copied/summarized/heavily moderated threads
 

There are a lot of very informative threads in the tech garage and Aftermarket performance, however there are a lot of problems extracting information from them. For example, basically any thread by Mr Port and Polish gets about a 50/50 apportionment of informative posts vs. flaming and "me likey" posts.

A somewhat different example would be maybe the Axial Flow thread. I have it set to max posts per page, but its still 19 pages long and getting real close to 20. It takes many hours to get through it. There are several other threads like this.

Now I have no problem with the me likey posts and even flames to a certain extent, they both provide information about public response to the topic. However, they don't provide information specific about the topic itself. Read totally to the bottom of this post before making judgment about the suggestion.

So my suggestion is not to cut out these posts, but to make copies of these threads, and maybe put them in a "Frequently Read Threads" or "Reference Threads" section. Threads in this section would be copies of these "frequently read threads" but aim at conciseness for those readers who have not yet read the entire thread and want to catch up, or for people who want to freshen up on the topic after a long time away.

This will save both groups of people lots of time and frustration, while keeping the original thread unabridged. Moderators or volunteers would have to edit, but leave initial information, Q+A's, relevant arguments, and updates. The reference thread wouldn't have to be updated constantly, but maybe every month or two, and moderators could insert an index post in the primary thread saying something like "reference thread ends here". After the index post, any and all discussion would be available only on the primary thread until the next update of reference thread.

Only the few really long threads would need this.

Case in point..the TSB thread.

I agree with your suggestion because we still have new RX-8 owners joining the online club today. There has been a lot of information passed through the forums that would be useful to them which is why I think this would be good for the users.

Zaku-8 after further review if you look at the very bottom of a thread the site has a listing of similar threads and others have topic review. The topic review is probably what you will have to settle for.

should a faq section be created that is only moderator touchable? (ie tsb and informative important stickies?)

I like the FAQ idea... oops a me likey post :rolleyes:

we have an FAQ that is woefully out of date. when some of us have time it will be updated to include some of the topics in a more concise manner.

oh yeah that faq :) I forgot (me likey me likey! :p )

One of the things that adds a trememdous amount of clutter to each thread or post is people's avatar, signature message and signature pictures.

In the user settings you can turn that "crap" off, and I increased the posts per page to the maximum instead of the default.

The result is a lot more info and a whole lot less "crap". The "me likely" posts are now a couple lines instead of a bunch of lines.

-Mr. Wigggles

great but me needs visual stimulation....so I like all the visual crap :p

Zoom - if you need any help with the FAQ let me know. I can usually figure out a couple hours a day to help.

I've said this before and I'll say it again: If anyone wants to start building a new FAQ, I will be happy to put it in place after review.

I have had over a dozen people come to me since I started here offering to write and FAQ, and every one of them has disappeared. One guy even went so far as to write quite a bit and put it up on a website, but he has since disappeared and the site is no longer valid.

If someone got it done, that'd be great.. but I'm not holding my breath at this point that we'll get any volunteers that'll actually follow through. No offense Zaku-8 and Detroit RX8, this is just experience speaking. I'd love it if you take it on and get it done. PM me if you want to tackle this.

and here i thought i would have time to work on it when i took those 2 weeks off work after my son was born. i know now that that was just a pipe dream:)

edit: ok im on it now. check my thread in the lounge. id make it a sticky there but it would get lost amongst the other stickies. maybe omi can make it an announcement or something?

edit2: i made this one a sticky that should help

IMHO..

The TSB needs to be a locked thread...with only a Mod/Admins brief input per TSB.

We can dicuss each in the Tech forum. Sadly even I have begun to ignore the long threads.

Charlie...........you thought two weeks off with a newborn was gonna give you extra time?

Congrats again.

Maybe like this?

http://forum.mazda6tech.com/viewforum.php?f=11

i realize now that i was obviously delusional in that regard :D

Sorry to revive this two months after the last posting, but I've only recently decided to peruse through the Suggestion section, so bear with me :)

Zaku, I like any idea of cleaning up a lot of the clutter here. I think the Frequently Read Threads idea makes sense on the one hand, because people will be able to know more readily that some very common concerns/topics have already been discussed. Because these threads are 20+ pages long, and because I know that I personally would never develop the attention span or patience to read through every single page, though, I wonder if that only shifts (rather than eliminates) the problem--i.e., it prevents redundant THREADS from being created, but it doesn't prevent redundant POSTS from popping up, or else it just makes the threads themselves redundant because people will read the first 2-3 pages and then pose a question or sub-discussion that might've been brought up on page 10 or 12. In the end, I think that makes a large chunk of the threads useless because people will stop reading major portions of them. Plus, what happens when spinoff threads are created that extend the dialog, in whatever way, of these longer threads? Will those be merged, creating super-long threads? Will they be left out of the FRT section?

I strongly support updating the FAQ section and, even better, having moderators create stickies in each section which address the most commonly discussed topics within those sections. Don't laugh at this example, but check out this one forum which I visit: http://www.abcbodybuilding.com/forum...id=13&subId=26
In this Section of the forum, the most commonly asked questions are addressed in the four stickies at the very top of the thread list. I think that would be very helpful.

Perhaps there should be stricter parameters on what should become a sticky? I know there are some out there (i.e., Best Zaino Applications) that just aren't important.

I think it's a good idea, I just don't see anybody willing to put that much time and effort into it. It's more fun to just flame the newbs and get post counts up.

wow,

2.5 years later...? :)

beers :beer:

lol, don't know how I didn't see that.......and 2.5 years is not THAT long ago....haha

bored and grave digging.

I voted YES,and I do agree with the idea in principle. It has even been implimented in a few cases over the years now IIRC. The problem though is the simple fact that this forum sees enough activity that to do such a thing well would require massive amounts of moderator time volunteered. I think our mods do a great job in general and couldnt honestly expect more of them.

And to the mods - FWIW I've recently come to truly appreciate the part of our forum rules that are aimed to prevent political discussion. Fucking love it. I love political debates at times, but forums that allow it are simply overrun with it.