Unicyclist.com: Chat Room or Message Boards?

Off-topic
1

There have been a few threads about the declining quality of these boards, but no concrete discussion about the “whys” and “hows” of quality posting. I’ve mused on this topic over the past week, visiting other forums for comparison, and I’ve come to the following conclusion:

Unicyclist.com has seen a large influx of users who utilize the forums as they would a chat room.

After a non-scientific survey of “Page 1” RSU and JC threads, I’ve noticed posts in some threads that are complete “fluff”… here are some examples: “thats sweet” “mannn that’s sounds cool” “HAHAHAHAHAH”

I’m not even going near “Most Replies”… the “MySpace” of Unicyclist.com

Looking at other forums / bulletin boards / newsgroups I notice that most every post has something to contribute to the thread. A good number of posts are well thought-out, even if they are questions or matters of opinion; the “drive-by” single-sentence posts that plague these fora aren’t as numerous elsewhere, for reasons to be determined. (I will posit that the users in the other forums I’ve visited have a higher age on average)

History may well have some influence on users’ posting habits. In the days of Compuserve and dial-up BBSes, posts had to be well thought out… there was no “edit” button and threads didn’t evolve in a matter of minutes. Users who participate in newsgroups through email or NNTP readers also experience a significant lag in time between posts and responses.

I am lead to believe that there is a large percentage of users on this forum who have never used an NNTP reader… not that this is a bad thing, it just goes to say our community is composed of users with diverse technological backgrounds, from scientific types with custom-built Linux rigs to mouth-breathing key-mashers with AOL accounts.

While an HTTP based forum interface is slick, it may be aiding the downfall in post quality… posters see near-immediate results. This immediacy is much like what one experiences in a chat room. How many times have we seen posters who start a thread, then make a second post 20 minutes later saying “why has no one responded?” Okay, maybe this doesn’t happen all the time, but the few times I’ve seen this led me to my conclusion (see the bolded text above).

Many fora have a sticky thread entitled “Read this before you post…” which contains tips including “USE THE SEARCH BUTTON” and “don’t use profane language” amongst other common-sense practices. In some ways I appreciate the lack of such a thread in our fora, leaving us on our own to do what we will. However, it would appear (with the recent commenting on the decline in forum quality) that such a thread may do us some good here. I’m not going to propose such a thread, that’s open for discussion here…

I leave you with a suggestion: if you want to chat, use IRC, MSN, AIM, etc. If you want to participate in a dialog whose purpose is to promote unicycling and its progression, then post in RSU.

2

its only cause were cool, and not afraid to chat

3

notice the title of this area of the forums:

“Just Conversation”

now what does that name imply?

I agree that some of the total fluff threads are unneccessary, but if the “chatting” stays confined to the Most Replys thread then there shouldn’t be an issue. If it came down to just casual chatting in RSU then it would definitely have to be addressed, but in Just Conversation I don’t see much of a problem.

A forum is essentially a chat room with just slightly slower results, a more topic specific discussion, and with a broader group of people reading each message.

I’m not sure that the quality of the forums is declining, the number of users is increasing so there’s more posts to work through, maybe that just gives the impression of a declining quality.

4

I leave my chatting for JC. RSU is where the big people talk, and I respect that.

5

Maybe if more people posted about unicycling, instead of disscussing the conversations that go on…

6

It’s not a statement of being bold enough to chat, but the issue with the fact that message boards are never meant to be chat rooms.

JC is “flooded” with threads that are only created to create pointless chatter. While it is called “just conversation”, there’s a large difference between creating a thread about a viable topic that you want to discuss with people and creating a topic that has zero value. “Hey, I was bored” is not a reason one should create a thread.

Part of the problem is that there are a lot of people that feed the “junk” threads - which keeps them at the top and pushes any viable threads off the views. While I can understand the usual noise (word association, most replies, etc.), there gets a point that it’s beyond excessive and pointless.

Ultimately, we need some self-discretion when people create threads and some self-discretion when people respond to pointless threads. If you don’t like litter, not littering is awesome. Picking up trash is even better.

7

Of the other forums I participate in, that is less common here than it is in the other forums.

8

I agree with that completely, and I think the Most Replys thread is a good way to help eliminate the useless threads. That way there’s only one thread to skip over for those that don’t want to see useless threads. I think a little more self-discretion would be a good idea.

9

I agree that there’s too much useless fluff, but it’s easy to add the worst spammers cough like habbywall cough to your ignore list. The problem is some people who are clearly capable of thoughtful posts also feel the need to submit an equal amount of useless junk. You can ignore them, but then you could be missing an interesting thread or useful point. Maybe those people could be persuaded to save the “LOL” and “HAHAHA” for JC. I don’t know how you’d go about convincing some 12 year old to show a little more discretion though…

10

That’s a side effect of web interfaces for forums. It’s the AOL effect. Make a discussion forum pretty with real time interaction and the posting gets more chatty. It was an experiment done in the late 80’s when AOL launched discussion forums. CompuServe had high quality discussion forums for years but never had the pretty interface and real time interaction. Then AOL came along. The discussion forums on AOL never had high quality content and turned into chat boards. There is a repeat of the experiment going on here.

I don’t mind chatty threads in JC. That’s the charm of JC (and I am charming if I do say so myself). However, RSU is getting too chatty with fluff replies to posts and even fluff threads. People need to exercise restraint in RSU and not post whatever comes to the top of their head at the time. RSU is not a chatty forum like JC. When posting to RSU you should think about your post and what it adds to the thread. If it’s not something that adds to the thread then don’t post it. Keep a mindset that 1000 people are going to read that thread and think about whether your post is going to waste the time of all of those people. If it’s going to waste their time then you probably shouldn’t post.

There was a time when I read pretty much everything posted to RSU. I don’t even try to do that any more. In fact I read only a very small percentage of RSU now. Too much quantity and not enough quality over there.

11

I object!
we are much more sophisticated than those MySpace losers…not implying anything about users of MySpace, of course.
Anyway, I agree. These here forums would be better if people only posted when they actually had something to say, not just to up their post count, or replying for the sake of replying. Even in Most Replys, people are warned not to reply just for the sake of replying…you have to actually contribute something to the conversation, making our Most Replys into a great family type thread that we can all come home to after a long day at work or whatever and do whatever or whatever.

12

I am really cutting back on reading the forums because now that the weather is nicer, I’d rather be out unicycling or longboarding or roadbiking or or or or doing something else outside… Forums are for the winter…

13

A lot of people comment that this is a much friendlier forum than others that they frequent but perhaps the fluff is a ‘side effect’ of the friendliness and perhaps a forum can’t be efficient and friendly at the same time. Unicycle.com is clearly a community (it says so at the top of the page) and we are only behaving like one by interacting socially. :smiley:

I personally don’t find it too much trouble to sift through the fluff because of the quality of the other stuff.

Cathy

14

i see it as, RSU when you want a problem solved, and then yes i could say JC is pretty much a chat room… but its all fun… i like it either way

Chase

15

Well when seven people all reply to the same thread saying the same thing, then it’s bound to cause a decrease in quality over time, because it comes the norm…there are so many threads in RSU where people answer a question with “yeah what he said”, or where multiple people post “this thread is pointless” 80 times in a row…I may have a high post per day, and I’m sure that I’m one of the people that Maestro is talking to, but I do try to only post when I have something more than ‘lol’ (unless I’m in MR)…I just have a lot to say, normally

16

that is a good philosophy…

Chase