Staying on topic idea/feature?

[rhino]

A lot of times threads start veering off topic because someone wants to reply to something that was mentioned that isn't specifically related to the original post.

A nice feature would be if there was option to start a new thread from a REPLY which would make it easier for individuals to keep a conversation going on a new thread. The message being replied to would still be quoted and members who posted in that original thread would also be added as watcher to the new thread. I've seen in past some mods manually move messages to a new thread but this would give that ability to the poster themselves.

 

[timselectric]

When I was a teenager. I had all kinds of posters on my bedroom walls.
............. crap, we do need this feature.

 

[cs1234]

Sounds nice, but it requires the person replying to voluntarily do it. As one of the largest offenders of off topic replies (generally to other off topic replies), I can't imagine how many spawned off sub threads would start. Maybe just one sub thread per original thread? Could have the prefix (off topic nonsense) or something added to it and automatically be moved to the off topic chit chat subforum.

 

[gotbeans]

Yea threaded discussions/replies are embed in a ton of chats these days. Used to be on forums too but they seem to have disappeared over the years

I don't see any xenforo addons for this though. The problem in forums is the tons of excess threads get read less. It'd almost make more sense to flag posts as "direct on topic" vs "chit chat" and the user be able to toggle those on/off but I've never seen that feature though it seems easy to implement

 

[cs1234]

Yea threaded discussions/replies are embed in a ton of chats these days. Used to be on forums too but they seem to have disappeared over the years

I don't see any xenforo addons for this though. The problem in forums is the tons of excess threads get read less. It'd almost make more sense to flag posts as "direct on topic" vs "chit chat" and the user be able to toggle those on/off but I've never seen that feature though it seems easy to implement

Maybe a voting type system that just "hides" them, but has them still in the main thread. If enough people flag it as off topic, it auto hides it so the mods don't have to work as hard. Any replies beneath one of those hidden sub threads are also automatically hidden.. like how reddit does it.

 

[cs1234]

Spoiler: You would just see a bunch of this type of thing.

Hidden content because it's off topic.

 

[cs1234]

Spoiler: And like this, because I'm always off topic.

Hidden content because it's off topic.

 

[gotbeans]

It works but it's easily abused =/

 

[SparkyJJO]

I try to stay on topic as much as I.... <looks out the window> OHHH, SUNSHINE DID YOU SEE THE SUNSHINE?!? WEEEEeeeee.... <goes to count the kWh>

 

[robby]

A lot of times threads start veering off topic because someone wants to reply to something that was mentioned that isn't specifically related to the original post.

A nice feature would be if there was option to start a new thread from a REPLY which would make it easier for individuals to keep a conversation going on a new thread. The message being replied to would still be quoted and members who posted in that original thread would also be added as watcher to the new thread. I've seen in past some mods manually move messages to a new thread but this would give that ability to the poster themselves.

This feature does not exist in the XenForo software and I doubt that they are going to add it for just one forum.

 

[Hedges]

Ancient message boards I used before the Era of Enlightenment were a tree that could be traversed, with responses to responses. That was back in the '80's, when they were plain text. These newfangled ones are linear, although they may refer back (but there is no forward reference.)

 

[gotbeans]

Ancient message boards I used before the Era of Enlightenment were a tree that could be traversed, with responses to responses. That was back in the '80's, when they were plain text. These newfangled ones are linear, although they may refer back (but there is no forward reference.)

hacker news, reddit, lemmy and all that are more like it used to be.

I think running a lemmy or anything else instance would turn a lot of people off to even wanting to register unfortunately

 

[cs1234]

It works but it's easily abused =/

You would have to have a strict policy enforced by moderators.. if you vote it's off topic, just to be mean to somebody, temporary booting. This would be checked by moderators only when the person flagged as off topic complains about it. If the person that complains about being voted off topic, is judged to have been off topic, temporary booting. Need to have minimum number of posts and account age to be even be allowed to vote that it's off topic. Like little mini moderators.

Nobody is going to voluntarily flag their own post off topic as they are posting it.

Personally, the off topic posts don't bother me. But I'm one of the offenders, and it's not my board.

 

[robby]

hacker news, reddit, lemmy and all that are more like it used to be.

I think running a lemmy or anything else instance would turn a lot of people off to even wanting to register unfortunately

I have seen Forums this size go from Thousands of users online per day down to just a a Dozen or so over a three year period.
The reason? The owner decided he was going to get more involved and "Clean Up The Place". (BTW he uses the same software as this place)

Once the thread locks, Post Removals and Banning's started it was not more than a year until the Forum lost roughly half of it's members.
After that it was a continual slide as people left because some of their favorite members Left or had been booted.
This year they lost 3 of the most Interesting remaining members due to a thread being locked and now it's just a few dull people that are left still doing active posting. A frigging shell of what it was years ago and now it's a money losing machine instead of the six figure generator it was in it's prime.

