The TolkienForum - Suggestions... (or "Can we have the cake and eat it too?")

[Walter]

These are the facts:

1) A few members seem disappointed that some of their postings have been deleted
2) A few members seem disappointed that their posting counter has decreased
3) There are different opinions about what is "worth" posting
4) There are different opinions about how this Forum should be moderated and what should be deleted

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The postings in this forum show an enormous bandwith in terms of quality as well as in terms of quantity. As You all will have noticed that posts vary from a simple "LOL" "ROFL" - which in most cases is not a reference to some certain elder members ;) - or "Kewl!!!" to essaylike postings that show a deep understanding of the matter, a lot of very detailed knowledge of Tolkiens work and often come up with interesting or witty interpretations. And of course someone makes a good post after spending a couple of hours digging deep into the guts of Tolkiens works or trying to gather as much information as possible about something, or has just been contemplation about how this or that could've been meant by the Author is not quite happy when others make a reply that is either totally off-topic, sometimes annoying or rude and does not at all match the thread in terms of meaning or quality.

Like it has already been said, some members see this forum as a source of information, a place to exchange knowledge or opinions or a possibility to venture something about Tolkiens work, others see it as a form of slow motion chat - I really liked that term - and others just wanna have some fun here. Or a combination of those.

There has been a lot of discussion going on about the recently deleted posts and - as a consequence - the decreased post-counters. Hosting of this forum requires a lot of disk-space and bandwith, hence we all should be grateful that we are getting something for free that sure costs a lot of time and money, not to mention the work of the moderators. Where it makes no sense to keep the "LOL"- and "kewl"- or the idle chat postings for an extended period of time, there are a lot of postings that would be well worth being kept forever - well almost forever anyway...

Well, I am getting to my point - slowly, I know, but please be patient with me - I have been asking myself whether it would be possible to re-structure this forum in a way where we actually can have the cake and eat it too. If there would be forums - or threads - where meaningful discussion goes on and that are kept - by the moderators if necessary - strictly on-topic, those would be worth being kept. And aside from these Long-Life-Threads there could be the Short-Life-Threads that automatically could expire after a given timespan. Since some of the members seem pretty partial about their post-counter I am sure there is a way that the counters don't decrease when the posts expire - although I for myself wouldn't mind that one bit.

Please let me know what You all think about this suggestion and if it would be worth a shot or not. Or just tell me "Hey guy, come off Your high horse we've been around here much longer than You, we run this place so shut the hell up" ;)

[Kementari]

Walter i think your suggestion makes perfect sence. I have been coming here for about a year. The one thing that annoys me about this forum is when people post totally unrelated stuff on a GOOD thread and destroy it. If something comes up in the middle of the thread that you are interested in discussing, make a new thread... you don't have to ruin the present one. I know, i do this all the time so i'll shut up... i hope that makes sence, i can never get my words out right :D

[ReadWryt]

Actually, no threads that had been posted to in the past three months were deleted, so one can presume that if the thread was not worth posting to in such a long time that interest in it waned, and hence there is no interest in it's continued existence. We are assuming at least a 50% increase in membership after the movie comes out, and a little bit more right after Christmas as people get new Computers/Internet accounts and such, which will increase participation in threads and lend to the life of the threads.

If you were to imagine the threads as being living plants, and postings as being the Watering, Pruning and care that a good gardener supplies, then you can see the paradigm here...Once the gardener stops tending that crop it dies. This is hard on the Post Count, something unavoidable as well as something that shouldn't really matter unless some poor user was bumped from Member to Junior Member again and lost functionality of their account, but it was important to do the pruning at the time we did because it will allow new members to start threads anew that might continue and flourish as we all either bring new views or reiterate the ones that have now drifted into the endless bitstream of the great Cyberbeyond.

In the grand scheme of things though, if you really take an honest look at it, a quarter of a year is not an unreasonable length of time to use as a yardstick by which to determine if folks have lost interest in posting to a thread...

As for the post counters themselves, if they become a problem we could allways just remove them alltogether and nobody would know how many posts they have...*Snicker*...then there would be nothing to annoy them...

