Heh, I'm of the opposite opinion. I like the giveaways intermingled throughout General, mainly because they seem to inspire community solidarity and good will.

They do but it's annoying when there are a lot of them, sometimes even a third or a half of the first page.

as i said on my comment early in this - a new "icon" / subject is needed - one that can also be hidden from public view by the poster.

I found them rather jarring myself when I first started reading General. They don't bother me anymore, but a solution like this would make it even easier.

My experience has been pretty good, I've had arguments but on the whole I feel comfortable around the people in this forum.

As for improvements in the forum itself?

1. Fix it so new message notifications go to ALL quoted users in a post rather than just the first quote.
2. A preview function to review your messages before you post them.
3. Keep rep up, but remove the rep down. I'm sure the simple existance of it has helped fuel bias and spitefulness in some users.
4. The ability to search for a username. Sometimes it's a real bugger trying to find a user to send them a PM.

Edit: 5. Another vote here for "view my post history".

Edit Edit: Don't eff with the forum styling, I really appreciate the current colour scheme and lack of graphical emoticons.

PERSONAL REQUEST
Can someone please put a freeze on my stars!? It's been up to 3 THREE TIMES IN THE PAST SIX HOURS! I don't care if it's 3 or 2 or 1 or a black hole, I'm just tired of this off and on shit. I look like a fucking traffic light!

Come on ! You're the only one whose stars GLITTER !

But you're constantly green - would that make you a broken traffic light? ;-P

Thanks for this thread, Judas.

1. Please keep the forum design as is: clean and simple. I also like just the two color schemes. Please: no emoticons, no signatures, no pictures inside posts (the clutter when posts are quoted, yuck), none of that abysmal social networking fluff, and similar distracting, shallow nonsense.

2. A proper search function, including the ability to search for a username (listing profile for easy access to pm and post history).

3. Get rid of rep completely. The rep mechanic makes people unnecessarily self-censor themselves to the absurd degree they are afraid to speak their mind as not to lose these arbitrary points. A forum is meant for open dialogue, the rep system works against that. In addition, it's a poor self-policing mechanic to begin with, and encourages bullying (the downrep avalanche issue) and sucking up to others. Spam or report button should suffice in controlling unwanted behavior.

And please don't replace it with any other pretty number system (like e.g. post count), as I'd love to see users shine by their comments alone, which could only rise in quality if there is no hierarchical system in place.

When I contacted support to make similar suggestions before on two occasions, I only got the same template response twice:

"I am afraid that there is currently nothing we can do. It is the most nonagressive way of showing displeasement with someone. It might be done for every reason possible, even because you wanted to take part in the same giveaway as them and they don't want you to win a code. This is just a number in the internets - I know that it doesn't exactly feel nice, but you and other users that you talk most to know that you have done nothing wrong and this is what matters most."

I'm happy to see this thread here created after GOG ignoring the issue for quite some time.

4. The option to subscribe to game-specific forums would help in keeping track of those.

5. For basic functionality the forum just should possess, please GOG, just look at what Barefoot Essentials does. And in case you haven't by now, I'd vote for the creator of that addon, Barefoot_Monkey, to get some decent store credit from you for his efforts. Undoubtedly many others besides me have been using this script for a longer while, and it makes the forum experience so much more complete.

Thanks! :)

Just stumbled upon this :

http://www.gog.com/forum/general/sticky_changes_to_the_forums Giggles.

As others have said: The ability to see post history (ours and others). It's a basic feature on most forums for a reason: It's useful in tracking down information you remember has been posted but can't find with the search function.

Also, if you eliminate down repping, eliminate up repping as well. Reputation is a pointless feature already. Only allowing half of that feature to be used makes even more so. At the very least provide users with the option to disable the display of rep entirely.

Following on from that, an ignore user option. Please. If there's no way to down rep (and thus hide) problematic posts, then provide the ability to filter out posts from users who make such problematic posts. Again, this is a fairly common feature in other forums (as is the ability to then view a post from an ignored user by clicking a "view this post" button).

How about a specific forum for giveaways please. That way, this general forum can go back to being actual discussions. I use this forum less and less due to times when the front page (first 40 odd topics) are nothing but giveaways that have no meaningful discussion in them).

And finally, links to relevant forums on the game store pages. Make it easy for people to get to information when they are looking at a game.

Thank you to the GOGBears going around cleaning up ;-)

~forum mothers appreciate the help ;-p~

I think i can definitively state on behalf of most reasonable forum members, now if you could use the BAN HAMMER until the trolls move on to greener pastures, we'd all be much happier campers...

Wait, was that Rainer guy actually banned?
Kinda tempted to say good riddance, but I wont. He had his shot to make a good impression on this community and blew it.

No clue how the BAN HAMMER works but at least the trolling thread has been eaten by GOGBears ;-)

Oh and paulranier was not here to make a good impression. He was here to attempt to tear down one of the nicest, most generous and helpful game forums on the internet. So the sooner these trolls determine that they cannot make an impact (with the help of GOGBears...), the sooner they will leave and find a different target for their evil pranks. ;-)