is it interpreted as in the way “general public” refers to basically all humans, thereby allowing basically all topics?
Furthermore, “cool ideas” is totally subjective. For example I may think Steam is a cool idea, therefor that topic is in compliance. Apparently Eric doesn’t seem to think Steam is cool enough or general enough to fit. Strange.
General discussion as related in some way to Unity, yes. It doesn’t mean “anything that happens to come into your head.” There are Steam forums specifically for Steam discussion topics such as that; there’s simply no reason at all for that topic to be here, and every reason for it to be on the Steam forums. Since the other admins and moderators regularly close non-Unity-related topics, I follow their lead if I come across a topic that clearly isn’t relevant to this site. If there’s any question at all, I leave it. Some forums have “off-topic” sections where pretty much anything goes, but this site currently doesn’t. It’s been discussed before, but judging from the lack of response, they aren’t interested. Their forums, their call.
So where does it specifically state that general discussion must be about Unity? Honestly, I would like to know, because I haven’t seen it. As I recall we used to talk about everything from other non-Unity video games to Barbecue in this forum.
Regarding the thread cited, it was an honest question. Maybe that user isn’t on the Steam forums and didn’t want to go through the process of registering for a simple question. As it turned out he wasn’t the only one and got his response. What’s the big deal, dude? What happened to the old policy of not locking threads unless they got “out of hand?”
@NPSF, the thread I cited was actually very similar to what you would have ruled acceptable. The member was just asking if anyone else had gotten a certain email because he thought it was strange.
Take it up with the forum admins if you don’t like it. I made a judgment call based on the moderation I’ve seen here; if they don’t want me to lock that sort of topic, then I won’t.
I’m not knocking you specifically as I’ve seen basically every other mod do the same. I was just picking on you since yours was the latest. Plus I like how you get all defensive.
But yeah, I want official word on this. It’s been going on in this vague manner for long enough. What do you suggest I do? Should I PM HiggyB? Can you take it upon yourself to find out, being that you’re a mod and all and get back to us? Gimme some direction, man.
It’s up to you to contact an admin and explain your position. If I was in charge I’d add a few words to the FAQ just to be perfectly clear, but otherwise I’m pretty OK with the way things are. There is such a thing as context–if I were new here and saw that all the gossip topics were Unity/gamedev-related in some way, that would tend to give me an idea as to what’s appropriate.
@codinghero - As these are Unity forums it is implied that the general discussion relates to Unity. If a thread is opened regarding other software in a context which involves Unity this is normally fine. The example thread you have given has nothing to do with Unity, and so was locked.
It’s the exact opposite of what I’d rule as acceptable - it’s a specific question about a specific product and there is no real ‘discussion’ element nor are the audience here likely to be in a position to provide suitable information.
Not really. I don’t know if you’ve even been on any other forum on the entire internet, but every one I’ve ever been to has a “General Discussion” area. In that are you can discuss anything you want. Anything at all, be it religion, politics, BBQ, music, anything. The very name and description of the forum clearly state that you can talk about anything in general or anything you might consider cool. So fix it already and explicitly state that only Unity can be discussed on these forums if that’s the way you want it.
Really? You said the following would be acceptable:
So that example is specifically about Orange Box. It asks what others think about getting Mac and Windows versions. Again, specificity. In the cited thread the member says he got an email from Steam and thought it was strange. He then asks if anyone else on THESE forums got the same email. So uh, what’s the difference here?
UPDATE: I have PM’d HiggyB to get clarification on this. In the mean time everyone who wants to post in this forum can simply prepend their content with, “I think this is a cool idea,” or “Wouldn’t it be cool,” or something similar. That would explicitly invoke the “cool ideas” clause in the Gossip forum description thereby making anything after that fully compliant.
Eric and Dave are correct - the “general discussion” thing should not be taken too literally. Regardless of what other forums do, we aren’t interested in having a truly general discussion area where people can talk about absolutely anything. We are happy with nonspecific threads about Unity and more general issues of game design, marketing, and other issues that might directly concern Unity users. We are OK with threads about other game engines if the discussion is about how they relate to Unity (feature comparisons, nature of industrial competition, etc) but simply talking about another engine here is not welcome. Random topics about food, cars, music, etc, are not appropriate and will be closed or deleted. The only exception to this is that we will sometimes allow a single thread on a topic of unusual general interest (such as sympathy for a tragic world-scale event). There are some grey areas which will be dealt with purely on judgement but generally, we want to keep things focused on Unity or game industry issues as they relate to Unity users.
