Catch-all/Megathread discussion

[JorgeA]

8 hours ago, xper said:

Yes, it is intended. If a member makes a post or comment, and then makes another post or comment on the same topic within the specified timeframe before any other user, the posts will be merged. 
Timeframe now is 3 hours.

Condensed and expanded view fixed. 

Hmm... so now if I want to reply to your post, but also want to reply to Trip's post above, my choices are limited to the following:

1. Reply to both posts in the same MSFN visit and let them get merged, so that if you or Trip wish to reply to my reply, you have to manually delete all the extraneous material relating to my other reply; or
2. Wait three hours to avoid getting the replies merged.

Is that correct?!?

--JorgeA

1 hour ago, Tripredacus said:

You should be editing your previous post should you need to post in a thread again, where you are the last poster, within 24 hours. We have a rule about this and bumping threads.

But if the new post is bringing up a new angle, or replying to someone else, then it's confusing to the reader, who must then sort out the different angles that are being discussed but got lumped together.

I understand about bumping, but what we're talking about here is not bumping. In "Deeper Impressions" we run a headline or a funny image about an item in the news, then comment on it. One item could be about UWP, the next about Win10 privacy controls. It doesn't make sense to put them together, and if another forum member wants to comment on just one of the items, he will now have to go in and manually delete all the other news items, otherwise people reading his comment won't know what he's talking about. And if in addition I also want to comment on what somebody else said in the thread, now that too will get dumped into the river of shifting subjects within the same post; and people replying to it will have to fish it out by hand so that others reading his reply can focus on what he said.

Logically and as a convenience both to the reader and to those who might wish to reply, posts about different angles within the same thread should be able to remain separate, as we've had it for years.

--JorgeA

[Tripredacus]

You forget. We do not want the "news megathread" that is Deeper Impressions... and becoming IoT is a bad idea thread. We would prefer that each of these news items be their own threads, and then we can take those news posts and have them as news on the front page. However our multiple attempts to make it like that have been refused. So we make no concessions for those catch-all threads.

[JorgeA]

55 minutes ago, Tripredacus said:

You forget. We do not want the "news megathread" that is Deeper Impressions... and becoming IoT is a bad idea thread. We would prefer that each of these news items be their own threads, and then we can take those news posts and have them as news on the front page. However our multiple attempts to make it like that have been refused. So we make no concessions for those catch-all threads.

I thought the issue of megathreads had been thrashed out and resolved three years ago. Sorry to see that it's flared up again.

Such threads serve a useful function in that they bring together for the reader numerous items having a common theme. This has benefits for both sides of the given issue.

As a reader, if I'm bothered by the "IoT is a bad idea" concept (for example), then I would prefer that they all sat there by themselves in their own thread, rather than peppering the forum with little annoying items all over the place. OTOH, if I agree with the "IoT is a bad idea" concept, then again I would prefer that they were all put together so that I didn't have to go looking for them here and there and everywhere, with discussions broken up into bits and pieces and people having to link back and forth to other threads.

Regarding the idea of posting these news items on the front page instead:

1. Doubtlessly someone has access to the statistics: how much discussion do those front-page news items generate, relative to the Forum threads?
2. If NoelC or TELVM or I were to start posting, on the news page, news items that highlight the problems with Windows 10    and with Microsoft generally, that could give off the false impression that MSFN is an anti-Microsoft site. But if the same items are posted in a discussion forum, then they are correctly perceived as the poster's take on the situation.

Incidentally, I hope it's clear that I'm not trying to be argumentative for the sake of it, but that I am sincerely trying to understand the reasoning involved. 

--JorgeA

[Tripredacus]

7 hours ago, JorgeA said:

In "Deeper Impressions" we run a headline or a funny image about an item in the news, then comment on it. One item could be about UWP, the next about Win10 privacy controls. It doesn't make sense to put them together, and if another forum member wants to comment on just one of the items, he will now have to go in and manually delete all the other news items, otherwise people reading his comment won't know what he's talking about. And if in addition I also want to comment on what somebody else said in the thread, now that too will get dumped into the river of shifting subjects within the same post; and people replying to it will have to fish it out by hand so that others reading his reply can focus on what he said.

We share the same sentiment here, while yours is about posts, ours is about the entire thread.

