make every thread a sticky

I vote for the track stickies. What was "out of control" was the chaos of all the posts beforehand about PE. I quit viewing it, as it was headache inducing. (and I never get headaches)

After careful thought, I have a few points to make:

1. No one speaks for me on this site. I represent myself.

2.As to the conjecture about why people behave the way they do ....ASK THEM.
The individual was org noted by a " VERY substantial number" and we're talking "about a pretty large percentage of the Orgs daily visitors" in support of his/her view.
Adults can post or not post their view, or org note each other.

3.What should be a reasonable discussion, unfortunately, has a personal element. When "took a big steaming dump" and "clueless moderating" are directed at one moderator, I question the objectivity of the poster.

4. "Patronizing" warnings are necessary. Just ask Housequake.

5. The topic is "stickies". If the place has gone to hell in a hand basket since someone left as moderator, well then.....that's another forum topic.

6. Could the individual posting on the subject, please state the # of org notes, the date etc. to support the view of "large percentage" of daily visitors, who support your opinion"?? "Viewers": who don't post anyway??? I'd like to know the data.

7.In my book, anonymous complaints don't exist. Anyone can say anything with no responsibility for their statements. It's a click away, from an org note, to posting here on this forum.

8. Has Ben been contacted? That's something I would think, as a former mod, would be common sense, rather than airing grief, and displaying dirty laundry.


9. I don't have a dog in this fight. If everyone wants the stickies to go away.....fine. Certain aspects of the discussion was tainted with subjectivity.

10. Last but not least, THIS IS A POLL. It's Yes, or no! Stay ON TOPIC.

11.(one more thing)
Is it possible to have a forum topic regarding "Disafffected Orgers, and Their Complaints"? That would cover all bases and need not be anonymous. It could even be a"free for all", kinda like the M&M forum with P's new music originaly.

I'm not depriving anyone of the legitimacy of problems,(besides those I have disputed) I just don't like the approach.

(I've done umpteen edits between 2nd and 3rd person, trying to stay generic)
[Edited 7/21/07 6:51am]

@Shorty!

I totally agree, things are a bit out of control.

It's a tough thing to discuss, I appreciate that. I know only too well from my own moderation disasters: when you put in mega-hours doing what you think is right to run the site, it is hard to accept it when someone criticises your actions or calls for improvements. It is too easy to shrug your shoulders and say "well, can't please everyone!", or to allow bruised pride and ego to get involved. Effectively, if someone is saying what you've spend many hours doing is shit, it is hard not to take that personally. It can be hard to recognise when your efforts are having the opposite effect you intended... when discussion on the site is really suffering as a result of over-zealous moderating.

And of course it is easy to criticise! It is much easier to sit here and pick holes at perceived problems and alleged injustices. However if we're sincere and level-headed about this, we can make some progress and improve things for the better. We need some ground-rules:

1. Moderators have to actually listen in this forum. All the other forums, you can dictatate as required, but in this forum, you're supposed to listen. As long as the posts here don't break Ben's site rules or T&Cs, they are valid criticism and up for debate. Moderating discussion on moderation is ONLY to be undertaken when necessary. Locking threads in the Site Discussion forum should be a last resort, not a convenient means of controlling discourse.

2. Everyone on both sides of the debate need to stop being so prickly and taking offence to every little thing. Look, when you're being critical and feeling frustrated, some sharp words can be exchanged on both sides but it is never personal. Grow a flame-proof hide and focus on what we all want: for the site to work better.

One thing I will say is this: since I posted yesterday regarding the ludicrous locking of threads and creation of a million mod-penned stickies yesterday in the Prince forum, I have received a VERY substantial number of Orgnotes and emails in support and agreement of views. We're talking about a pretty large percentage of the Orgs daily visitors. The question is - why are these people hesitant to post their views publicly, and instead using private communication? To my mind, that represents a lack of confidence in the Site Discussion forum, and in the whole process. Users don't feel that their views will be permitted here uncensored, users feel that mods will allow ego to play a factor resulting in locked threads / banned users / angry orgnote exchanges / hard feelings. Users feel that moderators treat criticism in this forum as something to be dealt with and dismissed, rather than really discussed. There's a lack of confidence that any improvement is possible, or that there is room for discussion without mods asserting control over every facet of the debate.

