Quote:
Originally Posted by relentlessflame
We do not wish to accept a mandate to foster niche communities for older shows, so we expect that (generally speaking) interest in a franchise will die down and people will move on.
|
If you want the forums to be centered around current shows only, then the design decisions that you're talking about make sense.
Quote:
Originally Posted by relentlessflame
(And I still say from experience that open thread creation is not the cure you think it is. For every one legitimate thread that might be created, there will be 5+ pointless threads that clutter things up, hurt searchability, require more clicking, and still mostly consist of either a) pointless poll threads, b) trivial questions that have been addressed countless times, or c) grandstanding by people who would otherwise be "comment bombers". This forum revolves around "one topic, one thread"; I don't see that ever changing. But I don't think any of us on the staff are naive enough to think that this Forum can be all things to all people.)
|
Conversation is messy. If I may be perfectly honest, I think we're getting a little too OCD about keeping things in order. I'm all for encouraging quality conversation and think that the staff do a good job of rooting out totally pointless posts and topics, but you can't fit conversation into a few pre-defined threads. It's "unnatural" for conversation, especially with the forum set up as it is.
What you're suggesting works for forums that use a "threaded" view, instead of the "flat" view that we employ. But have you ever used one of those types of forums? Going through conversations takes forever and is a big pain. It's great for forums that discuss technical things, but for friendly discussions I think it's a bit too formal and cumbersome. Yet the overall navigation concept is similar between both formats: with a "threaded" forum view, a thread is essentially a "sub-forum" that replies appear within. With our "flat" view, the sub-forums are the topics, and created threads are like replies to that topic.
I'm just not sure that the effort you're all putting in is worthwhile:
You're worried that the search will get cluttered up if thread creation goes rampant? Let's be honest - how many users are really using the search function as things currently are?
You're worried that forums will get cluttered up, but I argue that things are already cluttered: go through a discussion thread and you'll find concurrent discussions taking place with random, unrelated comments thrown in by people who don't care to engage anyone else. At least with discussion threads you can read the title and choose to avoid it; with the restricted discussion threads, you're forced to at least scroll past discussions unrelated to your own that happen to occupy the same thread.
You're worried about pointless threads being created? I see tons of pointless threads and polls as things already are. What one considers "pointless" is totally subjective. What's the purpose of this forum? If it's a place for fans to connect and have fun, then what does it matter if the number of "pointless" discussions increases? We're not archiving critical information here. Is it really so critical that "pointlessness" be strictly limited? I would agree that a worst-case scenario of what would essentially be spam should be avoided at all cost, but would loosening up a bit really create so many problems?
The way I see it, making those changes would be win-win for users and staff. For the users, discussion (which is what we're all here for) flows more freely. For the staff, less restrictions means less work. I don't doubt that keeping the forum in its current state must take a lot of work.
Is it really worth it?