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[SirHoneyBadger]

I'm getting the impression that we're all a little tired. I know I am, and I know when I feel that way, it's sometimes a little easier to bicker and become a little more emotional about my point of view.

I know we haven't reached that stage yet, but let's be mindful that this is somewhat delicate ground we're treading on. We're, infact, discussing the possibility of major renovation to a Forum that is both beloved, and very successful.

This thread has attracted a lot of very smart people, a lot of people I really respect on these forums, so let's please keep in mind that we're all peers here, we all have egos, and that-ultimately-we're all here to work together to find a solution to a couple of serious problems.

I just don't want to see any hurt feelings, on any side, and I don't want to see any de-evolution of the talks into squabbling, which seems sometimes to happen very rapidly.

I'm not saying it will, I'm just asking that we all please be very mindful of it, and of the values we ourselves are promoting.

[mickel]

Sometimes it's a question of misunderstanding the rules. I've replied to posts that were a mere day old and been flamed for "necroposting" - this being in a forum that had an explicit rule of not dual posting. I've also been accused of "post spamming" for starting a new thread instead of resurrecting a thread that had been dead for years. These are both extreme examples of course, and I would like to point out (though it should be pretty apparent  that they are not from this forum.

What I'm trying to say is that it's sometimes hard to know whether or not it's appropriate to resurrect a dead thread rather than post a new one. And what do you do when something has been discussed over and over but you have new input that you feel will actually contribute? Because there's a chance a lot of people will (quite understandably) go "oh no, not this topic again..." and be annoyed with the poor, well meaning person.

[Footkerchief]

There needs to be a structure, or we will get the worst of both worlds: chaos AND pissed regulars. Not a good combination. That will generally lead to hastily designated moderators and draconian measures, and we suddenly get alienation and recrimination. All of us with some intarweb experience have been there already.

The closest thing we've seen to chaos is the pissed regulars.  If registrations jumped by an order of magnitude, Suggestions might start becoming borderline unreadable.  But pissed regulars are, thus far, unreasonably pissed -- if people chill out and make a sincere effort to be gentle when telling newbies that magic has been suggested over 9000 times (and some regulars have done a commendable job of this recently), that problem disappears.

Also I'd appreciate it if you'd address my statement that what Toady mentioned in that thread is not the same as what you're proposing -- specifically that your idea places the burden on newbies, while Toady's idea would only place a burden on himself (and a much smaller burden at that, since he already does some categorizing for his own purposes).

[Mikademus]

There needs to be a structure, or we will get the worst of both worlds: chaos AND pissed regulars.

The closest thing we've seen to chaos is the pissed regulars. 

Footie, forgiving as you want to be, you're wrong here. We HAVE chaos. It is not a confrontational warlike chaos (yet), but rather a chaos of anarchy. We have 300 pages with thousands of threads, and when there is both laxness of attitude and absence of moderation then you have a bloody mess. I think you're seriously misunderstanding both the purposes of the suggestion board and the state it is in. It might be friendly (still), but that doesn't mean it isn't dysfunctional (or increasingly getting there) given its purposes.

And no, I won't address your direct question, partly because I'm dead tired and can barely keep my eyes open, partly because though I admire the work Toady has done with DF I do not kowtow to him as a deity and do not have to justify every statement I make as taken from what you make sound like a Holy Scripture made by him, and finally, because that would contribute to derailing the thread from what it is about.

[Footkerchief]

And no, I won't address your direct question, partly because I'm dead tired and can barely keep my eyes open, partly because though I admire the work Toady has done with DF I do not kowtow to him as a deity and do not have to justify every statement I make as taken from what you make sound like a Holy Scripture made by him, and finally, because that would contribute to derailing the thread from what it is about.

I'm not kowtowing by any stretch, at least not in this thread.  I don't mean to sound accusatory, but you were the one who said "Toady replied there in general favour of the idea" and "this forum is not ultimately for our discussion, it is for Da Toad."  I'm just questioning the validity of those statements (or for the second, the degree to which your idea will advance the goal you're setting forth).  My apologies if I misinterpreted, but I don't see how you're seeing me as the one invoking the name of The One True Toad, Peace Be Upon Him.

[RedWick]

Maybe a Suggestions area in the Wiki would help to alleviate the problem a bit?  It would help to categorize the different suggestions, point out some of the more popular threads and potentially could be used to distill interesting suggestion topics down to their most useful pieces.

[Felblood]

We don't have anarchy, we have a light handed dictator who trusts his subjects to be civil and even tempered. A small amount of disorder is the price we pay for our freedom.

In the spirit of that, I'd like to see category tags in more thread headings (I'm using one here), but I wouldn't want to see them made mandatory. That would just be one more thing for the less cool headed folks to rave about, while the actual benefits could be achieved without a hard and fast rule.

If we, as civilized people working towards a common goal, can each of us resolve to try to do whatever we can to keep thing organized, without behaving like dicks, I believe that we can do that.

As to megathreads. I don't like them myself, as it's an enormous pain to find one conversation, in the numerous conversations that go on in a single megathread. If you keep up with the thread as it develops, it's not a real problem, but reading old megathreads is a big headache for me.

