Why are threads in groups randomly marked as read when I haven't even had a chance to look at them? It's rather annoying for a guy who only reads bolded threads, and I'm reasonably sure most people do that as well. It's kind of the point of bolded threads.
What Plotinus said. I have no reason to trap you.I don't know if thats sincere or some attempt to trap me.
Are "click my link" and "watch my video" OPs now kosher in the tavern?
It sounds like you are asking if it ok to remove all pretense of discussion and start "forum games" type threads.
Decent 'video' OP's have some accompanying text/highlights as well. The problem is the preponderance of threads that have nothing but video.Well, at least article-post usually at least contain some highlighted text or something.
These are two of the reasons why I don't watch the video OP's either and decent enough reasons to ban video OP's.And you can read (parts of ) an article much faster than watching some 5min YouTube video. And I don't really want to turn my music off to listen to some random youtube thing, which will probably be poor anyway.
My view is that this is still a discussion forum, and that a thread needs to present a topic for discussion. A video or news article falls short of that. The poster needs to make an observation of their own (something mildly substantial) and direct the sort of analysis that they are after. Otherwise, it is basically spam.