Forum Issue (Super Major): Thread Sinking
Duane Degn
Posts: 10,588
As I said in this sunk thread:
http://forums.parallax.com/discussion/comment/1336722/#Comment_1336722
I find thread sinking very disturbing.
If it's going to be done, I agree with Phil and others that at the bare minimum a notice of a thread's sunk status should be issued.
IMO, this thread sinking addition is by far the most negative aspect of the new forum.
Here are two threads I'm aware of being sunk.
The previously sunk thread has been sunk again.
http://forums.parallax.com/discussion/161540/new-forum-issue-body-is-too-long-posts
And this one:
http://forums.parallax.com/discussion/161592/forum-issue-minor-two-clicks-required-to-start-youtube-videos
I don't think it bothers me that either of these threads have been sunk; what bothers me is there's no notice of the thread's sunk status.
All this sinking is making me feel like abandoning ship.
Adieu Parallax's Forum.
http://forums.parallax.com/discussion/comment/1336722/#Comment_1336722
I find thread sinking very disturbing.
If it's going to be done, I agree with Phil and others that at the bare minimum a notice of a thread's sunk status should be issued.
IMO, this thread sinking addition is by far the most negative aspect of the new forum.
Here are two threads I'm aware of being sunk.
The previously sunk thread has been sunk again.
http://forums.parallax.com/discussion/161540/new-forum-issue-body-is-too-long-posts
And this one:
http://forums.parallax.com/discussion/161592/forum-issue-minor-two-clicks-required-to-start-youtube-videos
I don't think it bothers me that either of these threads have been sunk; what bothers me is there's no notice of the thread's sunk status.
All this sinking is making me feel like abandoning ship.
Adieu Parallax's Forum.
Comments
¡Viva la Revolución!
-Phil
Heck, the one got marked minor. If it's not going to be considered (youtube double click), fine. No worries right. State that and lock it. Everybody sees it and moves on. In the scheme of things, two clicks for a video is nothing. Totally warrants a "not gonna address" and it's not even a bad thing!
If the intent is reputation management of some kind, like "hey most of the new dialog is about the forum issues", perhaps that should have been a consideration before go live.
Now that it's live, let's get through it and carry on. As the stuff gets fixed, or a disposition is given, most of this will fade away as it should.
But I can tell you this: Where it's just pushed off without that dialog, people just get this nagging feeling. Trust gets broken, it's divisive, and seen as negative. Those negatives endure long beyond the minor black eyes we've got over the transition.
Frankly, I've got enough to continue, so I'm not saying much. Don't care, and I've got local options. This is to maximize the positives, such as they are.
Please reconsider adding negatives where we don't need 'em. We've got plenty now.
I'm all for accentuating the positive, where there's positive to applaud. And, seriously, there's plenty to cheer about. I know the dev team is working hard to address the issues that have been brought before them, and I laud their efforts wholeheartedly.
What irks me is that they think they have the final word on what issues are "resolved" or what constitutes negativity, when it's merely an inconvenient distraction to have it on the front page. Anonymous thread sinking is an abusive use of moderation and needs to be stopped. Period. You may disagree, and that's fine, but I'm not going to give up bringing it to the forum's attention until it ceases. This issue is too important for the survival of trust between the forum's landlords and the forumistas who've actually built this place.
-Phil
Those chimaere(?) of wiki and forum yield a highly interesting "workflow"...
Maybe I should edit my other post. Just hiding things isn't going to do any longer term good. After thinking for a minute, I'll just leave it and state my thoughts more directly here.
I very strongly agree. The rest of my post was centered on options.
If it were me, I would just state it, whatever it is, then lock the thread. At least people know, and that's all good, even when they don't agree.
And having a noisy front page is to be expected when expectations were not well set in advance of this change.
Everything costs something.
Not setting those, costs us this phase of things. Hiding this phase of things will cost trust. And on it goes.
And like it or not, people have made investments here. Some very significant investments. There is a lot of value at stake, and to ignore that is not going to play well longer term. What will happen is people will reconsider those investments. And it's those investments that bring people here. Without them, it's not the same at all, though the admin job might be considerably easier...
