Decrease moderation of suggestions forum

Hey guys,

As we all are aware, sythe is in a bit of a pickle, growth isn't exactly our strong point, it feels the past few years, especially since I've been active on this account, that we've just been surviving.

This suggestion is to try and keep the creative and innovative thinking active, currently it's quite regular to see suggestions get shut down pretty quickly, for various reasons, mainly DNS but other times its because the Admins do not think the idea is feasible. Instead of closing these threads, instead just give your opinion, express what you think is wrong with the suggestions and/or provide alternatives or tweaks.

Just closing a thread and denying discussion can be rather discouraging for members who are trying a damn sight a lot harder than some of the current staff, even admins, to keep this site growing.

Don't alienate people with ideas, encourage them

Just because you can close it, doesn't mean you should, just because you disagree, it shouldn't be denied. Just because it won't work in its current form doesn't mean it could change throughout conversation (see staff discussions on when we change policy)

 

I do agree, some suggestions which could have some further input are closed as soon as a Global or Administrator replies. I'm fine with the blatently obvious/DNS list suggestions being closed straight away, but yes, some (I.E. iJava's SRB one in my opinion) should've been permitted to have more input.

 

Eh, majority of the suggestions are closed for the right reason. I haven't really seen a good suggestion in a while that deserved to be stayed open.

Although, I do believe iJava's suggestion should've been locked.

 

There's only one reason why suggestions should be closed and that's if they are on the do not suggest list, just because a suggestion doesn't seem good doesn't mean it could be changed to work, what if a suggestion pops up and it's okay bit not perfect so it gets locked, there is now no chance of that sub par suggestion ever being evolved or even noticed by those who could implement it

 

I agree. However Ideas and innovation wont do much for Sythe any longer. It's either advertisement, or watch Sythe die, which none of us want.

 

The biggest problem is how ideas are approached. People only point out what is wrong with ideas, and how they won't work, when in reality to be successful people need to take these ideas, and figure out how to make them work so that they can benefit the site.

Also @sellerman pure advertisement is the only way to grow a site, so please stop bringing that up like it's the only option possible.

 

You can do hundreds of things to Sythe to improve it that don't involve advertising.

 

Yes, hundreds of things can be done to improve Syhte, no doubt about that. However, the thing that will bring in members and increase traffic to the site will be advertisement. 100% guaranteed. Speaking from personal experience here, being part of a site with an average 1000 on forums at peak, and 500 off peak.

 

www.forum.ragezone.com - There are currently 3101 users online. 467 members and 2634 guests

That's a forum I frequent at a non-peak time. They do absolutely ZERO advertising. It has nothing to do with how well you advertise.

 

It's a different story

They main reason why I see decreasing activity is because the main market, which is gold selling has moved to the top traders sites and PA, while there's no incoming new & legit members into the market.

I'm supporting this suggestion, specially because conditions change, things change, people change. Giving the opportunity to ideas is in fact, a clever idea. :idea:

 

I'm not saying paid advertising wouldn't work. There's just many ways that could be even better, and cost nothing.

 

Oh yeah, I'm not disagreeing with you on that. ^_^

 

Show me one situation where people don't do this
People criticize ideas in order to improve them, you can't both work on improving an idea and not criticizing it at all, since inherently criticizing an idea is effectively the only way to improve an idea and you can't improve an idea without criticizing it.
Comparatively, on Sythe I see a lot of people just saying "Support this would be a great idea" and not so many negative opinions as on other places.
Basically the optimal solution would be to do something along the lines of a pardon system for suggestions - If staff deem it even remotely reasonable, then it needs to have a thread made in the staff lounge and voting regarding it and tweaks to it should be made.
Basically forcing suggestions to go through some sort of process where they are all looked at and not left hanging or closed.

 

Noam is right, criticising an idea is the only way that a suggestion can be molded and changed so it works.

However, the criticism actually has to be kind of valid and needs to be more than just "This wouldnt work on sythe, sorry" - I think even going as far as infracting that as spam, its pretty much just like 'I support/Don't support' spam.

If you say something won't work, you need to justify why you think it wouldn't work, but rather than trying to shut down the idea, we need to try and modify it so its something we all would like to see.

 

I didn't say there shouldn't be criticism. I said there should be constructive criticism instead. Right now any idea that has flaws is denied because of those flaws. This is not productive at all. Instead, we should be finding those flaws and figuring out how to fix them instead of just saying fuck it and denying it all together.

 

Hey Karl I am glad you posted this because if it was someone less known the it probably would have been ignored or locked soon lol

I agree with what you said and think people have to have an open mind before even coming into the suggestion forum. I also believe criticism is a good way to make an idea better instead of totally shooting it down.

After my suggestion that I didn't get to work out I was discouraged. After that I kind of felt unless it was something that they viewed worthy it would be a waste of time. So if you want more suggestions and more ideas I think it would be a good idea to take this to heart.

Btw you might be thinking just because there are more suggestions doesn't mean there will be any good ideas, but chances grow of someone suggesting a good idea as suggestions grow.

Thanks Karl

 

I agree with OP in principle, but most of the locked threads are for good reasons. Why allow a debate when the topic is going nowhere?

 

because a debate can iron out the flaws in the suggestion...

 

But if the staff believe too many flaws could happen in the suggestion, relating to the ideas implementation, then they might as well lock it. the issue is not then the community feedback, but the logistics of the idea.

 

hmm so the idea is screw letting people get critism so they can work out flaws. Lets just lock it now!