Question: Limited Forums and New Thread Restriction - Why?

[felix]

relentlessflame I like the idea you're alluding to of a life cycle and only really caring for the NOW and FUTURE and not the past. But some of the things you're saying and the current format doesn't really fit into that. Is this something recent or something you've cooked up years ago? (I'm assuming it's recent)

What I don't really understand in your post...

• How does allowing members to create topics clash with the idea of a lifecycle? If you're gonna move everything into a forum anyway what's the disadvantage? Surely locking/deleting a topic is just as easy as aproving one; the only difference would be the discussion would be a lot more open for the community.
  
  
• You say you have an "an allowance for unique threads", I have no complaint with you having ONLY template threads if you're going for a lifecycle but what's this "unique thread" you speak of? Sound like you're saying "only what I would discuss", can you elaborate on what exactly is a unique thread and how the staff claims to be impartial on this.
  
  
• If I'm reading this correctly, having a forum will become temporary things while it's active, or that it's just an "extention" (no other purpose). If that's the case then General discussion thread not stickied? No really. If it's an EXTENTION then that's still THE most important thread there, isn't it? Episode threads aren't meant to house discussion, but thoughts on the episode; or at least that's what they come off as. Additionally if it's a lifecycle then why aren't episode threads locked when a new one is created? Similarly for chapter threads. For series with a manga why isn't there a general manga discussion and only chapter threads?
  
  tl;dr Why is the persistent/main thread either not available at all or not highlighted?

There are some other things that seem off but that's all for now.

[relentlessflame]

felix:
Very few of the ideas expressed here are new (at least for as long as I've been on the staff/mod team, which is years now).

1. The purpose of allowing free topic creation in the context of this conversation was to help breath life into a forum that is past its prime, which I'm saying is not a goal we intend to pursue. Restricting thread topics while the series is airing and popular did not seem to be at issue, as the context of the conversation was older series. We do not see any great need or benefit in opening sub-forums up to open topic creation, given that we do not intend to pursue measures that will keep sub-forums alive once discussion has otherwise generally died down (it's a "non-goal").

2. We do allow anyone to request a thread, and threads that seem likely to support a good discussion are generally created. The staff uses their own judgement to determine, largely from past collective experience, what topics will make for good threads. If you don't agree with our judgement... well, sorry, but that's how it is.

3. While the sub-forum is in its prime, the need for the general discussion thread will be low, as most of the conversation will occur in context of one of the other threads. During that time, it serves as a "catch all", but not a primary focal point (hence does not generally need to be highlighted or "stickied"). We're not going to lock episode threads weekly because not everyone watches each episode day and date with the airing (or even within a week); the topic is the episode itself, not a certain timeframe of activity. That being said, the forum experience is not optimized for someone who watches a show years after it airs either, nor the desire to keep a community alive long after most of the anime fanbase has moved on to something new.

[Triple_R]

Originally Posted by relentlessflame

I think the general direction of the forum is and will continue to go in the opposite direction of what is being requested here, for better or worse.

Why is this so?

I've re-read your post a few times now, and I'm still not seeing what real benefit Anime Suki hopes to take from going in the opposite direction of what is being requested by some members on this thread.

The principle of one topic, one thread is probably a good one, which is why I don't think anybody would object to the locking of, if not outright deletion of, truly redundant threads.

But if fans of a show believe that there's a specific thread topic not adequately covered by the ones typically created within subforums, and if that show's subforum no longer has an issue in keeping its episode threads "front and center" as those episodes are no longer airing for the first time, I'm not sure what the real downside is to letting the core following left in such subforums enjoy freer thread creation.


Also, while I respect that no series subforum can avoid retirement forever, I'm a bit worried at the idea of an "one size fits all" life-cycle approach being used for them.

Take the Haruhi Suzumiya subforum for example. Given Kadokawa and KyoAni's pace at furthering that anime along, it could conceivably be years until more Haruhi anime is out. Yet, it is fair to say that the Haruhi Suzumiya subforum hasn't been particularly active in a long time (its subforum is one of the ones that I could see benefiting significantly from freer thread creation).

So suppose Fall 2012 comes around, and no new Haruhi anime is anywhere on the horizon. Would Anime Suki be just about ready to retire the Haruhi subforum then? If so what happens if, come 2014, a new Haruhi anime comes out? Does the Haruhi subforum get "unretired"? How does that even work?

I'm sincerely curious about all of this.


But on a broader level, I'm wondering what exactly is it that you're hoping to avoid by not going in the direction requested on this thread? What are you concerned might happen if you take Anime Suki in that direction?

It's difficult to discuss the pros and cons of different suggested directions unless we know what the perceived cons of those directions are.

Personally, I don't see any harm in opening up older series subforums to thread creation by the members left on that series subforum. I'm inclined to agree with Sackett that the idea I put forward would produce more benefits than harm. If anybody disagrees, it would be nice to know why.

As for stray topics that don't fit into one of the existing categories but aren't worth a thread on their own, we do indeed want people to use the General Discussion thread if one exists.

And general speaking, that's fine.

However, when it comes to "breathing new life" into an older subforum, this approach is not particularly useful.

The reason is "General Discussion" isn't exactly a sexy topic heading that's going to necessarily draw attention to it when people notice that it's been recently updated by a post.

However, a more specific thread topic may draw attention to it, as it might touch on a topic or idea that is interesting to some people.

I realize that this position isn't going to match everyone's ideals about how they'd like to see the Forum run. But, by the same token, we don't believe that we can be all things to all people.

That's fine, but which people do you think are better served by not taking up my idea?

I don't see how it serves the dedicated fans of older anime shows that have subforums, as it can only make it harder to generate interesting discussions on the subforums for those shows.

I don't see how it serves the interests of more general anime fans on Anime Suki because they probably won't be on older anime subforums much anyway.

As for AS Moderators, I would think that felix is correct. Surely locking/deleting a topic is just as easy as approving/rejecting one.


In conclusion, I'm genuinely perplexed as to why your response to my idea has been largely negative, I think it's fair to say. Nobody on this thread has opposed it (while Ledgem and Sackett have both already expressed at least some support for the idea), and I don't see any significant downside to it, nor has any such downside been mentioned thus far on this thread, so... ?


Edit:

Originally Posted by relentlessflame

felix:
Very few of the ideas expressed here are new (at least for as long as I've been on the staff/mod team, which is years now).

1. The purpose of allowing free topic creation in the context of this conversation was to help breath life into a forum that is past its prime, which I'm saying is not a goal we intend to pursue.

... Why? This is truly bewildering to me.

I mean, insofar as such "breathing new life" into an older forum can be achieved by good thread creation by members alone (without needing AS Mods to spice it up somehow with active work), I don't get why the AS Mods would actually be against that.

Breathing new life into an older forum can only help Anime Suki. It can only create more interest in part of this site, which is good for the site as a whole.

[totoum]

Originally Posted by Triple_R

f so what happens if, come 2014, a new Haruhi anime comes out? Does the Haruhi subforum get "unretired"? How does that even work?

Seems to be the idea,from the True Tears subforum:

The True Tears sub-forum will remain retired like this until there is a good reason for it to be revived, such as the announcement of a new season, OVA or movie.

[relentlessflame]

Originally Posted by Triple_R

Why is this so?