Up front, clear, honest dialog is the only way through. It's just not gonna be pretty. IMHO, it doesn't have to be either, but it does need to be honest and clear.
If that somehow seems wrong, I'll say it again. Get a little help with community management. It's important.
-Tor
The reason is that there is no cause to keep those threads at the top of the lists once the issue has been acknowledged and added to our tracking system. Further discussion on those threads is either reiteration of the problem from different users, or segues into other unrelated complaints.
Additionally, this helps us know which issues have been dealt with and which need addressing. Please use "forum issue" threads as simple error reports and put any important discussion in a normal thread. To add greater transparency to my actions I will now add "This thread will be sunk" to all issue threads once the issue has been recorded.
Yeah Courtney!!!!
-Phil
I will be leaving this thread alone for a bit to allow visitors to see my announcement and/or my reply here, and then this thread will also be sunk (it is labeled forum issue).
I would like to again stress the point that at this time, I am only concerned with sinking issue threads to help me track everything I have seen and need to still address. Please continue to post regular threads in General as normal; you can even start new threads to continue discussions that may have originated in an issue thread. If you need help moving material out of a sunk thread, let me know via PM.
Thanks and appreciated.
-Tor
We are for the most part Engineers here or at least our way of thinking is from an Engineering perspective, so we expect things to be in a certain chronological order ... period! ... that's just the way it's done and there shouldn't be any kind of argument there what so ever.
Thread sinking/voting throws chronological order completely out the window and we don't expect a "non-engineer" mind to understand this concept. In it's elemental form however, thread sinking can be considered equivalent to "cooking the books" making the surface of things look very nice and appealing when the actual data is being obscured.
So if not for this point alone, please remove the thread sinking function/voting from this "engineering" forum.
Thread sinking isn't a problem. Who makes the decision might be... but that will take practice and experience. We are all new at something. Thread sinking is new... it could become a useful artform... who knows? You have to be upfront about it... Parallax is. And you have to be very careful around a group of people who generally would defend freedom to the death.
I have often seen stuff that offended me and could hurt Parallax with customers. But most of the time the general tenor is so positive that this stuff was lost in the ambient glow of our goodness:) When that isn't the case ... and only Parallax can know for sure, they owe it to themselves and to me to do something about it... and when it does happen we can only hope that they are right.
Maybe we need an appeals board? I'm not interested in it... how about you?
I think it should be possible to turn sinking and elevation off...but when a new person comes to the forum, the last thing they should see is a whole bunch of posts that are generally negative. That isn't who we are, that is not what we want. Most visitors are not going to read an instruction manual on how to use the forum... they are going to come and go and if they are here enough they will look into it.
The first impression is the most important. If Parallax feels the need to manage that first impression, let's try to be understanding and constructive about it.
So you are in favor of false advertizing? Great!
From an Engineer's perspective, When I need to find something chronologically and it is not in the correct order, then that becomes a problem.
What a forum member should see is anything he wants to see and in any order he wants to see it.
I don't know exactly how to do this... but posting a notice somewhere on the page or under a button that if you want chronological ordering, you have to become a member.
I don't think the problem is sinking. I think the problem is how it was initially implemented. I think it can be used to everyone's satisfaction.
That first impression is all I really think Parallax should care about. After that, people either get hooked or they don't. I don't come here to argue, but there are many people who just don't seem to be able to help themselves. You can try to have a calm discourse on just about any topic and you will occasionally have the whole thing blown up by someone who just wants to argue, not really discuss. I have had many conversations that float to the top of the list because I just posted it. I was really interested, but at the same time after it became less than rational, I wasn't sure I should continue the conversation because I knew that it was wasting peoples time... I was interested and wanted to continue, but in all candor, what it did to the forum didn't seem justified... so I quit.
Global warming ... look it up:) If sinking had been around, I would still be using that thread.
In order to have some of the conversations I have had here I would have to travel. This is a very valuable place for me. I don't want it to change too much, but everything does changes. The challenge is to make changes that improve the forum as much as possible.
It isn't false advertising for me to wear a clean shirt to a parade... even if it is my only one.