suggestion to increase relevance and decrease nastiness

[harry888]

My suggestion is to close a thread after two pages.

Anyone else notice that by page 3, the subject line is invalid and the posts have gone in nasty irrelevant tangents?

For that reason I rarely look past page 2, and am blissfully unaware of some of the silly feuds that seem to have gone on. Some of the Bans have caught me by surprise.

Like my Dad used to say "nothing good happens after midnight", nothing good happens after page 2.

For anything decent that goes on beyond page 2, a new subject thread should start, the subject probably has changed anyway.

Am I alone, or speaking some sense?

Harry

[fjpod]

I tend to agree about the irrelavence of many posts...but...what can you do? It's an open forum.

[Johns]

Threads take on a life of their own, and also die of their own accord.

There are reasons threads go onto multiple pages. The main reason I can see is that they are popular enough to elicit responses and views.


Some just go on and on because their authors want them to. And like you said, we can choose not to visit them as often as we want (or don't want) to.

http://www.optiboard.com/forums/show...060#post313060

[CME4SPECS]

My suggestion is to close a thread after two pages.

Anyone else notice that by page 3, the subject line is invalid and the posts have gone in nasty irrelevant tangents?

For that reason I rarely look past page 2, and am blissfully unaware of some of the silly feuds that seem to have gone on. Some of the Bans have caught me by surprise.

Like my Dad used to say "nothing good happens after midnight", nothing good happens after page 2.

For anything decent that goes on beyond page 2, a new subject thread should start, the subject probably has changed anyway.

Am I alone, or speaking some sense?

Harry

Quit looking after page 2! There are SOME threads that have been going for several years than still have some good info. For example: Dispensing tips.

[Chris Ryser]

Threads take on a life of their own, and also die of their own accord.

There are reasons threads go onto multiple pages. The main reason I can see is that they are popular enough to elicit responses and views.


Some just go on and on because their authors want them to. And like you said, we can choose not to visit them as often as we want (or don't want) to.

..................fully agree with Johns statement,

..................but needs an add on. If a thread shows an average of 400 views average per week it is worth continuing by the author, until it shows a loss of interest.

To many interesting threads dye a sudden death because somebody changes subject and everybody follows suite.

The lifespan of a thread is only as long as it get interested participants on both sides of the fence..................post's------and-------views, and if one of one of the two has stopped the thread is dead.

[cocoisland58]

It's a message board/dicussion forum. It follows the trend of all of them ie: a thread lives or it dies, or it's highjacked and lives again in another form until all grow weary of it. You participate or you don't, that's how it all works. You don't want to have a rule that would close a thread after two pages or many a good thought would be lost and heaven forbid someone should have something to say and not be able to say it, no matter how irrelevant someone else might think it is.

[Johns]

Why don't you guys like poly? It's cheaper than trivex, and more readily available.








(just kidding. I couldn't resist the hijack!)


Chris is right. By not responding, you kill the thread, whether it's a civil one or not. Kind of like television, right?

[DragonLensmanWV]

Why don't you guys like poly? It's cheaper than trivex, and more readily available.








(just kidding. I couldn't resist the hijack!)


Chris is right. By not responding, you kill the thread, whether it's a civil one or not. Kind of like television, right?

Oh, yeah? Explain According To Jim for us.


:D

[Uncle Fester]

Am I the only one who hopes this thread goes to 3 pages?:p

[hcjilson]

My suggestion is to close a thread after two pages.

Anyone else notice that by page 3, the subject line is invalid and the posts have gone in nasty irrelevant tangents?

For that reason I rarely look past page 2, and am blissfully unaware of some of the silly feuds that seem to have gone on. Some of the Bans have caught me by surprise.

Like my Dad used to say "nothing good happens after midnight", nothing good happens after page 2.

For anything decent that goes on beyond page 2, a new subject thread should start, the subject probably has changed anyway.

Am I alone, or speaking some sense?

Harry

You are speaking some good sense.....BUT for the fact of "housekeeping" some of us have all we can do to stay on top of what is here, never mind closing each thread that goes to 2 pages! Your heart and intellect are in exactly the right place but then practicality rears its ugly head.....and occasionally the multi page threads are useful. Thanks for the idea and maybe we could work on some variation (within this thread) that might work out.

[sharpstick777]

I usually make inane and meaningless comments (just like this one) on threads just to get the page count up... especially threads I start...

Its due to my deep insecurity conflicting with my delusions of granduer.

[Johns]

I usually make inane and meaningless comments (just like this one) on threads just to get the page count up... especially threads I start...

I never did until I realized that the more pages your thread generates, the bigger the discount on the subscription.

[Kyle]

I absolutely agree - there have been some extremely old tent revival threads out there which make salient points about current issues. An "original post date" field would be the most obvious but you could also write a script that would invoke a background color/saturation change once a thread goes past a certain duration/age.

It might also be useful to allow collective user involvement in deciding whether a thread has strayed off topic or not - this could be in the form of a checkbox where users indicate the validity of their own posts as related to the original thread - once an "off the subject" count has gone past a certain percentage, the thread could be forced as closed, with revival power only available to administrator(s). Perhaps this could be made true for certain forums and not others, allowing for posts such as Chris Ryser's "Wisdom to Start the Day" (thank you, Chris) to continue running.

Both solutions are a little heavy on the front-load but should let those concerned rest a easier once in place.

kk

[hcjilson]

You already have the power to get it done by reporting the offending post. If you click the little triangle with an exclamation point in it, you will be reporting the post. Once that happens a mod will take a look at it and decide on appropriate action. To merely close a thread because it is long would be a mistake. We used to be able to split threads if they became 2 subjects. Not sure I remember how to do it but it may still be possible.

[Uncle Fester]

Can someone create a poll to see how few of us support a 2 page limit idea?

[hcjilson]

You have the ability to do that yourself! :) give it a try!

[Johns]

Can someone create a poll to see how few of us support a 2 page limit idea?

I'll do it....