I visit there maybe twice a year because the archive of old info still has some value, but it's value diminishes with every year that passes.

Update
Just took a quick look back at the Site and it has 639,000 Threads and 6.4 Million Messages in it's largest section and the average in each of the 9 main sections is about 2 million Messages each.
Lifetime Forum Stats around 2 Million Threads and 19.5 Million Posts compared to this places 68K Thread and less than 1 Million Posts.
Today that forum has about roughly 50 Posts in the last 24 hours and most are from the same small group of people.

Lesson here is don't ever think that your going to Ban and Lock your way into success. Once members don't feel comfortable they move on and once you loose the people who make the forum interesting or those who can provide help and answers your forum is dead.

 

[45North]

The comments might be valuable, so let's call them "digressions" rather than "off topic" which has negative connotations and, strictly speaking, shouldn't be there at all.
Another issue: who gets to decide?

 

[timselectric]

Me, me
Pick me
Lmao

 

[gotbeans]

I have seen Forums this size go from Thousands of users online per day down to just a a Dozen or so over a three year period.
The reason? The owner decided he was going to get more involved and "Clean Up The Place". (BTW he uses the same software as this place)

Once the thread locks, Post Removals and Banning's started it was not more than a year until the Forum lost roughly half of it's members.
After that it was a continual slide as people left because some of their favorite members Left or had been booted.
This year they lost 3 of the most Interesting remaining members due to a thread being locked and now it's just a few dull people that are left still doing active posting. A frigging shell of what it was years ago and now it's a money losing machine instead of the six figure generator it was in it's prime.

I visit there maybe twice a year because the archive of old info still has some value, but it's value diminishes with every year that passes.

Update
Just took a quick look back at the Site and it has 639,000 Threads and 6.4 Million Messages in it's largest section and the average in each of the 9 main sections is about 2 million Messages each.
Lifetime Forum Stats around 2 Million Threads and 19.5 Million Posts compared to this places 68K Thread and less than 1 Million Posts.
Today that forum has about roughly 50 Posts in the last 24 hours and most are from the same small group of people.

Lesson here is don't ever think that your going to Ban and Lock your way into success. Once members don't feel comfortable they move on and once you loose the people who make the forum interesting or those who can provide help and answers your forum is dead.

Yea that's been seen all over. places like d2jsp (which is far bigger of a forum) lost everything interesting (only exists due to poor in game trading now)
yea but quantity != quality either, like the "second life storage" forum lots of fantastic informative threads but it isn't that active of a forum.

This site has a good community and, apart from the people in the chit chat zone, have great informative posts and a wealth of information that you can't get elsewhere.

The Large XenForo Forums List

This is a list of large forums running XenForo software. The lists in the next few posts are no longer being updated but feel free to add your site to the thread. The following key denotes the original software: XenForo vBulletin IPB phpBB MyBB SMF Other

xenforo.com

Which one is it??!?!

 

[gotbeans]

The comments might be valuable, so let's call them "digressions" rather than "off topic" which has negative connotations and, strictly speaking, shouldn't be there at all.
Another issue: who gets to decide?

I will decide with

Me, me
Pick me
Lmao

tim as my partner, everything he says is off topic I will say is on topic. Together we will null out everything and thus no modifications to the forum need to be made

 

[robby]

The Large XenForo Forums List

This is a list of large forums running XenForo software. The lists in the next few posts are no longer being updated but feel free to add your site to the thread. The following key denotes the original software: XenForo vBulletin IPB phpBB MyBB SMF Other

xenforo.com

Which one is it??!?!

I don't know if if it's on that list but it's reefcentral.com
All of those old users are now on reef2reef after the RC owner started to get involved and eventually banned one particular Member who then decided to start his own Reef Aquarium Forum to get revenge. The reefcentral owner then stupidly helped fuel the growth of the other Forum by getting even more paranoid with members and by Locking even more Threads and Banning even more members for the slightest thing.
His worst mistake was getting completely involved in the daily activity and posts on the Forum. It soon felt like being at your Parents House.
You could not talk freely without knowing he would jump in if you came close to the rails.
He kept on going until it went into a free fall. It's pretty Amazing how quickly a forum can go from Thousands of Posts per day to Hundreds. It is an exponential process when people start to get a bad vibe about a place and leave.

Today it's the new Forum guy is the one making Six figures and hosting a Ton of Sponsors. He got them because he uses a much more relaxed hands off approach.
The Owner Revtree does not get into it with the members, he has the Mods do it and they are instructed to have a light touch and keep things friendly.
Yeah threads derail all the time but people usually have their answer long before that happens.

 

[cs1234]

Maybe we could just ask ChatGPT if every thread is still on topic.. if it says no, lock it down.