The site staff has started to notice certain trends in thread creation that are not up to the quality standards that we have set for all of us here on VGChartz.
There's two main issues that need to be addressed:
- Clear, Concise, and On Point thread titles
- Copy/Pasting Entire Articles
For the first issue, know that your title is one of the most important pieces to your thread as a portal to discussion. For potential commenters and posters, the title is the first thing they see. Your title begins the process of forming ideas and opinions and presenting them in the thread. So when your title isn't accurately framing the topic in your OP, or you add some sort of volatile or baiting opinion to "spruce up" your title, you're only sabotaging your own thread and how discussion follows. So if a moderator does come in and edit a thread title (or even some of the content), we're only doing so to make sure that your entire thread has cohesiveness and accuracy which allows the discussion to be the best that it can be.
The second, and more important issue is how a lot of us are taking information and applying it to our threads. From here on out, Copy-pasting full transcriptions of articles is strictly prohibited. Instead, you may paste specific sections of the article that pertain to the subject of your thread. Avoid committing plagiarism by linking the original article in your thread. Providing original content or commentary is also highly encouraged.
What we want is something like this. You're still using the source to highlight the most important parts to your discussion, but you're not copy/pasting the entire article. And at the end of your thread, you present the source link so that they get the credit for their work. We're not here to steal hits from content creators, but instead to use these pieces to enhance our own discussion here on the forums. (The thread would be perfect if DareDevil.Shark put his own thoughts at the bottom, but other than that's it's perfect!)
On the other side of the spectrum, OPs that are just links are seen as content-less threads and may be locked as well. So find a healthy balance of using the information to frame your thread, but to use it in a way that does not take away from the original author, whether that may be taking the entire piece or not properly issuing a source.
Thanks again for your time!
-Smeags & the Mod Team
