I think that 3 != 4.

there are some sports threads, politics threads, and philosophy threads as well, i'd like to think of them as more than inane babble! some of them turn into theist/atheist threads, but sometimes they fit their purpose. some of these threads are about accusing people of metagaming and such, there really is quite a variety.

and rlumley 3! doesn't equal 4. it equals six... come on learn your factorials

5. actual debates that require thought
6. discussions of a person or aa type of person or books or authors

God does not exist!
exactly ;)

"God..." was supposed to be more representative all the serious ones.
Often, it seems to me that the metagaming ones would be under inane babble.
I should have inserted "With a few exceptions,..."

1: God does (not) exist!
2: Hey! The adjucator didn't let me win!
3. [inane babble]
4. LIIIIVE GAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
5. actual debates that require thought
6. discussions of a person or aa type of person or books or authors
this is now the official list

Actually, 3 = 4
If...
a = 1
b = 1

therefore
a = b
a^2 = ab
a^2 + b^2 = ab + b^2
(a+b)(a-b) = b(a-b)
a+b = b
2a = b
2a = a
2 = 1
2+2 = 1+2
4 = 3
3 = 4
Tada! ;)

You divided by 0. That ones an old one...

7. Suggestions to either improve the site or introduce optional rules.

8. HERESY! Also, weather reports (SNOWWWW!!!!!), stupid stuff like "last person to post wins", polls and nominations for favorite things of a specific category.... basically, unclean nonsense that must be purged. Okay, maybe not; I'm reading 1 4chan.org's entries on WH40k, and it might be spilling over.

We've had some very interesting discussions in these 400+ pages of threads imo, though a better way to advertise live games would be good

1: Actual debate which may/may not turn into question whether - God does exist!/evolution is false and abortion wrong.
2: Noob advice/Hey! The adjucator didn't let me win!
3. [inane babble]
4. LIIIIVE GAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
5. bug reports/site changes/improvements which could be made.

this thread seems to some combination of 3 and 5, 4's tend to spill into every thread when they are on...

if only we had some kind of filtering/tagging system (instead of having subfora - we could tag individual posts as to which category they should be in, and filter out/in the ones we personally want to read.... we could even have a smart algorithm which automatically categorises my posts as always being either 1, 2 or 5... :P)

also when it comes to 3 in this thread, i beleive ottovanbis that != is the operator in question.

!= might be better represented by =/= (not equal) so 3 =/= 4

as opposed to 3! = 6...

!= is used to mean not equal, as stated above. Its quite common in programming/scripting (indeed, thats how PHP does it)

I'm inclined to think that thread type #5 does not exist, or if it does, is something akin to an endangered species.

IN ALL CAPS, FACTORIALS LOOK EVEN MORE IMPRESSIVE!!

If you mean suggestions, they exist.
If you mean sensible debates, they certainly used to exist. Whether they do any more, well thats up to you all to keep control of...

@ orathaic
Tagging, interesting. But what about the LIIIIVE GAAAAME!!!!!!! people who want to draw attention? They could be very inclined to use other tags to get that attention, like what happens on YouTube...

I have for a long time been in favour of splitting the forum into a few boards: Personal, Games, Help, Social [& Staff]
The reason I put Mod in [] is that only mods would see this. Anyone could post to it, but only mods could read it. The threads you start would be visible to you, but not to anyone else, nor could you read anyone else's threads. this would move everything inhouse and remove the ugly need for a mod email address.
Moreover, if someone was found to be spamming etc they could be banned from the different boards individually. eg someone who kept talking rubbish in the help section could be banned from using it, or indeed locked to just the social board.

3 != 4 is a computer programming thing. != is an operator that means not equal to because there's no way to show not equal to like you do on paper.

!= predates PHP, was used in C for many decades now, also php uses the great <> 'less than or greater than' operator which does the same thing (as far as i'm aware in all contexts)

As for the problems of Live games, i think they could be solved by having a LIVE GAME!!! specific area, with live updates...

(I'd also like to mention that i know some people who are plaiyng a real live game, it started in 2001 and played at a rate of one year per year till about 2007 when interest among some players may have wained)

I didn't know that <> was in php, and yes I know it was used a lot - php was just the first example to come into my head (after all, I still think of this as phpDiplomacy).