Do we have too many threads?

The Panzer Penguin and Medal threads have been merged (both a little outdated anyway).

See now wasn't that easy, once you got specific?

 

Sorry. I disagree. If the ancient information is VALUABLE

on many other forums, as moderator, OLD THREADS can be inserted MIDSTREAM at the place of choice of the moderator.
Thus the new thread's latest posts have, way earlier, additional very usefull, individual posts out of individual ancient threads, posted where they would do the most good.

As you can see from my avatar, I am into Hang Gliding and Paraglidng. I will NOT tell you their moderators real names...
but there are mega numbers of examples of this at: http://www.paraglidingforum.com/alltopics.php

So OT Too:
Can a moderator, in this new Invision forum, pull an individual reply out of one forum thread, leaving that forum thread relatively intact, and
a) insert it into a fresh, new, interesting thread and / or:
... tried to insert b ) here but got: B) clone it into the new thread?

This I wanna no.

On http://www.paraglidingforum.com/alltopics.php etc etc, moderators routinely go into such posts, delete the entire offending comments, if not the entire post, leaving a warning note.
"REPEAT SUCH NEGATIVE SEE IT AND YOU WILL BE BANNED. THIS IS YOUR LAST WARNING. YOU ARE BEING WATCHED. UNDERSTOOD? Forum Moderators."

On the OzReport http://ozreport.com/forum/index.php Davis posted today as a general new topic thread:

"Okay, folks, this forum and / or individual thread(s) is beginning to turn into a cesspool.
Stop it now or I start kicking people out of here."

 

And you would still get Operation Sea Lion...Barges galore.

 

Yeah...but urqh the second has just joined the forum..and now reads medals thread...And looks around forum....What medals? I'll start a thread asking about these medal thingy's....

 

perhaps the whole forum could be reduced to a continuous line of thought with no form of punctuation so the reader would be compelled to read the entire post accumulations throughout wwtfs glorious history including the many ups and downs like my propensity to knock wine onto my keyboard thereby ca`using it to ma`lf5unction a`nd reduce my post count thereby ma`k=ing me look= stupid a`s well a`s reducing my ba`nk= a`ccount this is not f5unny a`s every time i push the s button internet explorer help pa`ge pops up there it go a`gin i'll stop using s's now k= now a` problem but not a` ba`d a` :_ a` id wierd too da`mn ha`ve to buy new k=eyboa`rd now im emba`ra`ced

 

only ha`lf5 j6ok=ing. it getting wors;-doh;- goodbye my f5riend plura`l ;-time to cine of5f5 with love wwtwo roguez.

 

Ztill ea`rly. Thiz pla`ze rock=z. Your competitorz f5orumz a`re lik=e New York= City.... Nice a`nd f5riendly here. No zcrea`merz to a`rgue with...I wonder if5 Victor Gomez ca`n underzta`nd wha`t I'm putting down? VG? Ca`re to comment?

 

Poppy reading you 1's...Move your washing machine to the left of your freezer to cut out the contention on the secondary sideband...Alternately...put a synchronous Line Driver about 3m into your utp cable...Press the ET button but make sure your modem has the fb button depressed...Read out the light pattern to me and we'll sort this out mate...

If the attenuation needs tweeking I'll give you instructions...Look closely at your PTT box on wall...If there is smoke coming out of it and a high pitched whistle...then We've found your problem...Your looking at the kettle...2 sugars please.

 

As I had suspected, Poppy is a robot, a badly malfunctioning robot. Possibly a early, failed prototype Cylon.

To save humanity we must destroy Canada now! (or at least where Poppy is transmitting from)

 

Urgh was right....remembering when maytags had 40-50 lbs of concrete built into the new "automatic" washing machines to settle them and to aggravate the teacher I completed my homework on the top of one while running. One day while sleeping I got up angry thinking someone was doing laundry at an ungodly hour...........to find out the machine was silent.... we had had an earthquake. So Poppy it has all been done before.....get that keyboard off the antique washing machine. .

