Design new topic titles to reduce redundancy/clutter

[Booklady]

Not withstanding any objections of our esteemed Administrator I would propose that any posts that receive few to no replies not be deleted but moved to the attic(or basement) If someone, particularly a new poster, goes to the trouble of registering and posts something it would be better to encourage them to try again instead of seeing their post simply disappear. I have found (And I think it was true of AT/Spengler) that a large number of people only browse and never register. I personally simply browsed AT Spengler for several years.

So maybe a place them elsewhere with a sticky that explains why there, and encourages future posts

I totally agree, Doc. I like the idea of archiving these less popular threads, in a forum called the Attic, for the reasons you've given. That will eliminate the clutter. Yet maintaining the integrity of the posts.

I think in the Cellar, we should have the Fight Club, again. If two posters can't be civil, they can go below and duke it out.

Deleting posts is not a desirable nor charitable action, for obvious reasons, and it should be reserved for egregious violations of our Forum Rules.

[Apollonius]

...

Alexis did something good today, starting a thread in current events that can be used to discuss terrorist attacks in general.

One of the pleasures of moving here to Davos was being rid of thousands of old, forgotten thread topics, but after two days we already see how quickly they multiply.

If we give more thought to entitling the threads broadly, then they can be used much longer, we'll have less scrapped threads (often with good posts).

For example, the thread where we ended up making hundreds of posts about Venezuela was entitled 'Opinion: Venezuela squandered oil riches, now faces default

Now that is a really terrible title (sorry Booklady), but we had several good threads on Venezuela/Hugo Chavez and I for one thought that I had to focus writing in one thread and that was it.

When you can build on a thread over time, I find it also motivates keeping up on the news, becoming more informed on the topic.

This is also a very important feature for attracting new members, I think.

Imagine that you look at a new forum and find that there are page after page of old threads with very few replies. That is unattractive, it is an eyesore. It discourages new participants.

But if you instead find a place where topics are arranged/entitled in well-edited way, in a more intelligible way - and that the (fewer!) threads are developing over a longer time... That would be far more appealing, or what?

I think already we could have the thread authors look at the new threads they've made, and ask the moderator to change the titles, if in some way that will 'generalize' broaden the thread topics.

This doesn't mean that the titles have to be bland and dull, just that they should not be so specific that they exclude the next post on the same general topic: for example "The Russia-China-USA triangle: Spengler at his very best?" would be better if it was entitled "Spengler at his best, or his worst?" and became one longer thread instead of many over time.

The starting of new threads unfortunately has been a way to get momentary attention, but we saw in the old forum what it led to...

Hello Hocketing Dad,


Your comments about reducing clutter and providing some sort of organization and thematic structure to the forum by way of starting discussions on general rather than specific topics certainly meet with my approval. For one thing, it significantly reduces the need for repetitive remarks relating to current events because so often these new events are themselves repetitive, if not in exact detail, then in kind.





To Doc and Booklady,


Good comments. I especially like the idea of an attic. As you mentioned, Booklady, maybe we need a basement as well.









As an irrelevant aside, I do wish that we had a longer period of time in which to edit our posts, perhaps even for an indefinite duration (in particular because I tend to catch my typos only a couple days after I post).