Better as a status update or blog post.

[Snow 7,034]

Besides Lightwing shipping the most common staff intervention I see is when a thread is locked because it is deemed to be unable to start or hold a reasonable discussion.
It is then suggested by the staff member who locked the thread that it and things similar would be better as a blog post or status update, but now after being locked it is still there but a completely useless waste of space.
3: ...
4: Profit!
If only it worked that way
When a thread is locked for the above reason I believe a good idea is for the poster to have the option to set the OP as a blog post or status update, similar to how misplaced threads can be moved to another section so the question or statement is there for people to see and reply to and its not a useless waste of space, this could even be done via a pop up option or something just in case the OP didn't want the thread put as a blog post or status update.

[Jeric 46,851]

On 4/27/2017 at 7:20 AM, JU88snow said:

It is then suggested by the staff member who locked the thread that it and things similar would be better as a blog post or status update, but now after being locked it is still there but a completely useless waste of space.

I actually don't consider them a waste of space. You see, what I tend to do when I see these threads is recreate them myself using a approach that makes the topic more palatable for staff while actually still being the exact same message that the original posted intended. In some cases I've said the exact same thing, just slightly more loquacious. As Applejack would say, 'speaking fancy'. I've done this for years, and while I admit it was because I was interested in hearing other individual's opinions on the matter, part of me also desired to subvert the blog/status lock whenever possible as I consider its application counter productive to growing a fun and thriving community - and it reeked of elitism at times - and was seen that way by some in the community who eventually settled on discord groups to discuss their pony fix. 

Killing a potentially decent topic because you think a poster is lazy or lacked robust quality makes some sense, but everyone knows that almost no one takes the content to blogs or status updates. When this happens to a new user, sometimes that just leave and never return. I love the staff, but this is one area that I think that they have been historically wrong on, not just the current crop, but those that trained me. Things got slightly better over the years, but it still exists, especially in specific staffers who appear slightly more judgmental about what makes a 'quality post'.  

I will continue to recreate topics that they think are not good enough and sentence to Google's blind spot. Time permitting of course. 

[Snow 7,034]

@Jeric  I fail to see the connection between what I said and your reply.
Making another thread based off of a locked one that can be used for proper discussion is good, yes, but making it still doesn't change the fact there is a thread sitting there that nobody can reply to.

Spoiler

This is an excellent example of what I am referring to, and I'm sure we all know what happens next.

Spoiler

And there we have it, now, if you feel like making a thread inquiring about determining the legitimacy of diamond simply by sight in a manner that makes way for an, and I quote: "meaningful discussion" by all means, go ahead, but regardless of you doing that or not this thread is still locked and just sitting there being a "useless waste of space" as I said before.
If it is only recommended to be a status update (or blog post) surly there is logic in being able to turn a thread like the one above into a status update so it can receive the answers sought out by the individual who posted it and not be a locked thread anymore.
(I removed the names and avatars of the 2 other users just for privacy reasons if anyone picked up on that and was wondering)
 

[GrimGrimoire 4,973]

 

I can get behind this. Not sure if the forum technology would allow such a thing, but yeah if  thread is deemed too weak to hold its own within the main forums, then closing it and adding a button to move it to a blog post or status update would be useful. As @Jeric stated this can be a huge turn off for new users, and giving them the ability to keep it going in their own way to a degree would help keep them here, not to mention possibly giving them more experience with a part of the site they may not be as familiar with. As the OP said, those closed simple topics are basically just a waste of space now, they don't do anything for anyone, not even teach anything. We all have our own posting habits and ways we approach asking question or answering topics... some like to really dig in and go into detail... other just like to ask a simple question... also many use their phones to surf the site, which cause some people to prefer to keep their topics ultra simple. More often than not, they are not being malicious, they just either do not know any better or are just doing things in a way they are more comfortable with... however, a locked post is a locked post, and always carries that sensation that you did something wrong with it.

14 hours ago, Jeric said:

I actually don't consider them a waste of space. You see, what I tend to do when I see these threads is recreate them myself using a approach that makes the topic more palatable for staff while actually still being the exact same message that the original posted intended. In some cases I've said the exact same thing, just slightly more loquacious. As Applejack would say, 'speaking fancy'. I've done this for years, and while I admit it was because I was interested in hearing other individual's opinions on the matter, part of me also desired to subvert the blog/status lock whenever possible as I consider its application counter productive to growing a fun and thriving community - and it reeked of elitism at times - and was seen that way by some in the community who eventually settled on discord groups to discuss their pony fix. 