 

Sexbot 2000....just got too wet. Rebooted...Normal once again. Only a few bugs. Nnnnnnnnnnnothing IIIII can't handle, Dave.

 

It's actually more of a problem than you might think and it becomes frustrating to many users.
LWD, it's important to try to catch it early, when a thread can be merged with little disruption, or excessive repeat postings can be deleted.

In my experience Modding another forum this was often the result of a poster known as a "topic spammer" or "one trick pony" who posts on multiple threads with the same (often loopy) subject.

The problem would be something like this:

After a new member joining the forum and having a brilliant idea (that nobody here is smart enough to have figured out yet ) the new poster starts a topic: "Germany should have put laser death-ray cannon on the moon in 1942."

Not satisfied with that, he'll post on the thread "How Germany could have won? " with the reply - that Germany could have easily won by putting laser death-ray cannon on the moon.

Then he'd find another thread "Could Germany have avoided defeat at Stalingrad?" and reply (surprise!) that they simply should have put those death-ray cannon on the moon in early 1942 and winning the battle would be a slam dunk.

Then looking up another thread "Was the Pearl Harbor attack a good idea" his reply is that it would have been better to use Moon based death-ray cannon to destroy the entire US fleet.

At this point several threads have been drawn into the death-ray debate, and the usually topics steered away as posters start refuting the (somewhat nonsensical) ideas.


The solution I believe is ato delete/merge all of the posts on this topic quickly, and a polite message to the poster to request that he keep that debate into ONE thread.

Otherwise it becomes frustrating to the other members as the "New Content" is jammed up with the same topic, and even if they wished to engage in a serious debate on it the topic is spread willy-nilly over several threads

This would be better I think

Hi Otto, I agree that the thread title is very important, especially with google & search.
The Mods should not be shy to step in and edit a title to make the topic clear if the OP didn't.

People sometimes like to have thread titles like "Can you belive this?" or "Wow!", it's annoying to nhave to click on the thread to find out what it's about, and if it is something interesting it's likely that it will become lost to google or search because it doesnt identify itself, which contributes to multiple threads on the same topic.


The problem with a fresh start on an old topic is that many excellent replies & information on the old thread is lost, and then pretty soon somebody will look up & reply the older threads regarding the same topic and then there will be 4 Pearl Harbor threads (or some other topic) active.


If the old thread was a good one and the new poter starts one on the same topic they should be merged.

For example if the older thread was "Nagumo should have launched a 3rd strike at Pearl Harbor" and the new thread is on the same topic "Third Japanese Attack at Pearl on Dec 7 - Yes or No?" - the new posts should certainly be merged with the older thread.



Just my thoughts FWIW....

 

I tried to get fancy with my reply to this and hit the wrong button and it all dissapeard so I'll edit out the parts I'm not replying to and reply to all at the end.

In the first case though there are already a number of mechanisms in place. For one thing the posts in the other topics were for the most part way off topic and should be delted for that reason alone. Similarly if a poster opens up multiple threads on the same topic then lock all but one and mention that one thread per topic policy. The problem I see is where the threads are similar but not identical and even more so when they were started by different people at different times. An example might be one thread is "Compare the performance of the Spitfire and the Me-109 in 1940" and another the same except for 1943. Should these be merged or not? The novice might say no and the expert yes. If you merge them what's the title? and how do people keep track of which theme is being referred to? Particularly since expanding it is likely to see 1941 and 1942 comparisons thrown in.

I do agree that accurate thread titles are highly desireable. Even to the extent that I wouldn't mine titles such as the bad examples you gave be subject to locking and deletion for that reason.

The fresh start argument is somewhat weaker unless the thread is at lest subly different. If it is then the old conversation may prevent the new one from being examined in its own light. On the otherhand if they are the same especially if it has been a year or so since the last post in the old one then merging them shouldn't be that much of a problem.

 

Hang on Freebird...it was not 42...it was later, near end of war....I'm claiming copyright on this forum for that topic....Stop topic spamming me mate...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Py_IndUbcxc

I'm joking...you realise that right? Before I get mods all over me...