Kevin's Watch

Its great Vain has started this new thing where .. you get points for posting and creating new threads ..

BUT .. and there's always a BUT

Especially newbies .. cos we love newbies .. we do .. and we want newbies ..

BUT .. and some members have expressed some concerns about this .. please if you think of a question .. check the thread list/board .. to see if a thread already exists concerning it .. DONT JUST MAKE A NEW THREAD.

REASONS

1. You can be 100% certain that if we have a thread on your question or idea .. there is a lot of interesting and valuable information right there!

2. You can be sure that if we have a thread on your question .. we have probably debated it to death already and it is just waiting for your new perspective and contribution!!

3. Cos it may have already been debated and lots of energy invested in the discussion .. that when it comes up again .. from .. lets say .. square ONE .. that its heart rendering to have to begin from the beginning again.

4. The more new threads repeated .. the further to the back of the pages all the earlier discussions go .. so you have to search more thoroughly.

I might talk to Vain about placing conditions on bonus points for new threads .. maybe you only get half points for threads that already exist.

Sometimes topics are subtley different .. thats cool .. looking at a tipic with a different spin .. is great!

and I hate deleting threads and had to delete some today .. cos they werre wayyy too repetative .. if you look you'll find them

Thank GOD someone finally made this thread! There have been countless threads about things we've discussed a long time ago! It probably takes equal time to go and read old threads, the make a new thread and have others post there.

Also, for better reference, make the thread titles easy to refer to, you know if its a thread about TC's death make the thread name "the Death of TC?" or "Covenant's death".

Guess this leads back to "we need additional moderators" - which we do, in my opinion. Newbies not using the search engine is normal and nothing really bad, but it is impractical if we have several threads for one topic, if only because you might miss some fine points because the user who made them doesn't want to repeat them in every thread.

My opinion:
- get one or two new mods for the main forums
- write a FAQ
- clean up, which means a) moving threads to the forums they belong to (that's a big problem here), b) stopping repeated threads by closing the new ones and linking back to the existing ones.

Aku. Soku. Zan.

- get one or two new mods for the main forums
- write a FAQ

I think our current mods do a good job, plus they have Jay and Vain to help. Secondly, there IS an FAQ.

for the TC forum there are 3 mods .. Jay Alyanna and myself .. and I think many mods dont like deleting threads .. especially where they have become well attended ..

This is not a mod problem imo .. this is a making members aware is all.

We can all tolerate some repetition but lets try and avoid it where we can .. if its just being repeated cos someone cant be bothered or doesnt realise there actually are a whole bunch of discussions listed on the TC or any other forum .. this is here to remind folks and encourage members to .. be aware .. and check it out just incase what you want to say is already out there and already been said.

The cool thing is everyone has a unique perspective and threads can be actually quite different yet very similar .. thats totally cool!

No one should complain about that.

I think bonus points for new threads may encourage the creation of new threads whilst discouraging the search for old ones.

We welcome new ideas and fresh perspectives .. The Watch has never been an interventionist site .. mostly posters are left to do as they like ..

just sometimes .. we need a gentle reminder or pointer .. not to clutter up the board more than is generally tolerated.

Lord Mhoram wrote:I think our current mods do a good job, plus they have Jay and Vain to help. Secondly, there IS an FAQ.

It's a FAQ for how the board works, not a Donaldson FAQ. We need a FAQ which includes "Will there be Third Chronicles?", "Will there be a movie?", and so on.

And I didn't say the current mods are doing a bad job.

just finished some long needed in-house cleaning .. and came across a couple of areas we can look at ..

Some threads are created just to ask a simple question that once answered occupies no more than 4-5 replies .. and is shelved from lack of interest or potential for expansion.

I have created a General Musings and GQ [General Questions] thread .. for those simple questions that dont invite further discussion. So what about using that to prevent obselete thread creation.

Some are created just to say hello I'm new or I'm back .. which is nice .. but .. we have a Welcome thread just for that purpose .. and as a sticky it wont get lost on the shelf


remember ~ RESISTANCE IS FUTILE .. YOU WILL COMPLY!!

... pretty please

I kno it's a pain but please check all the TC pages 2 c if there is a similar subject 1st. On the Old Watch I think I saw 12 variations on The Wyrm at the World's End. I kno this is all very xciting and new 4 new members--u r the lifeblood (Earthblood!) of these 4rums! On the other hand 2 much rep has a tendency 2 turn vets off... And yes I think we need a TC FAQ not new mods...42nately we don't have many, if any reps on Mordant's Need--but I will not hesitate 2 chide or warn 2 delete topics that get 2 repetitive there! C: Sky is 2 nice whereas I r er big bad O-grrrrrrrrr

Sev wrote:It's a FAQ for how the board works, not a Donaldson FAQ. We need a FAQ which includes "Will there be Third Chronicles?", "Will there be a movie?", and so on.

thats what the discussion board is for .. cos no one knows whether there'll be a movie .. and only since the 3rd chrons has been on everyone's minds since the end of WGW .. it is via the discussion board that anyone has found rumours [confirmed or otherwise] of SRD's writing.

