Bye Pointless Ann...

If I'm interpreting the comments by the staff here and reading into them appropriately as to the discussions that have taken place behind closed doors, I'm guessing at least some feel that PA has made the board seem less meaningful, less mature, and maybe even has hindered more substantial conversations? Is that the general gist of it?


What will closing PA do besides putting a halt to 15-20% of the board's traffic/posts?

Will it really, by itself, cause people to post more meaningful topics?

I don't think it will. I think it may have the opposite effect. I think a handful of members will probably just end up fading away. Or they will just pop in for a glance and will spend less time on the board, making them less likely to stumble upon another topic that might interest them enough to join the discussion. I think moving it into Posting Games (if the 2 post/day access requirement is kept) might have the same negative impact. So if this is "Put Borla in Charge Day", I would put "Closing PA" and "Moving PA to Posting Games" as last resorts on my list of solutions. I don't think that is just based on my personal opinion, I believe that is also based on what the side effects of doing that will be. I do think some adjustments in how PA is today could be in order though, specifics of which I'll mention in a bit.


So, again assuming the problem we're trying to solve here is "lack of meaningful, mature, intelligent discussion", I think there are some options that make sense. Some may even involve altering or modifying PA. I'll preface these suggestions by making a comment though. I've been a message board nerd for almost 15 years. I have hundreds of thousands of posts spread across many past and current boards, and I have considerable experience running or helping run what I'd consider successful boards. Every single message board I have regularly visited, that has years of history as TFP does, has had a parallel thread/discussion to this one. Every. Single. One. "Why isn't the board as busy as it was 5 years ago?" "How come the threads aren't as meaningful as they once were?" "Why so much more immaturity now?" "How can we recapture the way things used to be?" I don't have a real answer for all of it, but I do have some ideas as to what causes it. Facebook for one. 8 years ago if we wanted to talk about your day, share some pictures, or have a conversation about a meaningful subject, many of us probably went to a message board, started a thread, and had a conversation. Today people post it on their wall and all their real life and efriends can look, like, and respond. No need for all that work, and most of your message board friends are your Facebook friends anyway. Google is another. Now it is extremely simple to find the answer to any question. We are all better at creating our searches, and there are more websites with the detailed answer than ever before. No need to ask how to fix your dryer or compare satellite TV companies or figure out what breed of dog you'd like as a pet by having a discussion on a message board, you just Google it and there it is. The changes to how we communicate is a third. Now we only get 140 characters to tell our story in our tweet, or we use horrible grammar and spelling so we can text faster. We don't take the time to sit down and write out cogent opinions on things, or take the time to read a wall of text in a reply (kudos if you've made it this far in mine!). Instead it is tl;dr. We don't even sit down to watch a football game anymore, we turn it to the RedZone Channel and it automatically flips from game to game for us as teams are about to score. We don't patiently wait all week for our favorite show to come on, and have to sit through 17 minutes of commercials for every hour. We wait for the season to be over and download/stream it all in one marathon sitting so we don't have to wait for cliff-hangers. So, if I'm identifying the problem properly, this isn't a TFP problem IMO. It's a shift in society and a shift in how people use the internet and technology in general.

However, I think TFP is different than most spaces. I think some of you are incredibly special people, and allow it to come out when you are here. So just because I think the problems are extremely broad does not mean that I think we are unable to combat them. However, if we are going to combat them it takes each of us, or at least enough of us, buying in to the idea that we want to enact a change. For a start, go flip through the last couple of months' worth of threads in General Discussion. How many did YOU start? Flipping through the same threads, how many have the little shot of your avatar in the lower-right corner of the thread starter's avatar showing that YOU replied? I just did that. It's kind of interesting to look at who is starting conversations, especially the ones that get decent replies. Being aware of those types of things is sometimes all it takes to get members motivated. A thread like this is a good reminder that "hey, YOU are invested in this place, be what you would like TFP to be". I think we will see some positive results just from the staff having brought this to our attention. Hopefully each of us who visit here regularly will take some extra responsibility to create meaningful discussion going forward.

Second, IMO (and I was wrong once, so take it FWIW ) on a board of this size, the staff should be taking a heavy lead in starting conversations. That really isn't completely the case here. genuinegirly kicks everyone's butt at starting threads, does a great job of asking specific questions, and sets a nice example by always providing answers of her own in the OP. She has 8 threads started in the last 3 pages of GD. Other than that, by my count on those last three pages of GD (I disregarded sticky threads, so add those in if you don't think I should've), I've started 5 threads, snowy started 4, ZombieSquirrel started 3, and no one else started over 2. If you cruise through the Life & Sexuality forum you see a lot of random threads started by people who popped in a couple times and never came back, so it's hard to take that as an accurate cross section IMO, but it's close to the same scenario in there. Please, don't take this as a knock on the staff here. You guys are awesome, and there isn't one of you that I dislike. For most of you (even the_jazz ) it is quite the opposite. But maybe some reshuffling is in order. There seems to be a LOT of staff members that are not active. Maybe they need shifted to an "Emeritus" type status and some new blood brought in, with a focus of matching people up to areas where they have an interest in starting conversation. Maybe have a requirement that each staff member starts at least one discussion a month? Or have a goal of starting at least one a week? I'm not trying to say the staff has to carry the entire weight of it, but the members will follow their lead. If all of the staff is posting in PA and not starting discussion, that's where we'll end up. If the staff is starting meaningful discussion, we'll take part in it and probably start our own. You guys are awesome, I completely understand what a pain some of the requirements can be, and how thankless of a job it seems at times. So I mean this as constructive criticism, and it isn't directed at anyone in particular, just a general thought for board improvement.

