Moderation of the General section of the forums
Jonathan
Posts: 1,023
Hi All,
The general section of the forums used to be open to any subject not involving religion, politics, foul language or meanness. Now threads are sunk arbitrarily if the mod deems it so. For example, the Star Trek comedy thread, no problem. The hi-falutin' words thread, sunk. No real rhyme or reason that I can see.
The thing is that being able to start threads about any subject is it is part of creating community and drawing people to hang out here. If they are hanging out they are here to answer topical questions in the other sections. A great example is the antique radio I am a member of. It is a small percentage of people that are interested in that and yet the forums are always jumping. At a W.A.G. I'd say that 20% of the posts are non radio related. But the radio topics get many answers because so many folks hang out there. Maybe they came to check on their OT post about whatever but they stay and answer questions and participate.
As these hallowed halls have diminished in population and since The Powers That Be want to keep the general section of the forums somehow limited, how about a misc. section? Call it the Pub, the Clubhouse, whatever and then just moderate religion, politics, foul language or meanness. Or just lift the policy of topical moderation in the General section. Give people a place to chat about whatever they like and a reason to visit. I do think that is an important part of creating a place where people hang out.
The general section of the forums used to be open to any subject not involving religion, politics, foul language or meanness. Now threads are sunk arbitrarily if the mod deems it so. For example, the Star Trek comedy thread, no problem. The hi-falutin' words thread, sunk. No real rhyme or reason that I can see.
The thing is that being able to start threads about any subject is it is part of creating community and drawing people to hang out here. If they are hanging out they are here to answer topical questions in the other sections. A great example is the antique radio I am a member of. It is a small percentage of people that are interested in that and yet the forums are always jumping. At a W.A.G. I'd say that 20% of the posts are non radio related. But the radio topics get many answers because so many folks hang out there. Maybe they came to check on their OT post about whatever but they stay and answer questions and participate.
As these hallowed halls have diminished in population and since The Powers That Be want to keep the general section of the forums somehow limited, how about a misc. section? Call it the Pub, the Clubhouse, whatever and then just moderate religion, politics, foul language or meanness. Or just lift the policy of topical moderation in the General section. Give people a place to chat about whatever they like and a reason to visit. I do think that is an important part of creating a place where people hang out.
Comments
I can't answer to your ideas for some sort of sandbox area, or how this place should run (no doubt many people will have a different opinions), but I can recommend you contact Parallax directly about such questions. Either webmaster@parallax.com or forummoderators@parallax.com should work.
As for general daily moderation, if you have any issues about certain threads then please flag them. If the moderators see concerns flagged with certain threads then we will try our best to "moderate" on them as quickly as possible. Again, there will be many opinions, so the moderators are often guided by community members flags.
Sinking is another topic often banded about as-if it's some sort of bad thing, but really it's just a tool for organisation. Please consider it from the host companies point of view. They want to promote electronics and learning, and those topics do deserve the place at the top of the discussions list. Parallax does welcome other topics and banter to be posted, but it won't always be fair or reasonable to prioritise those topics over Parallax related ones. If you don't feel that is reasonable, then please contact Parallax directly with your feedback.
If there are threads which you've clicked in, then you will see the thread count appear on the topic title, regardless of the thread ranking. So new posts will be obvious. In addition to that, you can always click the little star symbol, and you'll get e-mailed on every new post.
Hope that helps some of your queries.
-Phil