The downside of 'chat threads' is...

[TurnedTheCorner]

I'd like to preface this by saying that I have served as a moderator on other online forums in the past. I've moderated them for years. I understand that moderating can be a thankless duty, and I don't mean this to come across as hostile or disrespectful to the moderator team here at CP. I think the moderators here do a great job, and I've never had any problems in my dealings with them or discussions with them in the past.

So, my question for this thread and what I would like to discuss is:

The downside of 'chat threads' is...what, exactly? I've posted questions about this in a couple of discussion topics, but I haven't seen a straight answer from a moderator.

I've seen some remarks about a chat thread having an adverse effect on the quality of the OT Forum. I've seen suggestions that the Chat Room could be used. I've seen it suggested that the enormous, multi-thousand replies and multi-hundred page threads cause server strain.

Is there a definitive answer to this? Or if not, at least a clear subjective explanation? The participants in the 'chat threads' seemed to enjoy them - they can foster a sense of community and comraderie amongst members.

Chat threads seemed much more likely to be used that the chat room, which has been underutilized in every incarnation of FOI that I can remember. And they also were typically highly rated threads.

In terms of having a meandering, ever changing topic - I don't see the harm in that. Threads often can contain very interesting discussions and exchanges of ideas that have very little to do with the original topic. I don't see a thread being "derailed" or "hi-jacked" as a negative thing - these discussions can evolve organically and often take unexpected twists and turns.

If concerns about "quality" or "server strain" are legitimate -- surely they would equally apply to Game chat threads as well? With 5 or 6 "Iggy scores!" posts or "McGratton owned in that fight" for every highlight? Perhaps I'm exaggerating or underrating the quality of discussion in the game threads. For reasons that community members avoided the multi-page OT "chat" threads, I avoid the multi-page FOI Game "chat" threads. I don't see one being inherently better or worse than the other.

I checked the board guidelines, I checked the OT forum description, and I didn't see anything approaching a policy or direction that was laid out with regards to "chat" threads. If such threads are to be discouraged, surely there is room for an explanation or update to the guidelines, descriptions or policies?

Again - I've moderated for years. I have towed the company line and locked many, many, many of these kinds of chat threads in my day. Because it was clearly spelled out in the board guidelines and terms of service that such threads were not allowed. The owners and administrators of those forums eventually changed their minds and the policies, and when that happened I no longer had to close them on sight. So I get that as a moderator, you're acting on what you need to act on and that personal preference, sensibilities or criteria rarely (if ever) enter into the moderation decision.

But if these decisions are being made because of the company line, could the company line be laid out for the users and participants in these forums?

Thanks for your time. Sorry for rambling.

[JFK]

Soooo... Big Gulps eh?

Well...cya later.



Edit: sorry, not trying to be a dick. I just don't know if this topic will go anywhere, seems a lot of this was already being discussed and then the thread got locked.

[Mr.Coffee]

From what I can tell, the confessional thread is basically a chat thread anyway.

[rubecube]

Kind of agree. I don't really think a lot of the posts in the Random Thoughts thread or Confessional were worth threads of their own. Would the mods prefer that we start new threads everytime we're drunk and want to know who else is drunk?

[4X4]

Does anyone know how much a cab from Kensington to the airport would cost in the middle of the night (no traffic)?

[BlackArcher101]

The chat threads have basically expanded turning entire boards into chat boards with meaningless drivel. And it's usually the same posters who don't really know any other means of posting who keep it up.

Sad really.

[thesmugger]

What the hell is going on here?

[The Goon]

[photon]

Originally Posted by TurnedTheCorner

I've seen some remarks about a chat thread having an adverse effect on the quality of the OT Forum.

I think in a way it does, because the chat threads are just that; chat. They're not a thread about a specific topic of discussion, they're just a meandering chat. I don't think the goal of OT is to replace MSN or ICQ or whatever, it's to house threads which are off-topic and don't fit elsewhere; but are still discussion threads.

That in itself (that we want discussions, not chat) isn't a huge reason, but it is one.

Originally Posted by TurnedTheCorner

I've seen suggestions that the Chat Room could be used.

I think that'd be great, it's there for that.

Originally Posted by TurnedTheCorner

I've seen it suggested that the enormous, multi-thousand replies and multi-hundred page threads cause server strain.

This is true, but hard to quantify. From a general database point of view the more records the software has to go through to generate the information requested, the more strain it has to put on the server. The bigger a thread, the more resources are needed to display it and update it.

As to how much of an impact, that's difficult to say without basically doing benchmarks, setting up 500 fake users, measuring exact query times, etc etc... So it's hard to say if it's a 1% drain or a 10% drain. But server CPU is definitely the next limiting factor for us hardware wise so it's an important consideration.

Originally Posted by TurnedTheCorner

Is there a definitive answer to this? Or if not, at least a clear subjective explanation? The participants in the 'chat threads' seemed to enjoy them - they can foster a sense of community and comraderie amongst members.

I agree, though I think there's a "maximum" level of that too, and the chat threads are usually limited to a relatively small # of members. But that is one thing on the positive side to consider.

Originally Posted by TurnedTheCorner

In terms of having a meandering, ever changing topic - I don't see the harm in that. Threads often can contain very interesting discussions and exchanges of ideas that have very little to do with the original topic. I don't see a thread being "derailed" or "hi-jacked" as a negative thing - these discussions can evolve organically and often take unexpected twists and turns.

That's true, but even a thread that evolves still usually has something to do with the original topic.. if it doesn't then in an ideal world a moderator would actually split the thread into two threads so both topics could continue, but that's pretty intensive for moderators time. But maybe that's something that has to happen more in the future, I know forums who's moderators are very active in that kind of thing.

