Here's a liitle advantage badge holders might like about a second fact thread. Call it "Knowledge from the Masters" and only allow fact posting on that thread by badge holders! See which thread grows the quickest.

Edit: Since these would most likely be conscientious posters, Terry might even get his source of good fun facts!

Oh dearie me Mehaul! Maybe you're an aspirant lawyer, parsing these guidelines for legal/contractual significance but they don't actually make any reference to what happens AFTER you've got the badge. They refer only to the process whereby you qualify to GET the badge.

On the wider issues raised by the posts above, I don't really see this checking/cleaning up process happening on a regular basis, nor could I envisage individuals being written to about specific posts and urged to revise them. It may happen if someone posts something totally unacceptable and gets reported, but not more generally otherwise (I would think). It comes back to earlier discussion on this thread about how onerous and complicated people think this Fun Fact badge process should be. Not too onerous and not too complicated would be my guess.

Have we been through wedlock together? I have such a strong urge to say, "You're right" and going to bed.

It's a bit worrying when I find myself scrolling up to see if the previous message could conceivably (hopefully ) be directed at anyone other than me ...

Oh I do hope so

Pardon me, what did you say? I was busy pouring myself a Tullamore Dew. Something seems to have driven me to drink. Hey, did you know they do not brew the Dew in Texas? And, I keep seeing these strange Texas buchaneer birds screaming something at me. Can't quite make it out though. Sounds like 'wronk, wronk, wronk'. Has anyone seen my brother around? Kiel? Kielhaul? He promised to take the birds swimming.

I'm surprised that this is such a big deal. 90% of people, if not more, who go for this badge do not return to the country boards after posting their facts. The facts aren't really usable for games, and dozens of people have had the badge removed for nonsense, duplicates or otherwise. Already, with a couple of days of empty threads, there are several duplicate posts.

If Sue had been alone in moderating all of these, it would've taken an exceedingly long time...and only for one badge in an oft-ignored part of the site. I think there are plenty of other things on the site to keep ourselves busy, many of which don't require constant surveillance and moderation, and many of which put our staff, players, and authors to more productive uses.

I must say I agree with Kyle. After you have the badge, why on EARTH would you want to revisit that "nightmare"? lol.

Admittedly, it's really NICE to go there right now, as it's all very tidy for the nonce. But honestly? How many of the folks who write fabulous quizzes and questions are going to start "stealing" (as some have put it) other people's POTENTIAL chances? Personally, I think they would be spending their time writing quizzes or the QQ's instead ~

But I DO sort of understand Barbie's stance as well. Sure, some people post ridiculous things and they shouldn't get the badge (I'm quite certain we all agree on the meaning of the word "blatant" lol).

But while (I think) I know (from observing people's postings here for a couple of years), that many here are just having "a bit of fun", if we put ourselves in the position of a new member of the site, those postings might "appear" (to them) to be denigrating. Nobody likes to be made fun of (esPECially on this site). Some of the messages in this thread might have been better sent as PM's, rather than posted HERE. Remember folks, we were all "new" and "struggling" (personally I still struggle lol) once upon a time.

My point is that we should be encouraging "newbies", not driving them away by making "jokes", etc. The best way to encourage new members to do the "right thing" (whatever that may be) is to state EXPLICIT rules and for a designated moderator (or moderatorS) to respond promptly (not 4 months "down the road", which merely reinforces behaviour which is not "preferred") to people who do not abide by those rules.

So what it boils down to is: 1) The boards need to be checked very regularly because...
2) Human nature being what it is, people will still post repeated facts or nonsense facts in order to get the badge with minimal effort.
3) Once people have posted and in particular attained the badge, they will most likely never return. I certainly didn't. It's a shame really as there are interesting things there but it's far too tiresome to trawl through them all in the hopes of finding a gem.
4) If anyone is to lose the badge because of dodgy facts then they should be told pronto so they can change their facts.
5) It's far too much to expect one person to do the checking on a regular or irregular basis.

Is it possible to come up with another version of Fun Facts which will award a badge? How about this idea.. the ultimate world traveler scavenger hunt of quizzes. Ok.. we'd need at least one quiz for each region. There must be 120-150 regions/countries that have Fun Facts eligibility now. Let's say there was a quiz called “Fun Facts about New South Wales” quiz and a similar one for every region. All the other quizzes would have the same “Fun Facts about...” title. Complete 72 of these quizzes and you get the badge! Now we just need people to write the quizzes from the Fun Facts from last time. Additional quizzes could be written so some regions may have 2 or more quizzes with the Fun Facts prefix.

