Question: Limited Forums and New Thread Restriction - Why?

[Ledgem]

I thought this was relevant. A post from a new user (just joined this month) in another thread:

Originally Posted by symphonious7

I'm sorry to jump in with something irrelevant to the most current posts, I feel like every thread is soooo huge, there's sooo much already going on, it's hard for me to jump into the conversations where they are. I just saw this thread and wanted to ask, ...

It's one post, so nobody should take this to mean that everyone feels the same way. However, it represents an interesting problem.

[hyl]

Eventhough that symphonious7 posted the comment in the US election thread, which is already a specialized and specific thread

[Ledgem]

Originally Posted by hyl

Eventhough that symphonious7 posted the comment in the US election thread, which is already a specialized and specific thread

I'm sorry, I don't really understand your comment. I think you may have misunderstood what I was trying to say with the post that I quoted. I'll try to clarify.

The point is that we corral discussions into single threads and look down on the creation of new threads. While some have argued that they do not find these massive, pages-long threads with actively running discussions imposing to enter, I feel differently. Thus it was interesting to me to see that someone who is new to the site spoke up with a similar sentiment. The bigger question is, how many new users felt the same way and decided not to post anything because of the perceived difficulties? I am an established user; I know many other users, and even in a discussion of unfamiliar user aliases, I'm familiar enough with the flow of the forum to enter and hope for a substantial discussion. But for a brand new user, is this a barrier for all except those who post and run, without making any effort to really engage in a conversation?

It's just something to think about.

[hyl]

Originally Posted by Ledgem

I'm sorry, I don't really understand your comment. I think you may have misunderstood what I was trying to say with the post that I quoted. I'll try to clarify.

The point is that we corral discussions into single threads and look down on the creation of new threads. While some have argued that they do not find these massive, pages-long threads with actively running discussions imposing to enter, I feel differently. Thus it was interesting to me to see that someone who is new to the site spoke up with a similar sentiment. The bigger question is, how many new users felt the same way and decided not to post anything because of the perceived difficulties? I am an established user; I know many other users, and even in a discussion of unfamiliar user aliases, I'm familiar enough with the flow of the forum to enter and hope for a substantial discussion. But for a brand new user, is this a barrier for all except those who post and run, without making any effort to really engage in a conversation?

It's just something to think about.

No, i was just saying that you took the example of quoting symphonious7 a little out of context. The topic "US election 2012" has over 120 pages, so it's very obvious if you start reading and discussing about it now that you will get lost in it. Also this is not a politics forum, so the point of wanting to create new threads for further discussion (which is the main point of this suggestion thread)is not needed and the fact that you can already create new threads in the general chat, makes your example seem like an odd choice for me to quote.

[Ledgem]

Originally Posted by hyl

No, i was just saying that you took the example of quoting symphonious7 a little out of context. The topic "US election 2012" has over 120 pages, so it's very obvious if you start reading and discussing about it now that you will get lost in it.

It's not out of context, but I agree with you. I'm not sure what you're trying to get at... are you trying to say that 120+ page threads are rare on the forums? Or are you trying to say that threads occupying 119 pages and below are of such a length that people won't find them imposing to enter?

[hyl]

Originally Posted by Ledgem

It's not out of context, but I agree with you. I'm not sure what you're trying to get at... are you trying to say that 120+ page threads are rare on the forums? Or are you trying to say that threads occupying 119 pages and below are of such a length that people won't find them imposing to enter?

It's not that rare, but most generic discussion threads don't have over 2k posts besides the really old ones. Also wasn't the point of this topic wanting to create new threads for discussions on older anime that has sub forum?
But the US 2012 election topic is still an on going, non-anime related thread that has no sub forum. Plus you can create new threads in the general chat.
I only find it an odd example choice of quoting a new person on the forum that has been posting there.

[Ledgem]

Originally Posted by hyl

I only find it an odd example choice of quoting a new person on the forum that has been posting there.

Ah, is that where the confusion is coming from? Consider this, then: we had a new member remarking on how he perceived it difficult to enter the conversation. How many new members felt similarly and didn't post a thing? How many users are we possibly losing or turning away over this? We'll never know - it could be none, or it could number in the thousands. There is no data (or way to collect the data) to support either assertion.

The worst-case scenario is that we're losing or turning away the participation of users who want to engage in conversations but don't, feeling that the threads are too monstrous; at the same time, we're then selecting for users who don't feel put off by the long lengths. What types of users generally don't care about the lengths or other dissuasions? Comment-bombers - people who make a post, not really responding to anything more than the thread title or maybe the first post, and then don't engage in further discussions.

I'm still not really sure what you're trying to argue against, though... if you have any other points of confusion, please VM or PM me.

[Triple_R]

I'd like to make a suggestion here.

Every now and then I post on a pro hockey forum, as I'm also a hockey fan (Montreal Canadiens specifically).

It's not uncommon for "Game Threads" (threads devoted to a particular hockey match) to grow dozens of pages long within a few hours. So typically one of the mods on that site will have something like a "Montreal Canadiens vs. Pittsburgh Penguins, 07/02/12 Part 2" thread once the first thread has become incredibly long.

I do think this makes it easier for people to "jump in" into ongoing discussion, as the feeling is you don't need to read dozens of pages before making the post you want to make on the game.


Maybe we could have something similar for "General Discussion" threads. Have new "parts" for them after a certain page count is reached in the current part.

[hyl]

Originally Posted by Triple_R

I'd like to make a suggestion here.

Every now and then I post on a pro hockey forum, as I'm also a hockey fan (Montreal Canadiens specifically).

It's not uncommon for "Game Threads" (threads devoted to a particular hockey match) to grow dozens of pages long within a few hours. So typically one of the mods on that site will have something like a "Montreal Canadiens vs. Pittsburgh Penguins, 07/02/12 Part 2" thread once the first thread has become incredibly long.

I do think this makes it easier for people to "jump in" into ongoing discussion, as the feeling is you don't need to read dozens of pages before making the post you want to make on the game.


Maybe we could have something similar for "General Discussion" threads. Have new "parts" for them after a certain page count is reached in the current part.

You mean like a creation of a new thread, if the old reaches over a certain amount of posts?

[Triple_R]

Originally Posted by hyl

You mean like a creation of a new thread, if the old reaches over a certain amount of posts?

Right. Exactly.