dr
In the past few weeks I have received a bunch of emails regarding the message forums. Most of these comments mention the large number of messages. Normally this wouldn't be a problem, especially given that this site is growing daily. However, when people mention quality as well, I grow concerned. Personally, I don't have time to read all the messages in all the forums. Some days, there are so many I mark all forums as read. But that's me. However when people start emailing me that they no longer have time to read all the messages nor do they want to because most of the messages are useless or silly, then I start to worry.
That all said, I would urge everyone to think before you post. And when I say think, I mean actually think about what your message says? There are easy things to think about like are you posting it in the correct forum. But then you need to think some more. Are you adding value, quality content to the forum? Or are you just basically saying "I agree" with someone's comment? Are you taking an existing topic and side-tracking it? If so, perhaps you should start another thread. Are you changing the subject of the message for a good reason (most times the subject should be left as is)?
Now I'm not going to name names, and I think if everyone looks back we are all guilty of not thinking at one point or another. But in order to not have users simply ignore the forums, we should try to make sure what we post is relevant and good for the collective. And no, I'm not trying to make things unfriendly for the new people and no I don't want things to be the way it was; I just want people to think and remember that there are others using this site and we all have to get along and follow a mutually agreeable set of rules. That's all.
And before anyone complains about me taking away their freedoms, don't bother. I let the forums roam free for the past four years. But now I'm getting complaints so I'm trying to take action without taking action. My preferred alternative is to post this plea and hope that everyone is able to regulate themselves. My next alternative is simply delete wasted posts. This takes up my time and requires me to read all the forums. My last alternative is program some sort of system where users rate each other based on posts and people with higher ratings have more priviledges and such and everyone can read at a certain threshold, thus not having their time wasted on the repetitive postings.
I really would much rather leave things the way they are. Not because I don't want the restrictions and not because I don't want to program it. But because I would much rather spend my time programming cool things for this site like more stats and graphs and whatever else comes to mind. The choice is, once again, yours.
-dr
