Good evening Ladies and Gentlemen and welcome to another public service announcement, courtesy of Splat's Productions. The topic of our discussion tonight is the top ten ways to murder a thread. You know that sometimes there are threads you just want to see crash and burn, and this blog aims to give you some ideas as to how.
10. Convince a noob to join the discussion.
This should divert everyone's attention to flaming the noob, even after the noob has been gone from the forum for a month. When people get tired of flaming the noob, they will have forgotten all about the discussion.
Pros: Takes little effort.
Cons: Does involve making contact with a noob, plus you have to put up with seeing the discussion topic for another month. As an alternative, you may wish to use someone else's computer to become the noob yourself, but if you do get caught in this, it could become messy.
9. Begin making all of your posts in Shakespearean Sonnet format.
People will get distracted by your posts, and if you're lucky, even slightly creeped out, which will distract them from posting.
Pros: Works quickly.
Cons: Writing posts will quickly become your life's work, and it's somewhat disheartening to have your greatest contribution to mankind stuck on page 17 of Off Topic Discussion.
8. Set yourself up as the main contributor to the discussion, and then leave once everyone is relying on you.
Without your support, the discussion will crumble.
Pros: Gives you a good sense of personal power. Particularly successful in RPGs.
Cons: Requires some knowledge of the subject, plus time and effort.
7. Start a flame-war.
Works a charm; a sneaky jie at someone's sexuality and a few inappropriate 'yo mom' jokes and you have a fully fledged flame-war. Sneak out at the opportune moment and wait for the mods to step in and shut'er'down.
Pros: Fairly easy to do and potentially fast-acting.
Cons: If it gets traced back to you, you could be in trouble.
6. Start agreeing with everyone.
This gives a nice sense of completion to the discussion and makes everyone leave feeling satisfied on the surface but oddly hollow on the inside.
Pros: Potentially fast and easy.
Cons: Requires some respect. If people catch you contradicting yourself to work this, you risk exposure. Also, some people won't give up their discussion without a fight.
5. Make inappropriate jokes about the Holocaust.
Everyone goes running!
Pros: Instant success!
Cons: You might end up labelled as a Nazi.
4. Start making long, meandering posts which contribute heavily to the discussion but that are so long that no one wants to read them.
Start small to knock off the small-fry but keep the discussion running with the more committed members, but then get longer and longer until no one wants to know.
Pros: Feeling of power. With persistence, this method could be the most successful one on this list.
Cons: Takes a lot of time, effort and expertise in the subject under discussion.
3. Post long, technical quotes from Wikipedia. Works the same way as the previous method; start small and relatively simple and work your way up until you're posting that article on
Super Symmetry.
Pros: Removes all of the cons of the previous method.
Cons: Do it well or everyone will ignore you forever.
2. Flood the topic with vaguely relevant Youtube videos or huge embedded images.
It'll slow everyone's computers down so much that no one will look at the thread any more; the one person on the forum with a top of the range laptop will be left lonely.
Pros: Does the job, quick and efficient.
Cons: Won't make you popular.
And the top spot goes to...
1. Find an excuse to post a graphic photograph of a human corpse!
Bear or shark attacks are great. Zombies are a no-go.
Pros: No one will ever even open the thread ever again. And no mods or admins will be brave enough to delete the picture (at least on
this forum.)
Cons: You will be forever remembered as the guy who posted the photo of the human corpse. Sorry.
