I have been considering a very drastic reform that would likely immediately anger many users, but might be preferable for the long-term health of the board.
Specifically I am considering imposing a total thread limit, which would cause threads that hit the bottom of catalog to be deleted. Going along with this, an age limit on threads would also be imposed. The reason is that at this moment, I suspect posting is dissuaded by these factors:
>The biggest threads are typically very old, having been created months if not years ago, which signals to newcomers that they have missed the discussion and dissuades them from posting there today, even if posts are still made by core users
>Threads with hundreds or thousands of files stay up indefinitely without requiring further bumping, which removes any incentive to maintain or replace content. It also keeps people from posting new content, when it is placed in competition with a mountain of previous files in the same thread
>There is likely a sizeable number of users that only look into one or two threads of interest, and might lose interest in the board if those threads are stagnant
Right now, we are two weeks into December, and activity during December fills most of the first 3 pages of the Index, with Page 4 already going back to mid November. This means most threads beyond the first 3 pages are essentially being subsidized by our gracious site host, and could use an incentive to engage with the post and reply buttons.
Instating a thread limit would immediately take out most current threads on the catalog. An age limit I would probably at first implement in a soft way by deleting select threads, with the hard limit being instated later once activity is stable.
I am not entirely set on doing this yet, and would like to see constructive feedback first. I'd also be interested in hearing other ideas if possible, or if people even think doing anything is necessary at this time. Definite decisions will be made later.
Edited last time by eral on 12/14/2024 (Sat) 13:25:38.