Let's have this timeline of events over the years:
- There was a first impressions thread for Windows 8 that ended up being a catch-all for news and reactions to Windows 8. This was ok at the time.
- Separately, the Technology News section was a ghost-town and buried near the bottom of the sub-forum list.
- The frontpage news staff had fallen off and it was generally left to myself and Xper to put up posts. This is a problem for both of us because Xper was/is very busy person and I don't read up on tech news.
- People had noticed that news was not being updated as often on the frontpage. The frontpage gets a good amount of traffic and is an entry portal to the forum. Active front page = active forum in the eyes of visitors.
- Xper adds the ability for people to add news posts to the frontpage. As of this writing, with exception of bots, only Tihiy has attempted to make a news post that way.
- We started having database errors (if you remember SQL Driver error and forum downtime) and one of the problems was found the large "Impressions" thread was causing a lot of errors.
- So we locked the thread. People got upset, we moved the thread to GD and closed/made new ones when they get too big.

After that period when the thread was moved to GD, we still wanted a better way of handling it. So we see that many users are actually doing the same job that people would be doing of putting news on the frontpage. Instead of submitting it as a news items, they were posting in the thread. So you may remember being reached out to (among others) to post news, since it was what was being done in that thread.

Even now, with this new forum version there is the ability to create a news item on the frontpage, and it will create a thread on the forum so that people can discuss it.

Regarding content for news posts, News should be posted without opinion. You can let opinion be made in the discussion. So if you wanted to post a news article about how Windows 10 will disable the built-in Administrator account after an update, you would just be stating fact. There is no opinion in the matter. Surely it would be nice to post all sorts of news, not just bugs with an OS. And if these types of things are truly important to people, then they are fine news items.

[jaclaz]

@Tripredacus
I am really sorry to have contributed - in some cases dramatically - to create such relevant problems and/or any inconvenience to you, xper or any other good board admin. 

It would however make little sense (to me) to disseminate the board "news" with non-opinionated copy/pastes of technology news, unconnected the one to the other and each one duplicated in to single "discussion", as the scope (if any) was to "keep things together".

Specifically the "Iot is a bad idea" thread - surprisingly - was backed up by a "plan", i.e. to propose a thesis and provide a number of examples supporting that thesis, while allowing other members to comment both on the thesis and on the examples provided.

All these years believing that a "discussion board" was a place where people exchanged knowledge, ideas and opinions, that "technology news sites" were places where news were published, and that  MSFN was intended to be somewhat different from "Hacker News" or from *any* blog, and - again - sorry  I completely failed to understand the points that you have now so eloquently explained.

As a side note - I also contributed to create other extremely long threads, such as:
http://www.msfn.org/board/topic/120444-how-to-install-windows-from-usb-winsetupfromusb-with-gui/

(86 pages right now) and:
http://www.msfn.org/board/topic/128807-the-solution-for-seagate-720011-hdds/

(194 pages right now),
I have to apologize for having contributed to database errors and/or making the board unavailable to users.

Unless of course the databases engine is OK with long technical topics, but selectively sensitive to loooong threads containing matters that would be better scattered among a zillion threads/posts/news articles.

Can you please close the "Iot is a bad idea" topic?

jaclaz

[Tripredacus]

There is no reason to close the IoT thread. It isn't so big now but fits the same mold as the Impressions thread.

[jaclaz]

3 minutes ago, Tripredacus said:

There is no reason to close the IoT thread. It isn't so big now but fits the same mold as the Impressions thread.

Good, then leave it open, it was just a suggestion to avoid anyone posting on it by mistake.

jaclaz

 

[Tripredacus]

Right, if it were a critical issue, the thread would have been closed already.

But it is good we can have discussions about these type of things in this section, as we all have different views about it. We can all have input on how to make it better.

[jaclaz]

35 minutes ago, Tripredacus said:

Right, if it were a critical issue, the thread would have been closed already.

But it is good we can have discussions about these type of things in this section, as we all have different views about it. We can all have input on how to make it better.

Well, we are not really having a discussion, but it's good as well .

jaclaz
 

[bphlpt]

CharlotteTheHarlot would be having a total conniption fit at the statements, in this thread and others, from the staff regarding these megathreads.

While I understand the reasoning that such threads make it very difficult to link posts to the news and the FrontPage portion of the site, like jaclaz and others, I do not consider MSFN to be a news site, as such.  While I acknowledge that many folks might enter the site through the FrontPage, I never do, so I never look at any of the articles posted there.  I also acknowledge that when the news articles were only updated very infrequently, there were comments made by the general public, both here and elsewhere, that MSFN was a joke and wasn't current, since the "news" was outdated.  Personally, I would take the approach of ditching the FrontPage and news section completely and focus only on the forum. The information I come to MSFN for is gotten through the interaction with knowledgeable, experienced technical people, and it gives me a chance to share what little knowledge I have with those that need it.

