One-answer threads - what to do about them?

[Noahaha]

Well clearly 4/5th should matter more than 1/5th... You can't make everyone happy no matter what you do

Don't forget that people who agree with the OP are much more likely to vote than those who don't.

 

[KongShou]

So....OP wants to scrap the oaqt completely and let noobs create a new thread every time they have a question that has been answered 100^100^100 times and the answer is easily accessible via either the search function or a little research, not strictly limited to this forum, so that this forum will be helpfully clotted with useless noob threads that are useful to everybody and make it easy and a joy to read, contribute and navigate, even through almost everyone on this forum disagree but clearly this is a majority opinion so we should carry it out right now in order to avoid people leaving this forum because it is helpful

I'm all in

 

[Kit Clement]

I'm not greatly opposed to OAQT or megathreads, but I do find them a bit inefficient. If I were running this forum, this is what I would have done:

1. Set up a category/section called "Simple/One Answer Questions"
2. Don't allow threads from this forum to appear on the home screen
3. Move any OAQT-like thread to this forum
4. Go crazy

 

[Kirjava]

2. Don't allow threads from this forum to appear on the home screen

Then they get less activity than OAQT.

 

[Kit Clement]

Most questions in OAQT get only one response anyway, so how can you get any less activity per question? I'm sure that questions in this format wouldn't be left unanswered any more than they do now, and it would allow for questions to get more answers and promote discussion if the question leads to that.

 

[Sa967St]

I'm not greatly opposed to OAQT or megathreads, but I do find them a bit inefficient. If I were running this forum, this is what I would have done:

1. Set up a category/section called "Simple/One Answer Questions"
2. Don't allow threads from this forum to appear on the home screen
3. Move any OAQT-like thread to this forum
4. Go crazy

That would be interesting, but it would probably encourage new cubers to make a thread every time they have a simple question without trying to search for it first. It would also contribute to the mass amount of pointless threads, which negatively affects the forum's overall quality.

 

[Noahaha]

That would be interesting, but it would probably encourage new cubers to make a thread every time they have a simple question without trying to search for it first. It would also contribute to the mass amount of pointless threads, which negatively affects the forum's overall quality.

I agree, especially since these threads would still clutter the search results.

 

[aceofspades98]

87 percent of every one that voted doesn't want them closed, with 74 percent wants them to stay the same. Nothing is going to change. Could we just close this thread please?

 

[Kit Clement]

That would be interesting, but it would probably encourage new cubers to make a thread every time they have a simple question without trying to search for it first. It would also contribute to the mass amount of pointless threads, which negatively affects the forum's overall quality.

Yeah, that's fair. But if you think of it kind of like the recycling bin of the forum, it wouldn't really decrease forum quality. People who don't really want to see these threads won't have to, it would just be aside the rest of the current forum.

And in our system we get those that create new threads anyway, why not give them a place to create new threads? I can see why you'd think it would encourage people to make new threads, but I think that giving them a place to make threads will prevent them from posting threads where we don't want to see them.

And regardless of setup, people who don't want to search for things still won't search for things. But I do feel like users would find searching a list of threads more reasonable and plausible than a list of posts. And most people who look for an answer here will see that there aren't very "noobish" thread titles and just think that their questions aren't there.

Again, I'm not dead set against megathreads, they do a good job of keeping the forums cleaner. But I do think that they're far from the best solution and create problems themselves.

I agree, especially since these threads would still clutter the search results.

I'm not totally familiar with the search system, but under single content type, you could exclude categories on the forum. This isn't available under multiple content type from what I can tell, but if that is a serious limitation then implementing this system would definitely be an annoyance to searches.

 

[speedcuber50]

So....OP wants to scrap the oaqt completely

No. I originally voted that I thought they should be left open for those who want to post in them, but to stop moving questions which want MORE THAN ONE ANSWER (a.k.a. a decent answer) into them.