[Walter]

ReadWryte: I didn't critizise that some posts or threads have been deleted, I was just trying to point out that IMHO some threads would deserve being kept - even when there are no new posts - just because they could prove being interesting or helpful for new members lateron, or maybe picked up again. Whereas the majority of threads could expire automatically after a certain idle-timespan. And I suggested a possible way of re-structuring this Forum to enable this without upsetting anyone.

[Beorn]

Perhaps we could start rating everything more....Anything with 4.5 or higher should be kept...

The only thing is, almost no one rates anything now...On this new software, I've noticed that you can rate the thread when you are typing a reply...Everyone should use that more, and we'll know what to keep and what not...

[ReadWryt]

Walter,

I took no offence at your ideas, in fact so far yours was the only constructive critisism. It has troubled me that we may have lost good content due to inactivity in the threads, and indeed in the future we may use the Rating System as a criteria for threads to be reviewed for archiving...

[Ancalagon]

Either way, it's done now, so lets not worry our pretty little heads about it.

[Grond]

I'm just an old guy myself and could care diddly about "post count". My only reason for being here is to have insightful conversation about my favorite author JRRT. I've noticed that some threads do get off subject but that's where it becomes the responsibility of the members to get it back on track. It's real easy..... you just start your post with a "Gosh, this looks like it is getting off track.. let me respond to the original topic of....." That ain't hard. If that doesn't do the trick, next I'll go to a "Hey Guys, why don't you take it to PM, I really don't care who your favorite actors were in Star Wars." Not rude, but to the point. If that doesn't work, the next step would be to PM to one of the moderators to intervene. So far, that hasn't happened. We really have a pretty good group of people here.

I don't know that we need to change much. I've said all along that on many threads, I'll want to interject my thoughts; but, someone else (like Greymantle or Tal or RW) will have beat me to the punch. I'll simply post a message to indicate that I second his idea or agree with his position. It might only be a simple "Amen". That isn't posted to up my post count, simply to amplify a stated position by another member.

[ï§ïLÐÜ®]

i love this place. it is awesome. i've been coming here since july and it has gotten better. whut i really hate is my accounts have been deleted excpt this brand new one. my posts get deleted and also my threads. that really ****es me off. i hope something is done because i would really like to get my old accounts back and my old post count too. thanks in advance because i really hate seeing my time and effort to post here get deleted in a mere second. thanks again.

[ReadWryt]

ï§ïLÐÜ®,

There are no "old accounts", there are no Post Counts saved. It's a new Forum that has been up since August...trust me, I doubt that the Webmaster joined well after the forum went up. Go read your Private Messages...first though read the E-Mail that was sent to you around noon today from the Webmaster about your earstwhile account from yesterday, and the mail I sent you this afternoon about your repeated personal postings in the News & Announcement forum.

[Ciryaher]

Post counts matter about as much as what Osama bin-Ladin had for lunch last Tuesday (which doesn't matter at all, unless it was poison, which would be nice). I look at my post count rarely, usually only when some sap ;) goes over 1000 or what not. The point is, how many posts you have really doesn't matter, it's what you post that counts. Messages that have no other purpose than increasing one's post count will be found and deleted with extreme predjudice.

Second, the matter of old threads. You can be sure that nearly all discussions will repeated at one time or another (believe me, I've been here for almost 3 years) and you will certainly be given another chance to participate in a discussion of similar content at a later time. Just be patient :)

[Walter]

Originally posted by Ciryaher
Second, the matter of old threads. You can be sure that nearly all discussions will repeated at one time or another (believe me, I've been here for almost 3 years) and you will certainly be given another chance to participate in a discussion of similar content at a later time. Just be patient :)
I don't worry about whether I will be able to participate or not on a thread about a certain topic. But I would find it somehow sad if those really insightful discussions - and I have seen more than just a few here - would just disappear because no one has posted to it for a while. And a new one may be similar but just not the same

[Tar-Steve]

Walter makes a great point. Great threads cannot be re-created even if/when their topics resurface. Some of the best and informative threads at Riven Guild (a forum I used to hang around in) were quite old and the more experienced members would post links to them at appropriate times.

As this forum grows, we can hopefully trust the monitors to recognize great threads and spare them from the recycle bin.

People also need to understand that it spends a lot of bandwidth when you post to an old thread. Everyone re-reads it not realizing that most of the posts are old. The same goes for senseless posts (guily). Everyone reads the thread again, spending the bandwidth.