The Future of Speedsolving Forum Archive and Needed Maintenance

[Christopher Mowla]

Dear all,

I begin by saying that I am not complaining, but I mean well for our current community and for our future community.

I have been skimming through the general cubing discussion and off-topic forums the past day or so, just seeing if I can dig up some good threads out of the bunch which suit my personal tastes, and I found some regarding parity discussions of which I will add to the wiki.

However, as I was searching, I noticed some threads and partially read them out of curiosity. To my surprise, several are just taking up space, as I cannot fathom how their continued presence on the domain benefits anyone in any way, shape, or form. I break down my argument of why I think so into the following three parts.

Final Notes
I am an organizer. A mega organizer. (That's pretty much how I have accomplished what I have: I am an expert at organizing chaos.) If the admin approves of me (or members like me who want to organize) to do something about any of the following concerns (maybe I would have to be upgraded to being a "daemon mod", let me know how we should go about doing this. I don't usually have a lot of free time these days like I used to, but I can periodically work on this "project" until it gets done.

My ultimate concern is to keep our forums useful to members who haven't even joined yet.

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Are the admin willing to take suggestions on moving threads from one forum to another?
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Example
As I was going through the off-topic discussion forum, I found this thread and this thread (there are probably more that I either missed or haven't got to yet) which I believe really belong in puzzle theory.

Maybe we could use this thread or pms to say which threads need to be moved from one forum to another?

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Why we are keeping some threads?
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Example 1:
Why are threads like this and this still on the forum (not deleted)? Every hyperlink (which was the main source of both the purpose and the conversation of the thread) is expired/broken.

Example 2:
Threads with little to no contributing content, knowledge, etc. and/or of which the thread starter asked to close or delete.
Threads like this.

Example 3:
Threads that are gossip, rude, and contribute nothing but bad to our beloved community.
Threads like this.

Example 4:
Threads that do not contribute anything at all and never will apply in the future. (It's even illogical for someone to reply to the thread in the future).
Threads like this.

Example 5:
Old non-cube related current events. I say "non-cube related" because I believe every cubing current event may one day be compiled by various cubing enthusiasts into a documentary of some kind, and thus all of the WR threads, for example, are fine to stay. But I don't see how threads like the following merit taking up space forever.

May I first say that, unlike the threads listed previously, I kind of can come up with a reason to keep threads like this, but I'm pretty sure these type of threads may only matter to those who participated. I believe it might be proper to contact all participants and ask if they can be deleted, but I would certainly have no objections if they were not contacted.

Example 6:
Small threads that can be merged. I have seen dozens of "math help" threads in the off-topic discussion that I cannot understand why they all can't just be merged into a single thread or deleted altogether.

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Why are we not locking old threads?
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I'm sure most threads in the off-topic discussion which are not closed/locked already should be locked because I'm pretty sure if anyone bumped most of these threads, his or her post would be deleted or they would get complaints.

So why not lock all threads which responses are not desired?

As a matter of fact, there are many such related (small) threads which can be merged into one large thread. So if indeed these threads are going to be locked sometime in the future, why not simply merge them as one and rename the thread to label all of the posts within more appropriately (especially if they are about the same topic)?

The reasoning behind this "proposal" is, if we do not want them to bump these very old threads to begin with, and we agree to lock them, why can't we merge them together in a single locked thread which will make all related content easily accessible for those who are interested. (If they find the mega thread, they see all that there is on our forums about that topic.)

EDIT:
800th post. Wow, I never thought I would see the day when I had so many!

 

[Brest]

If you want to notify the moderation team of a problem, then please use the Report Post button.

 

[Christopher Mowla]

If you want to notify the moderation team of a problem, then please use the Report Post button.

Why cannot members like me notify you all of what needs to be done (especially if it is a similar task) in bulk rather than post-by-post? There is a lot of problems and/or suggestions for the content at hand. Do you want to receive dozens (if not hundreds) of reports about the same thing?

If I do this, I will most likely go through the forums looking for one "bad thing" in particular at a time, as I don't want to get a headache thinking of everything wrong with any given thread.

EDIT:
And it is not possible for me to say how to "fix" certain problems via a report post button.

 

[Brest]

When threads are in the wrong sub-forum, like the two examples in your first field, then by all means report them. Especially if worthwhile threads are in the off-topic section.

If there are threads which break the forum rules, then please report these as well.

If a new thread is created about a subject that already has a discussion, then these should usually be merged together. Please report these.

Old threads with meaningful discussions should remain, even if those discussions involve broken hyperlinks or removed videos. This is the history of the forum and should not be removed.

Why cannot members like me notify you all of what needs to be done (especially if it is a similar task) in bulk rather than post-by-post?

I'm not sure how different this would be. For each issue a link to the thread or post would need to be provided. Why not just use a system which is already in place?

There is a lot of problems and/or suggestions for the content at hand. Do you want to receive dozens (if not hundreds) of reports about the same thing?

If I do this, I will most likely go through the forums looking for one "bad thing" in particular at a time, as I don't want to get a headache thinking of everything wrong with any given thread.

I think that many of the things which you are pointing out are not problematic. If you want to spend time looking for "bad things" then that is up to you, but please note that the moderation team may not agree with your suggestions.

And it is not possible for me to say how to "fix" certain problems via a report post button.

When you report a post you can give as much detail as necessary to describe the problem.

 

[MoyuFTW]

Well that would be a very big job (Merging everything) there's 4000+ threads ... When it's only bothering a few people, is it worth organising all that?

 

[Dene]

I think you should let go of your desperate need to organise things in this case. No harm, no foul.

 

[pjk]

Chris, we appreciate your suggestions and feedback, and I apologize for the delay in replying as I've been in Indonesia for the last month. More often than not though, like Brest said, it is better to report threads when a move/edit/merge needs to happen. This is simply the most effective way to deal with posts on a wide scale. You making this post is fine too, but if everyone did as such it would be confusing to know who is talking about which threads, while if you report a thread, our system puts all reports for a particular thread into 1 thread that all moderators can discuss.

Regarding older threads that may not have use - while they *may* not have use, they also may in the future. You never know. Not only that, keeping older posts doesn't have a downside since most older posts do have some value. A post like the "speedsolving downtime" would be useful if you wanted to know about past discussion of speedsolving downtimes. Because we don't know what the future holds, keeping old discussions can have value later on and are often worth saving.

One of the most difficult things in managing a community is culture. How do you ensure there is useful discussion happening, without limiting free discussion? Speedsolving.com is a community project, built by a group of people who have contributed to make it possible. It can't be run by one person, and it isn't perfect. As sites grow, how you categorize posts, how you moderate, how you build a team, how you report and deal with posts, etc. are all things that have to be considered on a regular basis. New members are constantly coming in and older ones moving on to other things.

The best thing we can do is setup a platform that enables the community to contribute, the wiki being a perfect example of what the community is capable of.

If you have other suggestions to make the site better, we'd love to hear them. Also, if anyone is interested in joining the moderating team, working on technical backend stuff like upgrades, or wants to contribute to the site in other ways, please shoot me a message. We could use a few more people.