: Now, when Stephen posted here, adding his question to the "thread that
: refuses to die" he was immediately pounced upon by 4 or 5 of us. As
: annoying as his style of language was, I don't think he deserved to be
: treated that way. We really missed an opportunity to provide some
: constructive and useful information to him - forget about those Halo books
: and go play Marathon! Locking the thread is just one way to do that. There
: are other ways, too, but they might have even more of a chilling effect.
: Some threads really should be forced to die.
Just visiting the forum now I see we have yet another new addition to the book thread at the top. Now I have nothing against Craig, nothing personal, yet his message is still an annoyance. I *could* just ignore it, but as others repsond I can't help but be curious. We all come here to read posts, so I read it knowing what it is. I realize that this makes it a self-propagating problem, but the nature of the problem doesn't make it any less a problem.
As much as I support the dissemination of Marathon-related memes through the world, I'm not going to take it upon myself to introduce Craig up there to the wonders of Marathon and invite him back to post. If someone else does, then fine. I do have to warn against any sort of influx of n00bs, however, as this is part of what did in the Mara.org forums. Every day it became post after post of these little leeches responding back and forth with the most pointless drivel; the place soured as Marathon was no longer the main topic of discussion.
The fact is this: as Halo continues to become more popular, as the sequel is released, as the 4th book does, like, finally come out, we're only going to see more and more of these. Once they become more common they'll start responding to eachother's posts. Before you know it, this will be the Halo Boo/k forum. Don't think it's possible? There aren't many of us compared to the how many Halo boo/k readers are out there and we've all seen it happen to forums before; it would be easier to fix the problem now than when the threads start multiplying.
One a week is bearable, but when do we finally lock it? One a day? Two a day? It's not helping that we're the SECOND of 722,000 Google hits for "Halo boo/ks" (one of my relpies to the thread is 3rd, lol). The title "9 New Halo boo/ks coming!!!" is quite enticing to those easily excited preteen Halo fans out there.
My vote is for a lock.