Originally Posted by TurnedTheCorner

If concerns about "quality" or "server strain" are legitimate -- surely they would equally apply to Game chat threads as well? With 5 or 6 "Iggy scores!" posts or "McGratton owned in that fight" for every highlight? Perhaps I'm exaggerating or underrating the quality of discussion in the game threads. For reasons that community members avoided the multi-page OT "chat" threads, I avoid the multi-page FOI Game "chat" threads. I don't see one being inherently better or worse than the other.

From a server strain point of view, game threads are temporary and short lived, so while the load of lots of people all at once is significant, the strain from the actual thread itself isn't that bad because the thread is small.

And we are Calgarypuck, so a game thread "chat" is more expected of a sports site than a general chat thread, and it is all on one single topic (mostly).

But from a quality point of view, I totally agree. Some game threads I want to lock after the first period. But I can't really think of any solution to that, other than mass bannings.. which I'm up for

Originally Posted by TurnedTheCorner

I checked the board guidelines, I checked the OT forum description, and I didn't see anything approaching a policy or direction that was laid out with regards to "chat" threads. If such threads are to be discouraged, surely there is room for an explanation or update to the guidelines, descriptions or policies?

Of course.. policy is something that grows and changes over time as the forum grows and changes too, and discussing it is reasonable.

One other aspect of a chat thread is difficulty in moderation.. they're just hard to moderate because they're hard to read. So mods stay out of them, which means more goes on there than in other threads, and when action is necessary, it can take forever to foil out what's going on... the source of something might be 50 pages back!

Originally Posted by TurnedTheCorner

But if these decisions are being made because of the company line, could the company line be laid out for the users and participants in these forums?

Thanks for your time. Sorry for rambling.

Maybe more of a case of us finding the "company line".. we've allowed them for a while, and have seen that side of it, and the costs maybe have outweighed the benefits.. but you've made some points to think on as well.

[photon]

Originally Posted by rubecube

Kind of agree. I don't really think a lot of the posts in the Random Thoughts thread or Confessional were worth threads of their own. Would the mods prefer that we start new threads everytime we're drunk and want to know who else is drunk?

I think the mods would rather the people who are drunk and want to know who else is drunk go back to Facebook or MySpace (does anyone still use MySpace?).

[4X4]

Eh, pho... Care to elaborate on your last post in the questions about CP thread? I want to know what kind of mystical powers you mods have, and I want to hear an example of mods gone bad.

edit* and I really want to know how much that cab costs. Someone is trying to get me to drive them to the airport on wednesday at friggin 5am. I want her to cab it.

[JFK]

If you start a thread, perhaps I'll share my wisdom of cabbies with you.

[newts]

[V]

Originally Posted by fotze

I don't know who designed that pole, but that's a sad example of bad engineering. That anchor needs re-engineering stat!!

[Jordan!]

You've got alot of gears to grind dontcha???

People don't use chatrooms anymore imo.

[GreenTeaFrapp]

Originally Posted by photon

I think that'd be great, it's there for that.

The problem with the chat room is that it's immediate. You have to be in it and contribute to it in real time. It would work for something like a game time chat but when it's just random thoughts, not so much because a lot of the time people aren't contributing to it instantly even though it might seem like that due to it's popularity.

I might be wrong about this but when you join the chat room, you're starting from a blank slate when it comes to the discussion. You lose a lot of the context of what has been said. As well, I suspect the chat room doesn't work very well when you're using a mobile device.

[photon]

Originally Posted by 4X4

Eh, pho... Care to elaborate on your last post in the questions about CP thread? I want to know what kind of mystical powers you mods have, and I want to hear an example of mods gone bad.

Well mods can do all the standard stuff.. Remove/Edit/Delete posts, ban users, that kind of thing.. so really if a Mod wanted to they could mark ALL posts and delete them. Or ban everyone they can find, starting at the post count list. Or stealth edit posts to make things really bad for someone, there are couples who post for example, a mod could edit posts to make it seem someone is admitting to an affair or something.. and a hundred other evil things I can't think of right now.

I've never seen a mod go that bad, but on one forum I was on a looong time ago (a gaming forum, can't remember the name), I recall the one moderator who handled the money from donations decided to keep the money and leave the forum.. wasn't a huge amount, but still was nasty.

Or another forum I was on the site owner got a real job in the gaming industry, and the community basically split as all the moderators jockeyed for power and support.. there was all kinds of nasty posts, backbiting, etc among the mods and top people in the community.. I think eventually there was 3 or 4 sites that started up to try and capture the community. I ended up being a mod and a writer and sometimes graphic designer for one of the sites, but we were the lamest out of all of them I think

Things can go really sideways.

[photon]

Originally Posted by GreenTeaFrapp

The problem with the chat room is that it's immediate. You have to be in it and contribute to it in real time. It would work for something like a game time chat but when it's just random thoughts, not so much because a lot of the time people aren't contributing to it instantly even though it might seem like that due to it's popularity.

I might be wrong about this but when you join the chat room, you're starting from a blank slate when it comes to the discussion. You lose a lot of the context of what has been said. As well, I suspect the chat room doesn't work very well when you're using a mobile device.

That's very true, a chat thread does have the advantage of being "slower" than a real chat and persistent.

Too bad we couldn't set up a thread that was only ever 5 pages, new posts bumped off old ones. Moderation effort and buried topics don't get resolved though.

[HPLovecraft]

Originally Posted by V

I don't know who designed that pole, but that's a sad example of bad engineering. That anchor needs re-engineering stat!!

As in, good engineering? A sad example of something that's supposed to be bad engineering?

[V]

As in an example of bad engineering that makes me sad.

I never said I was any good at English...