Killing a potentially decent topic because you think a poster is lazy or lacked robust quality makes some sense, but everyone knows that almost no one takes the content to blogs or status updates. When this happens to a new user, sometimes that just leave and never return. I love the staff, but this is one area that I think that they have been historically wrong on, not just the current crop, but those that trained me. Things got slightly better over the years, but it still exists, especially in specific staffers who appear slightly more judgmental about what makes a 'quality post'.  

I will continue to recreate topics that they think are not good enough and sentence to Google's blind spot. Time permitting of course. 

Sorry, Jeric, they are absolutely a waste of space. You could get the same results by just outright deleting them in most cases. It might be a very interesting question or statement, but it will sink like a lead balloon since no one can do anything with it, and be forgotten about in a day. Most people who have a thread locked for this reason do not do anything... those who do usually do it out of anger or spite and become semi hostile afterwards since they feel they have been slighted. They often do not even make a blog or status update about it either, since many get the impression that their thoughts are not wanted period. If they do, again it is that same hostile frustrated update, and nothing to do with their original post. You could increase the font and make it flashing colors with a huge apology tacked on saying.

I'M SORRY THIS TOPIC DOES NOT MEET OUR CRITERIA FOR A QUALITY POST! BUT PLEASE USE IT FOR A BLOG POST OR STATUS UPDATE! IT WILL WORK BETTER THERE! AGAIN SO VERY VERY VERY SORRY, WE"LL MAIL SOME COOKIES TO YOUR HOUSE IN COMPENSATION! WE LOVE YOU NO MATTER WHAT!

And all they will read into it is "Hey dude, your topic sucks, and you suck... quit posting crap! P.S. We hate you and your feet smell" 

The option will always still be there for those who wish to recreate it to make it more acceptable as a forum post, but for those who just want to ask if people think something is a diamond, they could have the option to continue the discussion in some form the way they are comfortable with, without necessarily feeling like a door has been slammed in their face.

Finally, I have always believed that giving people a chance to correct things goes a long way... thus if someone does make a weak post, closing it is fine, but make it so the creator can go into it and correct it and make it more useful, and then hit a resubmit button that makes it so a mod can review the post and see if it now meets the site standards for discussion. Possibly the same one who closed it. Obviously abusive or vulgar threads would not get this luxury.

[Jeric 46,851]

1 hour ago, GrimGrimoire said:

As the OP said, those closed simple topics are basically just a waste of space now, they don't do anything for anyone, not even teach anything.

The line of thinking that would surface when the question on why they were kept visible boiled down to three different views.

"If they are hidden, then users will cry censorship."

"They would generate new topics in SQ and Feedback asking where their posts went."

"Being visible serves as a reminder to other new users that there is a quality bar on MLPF."

To be fair, I have regurgitated several of those myself depending on the situation. 

2 hours ago, JU88snow said:

I fail to see the connection between what I said and your reply.

What you are suggesting is a programmatic solution to a problem that is partially generated by staff policy. A policy that has been inconsistently applied based on how different staff interpret the quality rule. There have been many discussions that never reached consensus on what constitutes "quality". There are topics in staff parts of this forum that have some staffers arguing that even a paragraph or two of content is not a quality topic starter if it lacks a closing question. The assumptive angle that such content is an opinion piece and is better suited as a blog. Within the staff you have a wide range of thinking on what is quality and what isn't quality. I admit it used to be much worse when I first joined staff, as the benchmark of quality was often set absurdly high at times and the term 'shit posting' was too liberally used. The staff relaxed their view as more content friendly and pragmatic Administrators and Moderators started to take the reigns, but the 'end in a question' litmus test that some of the Admins voiced disapproval of arose during the less aggressive era, so it is still very much possible. I support the forum staff far more than I disagree with them, but this has always been a source of frustration.

Then you  have the big picture concerns. One problem is that threads get far more visibility than blogs. The staff is perfectly aware that "blog/status" locking a topic will typically end any discussion. When they close a thread with that message, the chance that the user will create the new content is slim to none. This leads to several key questions. Do locked topics generate search engine results? Is there a correlation between traffic and activity here, and topic content generation? If user traffic drops, does that now open the discussion for implementation of other features the community would find issue with in hopes of avoiding stagnation? Big picture ...  basically, look at the whole board when playing chess. 

One idea that should be revisited is this -- an now retired Admin on this forum created a topic to better explain how to welcome new members. The topic can be found here. A similar topic was once proposed by staff that would have served as a comprehensive guideline on what they are looking for in quality posts. Something like that could be linked to a member who creates a topic that doesn't meet the standards of what would be considered quality content. Part of the reason I occasionally recreate locked topics is not just to make a point to the staff, but also to give a member a frame of reference -- showing the user what the staff are looking for in terms of quality. Other items of consideration would be trying to find new ways of featuring blog content to better drive views to the better quality blogs. 

