What to do with the huge old topics on the forums?
Disclaimer: Topic-question and its observations. I wanted to post in q & a, but I think it’s more convenient to write comments for the topic.
Often, on popular subject forums (ixbt, allnokia, wl500g), you can find mastodon themes that start in years like 2005 and still live today.
There is an opinion that useful infa is present in these topics, but the entropy of information in topics is so high that it is not possible to look for the seeds of mind there.
Moreover, the topic existing since 2005 does not look like a well of up-to-date knowledge, if a person comes up with a question, for example, on a new version of a phone, laptop, software, or programming.
')
Meanwhile, new people are constantly coming to the forum. Naturally, the “order” of the size of the themes becomes bad, and they create their own topics with specific questions. Further, depending on the severity of moderation on the site, the topic is either nailed / closed, or merjitsya in the “papal theme”, and the merciless community of the topikstarter, like a kitten in his own ssanya, starts poking at the rules, sends rays of diarrhea, reads the notations “about the fruitful topics ”and“ your question was sucked a million times, in particular, on page 63 of that topic! ”.
On the other hand, moderators can also be understood - it is not good to have many identical topics, but it is great to have a self-organized Talmud of knowledge.
For example, we have a topic in the local network forum - IPTV. It was created back in the year when the survey of the demand for this service was conducted. Years passed, IPTV went through a period of test operation and debugging, and was fully launched. Needless to say, for 3 years, all stages were reflected in this thread from, now, 56 pages. Of course, it contains both settings, and pitfalls, and tips on choosing a player, and addresses of channels, playlists and everything, and all of them are spread over a thin layer over the same 56 pages. Reading all over again is pointless, half of the settings are no longer valid. Reading from the end is not an option - people are already discussing current usage. Yes, you may find the settings, but not the addresses of playlists, not software, etc.
Also, in such topics there are at least 2-3 discussion threads of varying degrees of off-topic, and since the forums have a list structure of messages, it is butthurt to follow the discussion (or subscribe to a topic). By the way, an attempt to introduce a tree structure on the forums with the Invision engine is covered with a copper basin - people in one message, for example, respond in two discussions at once. By the way, not to mention the flame.
Allocating a FAQ solves a part of the problems - it makes finding information easier. Honor and praise to those people that keep him uptodate! But a few forums are doing this, plus in the FAQ not to ask follow-up questions and expand the discussion on the issue.
Plus, the FAQ is not suitable for those where experience is collected, impressions, etc.
There is stackoverflow, where you just offer to pay attention to the already answered questions. I noticed that there are few who are indignant about recurring questions, but just kindly give a link. Is this a question of mentality or does the platform somehow contribute to this?
Summing up, it seems to me that the old giant topics are difficult for the perception of information, if you do not participate in the topic from the very beginning. Re-read the n-hundred pages, you see, not the most effective exercise as well.
Does this evil represent new topics on the issues already discussed?
Are there any other ways of organizing information, dialogues on forums, so that topics are material. Or even such topics are good?
Often, on popular subject forums (ixbt, allnokia, wl500g), you can find mastodon themes that start in years like 2005 and still live today.
There is an opinion that useful infa is present in these topics, but the entropy of information in topics is so high that it is not possible to look for the seeds of mind there.
Moreover, the topic existing since 2005 does not look like a well of up-to-date knowledge, if a person comes up with a question, for example, on a new version of a phone, laptop, software, or programming.
')
Meanwhile, new people are constantly coming to the forum. Naturally, the “order” of the size of the themes becomes bad, and they create their own topics with specific questions. Further, depending on the severity of moderation on the site, the topic is either nailed / closed, or merjitsya in the “papal theme”, and the merciless community of the topikstarter, like a kitten in his own ssanya, starts poking at the rules, sends rays of diarrhea, reads the notations “about the fruitful topics ”and“ your question was sucked a million times, in particular, on page 63 of that topic! ”.
On the other hand, moderators can also be understood - it is not good to have many identical topics, but it is great to have a self-organized Talmud of knowledge.
For example, we have a topic in the local network forum - IPTV. It was created back in the year when the survey of the demand for this service was conducted. Years passed, IPTV went through a period of test operation and debugging, and was fully launched. Needless to say, for 3 years, all stages were reflected in this thread from, now, 56 pages. Of course, it contains both settings, and pitfalls, and tips on choosing a player, and addresses of channels, playlists and everything, and all of them are spread over a thin layer over the same 56 pages. Reading all over again is pointless, half of the settings are no longer valid. Reading from the end is not an option - people are already discussing current usage. Yes, you may find the settings, but not the addresses of playlists, not software, etc.
Also, in such topics there are at least 2-3 discussion threads of varying degrees of off-topic, and since the forums have a list structure of messages, it is butthurt to follow the discussion (or subscribe to a topic). By the way, an attempt to introduce a tree structure on the forums with the Invision engine is covered with a copper basin - people in one message, for example, respond in two discussions at once. By the way, not to mention the flame.
Possible solutions
Allocating a FAQ solves a part of the problems - it makes finding information easier. Honor and praise to those people that keep him uptodate! But a few forums are doing this, plus in the FAQ not to ask follow-up questions and expand the discussion on the issue.
Plus, the FAQ is not suitable for those where experience is collected, impressions, etc.
There is stackoverflow, where you just offer to pay attention to the already answered questions. I noticed that there are few who are indignant about recurring questions, but just kindly give a link. Is this a question of mentality or does the platform somehow contribute to this?
Finish
Summing up, it seems to me that the old giant topics are difficult for the perception of information, if you do not participate in the topic from the very beginning. Re-read the n-hundred pages, you see, not the most effective exercise as well.
Does this evil represent new topics on the issues already discussed?
Are there any other ways of organizing information, dialogues on forums, so that topics are material. Or even such topics are good?
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/125401/
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