Forum Moderators: open
I'm not sure if I like it. I can see that it will help keep posts on topic and reduce the admin work. However, it's a bit of a pain if you are replying to a post deep within and on topic.
atob.c
We've seen too many threads wander and weave off topic lately. This might help that effect.
>> Very unpractical if you want to quote from a post other than the first one, though.
What do I win ;)
It will take some getting use to. I'm reply in a new window to help monitor the thread while replying. If it helps cutting down the admin then I guess I'm all for it.
atob.c
So it's Brett's new strategy to push Opera/Mozilla and other browser using tabs. :)
This is a big part of the whole point. If you are responding in an appropriate manner to the first message, I don't feel you should need to quote from anyone other than the original message.
Whoa...reread that again and let it sink in. (it changes the whole way you use a forum ;-)
Don't you think this will just simply increase the number of 1, 2, and 3 reply posts?
Or maybe that's the point...
>I don't feel you should need to quote from anyone other than the original message.
Here you go..And you gonna see a sleuth of monologues, rather than a vibrant discussion.
This is a big part of the whole point. If you are responding in an appropriate manner to the first message, I don't feel you should need to quote from anyone other than the original message.
I am rarely in a position (time zone wise) to respond to the original message as others have already said what I would have said. But I am more likely to respond to what the Aussies, Indians and Europeans are adding.
It isn't a technical hurdle to open two windows with a Ctrl+n (in IE) or to copy a snippet before replying, but I preferred the convenience of seeing the whole thread or a good part of it in the same window.
Ash
Ofcourse, testing is a powerful tool as long it is done without any prejudiced notions. And am sure, you will :)
Do your test, but I hope you find it lessens the quality of threads and you reverse your decision. :)
IMO we have more important issues to deal with such as the high rate of orphaned messages. I tackled two of them today but one person can only do so much. As a team we could do so much more.
Respectfully submitted.
Edit: I sure wish spell checkers could take context into account when deciding if a word were misspelled or not, LOL.
Some of the best threads I have learned from were 5+ pages long. I really don't see how I would have learned from them if they had been forced to remain pinned on the first message.
For me it is okay, since Opera allows mouse gestures, so I can go back and forth easily, but don't forget there are still some weird people out there using IE ;).
Read this thread and see what has happened:
[webmasterworld.com...]
Perhaps a better solution would be to build a framed-reply-page with the first post static and the last 10 or so reply scrollable in the frame. That way people would be reminded of the original topic and yet have the freedom of following the topic development and quoting from recent replies.
Onya
Woz
No in-between's, because what about Friday word Games? and by showing those two posts, it'll be fair to everybody :)
Sid
That is a very important thread - more important for the future of g SEO than most realize. imho - it is a top 20 all time thread in the Google forum. Less than 10 messages into it, the thread is about something else entirely. We even split off several new threads trying to *save* that original thread.
Look at this very thread, it is about something important to WebmasterWorld, yet it had already started to go off on tangents about the friday story board game.
I run a message board that gets several hundred new messages each day and several dozen new threads. So we're not at the level WW is but it's still a busy set of forums.
It's been my experience over the years (since 1996) that a penalty system works great. Each time a mod has to move a thread that was posted in the wrong forum the member gets a certain amount of points. They get even more points for hijacking a thread (going off-topic or diverting the thread to fulfill their own needs instead of just starting a new thread) plus their message(s) get deleted. When they reach a certain threshold of points anything they want to post must be pre-moderated. It takes my moderators less time to deal with pre-moderation than it does to try and clean up a thread or a message. If the member behaves they lose points until they drop of out of pre-moderated mode. If they continue to misbehave in pre-moderated mode the points continue to build until they lose the privilege of posting anything at all although their account is not deleted.
Once the coding is done the system is really easy to manage and people who wind up in pre-moderated mode usually get out of it very quickly and rarely wind up in it again. So it serves as a good tool to educate members about what's acceptable (since we all know nobody reads the TOS or Charters :)) and how serious you are about enforcing it.
Brett, you do your own software development just like I do so why not give some thought to what I've suggested. It has worked very well for me and maybe it will work for you.
OnTopic:
- Is it saving bandwidth? Certainly. I myself never liked to scroll down to read the old messages and have always used the tabbed-approach.
- Will it keep threads on topic? Doubtful. People will have made up their mind what they want to write about, before they hit the reply-button, not afterwards. Usabilitywise it is rather bad, it deters the attention and works "unecpected" for most people, and is of little use for many as well.
