The status of the Something For All forum

So this has been a topic of contention in the past, but my personal opinion is that SFA has kind of gone to shit again. There are a lot of old threads that get bumped sporadically when people are trying to rapidly gain post count, and there are a lot of poorly-thought-out threads that manage to stay alive. I think we should do something about this, and I'd like your opinions on how to tackle the problem.

My thoughts are as follows, but please contribute your ideas so we can try to get something done about this:
-Clear out all current threads in SFA, remove them to a SFA archive forum
-Start with a clean slate, allowing only high-quality threads to be posted (maybe we could add a poll to each thread asking whether or not people think this thread should be allowed to stay in SFA? Or maybe that's overkill...)
-Infract spam/irrelevant/non-contributing posts; give warnings for poorly-thought out posts, and enforce these rules
-Allow staff to close threads when discussion has gone on long enough / people seem to be regurgitating comments for the sake of post count (that is, allow us to post the equivalent of "answered, closed" in other forums)

Anyway, just some thoughts. I encourage your feedback.

 

Fully agree. The quality of that section has been pretty poor for a long time. I remember trying to discuss this when I was an OT mod back in 2012. Something should really be done & I like your plan.

 

Sounds like a great idea

 

I think cleaning out the SFA entirely would be a good start, there's been a lot of threads that are better suited for GD or just don't belong at all. The quality of new threads and posts would definitely need to be more closely monitored (the rules advertise a forum ban for any user who doesn't follow them, but how often has this even happened - if at all?). Maybe also make it so SFA doesn't give post count? Anybody who's serious about having intelligent discussion in that section probably wouldn't be one to worry about gaining a few pc, and it would discourage people from just mindlessly posting.

 

I'm fine with it giving post count, I think people should be rewarded for contributing. Maybe we can get a 25+ post count buffer though, that might help with some of the spam we put up with.

Really the biggest thing I'm proposing here is clearing out the forum and starting anew. Not sure that anything like it has been done before.

 

For starters I think changing the name of something for all would do wonders since it really isn't for most of the userbase

 

"Serious Discussion?"

 

Intelligent Discussion is what I was considering or something along those lines

 

"Anti-Spam"

 

that works too

 

Leave the threads alone and remove the LQ posts inhabiting the threads. Similar to General Discussion, threads that are bumped (no matter the date of creation) which can still be discussed are left alone. You would be stunting activity by archiving threads which can still be discussed by those who haven't seen or commented on said threads. This would also stop copycat threads which would discuss topics that are still active in the sense that they aren't archived.

 

there's not a single thread that i can find that's a) old and b) still has novel discussion coming in

 

Is it possible to make a minimum word count for each post that's greater than the current 5? That could definitely stop a lot of the spam.

 

For individual sub forums I dont think thats the case, although I cant comment on Xenforo

 

I think you misread what I said.

The frequency in which old threads are being brought up in SFA is inconsequential. If it's being bumped by spammers as you say, then removing their posts should revert the status of the thread if no one else has posted, thus making this discussion pointless. If in the event someone does post a quality comment that revitalizes the debate, then I see no issue.

Can you give some examples that suggests this issue is a concerning one that would call for removing threads with potential?

 

I can't agree with removing all of the threads. There has been pretty great threads over the years and they are still valuable. What the section really needs it active moderation and it will be fine. Promote a SFA mod and see how it is in a couple of months.

 

Make the section mod-approved threads only and appoint a SFA mod like the good ol' days, but make the rank non-staff. Only someone who can approve and lock the threads there.

 

Would sir like to nominate himself for SFA mod? I think you were originally one years ago.

But yeah, the section has deteriorated, but this started happening years ago, not recently.

 

The thing is, the section has not been strongly policed for so long that there's been a buildup of threads that just don't belong there. It wouldn't make sense for a newer set of stricter rules to start being enforced while allowing these pre-existing threads to still be bumped and posted on, and moving/locking all of them might be too large of an undertaking due to their volume (no doubt there's a lot of duplicate topics too). I think that archiving all of the threads (or maybe keeping qualifying threads from the past year or so, which only goes back three or four pages), and then maybe requiring approval for new threads to be posted on top of that as Blupig mentioned would be a good start.

 

Just leave it alone, honestly lets be real, the forum is losing members and consistently has been from what people showed me/said.

I don't see a problem with people spamming frankly anymore, that's why I stopped reporting posts unless its malicious.

No support.