I'd imagine the current Fun Facts boards would go for maybe another six months until all the Fun Facts quizzes were up and running and then they could be scrapped. Once the quizzes were written there would be little input needed from the editors. Only 30 “Fun Facts..” quizzes would show up in the Search function so there would be an element of scavenging to find them all.. especially the British counties. It would be a little like Mission Impossible which was took a bit of lateral thinking to find all the quizzes but it was fabulous finishing it! That's my idea.. for better or worse

I like the idea, Tizzabelle! It seems to be more in keeping with the challenges and other tasks on FT.

I know this discussion has pretty much wound up, and the new Fun Facts threads are underway ... but I feel compelled to add as a personal post-mortem that it's already pretty clear many people are blatantly disregarding any requirement to post 'interesting facts'.

I've just clicked on nearly 40 country files and the same poster has - in over 30 of them - simply posted "The population of x as of 2010 was y." In all but one of the remaining threads I looked at the same poster has written "The capital of x is y." I'm presuming there's just over another 30 country files where this poster has opted for one or other of these formulae - I gave up looking! - since he's been awarded the Fun Facts badge!

Congratulations to him. Well earned! It was a lot of fun reading your facts ...

I certainly won't bother looking at these threads again - after all the work a number of people, particularly Sue, put into it, it's too demoralising.

What if all the standard "non-fun" facts were spelled out as not being acceptable or were given to start as info on each thread (i.e., capital city, population in 2010 or whenever the most recent figures are available)... It seems to be a losing battle, though. Not sure how advisable it is to keep this one alive.

I'd leave the capitals, populations etc in there. They should only be mentioned once and even if they aren't really fun it's easy enough to read it and move on. It's hard to fight human nature which for some people dictates putting in a fact without reading all the previous facts. I think dsimpy had the record of 9 postings of the same fact. I came in a close second with 8 postings in one state. It was a cute fact but not 8 times. I even found the same fact posted three times on the same page. What do you do to combat such a casual attitude? *shrug*

Yes, what I was suggesting is putting them at the top of the page as facts that are not so fun, but already given, i.e., not available for use. Then we might get some really fun facts. I know that fun is a subjective idea, and the repeat postings are a problem. Anyway, if we had certain facts in a chart at the top of each board and then said that these could not be used, it might get rid of some of the boring ones.

After reading the responses on the last set of threads and seeing that many did not read the rules or the postings, I don't think many will read more than the first header either. I'm sure that some will even think the game involves copy and pasting those facts.

I think that while copying is cheating and not on, capitals and population data should probably be allowed. I personally find capitals interesting, populations not so much, but others might. As has been said, fun is subjective, so I just don't think it's right if anyone chooses what is not allowed. I cannot stand something that asks what US state is closest to the size of the country, but some people obviously do find that a fun and interesting fact.

I am trying to connect states or countries with names of movies. (Philadelphia, Chicago, The Philadelphia Experiment).

I noticed for example that John Wayne participated in 17 films with a state name or city uses.

Those about Wayne would be Wayne Fun facts not facts about the places in the title. In many movies Hollywood never even went to the locale the movie was about, finding closer to home imitation places to use. "North to Alaska" was filmed mostly in Point Mugu, California not Alaska. So be careful citing fact about locations and movies.

mehaul, I believe you are being way to restrictive in citing those movies as not being fun facts about the locations. I am sure that the tourist boards of those states or countries welcomed the movies and did not begrudge the fact that they were not filmed there. If you were reading the threads I am sure you would be more interested in this fact than most of the others that are posted.

I don't post movies made in ______. It's another fact for me. The Incredible Hulk (film) was filmed in Virginia. But my fact is about city, countries or state names.

Most of the movie facts were flat out "X was filmed in this place" And many times that wasn't true at all. And our review was to mostly note repeats to Sue. Flags were put onto some facts as questionable but whether or not Sue acted on those flags is unknown. I just do not want the erroneous idea that John Wayne filmed "North to Alaska" (one of his few listings as Producer and star) in Alaska to be presented as a fact about Alaska.

I really wish this badge would be retired. These are not spirited discussions we are having. They are bordering on being contentious and derogatory and a lot of other bad descriptives we shouldn't be hearing in the Fun Place. May I ask that this thread, at least gets retired as there is no new ground to break in our postings, just dirt flinging that might get in someone's eyes?

Thread retired!