But apparently MSFN is trying to be all things to all people, (maybe driven by the advertising revenue produced?).  I don't have a problem with that at all, and I think that xper totally deserves whatever income he can derive from his tireless efforts to support all of our interactions here.  But I disagree with having the structure of the forum dictated by the requirements of the news portion of the site.  As in most things, I fully support the rights of others to do what they want, even if they want to use Windows 10, as long as they don't hurt or interfere with the rights of others to do what they want, such as use older OS all the way back to Windows 95 or older, or even Mac or Linux. Back to the subject at hand, this of course applies to these megathreads.  I considered these megathreads in the same category as the Funny Farm or games sections that some other boards have - throw-away topics for idle chit-chat, casual reading, etc, and not the main purpose of the forum.  I mean look at the main page of the forum - (www msfn.org/board/) and see how many topics are available besides the General Discussion.  So I think it's a shame that the forum and the news section of the site can't act more independently, satisfying everyone.

But I guess if the board traffic has been declining, which I believe is true in many/most technical forums, and not as many folks are visiting and posting in all of those other technical areas, and revenue is decreasing as a result, and more activity is happening in the General Discussion topics, then I can understand the recent attention by the staff in trying to shape it up.  I also know that while many might say that the rules are new, I think they are in line with the Forum Rules, and it's just the enforcement which is new.  That doesn't matter to the member, if it's new there will be some that complain, even if that someone is me.

In a way, this also applies to the board software.  I think most of the complainers, including me, complain about changes that have been made that effect the part of the site that I use, the forum.  While I believe that the newer versions of IPB have mostly benefited the FrontPage and news portions of the site. (We'll ignore the "wonderful" support "provided" by the good IPB folks, but that's between them and xper.) And if the board software has problems with long threads, (and doesn't with a vast number of little threads?), then maybe IPB isn't the best board software to use.  Again, I take the argument of it's fine to make changes that you need in other areas as long as it doesn't detrimentally affect what I need to do in my area.  Which, of course, goes right back to the decisions MS made when they created Windows 8 and after.  Add the store and apps if you want, but leave the friggin' desktop alone!  OK, end of rant.

Anyway, if the irreversible decision has been made as to the board's future direction and the software that has been chosen to take us there, then we'll either have to figure out how to deal with the problems that come up, or go elsewhere, again like Windows 10.  It will be a shame to lose the faithful Windows 9X group that have been stalwart members here as their ranks have dwindled.

All of the above is just my opinion.

Cheers and Regards

[jaclaz]

The (ab)use of Pareto Principe is a double edged sword.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pareto_principle

jaclaz

[xper]

1 hour ago, bphlpt said:

both here and elsewhere, that MSFN was a joke and wasn't current,

1 hour ago, bphlpt said:

But I guess if the board traffic has been declining, which I believe is true in many/most technical forums

You are probably right and because of that I'm thinking to completely shut down msfn.

[5eraph]

Sarcasm is sometimes hard to discern on a forum.  And I'm hoping that much of what I've read in this thread was meant in jest or just to prove a point.

I have to agree with the management here.  The occasional megathread may be feasible for giving opinions.  But honestly, how many people are willing to go through and read an entire 30+ page thread to understand a running joke or find a useful link?  For the health of the board and the software it runs, sometimes overly long threads need to be closed and restarted.  And efforts to reduce the number of posts in a thread need to be encouraged.  (Though I will grant that quoting multiple people was much simpler with bbcode than it is with the current system.)

And sometimes useful threads need to be split.  The POSReady 2009 updates thread is a good example.  It started off with a nice, narrow focus.  But it grew to become a catch-all help and troubleshooting thread; overflowing with barely related .NET, EMET and certificate discussions.

If you're a moderator then it behooves you to be proactive.  Direct the conversation and keep it on topic.  And convince your members of the benefits of keeping threads relatively short, when possible.

[jaclaz]

18 minutes ago, 5eraph said:

And convince your members of the benefits of keeping threads relatively short, when possible.

Single posts also. TL;DR lol bro, cool!
jaclaz

[N1K]

8 hours ago, xper said:

You are probably right and because of that I'm thinking to completely shut down msfn.

I find that hard to believe as long as it brings you income and I believe it still generates decent earnings  

You can easily sell this site for a nice amount rather than shut it down, so I don't see the point of your statement.