FirmhandKY
Posts: 8948
Joined: 9/21/2004
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FR:
Some good stuff. Some not so good stuff.
1. Contributions and Donations: Have it available, for the people who wish, but let their reward be the inner glow of "doing good".
2. I vote for Hanners as a moderator. I think that many fail to see how sharp and incisive she is. She often hides behind her favorite word, but I've not seen a single post of hers (and, admittedly, I've not seen all of them) in which I thought she was not on-point, logical and went to the heart of the matter.
3. Search. Currently, this function of the forums absolutely sucks. I could give many examples, but the primary is limiting the number of results to 300. Perhaps this is due to concerns about how much server capacity it would use to do more, but if it allowed you to find all of a certain screen-name, that would be the first step (thereby allowing each individual to find "all" of their own posts).
Another problem with the Search function is that it doesn't always seem to work IAW standard boolean search methods.
For example, I'll know that I posted a certain word in a post, and search for all of my posts with that word, in the forum that I know I made it. No results. I'll try another word, and then another word, and eventually I'll find the post. In that post will also be all the words that I originally search for, and for which the results came back negative. This could be a lot of things, including a poor indexing system. Regardless, it's pretty (Hanner) frustrating.
4. gungadin09 Post #: 104: i like the idea of fast reply automatically registering as a reply to the OP, instead of the person above.
Seconded (or thirded, or fourthed, or whatever)
5. Keep the number of sub-forums to the minimum number as possible. However, a strictly moderated Newbie forum is a good idea.
6. Limit the number of threads a person can start over a 24 hour period. Five seems like a good number. It's more than I want to see from some posters, even so.
7. Do not lock old threads simply to be "locking" them. Part of the fun is seeing what some people drag up sometimes. This makes the forums interesting. Another reason is that having to "ask permission" of the mods increases their workload, and will likely very rarely happen, and sometimes it is perfectly fine to bring up an old thread. Management by exception, rather than by rule.
Putting a symbol or some kind of notice on or next to the title after a certain period of time has elapsed? (thanks Marc2b) Fine. Then, people who don't want to be tricked (i.e. fail to actually read) can go about their merry way. Make the symbol a zombie, or ghost. 
8. ChatteParfaitt Post #: 49: I would like to see an enforced rule that you must make a certain number of posts before you can start a new thread.
Disagree. Will discourage new members. We have enough to discourage them already. The assumption is that a new poster isn't ... "up to standards", when the truth is, a lot of new posters exceed the standards already, compared to some long term posters. You can say it the other way, but I'm more concerned about discouraging new members, than I am sparing veteran members.
9. Arpig Post #: 25: Polls should be allowed to stay in whatever forum they best fit on the basis of subject matter.
Agreed. Not sure why it was ever changed to the way it is. Makes no sense, and disrupts the flow.
10. Stickies, voting for, nominating threads and post, putting individual posters "on trial" et al.
Some good concepts here, done right. What's "right"? Depends on how they are implemented, how much code is required, and sometimes, how people react to them.
I like the idea of allowing some threads to be "stickies", but its true that this can overwhelming, and knock off the ongoing threads. I'd suggest only allowing a very few stickies, primarily for current events, and admin information. The rest could go to "Stickie" heaven, in a separate location.
I'm more interested in having a rating system for specific posts and/or posters, that can be searched by rank. If a particularly interesting or otherwise excellent post is made by someone, then give people a chance to "Like" or "Not like" it, without attribution. Then allow the search function to give the rank order of "highest liked" or "lowest liked" post in the entire forum, in a sub-forum or by individual poster.
There are some more nuances, and things you could do with this concept, but that's the core.
Another idea to consider ... having a something in a posters information area (where your avatar and post count is) show a level of "liked" based on overall post ranking history. Another ... showing a count of the number of times that a poster got a "gold note". This is because there is really little feedback to show that the mods are actively policing, other than the disappearance of a post or thread, or a warning in a thread.
If, every time a poster had a complaint, or received "helpful guidance" or had a post pulled ... it would show that "something is going on", even if not the details.
Of course, you might have to be careful of people trying to "earn" as much attention as they could get, but that's not really any different than now, and can be solved in the same way. Except, then, if they got banned, you could show a big black "X" over all their information. 
Food for thought, anyway.
Firm
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