@cos, the impetus of my posts in this topic is this:
So your concerns must not have been addressed already to your satisfaction. Since you continue to talk about it and continue to insist that you won’t follow my proposed solution of putting everything about a course into a [Course Forum], I would like to discuss that.
Below are 7 points I have about your proposed work-around, could you address them? Particularly points 2 and 3 as those are the most fundamental as I see it.
Please don’t handwave the issues away. It is an extraordinary claim to say that having thousands of topics no one but a small minority is interested in instead of hundreds is better than the reverse, so you would have to be very convincing. Extraordinary claims need extraordinary proof, or something.
Doing this would clutter the forum. This is such a big drawback that it dwarfs any benefits this might have.
How is a course creator going to find the topics? Topic starters are not going to be savvy enough to @mention them consistently. This is again such a big drawback that it dwarfs any benefit of this.
This approach assumes users or course creators will be able to or are inclined to browse the topic titles and find their issue like this. This is not realistic. If this is not the assumption, perhaps a different assumption is that it helps in finding the topic, but text in the body of a post is searchable.
Your biggest argument against the alternative solution now used on the forum, i.e. the [Course Forum] topics, is that they run the danger of becoming overly long, with issues being buried and not addressed and difficult to find. This a hypothetical concern for almost all such topics. For those topics that do become very long, you can just lock that first topic after addressing any issues in it and start a … [part 2]. A very limited number of topics on a single course are infinitely easier to search than a multitude of topics scattered all over the subcategory.
This is a lot more effort for any topic starter. Now it’s: search for the right topic and write down your issue. You propose: search the forum somehow, start a topic, follow a specific format (which most are not going to do, thus creating extra work for moderators). This has too many issues and is too much work. Most are just not going to do it.
No. You’re talking about something else. In fact, your entire comment is about something else. Putting the course title in the topic in square brackets to let people know that your post is about a specific course, will not “clutter the forum” nor kill anything, it will just make it clearer to people browsing topics what that one is about. Putting the URL of the course in the post will not clutter or kill anything either, it will just make it clearer what course someone is referring to.
You would prefer that there only ever be one post about any one course. You don’t want anyone to ever make a second post about the same course. That’s a totally different debate.
Now, I think your preference is unworkable. I will not do things that way. It’s horrible and ridiculous and full of flaws. And, regardless of what I think, it will never happen. People will make new posts about courses that there are already other posts about. People will in fact occasionally make a post about two courses, in the same post! Or even three. They might be comparing one course to another. Or, they might just not realize that there’s another post about it.
But don’t pollute this post with that debate. This post isn’t about whether or not people should stick to one course forum (a HORRIBLE AWFUL IDEA THAT I LOATHE WITH A DEEP PASSION!!), or make more specific posts. That debate belongs elsewhere.
THIS post is about what to do when you’re posting about a course (be it a “forum” or not):
link to the course
put the course name in the title (and I think it should be in square brackets)
That discussion already happened, at very great length, here:
I don’t think it’s worth reviving but you may of course do so if you wish.
What I wish is that people would stop handwaving about “clutter” as if everyone is supposed to somehow agree that having more posts is a bad thing, when many people probably think having more posts is either a good thing or not important. But whatever. There’s the discussion about it, follow that link.
I believe you guys need to take a time out from each other.
You have strong philosophical/strategical differences. You will not convince each other. It is a case of someone higher than you to make the call and set a line.
We are modos and users, we try to make judgment calls for Memrise and their forum. We are duty driven by our interest in the Site/app and feel the need to organize and/or help.
Only them could help by giving us a clear orientation by which we could resume our tasks in “peace” of mind. Without this line we (you two also) can not decide on the best line of management.
I guess we need @OliviaZavala who managed the implementation of this site to clarify, or not, this line.
We did take a several month time-out. This topic would be difficult to follow for you @sircemloud because I split it from a different one. As cos has not yet replied in this new topic, any judgement on either of our abilities to see the other’s point of view is hopefully premature.
I would never assume anything, I have been traumatised by the expression : “Don’t assume or you will make an ass of you and me”.
From where I am, I feel that it is not something that would be settled by intelligent arguments because you are both right on the principles of your logic. That is the reason why I think you need an “arbitrage”, as we call it in French.
When, in France, two ministers disagree on the details of a law that as to be discussed, because they have opposing vested interests, it takes the president to give the line. It is the same in any organization, it takes sometimes a higher input when such great minds are at odds other valid points.
There’s no need for a “time out”, what’s needed is for people to stop trying to force their view on others. I have never gone into someone else’s course forum for their own post and tried to break it up. In fact, I’ve even facilitated a course creator’s course forum because that’s what they wanted. But when self-important people with extra powers on the forum try to act like they’re helping by going around to other people’s posts and messing them around, or yell at people for posting posts that are perfectly legitimate, just because those people didn’t follow the “course forum” ideology, that is upsetting, turns people off, and leads to conflict. So just cut it out. Not for a brief timeout; forever.
Regarding that list of numbered points, it’s more rhetoric than logic. It has some actual substance mixed in, but when you have an entire numbered point that just says “this kills the forum”, you’re clearly not speaking in good faith and clearly aren’t looking for reasons.
Ignoring point #1, which isn’t a point either, you start with the same old canard that “Doing this would clutter the forum. This is such a big drawback that it dwarfs any benefits this might have.” That is just ridiculous. It’s not a drawback at all. There’s no such thing as “clutter”, you’re just talking about keeping posts on-topic by separating different things into different posts. That keeps the forum cleaner and better-organized and more manageable. It’s the whole point of even having separate posts - so that each post can have a title at the top that describes what it’s about specifically, and comments only on that one discussion, which are kept together and easy to follow.
Whenever people start objecting to separate posts by talking about “clutter” as everyone else should nod along and agree that’s a problem, I think such people are trying to impose their personal sense of counterproductive esthetics on others and not even seeing it.
If you actually think separating posts because they’re about separate things is “clutter” then here is the idea for you:
We can discuss that proposal there. Elsewhere, I will no longer take seriously or answer seriously anyone who proposes forcing unwilling people into only ever using “course forum” posts by justifying it as reducing clutter. You start with that, and we’re done.
This is on topic. It doesn’t address my concern though. I (now) say having many many topics about single courses drowns out any other discussion on the forum and effectively kills the forum. Do you not agree?
Imagine a user comes to the forum and sees thousands of topics all about courses they are not taking. How are they ever going to find a topic they’d like to read?
This is the short reply. A longer reply might go into your saying …keeps the forum [1] cleaner and [2] better-organized and more [3] manageable.