With that in mind, I propose optional Indexing Threads. These would serve the same organizational purpose as as a megathread, with a starting post full of links to particular topics. However, the actual discussions would still take place in separate threads, so a new idea won't derail the current conversation, or cause confusion. The OP of such a thread would be responsible for adding new threads to the lists, as people post in the thread asking to have their ideas indexed.

Because these systems are entirely voluntary, they adds no burden of enforcement at all. The systems could be implemented without any effort on Toady's part, whatsoever. It's just something we could do to make his job easier, and allow everyone to find what they're looking for, faster and easier.

[Faces of Mu]

Felbood, these seem like good ideas. I tend to like standardised abbreviations, and indexes that are used would make OPs feel special if their idea gets listed.

I'm wondering how these solutions solve the original issue of posters not reading the 'rules', and not searching before posting a suggestion?

[Felblood]

They don't. They're just other ideas that came up in the conversation, and I wanted to pitch my two cents on them.

We cannot stop people from posting before they read the rules. Full Stop.

One could reduce the numbers of these, by putting up a WARNING, whenever someone starts a thread when their postcount is equal to zero.
"Warning: This thread has rules regarding redundant posts. If you haven't read them you may wish to go back and search for other threads on the same topic."

However, it's unlikely that that is going to happen, and it'd be hard to implement anything more potent than that, without major public outcry, or serious side effects.

That said, it might be better if we focus on finding ways to stop the many negative effects of these redundant posts.

Since the forum already has a rule to the effect of "Don't act like a dick," making those who flame newbies more self aware is all we can really do about them.

That leaves patching up the extra disorder that redundant posts add to our filing system. A hyperlinked index system, that grants many of the organization advantages of a wiki, without the chaotic side effects of a wiki's open editing, is a good way to start.

[Capntastic]

For what it's worth, I believe you need to sign up for the DF Wiki now.   There could easily be a suggestions zone for it.

[Tormy]

I agree with you there, a single (small) list is the way to go, but how do you determine what gets in? All original suggestions is too much, and any culling would hurt somebodies feelings.  Maybe just the oft list?

No comment about sub-fora?

Yeah, that is why I've stopped to update my Master List of Suggestions Topic...after a point, I couldn't decide that which topic should be added to the list and which one shouldn't be added...it's obvious that megathreads must be on it, but what about the "regular", smaller topics? Well yeah, like I've said, perhaps the oldest topic should be added only [IE: If there are 4 different topics about guard posts, just add the oldest topic to the list, and ignore the 3 newer threads]...well maybe this could work..but again this is still a subjective list sort of.
We will have 2000++ new users in 2009. The suggestion subforum will be pretty chaotic soon enough, if something won't happen, that is for sure...however if Toady doesn't mind that X stuff will be suggested 3+ more times in a given year even..perhaps we shouldn't worry at all. 

For what it's worth, I believe you need to sign up for the DF Wiki now.   There could easily be a suggestions zone for it.

I am not sure that the wiki method would work perfectly. We can create a sub-page on the wiki, and make a list about the most interesting suggestions, however keep in mind, that the majority of the players ain't visiting the wiki at all. Most of the [new] users cannot be arsed to use the search feature even...

[Mikademus]

No comment about sub-fora?

We will have 2000++ new users in 2009. The suggestion subforum will be pretty chaotic soon enough, if something won't happen, that is for sure...however if Toady doesn't mind that X stuff will be suggested 3+ more times in a given year even..perhaps we shouldn't worry at all. 

There is a distinct gulf between good contributors and those only contributing noise. And with growth and member influx there is a tendency for the proportion of noise to increase incrementally (yes, that's an intentional word-doubling). This also has the effect and alienating the good contributors which even further will eschew the noise-to-signal ratio.

This, again, this isn't just about Toady finding and sorting suggestions, it is a about making the suggestion forum survive as a genuinely creative force and engine of development, and this will only come from keeping it meaningful. And a laissez-faire attitude to this will be conductive only to the opposite.

[Footkerchief]

Okay, time to get down to specifics.  What do you consider "chaos" and "noise"?  Just the half dozen or so once-a-month topics (guns, magic, carts, graphics, multithreading)?  Because glancing through the first couple pages of Suggestions, the vast majority of the recent "noise" has been from regulars who are a) bitching at newbies, as I said earlier and b) bickering and slapfighting with each other over the weirdest little things.  There has maybe been one newbie here in recent memory (the "Bare Minimum" guy) who had the self-righteousness and self-importance to stir up those kinds of flamewars.

[Techhead]

Ironically, I believe that the problem of redundant threads has been brought up before.

Searching...
Not a dedicated thread, but it was discussed in Top 10 Suggestions and this thread as well.

[Footkerchief]

this thread

And this one, also posted by Mikademus.

I think Felblood's most recent suggestion (popping up a warning when posting threads in Suggestions) would help cut down on redundant threads, although I would change it so that the warning shows up for everyone no matter how many threads they've posted.  Even regulars can forget to both Ctrl+F the Consolidated Dev Page and search the forums.  I would also make the warning more explicit about how users should go about searching -- preferably including links to the Consolidated Dev Page and to a search page that already has the Suggestions forum preselected (so that they don't have worry about results from Community Games or wherever).