Before anyone starts expending resources to engineer and rework the code on this site, the policy needs to be reviewed so that policy and technology are in better sync with the overall goal of stabilizing (and hopefully growing) traffic to the site. That is how they are connected JU88snow.

2 hours ago, GrimGrimoire said:

Finally, I have always believed that giving people a chance to correct things goes a long way... thus if someone does make a weak post, closing it is fine, but make it so the creator can go into it and correct it and make it more useful, and then hit a resubmit button that makes it so a mod can review the post and see if it now meets the site standards for discussion. Possibly the same one who closed it.

This idea is phenomenal. This is how quality locking should be approached in a forum system.

[GrimGrimoire 4,973]

33 minutes ago, Jeric said:

The line of thinking that would surface when the question on why they were kept visible boiled down to three different views.

"If they are hidden, then users will cry censorship."

"They would generate new topics in SQ and Feedback asking where their posts went."

"Being visible serves as a reminder to other new users that there is a quality bar on MLPF."

I can understand there is reasoning for not deleting them, and I am not saying they should be deleted, just that when you consider everything, locking and deleting for the majority are the same thing. No one pops on saying "How dare you lock my post, you should have deleted it!!!" or "WTF MODS! You deleted my post! Why u no lock!??" They are just unhappy that whatever they had to say is now unable to be talked about for whatever reason. They get mad, they sulk and then they cry censorship or how unfair the world is or how everyone on this site couldn't find a bowling ball in a egg basket on another thread or a status update or a blog.

1. Censorship is a word that is thrown around with nothing behind it these days. You will get people who will pop up in the forum, call out every mod by name and proceed to slander them in every vile way they could imagine, before making an image list from some disturbing fetish site to polish it off. Then they would cry they are being censored when it is removed and they are banned. This site is privately owned... they can put up whatever rules they like about what people can and cannot post... it is not censorship if someone decides to post it anyway.

2. The explanation post by the locking mod already takes care of that, and a simple message to the user upon deletion does the same thing.

3.You already mentioned it.. so what is quality? And where is the bar? I bet you could get a hundred active users to give you a hundred different answers right now. Some would argue it is by how much you say, others by what you say. Some would argue any post they disagree with is not quality, while they would give a pass to posts by people they like. is it grammar, humor, relevance to MLP, or the amount of verbs they utilize? There is no hard and fast rule... which is why when it happens you get members who feel slighted and drop WTF bombs either in other threads or in status updates. Nobody knows since no one can or will ever agree. If you absolutely consider things, ANY post has the ability to generate conversation... you can put the most inane comment you can imagine out there and there is the chance users will grab hold of it and start a party. There are some dumb threads all across the forum that made it past the mods, and they have a couple pages of thoughts behind them.... and there are some well thought out quality posts with real intention to have a discussion behind them that just sink into oblivion. It kind of is what it is in that regard. I don't think this problem is possible to solve when you have unique individuals all working on it together.

While the argument can be made for their use in search engines...  yeah... probably not. Often they are low quality posts on subjects that have been brought up time and time again, and there is usually some thread somewhere with that exact subject presented in a much better way. So the engine should find that one just as easily as the locked one with no actual response that has been locked for several months. Otherwise it is a topic so out of left field that someone searching for it probably is not looking for a pony site for the answer anywhere. I mean if I wanted to search on google about whether the rock in my hand is a diamond or not, I don't think MLPF would be my ideal first choice for information.

Like I said, I am not for deleting them necessarily, but they don't really offer anything to the forum just sitting there locked. Quality over quantity and all of that stuff. At least bumping them to blogs and status updates gives them the chance at further discussion. I thin the idea @JU88snow listed is a great idea for that. It gives the creator more options than to just give up or get pissed, it gives the topic a chance at some sort of life, and it recycles.

As for my idea, you can merge the two and let the users decide. If they want to add on to it, they can do so. if they want to status it instead, they can do so... if they want to kick and scream until they turn blue, well there is not much anyone can do to stop them anyway, just clean up the results of it... which is what they are doing now.

 

[Jeric 46,851]

5 hours ago, You said:

As it strike me as the issue still being pretty prevalent, what about this suggestion?