Because the structure of the sub-forums are not currently designed to adequately support this approach, and we favour maintaining our design and general moderation approach than to pursue this secondary goal that would require breaking our pattern to serve a much smaller group of members. As I said, our preferred alternative is that the small group of remaining members make Social Groups where they can take full control over the management of the "space". This keeps the community active within the AnimeSuki Forum website, just not on the forum strictly-speaking. In other words, out of the sub-forum a community remains as a remnant, and when the sub-forum is no longer the best avenue to support that community (because its thread structure no longer fits), the community migrates to a social group and the sub-forum (whose structure is now antiquated and less useful) dies. We're just saying we're not going to open up the sub-forum to keep it alive artificially, but that doesn't mean the community has to die.

All that to say: don't breath new life into a dead space. Instead, move to a new space that takes the flavour of the remaining inhabitants. I think that has the potential to be a lot more vibrant anyway, but it really depends entirely on the fans.

Originally Posted by Triple_R

But if fans of a show believe that there's a specific thread topic not adequately covered by the ones typically created within subforums, and if that show's subforum no longer has an issue in keeping its episode threads "front and center" as those episodes are no longer airing for the first time, I'm not sure what the real downside is to letting the core following left in such subforums enjoy freer thread creation.

I'm not sure in the first place that thread creation is improperly restricted, at least until the point the series is retired. If the thread provides a good opportunity for discussion, isn't better-covered by one of the existing threads, and isn't a forum game or something that is against our Forum Rules, I think we generally allow it. I've not seen that many times where we've rejected a "good" thread request (except, as noted above, cases where maybe we missed the request, which can happen). So I'm not sure I see the issue here, at least in the pre-retirement phase, except maybe some people have a much broader definition of what constitutes a "good thread" than some of the mods do. But that's a difference of opinion, not necessarily a flaw in the approach.

(I would say in general that some people tend to be a bit more "thread-happy" than fits our moderation philosophy in general. Many topics are similar and don't require a new thread; our philosophy has always been to keep the same topic in the same thread, and that's not going to change.)

Originally Posted by Triple_R

So suppose Fall 2012 comes around, and no new Haruhi anime is anywhere on the horizon. Would Anime Suki be just about ready to retire the Haruhi subforum then? If so what happens if, come 2014, a new Haruhi anime comes out? Does the Haruhi subforum get "unretired"? How does that even work?

I don't know when Haruhi would be considered for retirement. But, in this hypothetical situation, yes, the sub-forum would come out of retirement. This happened once before with Utawarerumono, which got a series of OVAs many years after the TV anime aired and the sub-forum was already retired.


In general I would just say that you need to consider the big picture when making these sorts of requests. Implementing a change that would seem to benefit a small group of members may seem like an obvious thing to do, but I fear that you haven't really thought through all the implications. For example, there is a significant benefit for all anime series sub-forums to have the same structure and a similar moderation approach. This is why, not too long after limiting sub-forums, we extended that same pattern to all other anime series sub-forums on the site. This helps people understand our expectations and gets people into a habit of what to expect and of how things work. This predictability is invaluable when you're dealing with a community of our size; it reduces moderation issues significantly, and is generally what allows AnimeSuki Forum to run smoothly with a very small but dedicated moderation team.

In other words, just because you can do a thing, and doing that thing would make some people happy, doesn't automatically mean that you should do a thing, especially when there are other ways of accomplishing the same thing that would realize most or even all of the same goals without breaking the established pattern or system. I think we do have a suitable alternative in this case that I think has the potential to accomplish the purpose even better than the immediate proposal (because it's not only open, but community-managed).


That doesn't necessarily address every single point you raised, but I hope that addresses the main ones.

[monster]

Bring back the super moderators.

[Ledgem]

If the staff have decided that this is the way it's going to be, then that's how it's going to be. Still, unless I missed it, I didn't see any reason to justify having this in place (other than "it fits the moderation style").

Relentless, you've been here as long as I have. AnimeSuki has grown a lot during that time, but with time the moderation has also become more strict. It's not just the moderation itself, but there has been an obsessive compulsiveness about keeping threads organized and avoiding repeat discussions that has been growing in recent years. It is as if we're generating discussions, but once we have allowed a conversation to run its course, we lock it, keep it around for archival purposes, and work to prevent anyone from having the same conversation again. Now we're even preventing people from coming up with more original talking points by shuffling conversation into pre-defined, patterned threads. It's less fun, and I have personally felt stifled by it.

I am aware of the extreme opposite form of moderation, and how a forum can devolve into mindless, spammy commentary rather than discussions. I appreciate the work that the moderators do to keep things orderly and flowing - I think it is at least partly for that reason that the forum has continued to grow and maintain worthwhile discussions.

Part of this comes down to an identity issue. I view AnimeSuki as a site that caters to anime, in general, and includes a few areas for other discussion that isn't always related. Based on what you're saying, it seems as if AnimeSuki serves only discussions of the latest series. Why lock up and archive the forums for older series - what purpose does that serve? Why not let conversation flow freely? Again, if the staff have decided that's how it will be, then there's no discussion to be had. I am curious about the rationale behind those ideas, though. If they're sound, then I'll accept them. If they're not, then I'd imagine that I won't need to say anything, as the staff will likely come to the realization on their own.

[relentlessflame]

Originally Posted by Ledgem

It is as if we're generating discussions, but once we have allowed a conversation to run its course, we lock it, keep it around for archival purposes, and work to prevent anyone from having the same conversation again. Now we're even preventing people from coming up with more original talking points by shuffling conversation into pre-defined, patterned threads. It's less fun, and I have personally felt stifled by it.

Well three points:

1. Keep in mind that both the thread request and the retirement systems have been around for many years now. Sub-forum retirement started in 2008, and thread requests were around 2005 IIRC. Of course, a major reason for sub-forum retirement was that the sub-forum was basically not being used anymore anyway, and was just taking up space on the main index and making the site look stale by listing all these "old shows that nobody cares about anymore" (in quotes). Cleaning them up was more good housekeeping than anything else.

2. In the case of retired sub-forums where we do lock certain threads, there is always an unlocked thread that is still suited to discussing the show and can cover the topics that were previously covered in the locked threads. So I'd again think of it as re-consolidating the discussion into a single thread going forward (while preserving the old threads for posterity).

3. As for "preventing original talking points" bit, I still honestly don't see this. Again, what threads are you wanting to create that you can't create by asking? Do you really need a new thread, or would one of the existing threads do? The pre-defined threads are there because we've found that, if we don't create them, people ask for them anyway. People have gotten into a habit of there just always being certain threads for shows season after season. And I think, for a lot of the conversations, that works just fine. For cases where that doesn't work, a new thread can be proposed, and I really don't see why it wouldn't be granted if it's a worthy topic. What I'm trying to understand is: is it "stifling" because we won't create the threads you feel are necessary (due to not deeming them worthy), or just "stifling" because you have to make the proposal in the first place?

Originally Posted by Ledgem

Based on what you're saying, it seems as if AnimeSuki serves only discussions of the latest series.

