At the risk of becoming an easy target......

I hope this is the right area to place comments and objective criticism.

I have been a member of the US EVO forums for a long time. Mostly reading as any dedicated subscriber does. I sit and read and watch the community rise and fall with the passing tides all in good faith that the moderators will do the best job that can be done while promoting growth, prosperity and loyalty.

It seems very often that threads are merged into a single Super MEGA thread. What problem are we solving by doing so? I am asking, not complaining. To me, it makes it very difficult to read and stay on top of these threads. 47 pages of multi threads combined into makes for very difficult reading. Also, by allowing mini new short threads, I don't have to invest the time to read a thread like a novel. If I don't agree with the direction a specific thread is taking, I simply don't read it. With the longer threads I have to jump to the next "chapter" to see if the tone has changed.

I suppose one issue is enough now. I simply find myself spending less and less time here, In the beginning, I really enjoyed this forum. But now less so. This is one example of a short list.

Thanks for reading and allowing me to post here. Really.
One Voice.

/<

 

Would you prefer 50 different threads about teh same thing over and over and over? The reason (most of the time) that threads are merged is to try to help people find a wealth of information with a quick and simple serach. If you notice, when we merge threads, we put simple, yet descriptive titles in hopes that it would be the first hit when a member was to search on that subject.

Granted, mergered threads are occasionally difficult to read. But, in the end, the purpose above is fullfilled.

I certainly hope we haven't "drove you off" by simply keeping the forums clean. This is probably the single best source of information in regards to the Lancer, Ralliart, and Evolution on the internet, and full of incredible members.

Jeremy

 

We were actually doing that to try and consolidate posts into one area, so people didn't see 100 threads on the same topic. We could run a poll to see what members would prefer. If you guys all wanted to keep things in their own threads that would actually save a lot of time spent merging threads, so it wouldn't be so bad from my perspective

Mark

 

i think that 1 big thread is better that 10000 threads of the exact same issue. it got to the point that we had 37 open threads about the evo mr and they were all exactly the same inforamtion wise. by marging threads, we are able to clean up the cluter and center all the information into 1 big thread. we do not merge everything but some issues are just coming up again and again. for example, in the past week we had 16 threads about one crashed evo from ebay. this to me is very annoying to log on and see "did you see this crashed evo on ebay" every day. if people would take the time to use the search function, all this merging would not be required but until then we simply don't have any other choice. i understand your frustration about the issue but please understand that this is the only way we can deal with the clutter on the site.

thank you

Snir

 

and again my slow typing skills comes into play but as you can see all of us gave you the exact same reason

 

...and you guys in general say the search engine is garbage due to the fact that you see the same thread on the same subject spread across 10+ threads when you do a search.

 

I definitely agree with the consolidation of information to preserve the data for later use and recovery.

I just like how some discussions are progressing verses others. To simply merge them all together may not be the best solution. I think that reposts on obvious "have you seen this link" might need to be closed. I just think it is hard to follow a live discussion in a huge single post of multi posts. It is similar to being placed into a large auditorium and trying to listen to 5 or so conversations at the same time. Also, while repetitive, reposts do have a way of feeding new life into ideas and issues. It is similar to reading a short story vs. an entire novel. I have maybe 20 to 30 minutes a shot to read the forum and I can not afford (time) to drill deep down through a HYPER thread to find that new picture of the EVO RS today. But if I need to know how to disconnect the fuel pump, I will spend the time later to find the info. Hopefully I won't have to read 48 pages to do so. :-)

Are we saving ourselves from finding hundreds, not 10000, posts in the search option? Is that so bad? It is fairly easy within the first page of posts to detirmine if the thread is worth reading or skipping. What happens when you search on Google, they don't delete all the Britney Spears websites from the search because there is one really great one. Not sure why I chose Britney Spears. But anyway.

I think it is important to realize that the forum is a living organism whose sole purpose is not to serve as a totally awesome search function. Letting people ramble on about a certain topic is not that awful, and easily ignored.

Thanks for not taking it personal.

/<

 

i agree with you on some things but you are forgetting that the forum main purpose is to be a source of information. if you noticed, we do not merge all topics. if it is a small thing we just close the new thread. however, on things like the MR or other issues which gets a lot of exposure, we have no choice but to do a merge because people do not use the search function and we get a new thread every 5 mins. there are threads were we have no problem letting them be because they do not clutter the board or annoy members but seeing a new thread with the same info every 5 mins is very annoying.

 

k_fabec,

You make good points and it is something we may need to discuss. Are we stifling the flow of information for the sake of tidiness? What guidelines would you suggest as to when to merge, re-direct, close or leave alone? Thanks.

Speedlimit...

 

I dunno, Mark, I might actually start doing homework instead of moderating. I mean, I don't know if I could handle being that productive Actually, I've been on both kinds of boards, and the truth is either seems to work fine. In both cases, you have to search for what you want. On this site, you have to learn advanced search techniques, on the other type you have to rumage through a bunch of the same posts to get adequate information. Doesn't matter to me, this site just seems more organized this way.

 

I personally would prefer just deleting 36 of those duplicate threads instead of merging them. But when we used to do that, we would get LOTS of complaints about Moderators deleting threads unnecessarially. Which is the lesser of 2 evils? I do not know.

SC~

 

^ For every deleted thread there's an equal and corresponding "what happened to my ____ thread?" thread

 

I guess there is no easy quick answer.

I like the idea of closing threads instead of merging them. I am looking for a solution to the SUPER MEGA threads. I also agree that the posts that show up every 5 minutes with the same link or pic should be closed and referenced to another thread. That sound good to me. What I am concerned with is not allowing additional EVO MR threads because we have "one" already. The idea of closing new threads that deal with the exact same topic seems tasteful. But collapsing all MR (for example) threads into one simply because they touch on the EVO MR or help the search function sounds like overkill.

Thanks for keeping an open mind about it. It is fun to have a discussion with out have the word "ricer" dotted through the post. Doh! Excuse me.

/<

 

This is a oddly run sight. I gather you must be half baked to be a member here. I personally moderated a few forums f-body.com for 1 and never had to comment on every suttle statement someone makes positive or negative.This place is run more like a military camp than a forum. salute der Fueher! Sig Heil!

 

Well, I can only speak for myself, but I read plenty of threads that I don't comment on. If I have nothing to ask or contribute, or my opinion has already been stated by someone else with the same opinion, I keep my mouth shut. As for the pornographic attachments, the insults made only to cause problems, and the useless posts just to raise post counts, those get dealt with as I see them. But like I said, that's just me, not speaking for all the mods on here.