Be Excellent To Each Other

I've been thinking of late about a few things that forums don't do very well. For a start, sometimes a lot of us miss stuff that becomes a great running joke because it appears in a thread that has gone violently off-topic. For example, BurtTank. And I've been thinking about how new people who come here can't get a sense of what we talk about in general, because most of it is buried away under hundreds of pages of archives. It's easy to see what we talk about now, but difficult to get a sense of the main topics of conversation over the last month, say. And finally I've wanted for some time to have some sort of loose "post of the week" type archive, calling out the particularly funny or pithy posts.

So, to try and resolve all of these, up in the Announcements section you'll find This Week In BeeX. I propose to post one new entry to that thread each week, on a Friday afternoon, so that over time we'll build a nice archive of a sort of BeeX highlight reel. For that reason, the announcement thread will stay locked, and be accompanied by the discussion thread you see here.

I need your help though! As the week goes on, if you see a particularly noteworthy post or thread, PM me to suggest its inclusion in the next update. I think we can afford to be a little picky about this -- it's supposed to be a highlight reel, after all, not an index. And I don't want this to become some huge thing that takes ages to write. It's supposed to be a quick little list and commentary of the most important things the forum has discussed.

So, what do you all think?

"This was the BeeX that was" you mean?

Yes, BeeX is one of the competing short forms of Be Excellent To Each Other, the other one being BETEO. BeeX is better because it has an X, and X is the coolest letter.

The BNP summary is, at best, a joke.

Make sure you put a bit about how everyone wants to play Super Pipeline 2 and how I have the best score to date.

I was offering a humorous punny alternative title. Too obscure?

Also, very proud of making 'Post of the week'. I'd like to thanks the mods, jeebus and the BNP

Sorry I edited my original post to say "This Was The Beex That Was"

I disagree. I think it's a fair summary that attempts to not drag arguments out any longer. Or would you prefer to drag them out?

I did! Except I didn't point out you were in the lead, because I wrote that bit on Wednesday.

to both bits of that.

Good idea, nicely done

I think that sounds like a good idea - some days I am on the forum a fair bit, but quite often don't come by for a day or two when it gets really busy. A 'catch-up' topic would be good for me.

I do wonder how long it will last though, once the initial excitement and enthusiam passes.

So do I, but I'm the bugger doing it, so it's up to me to keep it up! Done this way it's not very onerous; I just drop a link into the ongoing draft whenever I see something worth noting, which takes a few seconds. This is why I want people to PM me stuff though, because I don't read everything.

And thanks Meems

No problems, er, whoever you are now.

I'm me (RG) again, all mods are back to normal now.

A summary of Bits and Bobs would be good.

Well the opinion you prescribe to me, is completely inaccurate.

I'll simplify this, delete all reference to me from that post please. Ideally, never include me in any summary thread.

Good point, sometimes it's not worth splitting out, say, half a dozen linked posts; a line in the summary would draw people's attention to something important without messing around with the thread split.

Hooray! You may notice I'm now plugging this alot as it's actually an awful lot of fun and not many people are taking part this far.

If this is what you want.

If it's the alternative to being misrepresented, then yes please.

Ta.

Oh God no, I was being sarcastic.

Dimrill, make me a sarcastic dimlie now.

Yup, although I haven't participated (yet) I thought it was a great thing to plug. The news ticker is too obscure sometimes I think, as some people (me included) use View Active Topics and so never see it. This weekly post is a bit more in your face.

I will exclude you from all future updates.

Thank you.

Unless anyone else objects, I will continue to summarise indivual poster's content in the weekly summary. Without it I think it would be a very flat, bland list whereas with it I think newcomers will be able to get a flavour for the forum by reading it (which is part of what I am aiming for). Obviously you will have to trust my judgement to be fair to you, as Dudley does not; does anyone else object to that? Best I know now.

I am going for a poo. Nobody fall out with anyone else in the meantime. *points finger as he backs towards the door*

[clarity] does silence imply consent? [/clarity]

I will trust your judgement, but should you cross me I will smite you.

That is all.

depends how long you're gone for. Paper, magazine or book (or dvd)?

I will play it if you shout 'BLIP' and put a postcard with 'Achievement Unlocked' in front of my face when I complete levels and whatnot.

If I ever actually get round to posting anything interesting here, feel free to summarise me.

Dude, you post cool stuff all the time. I read your blog man.

Every month, can we have a thread summarising the weekly summary threads in case we miss stuff from them?

<UNFUNNY POST REJECTED>

Pity this didn't exist when I went on holiday, so I'd know what FeeX meant and what all that stuff about pixies is.

Yes, then we can have a BUMPER XMAS BEEX ANNUAL with all the cool bits from the last year.

I ended up reading a Retro Gamer bookazine from off their DVD collection of issues. Unfortunately I had nothing in the bathroom capable of reading or displaying DVDs, so I "did a Gaywood" and interpreted the indentations on the DVD surface and converting the machine code to ASCII in my head. I smirked as the parity bit occasionally didn't add up.

FeeX is a BeeX fix. Geddit? I think the Pixies thing is Zardoz playing Oblivion.

Owen's one of my favourite posters here, his gaming blog is my secret addiction. It's the highlight of the BeeX RSS feed by far. FACT.

Though I've not been able to fire up my RSS browser since you got Trackmania DS, so I'm a few days out of date.

Also the summary doesn't fully describe my views, but summarise away by all means.

Aha!

Thank you!

Has anyone actually ever used MS Word's 'Autosummarise' feature other than for cheap 'War and Peace in 100 words' laughs?

Can someone summarise this thread for me, please?

I got it!

Great idea!

I skipped stuff so I hope I'm not repeating but:

I had thought of doing a BEEX dictionary or something like that aswell, like a ref' for people or something?

How about-in the style of the fantastic Harry Hill

'BEEX HIGHLIGHT OF THE WEEEEEEK'

Beextionary, surely?

"But which are better? BNP or black people? There's only one way to find out..."

An early Post of the Week candidate there, I feel.

Oh, sorry dude. I was trying to cover the bare outlines of the discussion. Plus I actually wrote that summary (mostly) before the debate got a bit more heated, back at the beginning it was more about the privacy implications.

I stand by why I put poster names in though; I think it livens it up a lot and I plan to continue doing so.

There was that guy who could tell what tune was on a vinyl record by looking at the wiggles in the grooves. Doing it with DVDs would be a bit harder though.

Have you been watching "You Bet!" again?

I can work out the plot of a book just be reading the words on the pages.

I can work out the name of a track's drummer just by sniffing someone who's recently listened to it on a discman.

Aye, you should it works a lot better with names, gives you context and that. If people don't like it maybe just put a disclaimer that it's your interpretation of what was said or something. Though I think thats obvious.

For the record, my actual view is that is it public domain now, so people aren't evil for looking or anything, though it is wrong, but the fact every one will invade privacy the moment they get a chance is exactly why the ID database is wrong. Because as this demonstrates, everyone who can will look.

It's a real good idea this!

I like the idea - will you be updating the thread if something is pointed out that you missed ?

e.g. LewieP's "retirement" from the bargins thread about 1/2 way down this page here :

viewtopic.php?f=3&t=111&start=1140

In addition what about picture / attachment of the week (if there is a particularly good one - probably most are hidden deep within B&B)