This is all conjecture on my part - I'm just trying to think of reasons why so many people seem to feel so strongly about these issues, yet feel disinclined to post them. Regardless of this though, I will re-state my views on the management of threads and sticky threads.
- I think for certain things, sticky threads are useful and practical.
- If a thread is to become sticky though, it is more considerate and beneficial to discussion to make a user-created thread sticky, rather than locking it and having a moderator create a new thread of their own which is sticky.
- On hot subjects such as a new album or tour, the forum needs to meet the needs of the users. There will be a wide variety of discussion from many different angles, so to simply lock everything down and restrict all discourse to a single , huge, monolithic thread is clearly NOT working.
- Further ambiguity and confusion is now present with the song-specific sticky threads. Can I still post about a song in the album-related sticky? Can I discuss and compare two songs in one song-related sticky? It's all too bewildering and rigid. Let the users decide how they want to discuss things.
- No one is arguing in favour of a million duplicate threads all saying "I just bought Planet Earth!". But in general, hands-off moderation is better. Let the "market" decide what threads are worth responding to. If a thread is interesting, it will grow.
- Moderating threads, locking them, removing posts, etc should only be undertaken when absolutely necessary (when there is content which breaks the site rules). To arbitrarily bend and reshape the forum constantly to meet whatever peculiar mental model is in the head of a particular moderator is to be avoided.
- Locking threads that contain valid, rule-abiding discussion is to be completely avoided. This whole idea of forcing users to restrict discussion to a single huge long thread, and then to proceed to arbitrarily lock that and create a new one when it "gets too long" is ludicrous, and it has the effect of cutting off strands of discussion. It is rude and inconsiderate towards the contributors of the thread. This whole "part 1" and "part 2" threads is evidence that the current approach is broken.

Yesterday when I visited the front page of the Prince forum, I saw:

1. Half the bloody page was taken up by multi-coloured bold text full of patronizing warnings about user conduct. Is it really necessary? Does anyone read it?

2. Every visible thread on that front page had either been created by June7 or locked by June7. Every thread I had been reading had been locked, and many of them were sufficiently varied in scope to justify their existence outside of the giant sticky "Planet Earth" thread. This is not a forum I'd feel comfortable posting on - when you come back later, who knows where your post will be, or which threads will be locked, or re-created as stickies, or locked to make way for "part 2" etc?.

Clearly something isn't working. The current approach is not conducive to discussion. Prince.org does have a lot of fluff, but if we should get one forum right, we should get the Prince one right. It isn't june7.org (no offence) but prince.org. Unless stuff breaks the rules or we have a hell of a lot of thread duplication, I say "hands off the thread".
[Edited 7/16/07 12:58pm]

ian said:

I'm pretty clear minded about this.

#11 is self explanatory.
[Edited 7/21/07 20:07pm]

Nope. That claim was MADE on this thread.
I've tallyed up the results. That's the obvious. Anything else, is another Forum Topic.

xplnyrslf said:

i think you are trying to pick a fight with ian which itself should be on another thread...if you read my post i was actually advocating that we put all claims aside and let the results speak for themselves...

can *you* do that?

sosgemini said:

You CANNOT be serious.

I vote nay for the stickies.

1) As others have stated, it stifiles other aspects of PE that orgers may want to discuss. For instances, I would like to see a thread dedicated to the vocal aspect of PE(the cd). Sure it can be posted in the main thread, but a post about that could get lost in a massive sticky thread. It creates a bunch of individual posts, but not much actual discussion.

2). There are so many stickies that it pushes down the non-sticky threads, which means you have to scroll just to get to the other topics.

This doesn't have any thing with stickies per say, but I prefer one long thread instead of only 30 posts per page. I know the pages were added last year to help out those that are on dial-up, but it would be nice if we were giving the option to change the way pages are displayed.

PurpleCharm said:

Did you know that you can change the pagination threshholds so that it will show more posts per page? Go to "my org" and then forums on the left side. Change the posts/page number to 200. Not sure if that is what you mean, but on the really long threads you only have 3-4 pages instead of 20+.

DevotedPuppy said:

Thank you so much.

A single sticky for each song...

A single sticky for all other things PE...

Does this work for you? I just perused all the stickies of the track threads, and found all positive discussion... that's cool! But, is everyone happy with this? What would you prefer?

Let us know what you think... but, let's have some "positivity"... have you had your plus sign today?

Thanks,

June7