How about requiring [Serious] to be added to the titles of some AH threads?

xi5yvm0owc1s2b

jackofalltrades wrote: »

I think some posters want the forum to return to it's hayday, but the Internet has changed and I just can't see that happening.

I agree entirely with that.

There are evidently people who look back with rose-tinted glasses at "what AH used to be like," and imagine that if they only ban certain types of topics, threads, or posters that they can transport the forum back to its alleged golden age. That type of thinking is commonplace -- even Trump thinks that by banning people and building walls, he can return America to an imagined age of greatness -- but it never pans out the way its proponents imagine.

In fact, there's a general observable rule on Boards, which is that the more mods, rules, restrictions, and fussiness come to surround a forum, the less interested people become in posting in it. That kind of approach just kills posting communities -- and once you've done that, people drift off elsewhere.

OldGoat

Zoey Obnoxious Garter wrote: »

In fact, there's a general observable rule on Boards, which is that the more mods, rules, restrictions, and fussiness come to surround a forum, the less interested people become in posting in it. That kind of approach just kills posting communities -- and once you've done that, people drift off elsewhere.

To balance a freeing up of the users from rules you would have to allow mods more free reign too. Remove from them the responsibility of having to prove again and again that a user is being a dick, remove the need for transparency, remove the endless appeals. If you are a dick you get banned, end off, no reprieve, no arguments. It would make the mods life infinity easier too.

hullaballoo

Admin: Only members with at least 100 posts and 3 months' membership may post in Feedback.

Tangatagamadda Chaddabinga Bonga Bungo

It all went downhill as soon as the 'blast them with piss' was banned. That set the tone of the forum. It was the beacon from which all poster responses followed on from. It should be in the first line of any new charter. If you can't blast someone with piss, what can you do?

#BringBackBlastingYourMotherWithPiss #MakeAfterHoursGreatAgain

Princess Consuela Bananahammock

Beasty wrote: »

There's a wider question we've been contemplating. Rather than continuing to allow "serious" current topics in AH we are considering a separate "current affairs" forum. We've had previous Feedback discussions on this as a alternative to sending stuff to Politics Cafe. That would hopefully allow a bit more of the "fun" to return to AH hopefully without needing to tag what is serious and what is not

The ball's in my court though as I agreed to work on a charter and discuss options with the mod community

Its some time since I promised this though, and thus thread is a timely reminder

If you want the "fun" to return, I'd suggest a stronger policy against people speculating religion or ethnic background every time a crime thread shows up.

Harry Palmr

AH is now just another part of the info-war/culture war cesspit. It's rather disappointing that boards is so sleepy at the wheel. They must see what's going on.

RasTa

hullaballoo wrote: »

Admin: Only members with at least 100 posts and 3 months' membership may post in Feedback.

Can this be applied to AH?

Beasty

RasTa wrote: »

Can this be applied to AH?

It has been discussed on numerous occasions, and it has been made clear that we would not be doing that. The only way to enforce such a rule (other than causing the mods a lot more hassle) would be through an access request process. Look at the commentary in Feedback on Politics Café to get a feel for the views of the userbase on introducing something like that

I know there is one in place for Soccer, but that was introduced some time ago on the back of specific problems that plagued the forum

robarmstrong

Beasty wrote: »

It has been discussed on numerous occasions, and it has been made clear that we would not be doing that. The only way to enforce such a rule (other than causing the mods a lot more hassle) would be through an access request process. Look at the commentary in Feedback on Politics Café to get a feel for the views of the userbase on introducing something like that

I know there is one in place for Soccer, but that was introduced some time ago on the back of specific problems that plagued the forum

I don't think that would work too well even though it does seem like a solid idea, traffic in AH is a lot more noticeable than in Soccer, sure I have access to post in Soccer but I rarely post, just observe from a distance

100 posts and 3 months membership would be too extreme IMO, though that formula does work across other forums I've gone to. Would you consider maybe even the possibility of 10-15 posts or is it a set-in-stone no for that particular request?

Adding [Serious] to the titles of AH threads does sound like a great idea though and if anything I think it would make room for more of the light-hearted topics, if someone spots that a thread is [Serious] well then they know dossing about or taking the mick isn't encouraged in that particular discussion?

kneemos

Imo given the the decline in traffic 90% of all forums should be merged into one.
People gravitate to the busiest forum,so lump everything together so everyone can see what's happening on the site.

Captain Obvious

kneemos wrote: »

Imo given the the decline in traffic 90% of all forums should be merged into one.
People gravitate to the busiest forum,so lump everything together so everyone can see what's happening on the site.

I'd agree with this. As an example, gaming forums could be merged and tags used to greater effect.

Beasty

While I'm generally supportive of trying to cut out forums with little or no activity, I know, certainly in many of the Sports forums, there are communities (often relatively small) that appreciate their "own" space. Hence there may not be many posts in the likes of Cricket, Baseball and (sorry Tom:)) Rugby League, we have a small number of passionate followers of these sports. Trying to merge them into "General Sports" with tags will, I am pretty certain, mean these sports lose their identity within the site

Having said that I do think there are some "activity" rather than "spectator" based sports where posters are generally looking for info, and there is little in the way of continuing interest for some

Hence I can see a lot of sense in merging some of the Sports forums, and perhaps having tagging for some of them within "General Sports", I don't think there's a one size fits all solution across the site

However I certainly think it's worthy of (probably separate) discussion(s) (which could be at forum, category or site level depending on the nature of underlying topics, and the current userbase)

Tags across the entire site would be good for quiet sub-forums.

I run a big Discord server and we have to do cleanups when channels become quiet.

Peter Denham

What's the craic with thread titles being changed to random gibberish? Pretty annoying as sometimes the discussion is good and then it gets derailed by people talking about why the title was changed.

Baggly

I think there is a need for an open forum for serious discussion of issues and I think there is need for a forum to make fun of these issues.

I don't think AH is a melting pot where you can allow one to coexist alongside another. In fact I think piss taking impedes serious discussion and people giving out to the piss takers for not being serious impedes the piss taking.

I'd love to see the current affairs forum in action. I avoid AH as it is, but I'd give a more light hearted AH a go (and probably CA as well)

If there is to be a new forum, might I suggest it be called "After Hours Current Affairs" or similar, and be next to the regular AH link in menus.

People have muscle memory. At least make it highly visible.