No, I would say that it's sub-forums that only really serve their purpose when the series is popular and the threads are active. Once the momentum dies down, they practically become ghost towns. And I don't think this is just because "nobody can create new threads about random things to keep the conversation going", it's just that most people have moved on and there's really not that much to say. AnimeSuki can still serve as a discussion environment for older series, but in the usual/traditional way: as single threads about a single show (as happens for 90% of the shows on the site). There's just not that much discussion to warrant a whole sub-forum for it anymore. Beyond that, we have Social Groups now, which I think are a lot more effective for small dedicated communities due to the user-managed aspect (we didn't have such a thing back in the day).


Granted that even from my days as a simple member I was never much of a fan of sub-forums to start with, but I definitely thought things improved significantly when the thread topics were locked and more organized. Despite what is being implied, I really do think conversations nowadays are much more focused and on-topic than they used to be in the old days, and so a lot more engaging with a higher content/spam (signal-to-noise) ratio. It's a lot easier for me to engage in a topic that's of immediate interest to me without having to wade through a whole ton of randomness to find a gem. Are the threads perfect? Of course not. But I'm not sure that it's so simple to fix the problem, nor that allowing free thread creation gets us closer to a solution. (Granted, I can't say that I'm exactly clear on the problem.)

So you're asking for a rationale as to why things are the way they are, and I guess I can only say it's an amalgamation of all the preferences of all the staff past and present who participated in the discussions that led to this point (and I'm just one small part of that process). Of course, each person who works on the staff has different opinions and their own personalities, but each person was also nominated by the other staff because (among other reasons) they seemed to understand and accept the general principles that govern the site's operation. So you might infer that, our "collective personality", influenced by past experience and internal discussions, is to prefer threads to be organized and follow predictable patterns that tend to support the needs of most of the forum members particularly during a show's airing. And you can probably also infer from my comments that the staff, on the whole, aren't generally very interested in keeping sub-forums alive when the show is past its prime, particularly if that involves allowing things to be more "chaotic".

Again, if you ask me to give you like "the 5 main reasons why this is the best system in existence that'll convince anyone we're on the right path", I don't know if there is such a thing (though I've tried to give as many as I can think of along the way). I think it's more like "we like it this way", "it generally seems to accomplish our goals", and "previous experiences with other approaches have driven us away from them". Contrary to what some might believe we really are open to new ideas (and often these are incorporated into internal discussions and get morphed into future ideas/decisions), but proposals that go firmly against the principles we otherwise use to moderate the site aren't very likely to be adopted, at least not as is.


Anyway, that's probably all I can say on the topic (other than replies to specific questions); maybe some other members of the staff have more ideas or feedback.

[Ledgem]

(Sorry, this turned into a really long reply):

Originally Posted by relentlessflame

Well three points:

1. Keep in mind that both the thread request and the retirement systems have been around for many years now. Sub-forum retirement started in 2008, and thread requests were around 2005 IIRC. Of course, a major reason for sub-forum retirement was that the sub-forum was basically not being used anymore anyway, and was just taking up space on the main index and making the site look stale by listing all these "old shows that nobody cares about anymore" (in quotes). Cleaning them up was more good housekeeping than anything else.

2. In the case of retired sub-forums where we do lock certain threads, there is always an unlocked thread that is still suited to discussing the show and can cover the topics that were previously covered in the locked threads. So I'd again think of it as re-consolidating the discussion into a single thread going forward (while preserving the old threads for posterity).

I find these to be reasonable, and have no problems with them. Indeed, the forum is better off for them.

Originally Posted by relentlessflame

3. As for "preventing original talking points" bit, I still honestly don't see this. Again, what threads are you wanting to create that you can't create by asking? Do you really need a new thread, or would one of the existing threads do? The pre-defined threads are there because we've found that, if we don't create them, people ask for them anyway. People have gotten into a habit of there just always being certain threads for shows season after season. And I think, for a lot of the conversations, that works just fine. For cases where that doesn't work, a new thread can be proposed, and I really don't see why it wouldn't be granted if it's a worthy topic. What I'm trying to understand is: is it "stifling" because we won't create the threads you feel are necessary (due to not deeming them worthy), or just "stifling" because you have to make the proposal in the first place?

For a series that is on-going, I have no issue with the way that the subforums are handled. Actually, I recall trying to participate in forum discussions on a popular, actively-airing series (Code Geass season 2), and found it to be too fast-paced and chaotic to spend much time in. The way things are probably works as well as can be for series like that.

For the older series, you ask me what thread I would want that doesn't exist. I don't create new threads very often. What I want is something that is less easily definable: people proposing theories, linking the series to various aspects of life, bringing in comparisons with other series, movies, or world events... basically, the boundless, unrestricted creativity of fans who want to talk about anything and everything, tied in to the series.

Having to request a new thread to be made is a huge barrier in itself. It's not a matter of laziness, either: the fact that such a rule exists already indicates a hostility to the creation of new threads, and seemingly indicates that a moderator is likely to tell you that your idea stinks or that it should just go into a pre-defined thread. Why bother, particularly knowing that the forums are older and don't receive much traffic anyway? (Bear in mind also that while the subforums for older series receive less traffic by default, I wonder if they wouldn't receive more if threads could be created freely.)

Originally Posted by relentlessflame

And I don't think this is just because "nobody can create new threads about random things to keep the conversation going", it's just that most people have moved on and there's really not that much to say.

I don't disagree that it's a contributing factor. However, I think it's hastened by the restrictions. Take, for example, the Angel Beats! subforum. It has only two pages, and even on the first page roughly one third of the threads are episode discussions. Episode discussions are usually cast aside when a series finishes, and topics shift to discussions that examine the series as a whole. I flitted through a few topics, and most of them devolved into people either responding to very old posts, or not responding to anything in particular at all.

How about the Death Note subforum? It's a similar deal, with threads that have accumulated hundreds of replies that seemingly lead to people ignoring the most recent posts that have been made (even if they truly are recent) and just dropping their thoughts. I was delighted to have a conversation with a member who joined the site this month, but there were a number of other replies that seemingly ignored my posts and never returned, even after I responded to them. And I don't blame them - when there seems to be little activity and threads are hundreds of posts long, people seem to be assuming that nobody is active at the end, or that people contributing are just post dumping.

Originally Posted by relentlessflame

Beyond that, we have Social Groups now, which I think are a lot more effective for small dedicated communities due to the user-managed aspect (we didn't have such a thing back in the day).

I've seen the social groups mentioned by site staff before, and I feel that it has just become a convenient excuse. Social groups are tucked away and have simply become badges that people put into their profile to indicate interests or what they are fans of. I can only think of one social group that has maintained some semblance of activity, and it happens to be an image-sharing group with the most members in any social group I've seen thus far. Actually, I just checked, and we have 89 social groups with more than 50 members, and of those only five have any activity from 2012. If you include December 2011 (seven groups), then we can say that 12 groups out of 89 have a sizable user base and active discussion. I was not a fan of the social group concept when it was first introduced, and I think the data speaks for itself in how well it has taken off. Social groups are hidden away and are fairly difficult to find, in many cases - it's no surprise that they garner so little activity.

Originally Posted by relentlessflame

Despite what is being implied, I really do think conversations nowadays are much more focused and on-topic than they used to be in the old days, and so a lot more engaging with a higher content/spam (signal-to-noise) ratio. It's a lot easier for me to engage in a topic that's of immediate interest to me without having to wade through a whole ton of randomness to find a gem. Are the threads perfect? Of course not. But I'm not sure that it's so simple to fix the problem, nor that allowing free thread creation gets us closer to a solution. (Granted, I can't say that I'm exactly clear on the problem.)

