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Cleaning up / Regulating the Production Forum (pg. 2)
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| Storyteller |
I'd say the simplest thing of all is that a topic must be worthy of discussing in it's broadest sense. If it is a question the OP should prove he's done a sufficient ammount of research himself to attempt and solve it. This way you'll only get topics that provide interesting content, and kill the dumb questions instantaniously. Would we need another mod to ruin the fun (and enforce the newly introduced TA PD law)? Probably.
More or less point 1 made by Alfi I guess. |
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| Vector A |
| As far as I remember, in the "good old days" (maybe 2005 - 2008 or so?) the forum had even less moderation than it does now. I am not saying that was necessarily a good thing, by the way, just making a note of it. |
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| Storyteller |
| Maybe it was better at selfmoderation. Or people were still capable of finding solutions themselves :) |
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| EddieZilker |
| quote: | Originally posted by wayfinder
In summary -
- don't be new
- know everything already
- phrase everything in a very specific and precise way that necessitates knowing the answers beforehand
- this forum shouldn't exist
Seriously, almost none of your examples necessarily constitute a stupid question.
1. stems from ignorance. easily corrected, forum did its job (knowledge transfer/technical help)!
1a. what for you may have a thousand subtly different meanings may be crystal clear to someone else. ask for clarification, proceed. forum did its job!
1b. tell them the factors it depends on. they learn. forum does its job!
1c. debate pros and cons. they learn. forum did its job!
1d. explain that not everyone agrees on what's perfect and ask for a specific sample of the sound they want to achieve. proceed from there.
1e. ask for sample
2. it's not always possible to navigate a manual with the info you have. references are written with very accurate nomenclature, what if people don't yet know that? where do they start their search? if it#s a small thing, just answer - if it's a large thing, "rtfm :D" is completely acceptable
3. nobody knows what has or hasn't been asked before. i agree that when there's a sticky that says "search first, before you post a question" and people don't do that, they're being stupid. but again, not everyone knows the names of things well enough to find what they search. It's completely illusory to require people to know that the forum search software sucks a bit and to use google instead (and how to do it!).
4. kind of agreed. alas, not everything that's high up in google results is good content, so you'd pretty much have to go on a case by case basis and that's just not practical
5. we all hate these threads probably (unless we're the ones asking :)), but you said it yourself – it's a useful tool to learn, so the questions themselves probably shouldn't be disallowed.
6. these are actually the most interesting and useful questions in here, why the would you outlaw them
edit: removed a vestigial "4." |
If they don't constitute stupid questions, show me where they have been answered consistently and effectively. I'm making myself and my former approach scarce around these parts, so I'm not going to shoot anything down before it has a chance to be answered. If I'm wrong, I'm happy to be wrong about this, but I'm not wrong.
If questions like the ones I highlighted continue to be permitted with their current frequency, this place just isn't going to be useful to much of anyone. You might answer a few of them but you'll get really tired of it, really quickly and you'll find that the people who are asking them, aren't very grateful for your effort.
I listed many of the sorts of OP's that I've found problematic. I've never, ever seen you answer these OP's. I've rarely seen them answered effectively. I haven't gone in to too much detail as to why they can't be answered effectively but, if you have all the answers, by all means - please, start answering them.
EDIT: You have answered in the kicks thread to a rather receptive OP; and done so rather informatively. That's the exception I was referring to when people are asking how to emulate someone else's sound. The OP was receptive to all of the feedback and got quite a few good answers (until the thread got derailed by drama) - kudos. |
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| Vector A |
| You can read the archives here for proof that newbie questions were no less common years ago than they are now. I don't even mind them, frankly, as long as you don't end up having the exact same topic on the first few pages of the forum; that's a bit ridiculous. But vBulletin's topic merge feature can easily take care of that nuisance. |
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| clay |
| the forum is pretty good as it is imo. it goes up and down like anything. trolls comes and goes, and digis moderation is actually enough, when things get totally out of hand, or theres spam he is there to fix it or give out warnings. at times theres just not really necessary to discuss sidechaining anymore and the activity goes a little down, making room for the new users. |
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| Fledz |
Wasn't one of the reasons Audio Pioneers went down because of the elitism and too many rules? You want some rules but you certainly don't want to go overboard.
| quote: | Originally posted by Vector A
You can read the archives here for proof that newbie questions were no less common years ago than they are now. I don't even mind them, frankly, as long as you don't end up having the exact same topic on the first few pages of the forum; that's a bit ridiculous. But vBulletin's topic merge feature can easily take care of that nuisance. |
I agree. They don't bother me too much, as they quickly disappear down the list. |
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| Vector A |
I have spent a lot of time, perhaps too much, moderating and posting on forums, and it seems far more common to me that a place gets smothered to death with heavy-handed moderation than that it disintegrates through lack of it. So I agree with the "light on rules" approach.
I also think that people tend to be bothered a lot more if their thread gets shut down entirely than if a few people happen to post stupid responses to it. |
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| clay |
| thats one of the reasons i keep coming back to TA, the very open moderation, and the fact that integrity usually wins here. |
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| dj_alfi |
| quote: | Originally posted by Vector A
I have spent a lot of time, perhaps too much, moderating and posting on forums, and it seems far more common to me that a place gets smothered to death with heavy-handed moderation than that it disintegrates through lack of it. So I agree with the "light on rules" approach.
I also think that people tend to be bothered a lot more if their thread gets shut down entirely than if a few people happen to post stupid responses to it. |
| quote: | Originally posted by itsamemario
This thread has been locked as it is a breach on out TOS. If you feel your thread has been locked erroneously, or if you would like to rephrase your post, please pm PDJailMaster. |
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| EddieZilker |
| quote: | Originally posted by Vector A
I have spent a lot of time, perhaps too much, moderating and posting on forums, and it seems far more common to me that a place gets smothered to death with heavy-handed moderation than that it disintegrates through lack of it. So I agree with the "light on rules" approach. |
Yeah. I definitely don't want to smother anything with well-intended rules. While I think the problems I raised should be addressed I'm trying to think of ways to address them effectively without an altogether stifling approach. I'm not in the no-question-too-stupid camp, by a mile. I just don't want this place to become un-fun, either. |
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| TranceLover007 |
| quote: | Originally posted by Fledz
Wasn't one of the reasons Audio Pioneers went down because of the elitism and too many rules? You want some rules but you certainly don't want to go overboard.
I agree. They don't bother me too much, as they quickly disappear down the list. |
Agree, people (new members or guys who don't contribute to this forum) who ask some stupid questions are quickly forgotten.
Darek |
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