Breathing new life into old threads.

Discussions on alternate history, including events up to 20 years before today. Hosted by Terry Duncan.
User avatar
Andy H
Forum Staff
Posts: 15326
Joined: 12 Mar 2002 20:51
Location: UK and USA

Breathing new life into old threads.

Post by Andy H » 15 Jun 2004 01:30

As many of you know, the What If section of the forum was in grave danger of going the same way as the old Polls section of the Forum.

Thankfully that threat has passed and in no small way to the way in which those that frequent the What If section have conducted themselves.

Bearing that in mind. As members join it is only natural to review some of the older threads posted within the What If area, and on occasion these old threads re-surface. That isn't a problem if the thread is a coherent one. However many of the old threads contain those elements which almost brought about this area's downfall.

To that end, if you see a thread to which you may wish to add, just check it's contents to make sure that none of those 'elements' lie within. If it does apply some caution otherwise they come back to haunt us.

Andy H
Last edited by Andy H on 08 Sep 2004 18:33, edited 3 times in total.

Jon G.
Member
Posts: 6647
Joined: 17 Feb 2004 01:12
Location: Europe

Post by Jon G. » 15 Jun 2004 04:16

To avoid this, maybe you & the other moderators could simply delete some of those old what-ifs that come across as particularly off the wall? A less radical solution could be simply locking those substandard topic threads?

For a what-if discussion to be beneficial to all involved, I think a certain suspension of disbelief is mandatory - if a particular subject clashes with your own, personal disbelief threshold, simply not posting on that thread is more advisable IMHO. After all, you can end all subjects here right away by stating that it didn't really happen :)

User avatar
wenty
Member
Posts: 1601
Joined: 01 Dec 2002 23:41
Location: Australia

Post by wenty » 15 Jun 2004 10:01

Hi Shrek,
The idea for simply deleting threads like that is a good one, but it's not just that simple, because of reasons like:

1.) There is 35 pages of topics in this section, it would take quite a long while to go through and read every single one of them and all the posts.
2.) As has happened in so many good threads before, there are some good posts which are ruined by bad posts.

In my opinion, people should be able to read all the posts, but we would all be much better off, and it would save a lot of work, if everyone just didn't reply to the topics like that.
Just my 2 cents. Cheers. :)

User avatar
Andy H
Forum Staff
Posts: 15326
Joined: 12 Mar 2002 20:51
Location: UK and USA

Post by Andy H » 15 Jun 2004 15:21

Shrek wrote:
To avoid this, maybe you & the other moderators could simply delete some of those old what-ifs that come across as particularly off the wall? A less radical solution could be simply locking those substandard topic threads?
That is a achievable goal but it will take time, and as Wenty stated some threads turn bad, and so it will take time to trawl through these threads. So in the meantime I'm just asking that people act with some caution when re-igniting some of these old threads.

Kind Regards

Andy H

User avatar
Andy H
Forum Staff
Posts: 15326
Joined: 12 Mar 2002 20:51
Location: UK and USA

Post by Andy H » 15 Jun 2004 15:27

One of the main problems affecting many of the boards within the forum is the repetition of the same questions. David Thompson the Moderator on the H&WC area has made a start in trying to rectify this problem, and I'm currently working on a similar index for the What If area

http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?t=52292

Andy H

Carl Schwamberger
Host - Allied sections
Posts: 9908
Joined: 02 Sep 2006 20:31
Location: USA

Re: Breathing new life into old threads.

Post by Carl Schwamberger » 05 Sep 2012 01:22

Was this thread incorporated into the guidlines for WI? Perhaps it should be deleted to save on bandwidth?

Return to “What if”