Delete unresponded to threads you've started.

[straight_stewie]

I understand why only mods and admins should be able to delete threads with conversations going on, it prevents backseat moderation. That being said what if someone makes a thread and literally no one comments on it? This could be embarassing/damage community reputation (for newbies). A feature where a user can delete his or her threads if no one has commented on them after some time period (say 24 hours) would be cool. Would anyone like this?

[colonel_mortis]

I don't really see the point, but even if it did seem useful, it's not possible with the forum software.

[IsaacDaGrazin]

1 minute ago, colonel_mortis said:

I don't really see the point, but even if it did seem useful, it's not possible with the forum software.

that

[Kobathor]

1 minute ago, colonel_mortis said:

I don't really see the point, but even if it did seem useful, it's not possible with the forum software.

I could see another use. Example: making a thread, nobody replies, so you just make another thread that is the exact same at a better time so that people will respond. Why wouldn't you be able to delete the old thread?

[colonel_mortis]

Just now, Kobathor said:

I could see another use. Like, making a thread, nobody replies, so you just make another thread that is the exact same at a better time so that people will respond. Why wouldn't you be able to delete the old thread?

Because reposting the same thread is spam, and is not permitted. If you didn't get any responses to the thread initially, that means that either nobody is able to help you at all, in which case reposting won't help, or your thread didn't contain enough information, in which case you should just edit the existing thread.

[Kobathor]

6 minutes ago, colonel_mortis said:

Because reposting the same thread is spam, and is not permitted. If you didn't get any responses to the thread initially, that means that either nobody is able to help you at all, in which case reposting won't help, or your thread didn't contain enough information, in which case you should just edit the existing thread.

I'm talking from experience here with my past threads: almost nobody will reply after it leaves the "Recent Topics" list. If they do, then they were already on the thread before it left the "Recent Topics" list. You can edit it all you want, make replies to try to bump it to the top of the "Unread content" section (which I've never visited, it's way more cluttered compared to the old "new content" page), anything, but chances are that you're not gonna get another reply.

 

So what do you do? You still need help. If I were a newcomer, I'd probably go to another forum, or re-post the same thread (so many new people do it already.)

 

Sure, it's against the rules, but what else are you supposed to do to get help?

[IsaacDaGrazin]

@Kobathor also that but @colonel_mortis does have a reason, a good one

[Blade of Grass]

8 minutes ago, Kobathor said:

I'm talking from experience here with my past threads: almost nobody will reply after it leaves the "Recent Topics" list. If they do, then they were already on the thread before it left the "Recent Topics" list. You can edit it all you want, make replies to try to bump it to the top of the "Unread content" section (which I've never visited, it's way more cluttered compared to the old "new content" page), anything, but chances are that you're not gonna get another reply.

Threads get replied to all the time that are not on the "Recent Topics" list. If you bump the thread it will appear at the top of it's subforum too, and as the most recent activity in that subforum (so it shows up on the index page), so anyone visiting the subforum will see it at the top. 

8 minutes ago, Kobathor said:

So what do you do? You still need help. If I were a newcomer, I'd probably go to another forum, or re-post the same thread (so many new people do it already.)

 

Sure, it's against the rules, but what else are you supposed to do to get help?

Bump your thread if it's been more than 24 hours. Creating a new thread isn't going to get you any more help then if you were to bump your existing thread. 

[straight_stewie]

9 minutes ago, Blade of Grass said:

Bump your thread if it's been more than 24 hours. Creating a new thread isn't going to get you any more help then if you were to bump your existing thread.

That makes sense. But in any case it doesn't matter whether it would be a good feature or not:

 

29 minutes ago, colonel_mortis said:

I don't really see the point, but even if it did seem useful, it's not possible with the forum software.

 

[Unhelpful]

1 hour ago, Blade of Grass said:

Bump your thread if it's been more than 24 hours. Creating a new thread isn't going to get you any more help then if you were to bump your existing thread. 

I disagree with that, a lot of people (myself included) browse Recent Topics almost exclusively. It probably won't help MUCH more, but it will help more.

[squirrl]

1 hour ago, JoeyDM said:

I disagree with that, a lot of people (myself included) browse Recent Topics almost exclusively. It probably won't help MUCH more, but it will help more.

I have to agree too. I rarely browse subforums and see the topics unless i'm searching for something specific.

 

This is why I think a couple of other feeds could be available. Recently updated topics could be one. (this would probably change pretty rapidly though...) and "Top topics" which show the current topics with the most activity.

Top topics should give people a good idea what's going on currently, rather than what we have at the moment - for example a post about something big that just happened 10 mins ago which then gets buried afterwards.

 

Recently updated could do a similar thing, but instead as a general "active topics" sort of feel which helps people who's posts have been buried and want to bump them so people can actually see them.

 

Possibly rather than" recently updated", which like i said would change really quickly on an active forum like this, "bumped topics" could work a little better.

If the feature to specifically "bump" topics was introduced (treated differently from just posting in it), then people can easily find what people are speficially looking for help with, and it wouldn't get mingled in with all the other topics that are getting posted and updated.

The downside is that it could be abused, but there are ways to limit activity like that such as a time limit to when you can bump a topic after the most recent post or when it was last bumped (24hrs?)

[Guest]

6 hours ago, colonel_mortis said:

Because reposting the same thread is spam, and is not permitted. If you didn't get any responses to the thread initially, that means that either nobody is able to help you at all, in which case reposting won't help, or your thread didn't contain enough information, in which case you should just edit the existing thread.

Or it means that the thread was just posted at the wrong time and nobody saw it before it was essentially buried. 

[colonel_mortis]

9 hours ago, squirrl said:

I have to agree too. I rarely browse subforums and see the topics unless i'm searching for something specific.

 

This is why I think a couple of other feeds could be available. Recently updated topics could be one. (this would probably change pretty rapidly though...) and "Top topics" which show the current topics with the most activity.

Top topics should give people a good idea what's going on currently, rather than what we have at the moment - for example a post about something big that just happened 10 mins ago which then gets buried afterwards.

 

Recently updated could do a similar thing, but instead as a general "active topics" sort of feel which helps people who's posts have been buried and want to bump them so people can actually see them.

 

Possibly rather than" recently updated", which like i said would change really quickly on an active forum like this, "bumped topics" could work a little better.

If the feature to specifically "bump" topics was introduced (treated differently from just posting in it), then people can easily find what people are speficially looking for help with, and it wouldn't get mingled in with all the other topics that are getting posted and updated.

The downside is that it could be abused, but there are ways to limit activity like that such as a time limit to when you can bump a topic after the most recent post or when it was last bumped (24hrs?)

You can view a feed of everything that's been posted on the site using the activity feed, and you can also customise your own feed to show you exactly what you want. If you click the tick next to the title, it will then set it as your default stream, and you can then access it from a link at the top of the page.

[LogicalDrm]

1 hour ago, colonel_mortis said:

You can view a feed of everything that's been posted on the site using the activity feed, and you can also customise your own feed to show you exactly what you want. If you click the tick next to the title, it will then set it as your default stream, and you can then access it from a link at the top of the page.

Only drawback in activity feeds is that they don't allow filtering for creted topics only. So every stream shows posts to existing threads even when I would like to see only new topics.