It is beyond annoying to see that threads are arbitrarily being closed whenever something comes up that resembles a critical opinion or which points out something which obviously is not working right (and it’s not the users’ fault that so much is going wrong!).
And it happens without anything that would justify the closure of a thread, too.
Instead, it now seems to even be done sort of prophylactically, i. e. before any criticism could possibly evolve.
It’s you particularly, @James_g_memrise, so may I ask whether this is something you’ve been ordered to do or whether this is based on your personal decision?
Albeit the fact that the forum is owned by Memrise, it is a platform for an open exchange, at least that’s what I thought it was over the last half decade. This demeanour is absolutely illegitimate and it definitely needs to stop.
That topic was closed because the toggle had been added, and while the copy needs amending, as I stated, that was in progress. So I did not want myself, or the other people on the thread to keep being notified for unnecessary posts. Responding to the forum is not part of my job, I do it as I’m a relatively nice person and feel like you al deserve a response where possible, closing topics that have run their course helps me do this without spending unnecessary time. Threads that veer wildly off topic may also be closed for this reason.
Clearly we allow criticism of Memrise on this forum as evidenced by the many posts, but there is a line, if people start repeating absurd conspiracy theories or insult staff we are not obliged to tolerate it. If we were diabolical monsters who never wanted to hear criticism we’d just ban everyone who said something negative.
I appreciate it may be annoying when threads are closed, but feel free to start new ones
I don’t know what’s your problem with criticism, especially with this hardly breathing forum where people are not only criticising (if at all), but at the same time suggesting many real improvements.
Many problems with Memrise are recurring, audio tests thread is an example, it’s easier and more convenient for users to reply in old threads than to open a new one. Recently you closed several active threads about mems, so people won’t get notifications about updates. In my opinion it’s a kind of censorship, because you successfully disrupted unwanted conversations.
If you can’t turn off notifications and thus closing whole threads, then you are not a very tech-savvy person, and I wonder what are doing on this job.
P.S. Many so called “conspiracy theories” turned out to be true. To call something a conspiracy theory is a convenient way to brush off something undesirable.
For reference: it concerns this “unnecessary” post.
Not off-topic, no conspiracy theories, no insults.
Just elaborating on the problem with the text for the new button. But I should know better by now than volunteering feedback to Memrise.
Well, it’s great that you care about the forums (which sadly seems to be a very low priority at Memrise), but may I suggest that you simply do not kick over the traces just to make your freetime job easier!
The forum really has been pretty much self-regulating for over half a decade (at least, that’s how long I have been using it anyway), particularly with regulars who, for instance, flag posts as spam or where the “leaders” are able to close threads with inappropriate content (which I never did as there just wasn’t anything during my time as a leader). Things that I have done myself were always and only when threads were merged or postings were edited to help those who were not yet experienced enough to do that themselves. In these cases I also closed threads as it simply made sense to only have one thread with the complete discussion. Closing a thread with an ongoing (or potentially unfinished) discussion doesn’t make any sense as long as there isn’t folks who post inappropriate content or random ranting.