Well, your perception differs from mine. Certainly things have become more organized, but I also feel that there is less of people talking with each other, and more that people are talking at each other (or just sending posts off into the void of the internet, seemingly not realizing that people may want to reply to it and discuss it farther). I am saddened by this, but I can only blame forum restrictions so far: much of the blame lies with the user base itself.

Originally Posted by relentlessflame

Of course, each person who works on the staff has different opinions and their own personalities, but each person was also nominated by the other staff because (among other reasons) they seemed to understand and accept the general principles that govern the site's operation.

If the nomination process is as you say, then I interpret it differently: that people would be nominated in part because their views are in line with the majority of the rest of the staff. The principles that govern the site are not laws of nature; they can be changed.

I guess now I've shifted from asking a question to making an appeal. If the staff are dead set in their ways, then there's nothing to be done. I'm asking that this all be reconsidered, not because I want this site to return to the way that it was in 2003-2005 (even though I liked those days best), but because conversations feel incredibly stifled.

Originally Posted by relentlessflame

Again, if you ask me to give you like "the 5 main reasons why this is the best system in existence that'll convince anyone we're on the right path", I don't know if there is such a thing (though I've tried to give as many as I can think of along the way). I think it's more like "we like it this way", "it generally seems to accomplish our goals", and "previous experiences with other approaches have driven us away from them". Contrary to what some might believe we really are open to new ideas (and often these are incorporated into internal discussions and get morphed into future ideas/decisions), but proposals that go firmly against the principles we otherwise use to moderate the site aren't very likely to be adopted, at least not as is.

All well and fine. I'm curious: what are your goals, and would you put what you like (as site staff) above what the users like? My personal view is that the forum is set up for users to have discussions, and the moderators have their roles simply to ensure that things remain civil (take care of aggressors) and that the flow of conversation is not disrupted (take care of spammers). It seems to me that moderators are partly creating these rules to make moderation easier on themselves. While understandable, it seems bizarre that moderators would put themselves and their moderation above the users and purpose that the site was designed for.

I won't be surprised if nothing changes from all of this. Noting that things have become more restrictive over time, I would request that they not become more restrictive than they have already become.

Edit: Even though Relentless and I have been going on about this, I'd invite other staff to give their thoughts and opinions, as well.

[relentlessflame]

Originally Posted by Ledgem

What I want is something that is less easily definable: people proposing theories, linking the series to various aspects of life, bringing in comparisons with other series, movies, or world events... basically, the boundless, unrestricted creativity of fans who want to talk about anything and everything, tied in to the series.

So why don't people just post it in the threads that exist? There is almost certainly a thread that suits the purpose and if there really isn't, someone could propose it. I have a hard time imagining that the are whole ton of people out there just bubbling with creative ideas for relevant conversations they could be having about a show in a dead or dying sub-forum, but are held back by the fact that they don't find a thread that seems 100% suitable and proposing their idea is too much of a bother. And if people really can't find a suitable thread, then perhaps we can re-label something to make it more clear that there is a place for them?

This whole hypothetical "there's a whole world of possibilities you're deliberately turning away because you're not allowing completely-free thread creation" is really a stretch to me. How do they get by then for the 90%+ of shows that don't get sub-forums in the first place and so only have one thread...? I don't think creating a new thread of your own is such an essential part of the creative process when discussing a show, nor is the barrier to jumping into an existing thread that much of a deterrent. Otherwise, older sub-forums surely aren't the biggest problem to be addressing at this point.

Originally Posted by Ledgem

I don't disagree that it's a contributing factor. However, I think it's hastened by the restrictions. Take, for example, the Angel Beats! subforum. [...] How about the Death Note subforum?

Neither of these forums are retired, so people can certainly request new threads if they want. But I don't think there's very much left to say about either of these shows. In many cases, even if new threads were created, I'm not convinced they'd see significant response. We have a hard enough time at this point getting people to come back one week after the last episode airs to post their final series impressions/review, or vote in the final character poll. With nearly the whole world of anime being simulcast every season now, I think interest in any given anime is much more short-lived than it was 7-9 years ago.

Originally Posted by Ledgem

I've seen the social groups mentioned by site staff before, and I feel that it has just become a convenient excuse. Social groups are tucked away and have simply become badges that people put into their profile to indicate interests or what they are fans of. [...] I was not a fan of the social group concept when it was first introduced, and I think the data speaks for itself in how well it has taken off. Social groups are hidden away and are fairly difficult to find, in many cases - it's no surprise that they garner so little activity.

Social Groups are what people make of them. If it's about visibility, then let's talk about ways to make the groups more visible and prominent. But, at least in concept, they seem to provide exactly what seems to be needed in this case: a place where fans of a franchise can freely engage in conversations outside the confines of our normal thread or sub-forum structure. We recently made changes to improve the discussion ability in these environments, which may provide improve usability. If there are other issues that prevent it from serving a useful purpose to fulfill this role, let's talk about that, not just rush to conclusions that it's not usable.

Originally Posted by Ledgem

Well, your perception differs from mine. Certainly things have become more organized, but I also feel that there is less of people talking with each other, and more that people are talking at each other (or just sending posts off into the void of the internet, seemingly not realizing that people may want to reply to it and discuss it farther). I am saddened by this, but I can only blame forum restrictions so far: much of the blame lies with the user base itself.

In considering all the reports we receive as staff and what we encounter as we participate on the forums ourselves, I really don't see any evidence the attitude of posters is considerably different, or the conversation more "stilted" in this way, in the parts of the forum that are subject to thread creation restrictions compared to those that are not. In my experiences browsing other Forums, I'm similarly not convinced that unlocking thread creation in sub-forums for old shows will lead to improved attitudes, or even necessarily the improved creativity and conversation you desire.

Originally Posted by Ledgem

All well and fine. I'm curious: what are your goals, and would you put what you like (as site staff) above what the users like? My personal view is that the forum is set up for users to have discussions, and the moderators have their roles simply to ensure that things remain civil (take care of aggressors) and that the flow of conversation is not disrupted (take care of spammers). It seems to me that moderators are partly creating these rules to make moderation easier on themselves. While understandable, it seems bizarre that moderators would put themselves and their moderation above the users and purpose that the site was designed for.

I assure you that I and the rest of the staff work the way we do because we want to make the forum a fun and constructive place for as many people as possible. Calling into question the motivations of a hard-working volunteer team just because we disagree about this issue is not really appropriate or appreciated. (And if I may be a bit selfish for a moment, particularly because I've spent most of my afternoon/evening composing replies to this thread to try to be as open and upfront as I can be, arguably to no avail, when I could instead of have been doing other things that would be more enjoyable to me. It's certainly not making things easier on me.)


At the end of the day, I think we all have to work together to make a good environment where conversation and constructive discussion can occur. The staff do their best, based on their experience and judgement, to support an environment conducive to that sort of experience. Of course it's not perfect, but I think our current approach has considerable benefits to all. But if people don't like the approach we're taking on principle and find that it doesn't suit their needs or desires, no one's married to this site. If you can find another site that does a better job of meeting your needs, then go there. Or if not, create a new site for that matter. Or do all three at once, if it meets your needs. Life's too short to remain frustrated.

That's all from me.

