"Successful Topics"

[Bossanova]

I've seen several times on other forums where some topics created just aren't of interesting manner to the rest of the members. As such, the thread is basically overlooked, not posted in, and eventually falls to the graveyard of old threads.

While successful topics reach up to 4 pages max..possibly more. What's a bit shocking is, these threads that are overlooked are serious topics relating to world news, or just news in general. While the successful topics are maybe random spam threads?

As an Admin, how do you feel about certain topics being favorited by members and others dying?

To me, I can understand members have their separate tastes in topics, but still. I think it's a bit rude to play 'favorites' and ignore certain topics.

 

[DarkRaven]

Eh, the thing is that world news and debate topics take energy to reply to. Spam topics, such as forum games threads, will only take one or two minutes to reply to.

I know that I have written essay long posts for some World News threads in my forum's Mature Discussion forum. Not everyone has that amount of time.

Also, most of the threads you see that are ''important'' in my forum are the threads set up by our resident Libertarian (Teh Government is teh Mafia), our republican (Obama is teh Marxist Ebulz), our Atheists (Religion is teh Ebulz) our Christians (Premarital Sex is teh Ebulz) and our Feminists (Porn is teh Ebulz).

We've seen the all before a million times. People have, over time, stopped caring.

 

[ros]

I think that's just part of life, honestly, and not really worth worrying about. A lot of times there's no way you can even tell what is going to get responses and what is not. Some things I post I need a response on, and maybe get one, but others where I'm just spouting get 100.

 

[Saruman]

Well, since I never post in the "Forum Games" area, you know where I stand on this.. :great:

Intelligent Disscussions!! :cheer:

 

[AnAccount]

I've seen topics where it seems like you have to practically write a report to respond to them, and I think that's the biggest reason why these always get ignored. Is because, as was said before, people don't have the time to respond to them. Sometimes, I've even seen topics like, "I need advice on this subject and I would like your help", if it's a huge issue, again, some people feel like they have to practically do their homework in order to help you out, so they avoid such topics completely. While I enjoy reading certain debates on forums and things like that, I very rarely respond to them, unless it's a subject that I'm willing to share my thoughts and feelings on, because I just simply don't have time to respond to that topic.

 

[Saruman]

Then again, if your bored, and don't have to go to work for a couple hours...well...? 😛

 

[DarkRaven]

I've seen topics where it seems like you have to practically write a report to respond to them, and I think that's the biggest reason why these always get ignored. Is because, as was said before, people don't have the time to respond to them. Sometimes, I've even seen topics like, "I need advice on this subject and I would like your help", if it's a huge issue, again, some people feel like they have to practically do their homework in order to help you out, so they avoid such topics completely. While I enjoy reading certain debates on forums and things like that, I very rarely respond to them, unless it's a subject that I'm willing to share my thoughts and feelings on, because I just simply don't have time to respond to that topic.

That's exactly it. I don't necessarily have the time to write a response to some Libertarian's assertion that the Government is a Mafia and that tax is it's form of protection money. Entire political science theses have been written on this matter. I don't have the time or the qualification to reply to that.

Now I will generally try to help neglected writing threads on my forum as I do have the experience to write critique.

 

[Kevin X Dragon]

Most people post more in forum games because it only take half of a minute to reply while replying to topics about serious things take two or more minutes.

 

[hcfwesker]

I don't think alot of people come to forums to discuss the current news and events. Forums are an escape from all of that, they're suppose to be fun. While current news discussion can be entertaining for some; it's just not everyone's priority.

 

[Ashish92]

in my opinion important topics which are high on news requires that the reader shud read it whole and understand before posting, and it's my personal experience that such readers who are required for such topics usually don't have much time and often such topics skip their eyes under the frequent posts by members in other topics so that is one of the reason

as for me it took me 6 pages of active topics to survey and i got only three topics where i replied so it's sort of stuff like that where time clashes with interest 🙂

 

[Acorn]

Threads...those poor dead threads! Dying of neglect! We have to DO something!!!!

...Wait a minute...It's a thread. Does it really matter that much? XD We sometimes allow bumping of very old topics if they are of fresh interest or needed in some way. But otherwise, just hit that new topic button and it opens up a world of possibilities 🙂

 

[Justin]

Really, to me it does not matter. A forum is how your users use it. If my users want to keep posting on one topic and let all others die then let it be! They are still my members, not my slaves.

 

[Ashish92]

by default phpbb has a bumping option by which the owner of a topic can bump it if it's dead and yet open to bring more attention to it

 

[Bejay]

My general discussion thread the a thread about forumotion (lol) seem to be the most active on my forum. Forumotion has about 45 replies. :great:

 

[Acorn]

We're an RPG and on the in-game boards, a thread is declared dead and off limits to new posts after 1 months. People also may not bump topics there. On the general boards, though, no thread is ever declared dead and anyone may reply to new or old topics.

 

[[email protected]]

Well, keep in mind that news is timely. Once you get past a couple days, most news is too old to hold anyone's interest. You could combat this problem - if you consider it such - by creating a "headlines" thread, and limit news postings to only that thread. Then it stays at the top on its own...assuming people don't ignore you and post new news threads anyway.

Also, once a community gets large enough to form a clique of 5 or more (much larger than 5 users, fyi), the most active thread is almost always going to be some kind of "hangout" thread, where people just talk about their day, what they're watching/listening to, and other boring crap. There's nothing you can do about that. It's the nature of the biz.