Bill on the Governor's desk: Remove request threads

Bozo · 05-29-2013

Position: Delete request threads and have requests be created as individual topics.

Request threads in theory are for the betterment of the community but in practice really serve only one purpose: to fulfill the need of a single requester. That's a good thing. The bad thing is that anyone else who wants to discover nonspecific content within them has to trawl through the dozens of pages in these threads. It defeats the purpose of the forum experience if you can't tell -at a glance- which topics interest you and which don't. Is it a picture? Is it a video? Is it a story? Will these next 10 pages contain anything I might want to see? You can't know without diving in and it shouldn't have to be that way. And add to that the confabulation that goes on within the thread. There's a string of posts that may be trying to track down certain content and interwoven between them are posts having to do with another request. It's mayhem in these threads.

The first counterargument that comes up is, "But then won't the fora be overrun with request topics?" The response to this is twofold. First, new Process content is difficult to come by. Speaking at least for the TF and Growth fora, they've been just short of dead, with new stuff barely trickling in. Combine this with the second fact that the request threads are actually pretty active in terms of content being posted, at times moreso than the threads in the respective forum, but not to the point of spam. If these requests were sequestered to their own topics, you could find exactly what interests you. And as a plus it makes the fora appear to be more active, or rather, reveals their true activity better.

The way to implement this is to simply close the request threads but keep them available for viewing to preserve the content that's already there. All the same rules for requests in new threads apply, e.g., do a thorough search first, don't necro, etc.

One may ask why the request threads exist in the first place. Some time ago, this was a much more active place. During the heydays of the Process, when you saw a new thread you could be sure there was some new content in there. So when requests began popping up, essentially contentless creations asking for the things that we're all coming here for anyway, people began complaining. We didn't want to see new threads that we didn't have an immediate stake in.

Since then, two things have changed: first, as I've said, things have slowed down. Second, people have been answering requests on a regular basis. Content is content. There are lots of new members coming in, younger guys and girls who wouldn't consider this stuff reposts.

I'll open up the floor now to other members who may want to add to this.

05-29-2013	#1
Bozo Banned Join Date: Jun 2005 Location: NYC, NJ Posts: 2,266	Bill on the Governor's desk: Remove request threads Position: Delete request threads and have requests be created as individual topics. Request threads in theory are for the betterment of the community but in practice really serve only one purpose: to fulfill the need of a single requester. That's a good thing. The bad thing is that anyone else who wants to discover nonspecific content within them has to trawl through the dozens of pages in these threads. It defeats the purpose of the forum experience if you can't tell -at a glance- which topics interest you and which don't. Is it a picture? Is it a video? Is it a story? Will these next 10 pages contain anything I might want to see? You can't know without diving in and it shouldn't have to be that way. And add to that the confabulation that goes on within the thread. There's a string of posts that may be trying to track down certain content and interwoven between them are posts having to do with another request. It's mayhem in these threads. The first counterargument that comes up is, "But then won't the fora be overrun with request topics?" The response to this is twofold. First, new Process content is difficult to come by. Speaking at least for the TF and Growth fora, they've been just short of dead, with new stuff barely trickling in. Combine this with the second fact that the request threads are actually pretty active in terms of content being posted, at times moreso than the threads in the respective forum, but not to the point of spam. If these requests were sequestered to their own topics, you could find exactly what interests you. And as a plus it makes the fora appear to be more active, or rather, reveals their true activity better. The way to implement this is to simply close the request threads but keep them available for viewing to preserve the content that's already there. All the same rules for requests in new threads apply, e.g., do a thorough search first, don't necro, etc. One may ask why the request threads exist in the first place. Some time ago, this was a much more active place. During the heydays of the Process, when you saw a new thread you could be sure there was some new content in there. So when requests began popping up, essentially contentless creations asking for the things that we're all coming here for anyway, people began complaining. We didn't want to see new threads that we didn't have an immediate stake in. Since then, two things have changed: first, as I've said, things have slowed down. Second, people have been answering requests on a regular basis. Content is content. There are lots of new members coming in, younger guys and girls who wouldn't consider this stuff reposts. I'll open up the floor now to other members who may want to add to this. __________________ Real niggas do real thangs.