[felix]

So you might infer that, our "collective personality", influenced by past experience and internal discussions, is to prefer threads to be organized and follow predictable patterns that tend to support the needs of most of the forum members particularly during a show's airing.

I think it's more like "we like it this way", "it generally seems to accomplish our goals", and "previous experiences with other approaches have driven us away from them"

Okey, as much as I support this whole lifecycle idea you have, I see what the issue I had earlier is now. Essentially you're thinking purely as "how to make the forum better for MODERATORS", not "how to make the forum better for THE COMMUNITY", and you're under the false logic that "what's best for me, is best for everyone".

You know how you praise yourselvs with statements like "this is a moderated forum" or "inteligenet discussion" well that's all pretty void when you think how as a moderator you don't have to lift a finger and things like discussion/debate outright don't exist. The dominating patterns in series forums are (short) statements/conversations, neighter of which need any attention from you. What you've done is not "moderate" but simply create an environment so sterile and unfertile because it's convenient to you.

It's like torching your garden to prevent bees from comming near it; enjoy your garden of short and punny grass afterwards. But hey growing grass is more convenient then growing flowers so obviously it's "superior" (sarcasm).

You ask what's the problem with your system and debates. Well, I ask you where the hell are the debates? No, really how many debates/discussion threads have you as the staff as a whole created when you consider ALL the series forums? I'd imagine the density is 1/forum AT BEST. Because really, if you think "what's best as a moderator when moderating" creating a debate/discussion thread runs the risk of you actually having to look at it from time to time.

You then have all these threads in the forum: "How do you tie your shoes when looking at character X", "How do you tie your shoes when looking at character Y", along with "How do you tie your shoes when looking at seyuu X", and of course the glorious "How do you tie your shoes this week, Rate your shoelace" threads. Add to that the Avatar/Signature, Image thread, Merchandise and so on, and you've essntially got a 1 to ~15 debate to noise ratio (the 1 being General). Don't get me wrong, I'm sure some people find those threads useful and fun, particularly things like Merchandise, Image threads and so on, but really none of them are debate material and they just promote a sense of noise in the entire forum. The hardest thread to post into, and find for what it's worth, is always the General thread, but it's only thread where you might see a resemblence of actual inteligent talk.

To add to this, your logic on which should go to SG is just completely backwards to your ideals. You essentially want SG to act as a hub for all the non-discussion/debate noise. But if that's the case why are you sending the people from older forums there, who obviously don't have anything they can do other then cary out post-show discussion/debate, YET, go out of your way to create 1001 "appretiation" threads in the forums, among other noise.

But anyway, I digress. Essentially what's happening is you've found that creating a lot of this "white noise" (that you've somehow justfied to yourself) makes your job a lot easier since what it's doing is creating the illusion of discussion/debates when in reality there is none, along with the illusion that you CAN have debates/discussion when really... you can't, because if it happens in an existing topic the "good" noise just eats it up and if it's requested you just deny it on the basis that it's insufficiently unique (ie. not your "white noise"). And you've convinced yourself that obviously "because you're doing far less work, the system is better" even though you go on to add "you don't actually like talking in the series forums" yourself; so obviously you yourself don't find any worthwhile discussion/debate there either.

Now when you think of this lifecycle thing from that angle, it's no longer a means by which you support fresh discussion but just a another way to continue with this logic train of "what's easier to moderate, is more inteligent" and thus justify killing a huge chunk of debate/discussion.

[hyl]

@felix (i find it a bit long to quote your post)

The most intelligent posts that i find are in the general and the specific episode discussions. Because they contain analyses of the current episodes and speculations of future episodes. By the time an anime has finished, there is not much left to speculate except on the ending or on the unresolved plot (or the plotholes) of the anime. Most people will lose some interest of an older anime after a new season starts, unless the anime was a huge succes like Steins;Gate, Code Geass, Madoka etc. But I think that you don't always need a new topic for discussing that, because people who are still reading and posting on those older sub forums are surely fans. Also because less things are posted after an anime has reached it's prime, you can still debate with the fans in those forums without the interuptions of the "casual" viewers.

To be fair, there are more than enough debates in existing topics of certain anime sub forums of popular series or in the shounen series like one piece, fairy tail etc. Saying that there are hardly any debates in this forum is not that true. In fact anyone can stir up a discussion, which in most occasions quickly leads into a debate.
But I assume you probably want to discus something less general and you want a seperate topic for that.
While i can see your point that you want more freedom of creating new topics that can start new discussions threads about something more specfic that's not suited for the general discussion, but i think that you are not taking moderators in consideration. I am pretty sure that they moderate the forums voluntarily and don't have the time to do this 24/7.

So in a way, you are giving the mods a harder time to moderate more and closing pointless topics and handing out infractions ,while you satisfy a small group of people. Also i don't think it's just fear, because infractions and bans never truly stopped the trolls creating pointless threads in other forums.

[felix]

One Piece is a legacy forum. It predates the system, hence why there are a lot of debates. Naruto / Bleach / One Piece are essentially the exception and to the best of my knowledge they are treated as special cases in the sense they have dedicated moderators. They are also so well known it's not really in question anyone moderating it would not be familiar with the material.

Regarding discussing/debates in general threads. As I mentioned they are way too noise and misguided to have any constructive discussion and any discussion you start will just get buried. So no, they are no appropriate at all. As I've mentioned the General thread of these forums is also particularly obscure. relentlessflame pretty much said they are intentionally making it obscure himself.

While i can see your point that you want more freedom of creating new topics that can start new discussions threads about something more specfic that's not suited for the general discussion, but i think that you are not taking moderators in consideration. I am pretty sure that they moderate the forums voluntarily and don't have the time to do this 24/7.

I am tacking them into consideration. But my point is ALL that is done, is JUST tacking them into consideration. My problem is that as it stands the way things are going you can hardly use the word moderator anymore. They are not moderating anything... they're just making it so there's nothing to moderate. Things like closing topics and or forbidden discussion/debates in certain cases is not "moderating" it's censoring. Moderating would be just splitting the debate/discussion but you hardly see that anymore. Personally I haven't seen it in years, it's just "censorship rule" of the week now.

The community can handle itself just fine even with a little chaos here and there. The old system worked just fine with debates and everything, do you have any proof it didn't? There is absolutely NO need to censor the forum and dumb it down to such extents for a certain group of people that don't even directly participate in said debates. Do you plant just grass in your garden so the gardener has an easier time gardening? Obviously there are other solutions that could be used that don't involve affecting the community in a negative way.

But don't take my word for it. There have been private petitions (not by me, btw) on the very issue of the moderation team thinking of only their interest and mishandling anything resembling a debate. And it was signed by a whole lot of people.

So in a way, you are giving the mods a harder time to moderate more and closing pointless topics and handing out infractions ,while you satisfy a small group of people. Also i don't think it's just fear, because infractions and bans never truly stopped the trolls creating pointless threads in other forums.

Look. Forums are for discussion and debates. Period.

It doesn't matter, or it shouldn't matter, how many people treat it as just a place to vent their feelings with out any backing. If that's what you want, there's this thing called irc, 2chan, etc. Being "opinionated" isn't the same as having an "opinion". A lot of these threads in series forums are just people being "opinionated", ie. they think something, but have nothing backing them up. Having an opinion isn't something you declare but something that comes naturally when you have different reasons/arguments in a debate for something. If you have no actual arguments then it's just noise and all your contributing to the debate is wasting people's time trying to explain it to you and your non-existent logical backing.