Finally, PA may need some major adjusting. One board I'm on has a "Daily Thread". Each morning someone (doesn't matter who, it happens organically based on who is up that morning earliest I guess) starts a thread for that day. It has a running commentary similar to what PA does here, but each thread dies on its own at the end of the day. People voluntarily almost never bump old ones, and always start a new one each morning. Here, we don't currently have enough new threads started in GD to make this work, or 2/3 of every page would be Daily Threads. But maybe we have a sub-forum of GD with daily threads? This would make them less bulky, easier to keep up with, and less intimidating for newbs when they sign up. I've referred a couple of friends here and one comment I've heard more than once is "I am intimidated by jumping into a 20k+ post thread". Making daily threads would keep the spirit of PA alive, but break it into digestible chunks. Of the solutions I can think of, I think this one would have the least bad side effects. Some other solutions (moving it to the Members' section, moving it to Games, etc.) I think would have a similar negative impact to what I mentioned early on in this post, though maybe not as severe.



So if you are making this "Borla is in Charge" day...

1) Everyone look in the mirror, look at their recent threads started, at how many recent threads they've participated in, and try to step it up. Kudos to the staff for giving us this reminder to do so.
2) Take the lead as a staff. Show us how you want us to be. Make changes to the staff as necessary to encourage this.
3) Create a sub-forum to GD, maybe call it "Daily Discussion". Have a new thread each day. Let anyone start it. Don't bump threads from previous days unless their is a valid reason. Maybe even lock them after a week or month or whatever.


PS - On a semi-unrelated note, a random email every few weeks to the member base can greatly encourage people who forgot about the board (or who just got busy) to come visit. Maybe a "Hey, come check out a couple of recent threads. If you are a sports' fan, catch up on the latest NFL discussion in *insert thread link*. Can you give helpful advice to someone who is having relationship problems? If so, please respond here *insert link*. What is your opinion on the Gov't Shutdown? Who is to blame and what is a workable long term solution? Tell us here! *insert link*." Don't do it often, but maybe once every 4-6 weeks just to remind people TFP exists and has some cool discussion.




I promised (or threatened?) to share detailed thoughts, so now you have them.

 

It's somewhat like Status Updates, except that it allows for a little forth-and-back. Status Updates seems more like a one-way street.

What I don't like is when a discussion starts there that really should be elsewhere. Then it gets drowned or buried by the sheer volume of posts and no followup posts happen.

That's the way I see it suppressing other discussion. There could be some way to say "Hey, lets move this over to Life and Sexuality." or, wherever.

One good thing that I see about PA is that it offers a place for the quick "Drive By Post" which is appropriate in PA, but might be considered trolling in one of the more serious areas.

It also seems to me to overlap somewhat with the Complaining and Bitching thread. But the same overlapping occurs between General and Tilted Life and Sexuality.
I miss the departed Ladies Lounge area as well as Tilted Finance (which is NOT the same as economics.)

I like that when I drop in for just a few minutes. Same with the Posting games, where sometimes I feel like I'm following around Fangirl in some bizarre form of stalking.

So... there, that's the way I see it. PA is a wide river, not a deep one. I'll miss it a little bit, not a lot, if PA goes away.

 

Borla is one smart burger-griller!

 

My solution would be flexible and include a couple of options. You could easily quote the post in question and put your reply in the new day's thread. Another option would be to start a new thread in GD about the topic, if a user/mod feels it has merit. As was mentioned earlier, I think sometimes valid topics have gotten absorbed into PA and could've been broken out into a separate thread, or maybe should've been originally posted in a separate thread to start with. I don't think there would have to be a hard and fast rule to do one or the other, or even something totally separate. I'm just suggesting that, generally speaking, threads wouldn't get constantly bumped in my scenario.

 

Thank you, everyone, for chiming in. Your opinions have all been clearly stated and appreciated. You have given all of us something to think about. I must point out that if staff were to intentionally impose some different form to PA, it could not by it's very nature be termed "evolution". To evolve an entity must shift organically, spontaneously, and independent of intentional interference. What some seem to be calling evolution would better be termed "breeding" or "cultivating."

I have always seen PA as some new version of The Longest Thread Ever. I see many similarities and differences. How often does the occasional new user feel it a less intimidating method of getting familiar with the TFP? I guess I haven't seen this.

Since our board does not deal with advertising but instead depends upon donation for its existence, foot traffic is not our greatest concern. If PA attracted more donations, I doubt we would have this conversation. At the moment, our funds to run this place haven't been coming from the membership, certain staff members (not me) have been footing nearly the entire bill. If the people who hold the purse strings dislike a point of discussion, should it continue?

 

gross.