Not going to respond to this just yet, though I want to make it known that my responses above were as a user since I was retired at the time, so my commentary regarding staff tendency to close topics was not a reflection or representation of official policy. Unfortunately, one of the limits to user groups is that it retroactively alters posts made prior to the change in group. 
 

To put not so fine a point on my comments — I was not a fan of locking topics solely because of a lack of effort on the OP. I’ll comment further on any possible solutions at a later time. I just wanted to give some historical context to my earlier posts so there wasn’t any confusion. 

[Rikifive 24,183]

In my opinion the required quality thing is just too strict, so is how it is handled. I've seen threads, which in my opinion totally had the potential for discussions, getting locked for one reason or another, regardless of how well written they were. I've seen confused members not being pleased with the message they got right before their thread got locked and there were times I fought for threads myself, because I didn't agree with the decision either. 

To be fair, some "cheap" threads can get more replies than these well-written ones and I don't really see any harm in it, as it always leaves something to think of, even if there's no serious discussion going on. Sometimes trivial topics are more interesting, than proper discussions.  

The problem with blogs is, that not everyone uses these and they get little attention in general. Blogs aren't really meant to share a single thought and bye, as the setup alone suggests it's meant to be something more than that - as one has to create an entire blog with specific direction of it first. Also, newcomers cannot create blogs, so there are times users receive directions they can't really follow, without an extra effort at least (~go spam somewhere to get posts and then make an entire blog for this epic thread of yours).

Status updates quickly get flushed down and navigation there is poo poo to be honest (as it's just a big list without paging; it was waaay better in V3). Question about diamond like mentioned above also doesn't really have much to do with user's status, as the name of the feature suggests. While it may be that better place for that, I don't think it's a perfect one. Also replying once to SU gives that debuff, where the notification box is spammed with each next reply, unless notifications for these are disabled altogether. So from some point of view, it's kinda contradicting to force users to follow what is considered as worthless threads upon replying. 

Off-topic areas usually are a bit spammy, so perhaps if General Discussion is too strong, maybe give users a legit off-topic subsection, where they'll be able to put simpler threads for trivial discussions and such? I don't think that diamond thread is really that bad to have. It's still better than debate pit, as at least it's not on fire lol Even if it will end after like 10 replies, who cares? There are tons of dead threads today and some didn't get much attention at all, even if they had that potential.

[Jeric 46,851]

The technical solutions proposed would be phenomenal, but are not implementable at the moment. As far as changes to the policy, I can address how I instruct the moderation team and how I have handled poor quality posts in the past. 

I do not, and have never liked, shutting down a topic just because the kickoff was not as well written or as well formed as I would have liked. What defines a well written posts, like most topics in moderation, tends to be difficult to explain. Moderation and Administration has, on numerous occasions, tried to find simple litmus tests to qualify what would constitute a poor OP. Different staffers had different ideas. 

My personal opinion follows a few very simple to meet 'tests' 

 

1. Is the post constructed in a way that it can be understood? 
2. Is there an attempt at communication with others happening?
3. Is the OP a likely troll post?
4. Is it repetitive/generalized/or a simple salutation

 

The status update and blog rule was created during a time and place where we didn't want what amounted to quick strike 'chatty' OP's. Users should not create a topic in General Discussion asking "How is everyone doing today?" We also wanted to avoid massive lists from everyone with their own personal episode/character rankings. These are actually topics that ARE better suited as status updates and blogs. There are also specific topics that you can chat in with a casual drive by hello or rankings. 

 

HOWEVER

 

If I am went to the doctor today and he had horrible bedside manner and I created a topic that had the following 

 

TITLE : Ugh My Doctor Sucked!

Body: Man, just came back from the doc and he just told me stop whining and get off the couch! Seriously? What a jerk!

 

 

This is the type of topic that would find itself possibly locked with the user told to make it a status update or blog. I have pointed out that we as a forum want traffic. We want people to look at our users content. Status updates are not indexed. Blogs may indexed (just tested this and saw some of mine) be but as you pointed out it is not as visible as a post. That, to me, is besides the point. That example I have up there, has actual conversational value. The topic can take shape as many different, yet interesting, discussions. I could easily reply many ways to that complaint about bedside manner. This is what I would often tell the staff, "This is a salvageable topic". Mods have the ability to adjust the title to match the conversation, and I have encouraged them to actually guide conversation in these topics instead of locking them. I want a conversational forum. Users do not need to write a five paragraph structure to create a discussable topic. 

 

 

I'll relay my thoughts to the team again. What will not be happening is a removal of the rule because there are legitimate reasons it exists. The enhancements discussed within this thread are great ideas, but not something that anyone can commit to at the moment.