And also, you're generalizing to minorities, thus indirectly labeling yourself as some majority. As I said this have been other issues related to this; it's hardly a "minority opinion" or out of thin air. If you want to continue to claim that, then prove it!

[SeijiSensei]

Originally Posted by relentlessflame

2. In the case of retired sub-forums where we do lock certain threads, there is always an unlocked thread that is still suited to discussing the show and can cover the topics that were previously covered in the locked threads.

I guess I was just unlucky when I tried to find that unlocked thread in the School Rumble sub-forum, then. Maybe this particular sub-forum is an anomaly, but there is no general discussion thread that spans the entire franchise. Maybe that was an oversight that has since been corrected in the sub-forums for other shows? The closest thread that covers both seasons and the OVA is the one about the show being licensed by Funimation. That's hardly a "general" discussion.

It hasn't always been clear to me that sub-forums are a good solution for discussing popular series. The most recent case in point is the thread for Cross Game. It has over 3,400 postings, which I believe is the most for any show that doesn't have a sub-forum. As in all popular series, there were the occasional postings of "I hope this gets a sub-forum" usually followed quickly by more postings to the effect of "please, no." The general consensus in that thread was that a sub-forum would dissipate discussion by spreading it over dozens of threads.

[felix]

Originally Posted by SeijiSensei

The most recent case in point is the thread for Cross Game. It has over 3,400 postings, which I believe is the most for any show that doesn't have a sub-forum. As in all popular series, there were the occasional postings of "I hope this gets a sub-forum" usually followed quickly by more postings to the effect of "please, no." The general consensus in that thread was that a sub-forum would dissipate discussion by spreading it over dozens of threads.

Ano Mita is another example, and it's honestly a lot more common then you'd think. It's usually shot to pieces by moderators under the pretext of it's off-topic; hence why you don't really hear it too much. Though frankly if you're going to be doing it how is people voicing "we don't want no shitty subforum" not relevant. The only shows that don't get this are the ones that get a lot of shipping and or image spam.

[NightWish]

Originally Posted by Ledgem

Edit: Even though Relentless and I have been going on about this, I'd invite other staff to give their thoughts and opinions, as well.

No invite necessary; I was going to reply. However, I'd like to make a considered response, so I need to reread everything more carefully. Glancing over the thread my first impression is that there may be legitimate concerns being expressed, but they are actually being lost amidst the rhetoric and hyperbole. It is going to take me time (that I don't have much of) to get my head around the points. Hence no reply yet.

[hyl]

Originally Posted by felix

I am tacking them into consideration. But my point is ALL that is done, is JUST tacking them into consideration. My problem is that as it stands the way things are going you can hardly use the word moderator anymore. They are not moderating anything... they're just making it so there's nothing to moderate. Things like closing topics and or forbidden discussion/debates in certain cases is not "moderating" it's censoring. Moderating would be just splitting the debate/discussion but you hardly see that anymore. Personally I haven't seen it in years, it's just "censorship rule" of the week now.
The community can handle itself just fine even with a little chaos here and there. The old system worked just fine with debates and everything, do you have any proof it didn't? There is absolutely NO need to censor the forum and dumb it down to such extents for a certain group of people that don't even directly participate in said debates. Do you plant just grass in your garden so the gardener has an easier time gardening? Obviously there are other solutions that could be used that don't involve affecting the community in a negative way.

Not being able to create new topics does not mean censorship. You seem to think those 2 things are the same, while they are not. It's not you are not allowed to discus that subject on the forums, but it's just that people like you don't want to discuss certain matters in the existing threads and want a seperate place for those other discussions.

Originally Posted by felix

But don't take my word for it. There have been private petitions (not by me, btw) on the very issue of the moderation team thinking of only their interest and mishandling anything resembling a debate. And it was signed by a whole lot of people.

Would you like to define "own interest" and "mishandling a debate" ?
If you meant by "own interest" by not wanting to moderate everything 24/7, then it's understandable because moderating is not a paid job but something voluntarily.
If you meant by "mishandling", closing in their eyes a discussion/debate that got out of hand, then it's their judgement to do so. Not everyone can have it always right, just like in sports referees can also make mistakes while the most people disagrees on his judgement.

Originally Posted by felix

Look. Forums are for discussion and debates. Period.

While that is true, but you don't have to have new thread for every kind of discussion. You can have discussion in existing threads as well. Your only reason for not wanting to debate on those topic are noise by people who do not want to discus the same subject as you do. Eventhough some people can be distracted by "noise", but this lessens with the older sub forums, because less people are posting compared to when it was in their prime.

Originally Posted by felix

It doesn't matter, or it shouldn't matter, how many people treat it as just a place to vent their feelings with out any backing. If that's what you want, there's this thing called irc, 2chan, etc. Being "opinionated" isn't the same as having an "opinion". A lot of these threads in series forums are just people being "opinionated", ie. they think something, but have nothing backing them up. Having an opinion isn't something you declare but something that comes naturally when you have different reasons/arguments in a debate for something. If you have no actual arguments then it's just noise and all your contributing to the debate is wasting people's time trying to explain it to you and your non-existent logical backing.

The noise lessens when less people are posting, which is the case of the older sub forums. While i also find it somewhat annoying that people simply give their opinion on something without any reasons, but it's not like it won't happen in an actual debate. So i think even if you create a debate topic, it is not an guarantee that there will be people posting their opinion with any good reasons.

Originally Posted by felix

And also, you're generalizing to minorities, thus indirectly labeling yourself as some majority. As I said this have been other issues related to this; it's hardly a "minority opinion" or out of thin air. If you want to continue to claim that, then prove it!

With all due respect, but did you watch/count the amount of replies and views that are daily made in the older sub forums compared to the current series? There are some minor exceptions with popular series of the previous season, but generally speaking the newer ones get more much views and replies.
If we go by those numbers, then i can say that the "minority opinion" is pretty valid.

edit:

Originally Posted by SeijiSensei

Cross Game[/URL]. It has over 3,400 postings, which I believe is the most for any show that doesn't have a sub-forum. As in all popular series, there were the occasional postings of "I hope this gets a sub-forum" usually followed quickly by more postings to the effect of "please, no." The general consensus in that thread was that a sub-forum would dissipate discussion by spreading it over dozens of threads.

Highschool of the dead and the 2nd season of rosario to vampire had much more posts than crossgame (and crossgame was a 4 cour serie compared to those) and i can't actually agree that those series needs a sub forum. I think there are more criteria than post count before an anime can get a sub forum.
In fact is you divide crossgames 3400 posts by 4 (being a 4 cour serie) and you will notice that it was not as popular as you expect it to be based on the amount of posts compared to other series with overall less posts like dog days (which has over 2,4k posts in 1 cour).

Originally Posted by felix

Ano Mita is another example, and it's honestly a lot more common then you'd think. It's usually shot to pieces by moderators under the pretext of it's off-topic; hence why you don't really hear it too much. Though frankly if you're going to be doing it how is people voicing "we don't want no shitty subforum" not relevant. The only shows that don't get this are the ones that get a lot of shipping and or image spam.