We're all in the dark about these things till they come to light .. and so far we can only speculate and discuss these things .. which is what a discussion board is about ...

We just dont really want 20 threads about the same thing [ie a 3rd chrons/a movie] .. maybe we can reduce it to 2 0r 3 .. or who knows .. maybe even be really organised and make it 1!!

We were, apparently, posting @ the same time! C: I am 2 nice, whereas Sky am er big bad O-grrrr! (despite the Oath of Peace, beware the wrath of the Council of Lords! )

grrrrrrrr .. me am ogre!! .. and I have pointy horns, oozing warts and a fettered hump to prove it!!! :razz

so dont mess wi' me!! I'm a wild animal and scary as hell!! they dont call me Scary Sky! for nothing :razz



... or not

Yeah, I know what you mean, heh. It seems like we have a lot of topics dealing with the same stuff, sometimes. But it's hard for new people, or most people for that matter, to go through all of our thousands of topics to find what they want. Although I guess making new, repetitive, topics only make the problem worse, heh. I think our current system is fine, where we don't punish people for posting repetitive topics, but encourage them to look for old topics dealing with what they are talking about whenever they do so.

As for Mods, I guess I'm always up for new Mods if you think we need them. I'd still like to get at least one Mod besides me and Vain in every Forum. As for Alyanna, well, she hasn't really been showing up here has she? I think it's time to pass off her Mod position to someone else, who would be more active. Mainly since the Thomas Covenant Forum is the most active one here, we probably need three active Moderators. So...yeah.-jay

OK. Now that the house I tried to buy fell through the cracks, I need something to relieve me of my frustrations

So, if you guys agree, I want to create a GraveYard forum where all redundant posts will be moved to - kept for about a month - and then removed from the history books unless someone really wants to keep it. I'll do this over the weekend and also start moving stuff over.

I think the idea of a FAQ is a cool idea - but may take a while to put together unless there's some industrious soul out there


I think a few more mods is a cool idea

I really have no problem about someone creating a thread on a topic that was last talked about, say in July. Maybe it is the old thread that should be trashed in that case, if it's not a sticky.

I wouldn't want to restrain the exuberance of new members. After all SRD is a rather esoteric taste. For someone who has never had a chance to discuss the books, just finding a site where he is discussed is exciting. Over time they will settle down, and the moderators can find a way to quietly deal with the errant thread.

The graveyard! Sounds spooky! Sure, go for it! But, it may be hard to determine what is redundant, and what is not..

Is there a way the mods can just fold the new threads into the old threads, combine them in some way? Or the graveyard thing could work, too.

Vain wrote:I think the idea of a FAQ is a cool idea - but may take a while to put together unless there's some industrious soul out there

Well, my soul's long been sold, but I'll do it anyway.

Well, there is obviously a difference of opinions here. I will just say what my take on this is.

I believe that a forum such as this should be an interactive forum. This means that any activity is better than no activity.

Because of this I feel that it would be better to always create new threads instead of referring to the old ones. I think the old threads should be kept archived in case some point comes up and a reference to an old thread is needed to be checked out.

Additionally I think that this is better than keeping old threads, because it is better to return to old arguments with a fresh start instead of continuing with the same old arguments forever.

Now having said that I feel that there might be a few recurring themes that might need to be handled a little differently. But I do not believe a FAQ in the traditional sense would be sufficient.

Could we make a FAQ forum, where we kind of posted answers to these recurring questions? We might first have to decide what kind of topics to put in there, but that could in itself be an interesting discussion. Then everybody could chip in and make an entry about their personal theory about the matter. I would suggest disallowing responses in this forum, instead we could discuss it elsewhere and then the poster could edit the post. This last to make the entries tidier and make it unnecessary to follow the discussions to get the point.

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Listen, we dont need an FAQ, and we don't need more moderators. Vain's idea of a graveyard forum is the best we've had so far. Let the admins take care of the graveyard forum, they can put the threads in there, they can decide what is recurring and what isnt. If a graveyard forum is made, we should put in the header somewhere, 'Please look at the FAQ {the old one mind you} and the graveyard forum before posting.'

Ryzel wrote:Because of this I feel that it would be better to always create new threads instead of referring to the old ones. I think the old threads should be kept archived in case some point comes up and a reference to an old thread is needed to be checked out.

So you would appreciate it if someone started a "Is Foul the Antichrist?" every monday?

Now having said that I feel that there might be a few recurring themes that might need to be handled a little differently.

Where do you draw the line? What is recurring enough for you?

Could we make a FAQ forum, where we kind of posted answers to these recurring questions? We might first have to decide what kind of topics to put in there, but that could in itself be an interesting discussion. Then everybody could chip in and make an entry about their personal theory about the matter. I would suggest disallowing responses in this forum, instead we could discuss it elsewhere and then the poster could edit the post. This last to make the entries tidier and make it unnecessary to follow the discussions to get the point.

So in the end we would have one FAQ thread "Is Foul the Antichrist?", one discussion thread "Is Foul the Antichrist?", and since starting a discussion again in a new thread is good everybody would be welcome to create another "Is Foul the Antichrist?" thread ... and another, and another.