So how is AnoHana the same example as crossgame? because AnoHana did get a sub forum.
(Also "Ano Hi Mita Hana no Namae o Bokutachi wa Mada Shiranai" is not known as AnoMita)

edit: because i think this needs to be said

Originally Posted by felix

I am tacking them into consideration. But my point is ALL that is done, is JUST tacking them into consideration. My problem is that as it stands the way things are going you can hardly use the word moderator anymore. They are not moderating anything... they're just making it so there's nothing to moderate. Things like closing topics and or forbidden discussion/debates in certain cases is not "moderating" it's censoring. Moderating would be just splitting the debate/discussion but you hardly see that anymore. Personally I haven't seen it in years, it's just "censorship rule" of the week now.

Also if you look up the word "forum moderator" you will get this as a result
Moderators

"The moderators (short singular form: "mod") are users (or employees) of the forum who are granted access to the posts and threads of all members for the purpose of moderating discussion (similar to arbitration) and also keeping the forum clean (neutralizing spam and spambots etc.).[12] Because they have access to all posts and threads in their area of responsibility, it is common for a friend of the site owner to be promoted to moderator for such a task. Moderators also answer users' concerns about the forum, general questions, as well as respond to specific complaints. They also can do anything to lend a helping hand to a user in need.[13] Moderators themselves may have ranks: some may be given mod privileges over only a particular topic or section (called "local"), while others (called "global" or "super") may be allowed access anywhere. Common privileges of moderators include: deleting, merging, moving, and splitting of posts and threads, locking, renaming, stickying of threads, banning, suspending, unsuspending, unbanning, warning the members, or adding, editing, removing the polls of threads.[14] "Junior Modding", "Backseat Modding", or "Forum copping" can refer negatively to the behavior of ordinary users who take a moderator-like tone in criticizing other members.

Essentially, it is the duty of the moderator to manage the day-to-day affairs of a forum or board as it applies to the stream of user contributions and interactions. The relative effectiveness of this user management directly impacts the quality of a forum in general, its appeal, and its usefulness as a community of interrelated users."

So you are bashing on moderators for doing "nothing" except deleting posts,giving infractions, closing topics etc. /sarcasm
Based the general discription of a forum moderator, they are doing a fine job in my opinion.

[felix]

Not being able to create new topics does not mean censor. You seem to think those 2 things are the same, while they are not. It's not you are not allowed to discus that subject on the forums, but it's just that people like you don't want to discuss certain matters in the existing threads and want a seperate place for those other discussions.

It's not that we don't want to; believe me people have tried. It's that the entire system works against you. You can post for example what could be a valid debate and either (a) the thread got sweeped off the face of the forum by all the other duzone threads that are just used for venting and or other things like images or (b) your opinion gets sweeped by things like sumaries and the like.

You're also right about the situation with Older forums somewhat, but your off in your logical assesment. Basically you're saying: you can discuss in older forums since nobody visits them, hence the system is good for everything (including current forums), hence it's okey for the moderators to lock and push everything into single threads, because you can discuss in a single thread.

The fact of the matter is you CAN NOT discuss in this way. You can try to start a discussion sure, but what happens is it either will get buried, repeats, or is impossible to follow. This is why with this new system these forums become uterlly useless after the series ends. There's littlerly no use for them other then venting. If they actually facilitated discussion as you are telling me then they should be even more open for discussion after the fact (at least for the complex series). But what we see is them completely and utterly die out because nobody can make heads or tails of the discussion. EVEN when someone goes out of their way and re-reads one of those monolithic threads of EVERYTHING and makes a post, for anyone to make a followup to that posts requieres them to go back and read the entire damn thing themselvs. I mean, I have trouble understanding what the hell some people are replying to even in threads I've followed! when enough time passes. It's unusable.

By all means prove me wrong! No really. Go to ANY show forum you wish, that was created using the system (and didn't exist with the old system) and show me how exactly you go about finding "topics" of discussion and debate (and I mean specific discussions! nobody cares for discussing everything under the sun), and posting in them and how others reading your posts have a clue of what the topic you're replying to is about or what the previous points were. And don't tell me you can't find any because that show was "not that type" since the staff themselves recognized there were plenty by creating the forum itself (it's officially one of the few things on criteria we know). So in other words, if you fail it just proves what we've been saying that the current format for series forums SPOILS debates/discussion.

To be fair I'll answer it for the other side as a baseline: I'll go with the previous example in the thread. To find interesting debates you sort the forum by reply count or view count. You also have 14 pages listing topics. If you're interesting a certain topic you can just search by topic title. You can also search by post if that doesn't work since because topics have their own thread and are not rehased everywhere (not rightfully anyway) you're boud to find the central hub for the issue you had interest in talking about for the series. It should be real easy to find and read since at worst each topic won't treat anything more then the issue you're interested in. You can easily add your own arguments and assesments to the topic and anyone reading can eassily see what you are talking about since the related posts would be just above and not split by several pages of other junk. Additionally your post has a very clear corelation to a title so you don't have to "explain what the hell you're talking about" every post and everyone knows exactly what the initial points where, points that were brouth up and what the last points were.

You want to know why series threads don't have this problem? While they may seem like they're doing the same thing (discussing episodes), it just doesn't work that way. Series threads discuss "the series" more specifically "how the series progresses" and any confusion with the debate is mitigated by the fact is very well organized and in chronological order. So if you want to search for a topic you can infer it by the episode it might have initiated in. You can also infer it as part of the ongoing discussion on the series progression. It's not as good as it could be if you actually had specialized topics, but it's pretty inteligent overall.

That kind of tries to happen in series forums but the whole format just pushes it away from it. You just simply can not discuss it like that when each week a discussion from the previous week has to be rehashed because of the whole separate episode thread deal. And at the same time a previous discussion is always abnadoned by simple virtue of re-creating threads that serve the same purpose. Say a discussion that starts initially and then as you progress further the circumstances changes, very hard to follow; because it's hard to recognize things that are said when the show was in it's infancy when you approuch a climax. Not to mention that the episode threads themselvs have a standard of extremely dumbed down discussion and by virtue of speculation, charactarization and other things being split into completely pointless separate topics the discussion is dumbed down even more.

About the censorship,

"Oh let's talk about Kyuube *insert moderator comming in and closing the thread and censoring the topic*"

Looks like censorship to me.

If you meant by "own interest" by not wanting to moderate everything 24/7, then it's understandable because moderating is not a paid job but something voluntarily.

I don't feel like asking them to do the standard thing is asking too much. It's what by definition a moderator should be doing. Why they exist. Nobody is asking them to do it 24/7, nobody is asking for super excellence and perfect topics. We're asking them for just the typical things you expect out of a forum: the ability to create specialized topics. (and before you punce on "you can request" try and answer my previous question of "how many debates/discussion threads have you seen come out of this request-begging system?")

This is going to sound wrong, but there's really no nice way to say it. It's a moderators job to simply direct the discussion in the right direction, but the flow is left for the community to decide (since no one man can claim omniscience or predict the future). If you can't do that, then step down! It's a valuntery job, if you can't do it right, don't volunteer. Or call yourself something else, because that's not what a "moderat"-or is. If you are going to dictate what the ONLY good topics are then you can not call it a forum either, in a forum everyone is free to bring out (reasonable) topics on the subject; even if they might be shot down later. Becase nobody can say a topic won't go anywhere before the topic is even created.

Based the general discription of a forum moderator, they are doing a fine job in my opinion.

That's what a administrator does. Moderators are the people that "moderate" discussion, ie. they're the ones who are suppose to just redirect the stream now and then when it goes too much in one direction or another.

Also I don't know what nonsense site you found that definition one, but here's the actual definition. (Though I don't understand why even bring such a thing as an argument; do you not know what they are until now? do you think everyone else here didn't know what a moderator is?)

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/moderator

1. one who arbitrates : mediator
2. one who presides over an assembly, meeting, or discussion: as
   1. the presiding officer of a Presbyterian governing body
   2. the nonpartisan presiding officer of a town meeting
   3. the chairman of a discussion group

In the case of forums it's typically just (1).


(I've ignored what seem like just personal accusations/attacks)

[hyl]

Originally Posted by felix

The fact of the matter is you CAN NOT discuss in this way. You can try to start a discussion sure, but what happens is it either will get buried, repeats, or is impossible to follow. This is why with this new system these forums become uterlly useless after the series ends. There's littlerly no use for them other then venting. If they actually facilitated discussion as you are telling me then they should be even more open for discussion after the fact (at least for the complex series). But what we see is them completely and utterly die out because nobody can make heads or tails of the discussion.

How does an older thread get burried under other replies if people hardly reply in them? If we take the example of AnoHana there was a discussion that lasted 1 page and before and after that discussion the difference of the posting date were atleast 2 days. It's really silly to say that newly started discussions will get burried under other posts, thus making it hard to follow.
These things however do occur in the discussions of the current series, but the point of this topic was for the older series as written by the topic starter and not for the current series.

Originally Posted by felix

EVEN when someone goes out of their way and re-reads one of those monolithic threads of EVERYTHING and makes a post, for anyone to make a followup to that posts requieres them to go back and read the entire damn thing themselvs. I mean, I have trouble understanding what the hell some people are replying to even in threads I've followed! when enough time passes. It's unusable.

So how does this relate to the fact that you want to freely

By all means prove me wrong! No really. Go to ANY show forum you wish, that was created using the system (and didn't exist with the old system) and show me how exactly you go about finding "topics" of discussion and debate (and I mean specific discussions! nobody cares for discussing everything under the sun), and posting in them and how others reading your posts have a clue of what the topic you're replying to is about or what the previous points were. And don't tell me you can't find any because that show was "not that type" since the staff themselves recognized there were plenty by creating the forum itself (it's officially one of the few things on criteria we know). So in other words, if you fail it just proves what we've been saying that the current format for series forums SPOILS debates/discussion.


To be fair I'll answer it for the other side as a baseline: I'll go with the previous example in the thread. To find interesting debates you sort the forum by reply count or view count. You also have 14 pages listing topics. If you're interesting a certain topic you can just search by topic title. You can also search by post if that doesn't work since because topics have their own thread and are not rehased everywhere (not rightfully anyway) you're boud to find the central hub for the issue you had interest in talking about for the series. It should be real easy to find and read since at worst each topic won't treat anything more then the issue you're interested in. You can easily add your own arguments and assesments to the topic and anyone reading can eassily see what you are talking about since the related posts would be just above and not split by several pages of other junk. Additionally your post has a very clear corelation to a title so you don't have to "explain what the hell you're talking about" every post and everyone knows exactly what the initial points where, points that were brouth up and what the last points were.

To be honest, why do the heck do you even want to read the older discussions or debates in which you haven't particpated yourself? Even if you would want to comment on it, the people you are commenting on won't bother reading your reply due the fact that that discussion ended ages ago.
If you want something discussed, then simply start a new discussion in an existing topic, not by reviving older discussions.

Originally Posted by felix

About the censorship,

"Oh let's talk about Kyuube *insert moderator comming in and closing the thread and censoring the topic*"

Looks like censorship to me.

For closing threads, they probably have their reasons. Like discussions turning into flame wars or something else that would be in conflict with the forum rules or if the discussion or the topic has ended it's purpose (like in your cases the failed attempts of removing haters from the general or episode discussions ).
This is however not an act of censorship but an act of keeping the order of the forums.

Originally Posted by felix

I don't feel like asking them to do the standard thing is asking too much. It's what by definition a moderator should be doing. Why they exist. Nobody is asking them to do it 24/7, nobody is asking for super excellence and perfect topics. We're asking them for just the typical things you expect out of a forum: the ability to create specialized topics. (and before you punce on "you can request" try and answer my previous question of "how many debates/discussion threads have you seen come out of this request-begging system?")

The ability of creating specialized topic is not privilege for every forum, eventhough you are assuming it is. I know some other forums in which you can't needlessly start topics.

Originally Posted by felix

This is going to sound wrong, but there's really no nice way to say it. It's a moderators job to simply direct the discussion in the right direction, but the flow is left for the community to decide (since no one man can claim omniscience or predict the future). If you can't do that, then step down! It's a valuntery job, if you can't do it right, don't volunteer. Or call yourself something else, because that's not what a "moderat"-or is. If you are going to dictate what the ONLY good topics are then you can not call it a forum either, in a forum everyone is free to bring out (reasonable) topics on the subject; even if they might be shot down later. Becase nobody can say a topic won't go anywhere before the topic is even created.

Depends on the direction, atleast give me an example of a closed topic in which the moderator was wrong. If the closed topic started to get out of hand and would have resulted into something breaking the rules (http://forums.animesuki.com/faq.php?faq=rules) then i would agree for closing it.

Originally Posted by felix

That's what a administrator does. Moderators are the people that "moderate" discussion, ie. they're the ones who are suppose to just redirect the stream now and then when it goes too much in one direction or another.

An admin is the one who is running the forum (and are the one to blame for the technical issues /joke). It's not like they can't moderate (in fact i know many admins in different who also moderate threads) but my discription that i posted was for a forum moderator and not a forum admin.

Originally Posted by felix

Also I don't know what nonsense site you found that definition one, but here's the actual definition. (Though I don't understand why even bring such a thing as an argument; do you not know what they are until now? do you think everyone else here didn't know what a moderator is?)

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/moderator

In the case of forums it's typically just (1).


(I've ignored what seem like just personal accusations/attacks)

That's very cute that you have quoted the general meaning of moderator, but a forum moderator is not quite the same as other moderators like a town moderator or a game moderator.
While they have similar functions (mediating a community), but the thing that they moderate is different and thus giving them slighly different tasks.
Try using better keywords when using a search engine, like using "forum moderator" instead of just moderator the next time.

Also if we use the general discription of moderator of your example, then it will also work against you. Because a mediator does not have to give a seperate place to discuss things, they only intervene in the case if there are conflicts or if something goes wrong.

Also in my opinion you have started the almost personal attacks by baselessly insulting people (the moderators) by accusing them of doing poor jobs.

[felix]

I'll answer your points but I'll leave it as-is for now for at least a day. Seems you have some kind of animosity against me and most of your arguments circle around myself, how I post (etc), rather then the actual argument. I don't want to turn this thread into some mindless back and forth quote war and replying to your post there would just be an explantion on points I've already went into detail over. Since NW is going to post his own views later this shouldn't be an issue delaying my explanation to your post so the thread can slow down and other people have a chance to reply as well.

If you have something against me feel free to take it out over vm, pm.