A Suggestion:Topic Moderation History

[Shrieker]

Sometimes in a topic an interesting side story takes place but when you come back a few hours/days later the posts belonging to that sub-discussion are vaporized. Almost in all cases the moderator is kind enough to leave a message about the baby topic where the posts have been carried to, but this message gets lost in the sea of other posts especially when the topic's a big one.

How about having a 'moderation history box' for topics in which a sub story develops and a chunk of posts have to be moved to a new mini topic ? We can have a small box on top of every page showing which sub-stories developed within the topic and where they've been moved to.

Example:

McLaren Mp4-XX thread
Sub topic to be displayed in the moderation history box:
F-Duct discussion

Red Bul RBXX thread
Sub topic to be displayed in the moderation history box:
Flexible wings


Most recent one:

Formula One 1.6l V6 turbo engine formula
Sub topic to be displayed in the moderation history box:
2014 Engine testing ... or not ....

It could be incorporated into the 'news box' which stands at the top of every page within the thread. But not all topics have this news box.

I'm pretty sure this has been suggested/discussed somewhere, but I can't seem to find it. Hence the topic.

I'm aware of the 'topics box' at the bottom of every page displaying the related topics within the same sub-forum, but it's not quite the same. Anyway, just a thought...

[CMSMJ1]

That is a good idea...

[flyboy2160]

But I wanted to read about the intercooler on this car, not the other cars... Or generic intercoolers....

To elaborate on Turbo's point a little : when this car thread is 600 pages long, it will be far easier to find out about the Mercedes intercooler in the Intercooler thread that is only 20-30 pages long.

[bill shoe]

I think the car threads work well as a forum for informal discussion and interaction where the topic happens to be a really interesting car. The push for more subdivision and organization seems to envision an end-goal that is something like a Wikipedia entry for the car.

I think the large number of pages in car threads like this are precisely a testament to the popularity of the mild organizational structure that created them.

[l4mbch0ps]

I totally agree with the mods moving a whole thread of posts about inter cooler versus after cooler though... sometimes this forum can get quite pedantic.

[Ra8]

Didn't know where to post in this sea of threads... Finally found one and its exactly what i need... This post was inspired by Mercedes AMG F1 W05 thread and discussion there today...

Never seen a forum moving and deleting so much stuff as this one does... and i've been on different forums for more than 10 years...
To tell you the truth it's more tiring to read all the moderator explainings why and where they moved something than it is to read what has actually been moved. At least if you read the forum daily as probably most do. And there arrives my second problem with this forum,... its totally messed up with ten's of subthreads... You can barley find what you looking for and there's just too many sub threads which could be summed up by one general Thread.

For example writing about exhaust in Red Bull thread just to find it being moved next day to a separate "Red Bull exhaust" thread... where's the point in doing that? Maybe to be the most threaded forum in the world?!? Sorry but I just don't get it. Your making sand out of already built concrete.

[turbof1]

Didn't know where to post in this sea of threads... Finally found one and its exactly what i need... This post was inspired by Mercedes AMG F1 W05 thread and discussion there today...

Never seen a forum moving and deleting so much stuff as this one does... and i've been on different forums for more than 10 years...
To tell you the truth it's more tiring to read all the moderator explainings why and where they moved something than it is to read what has actually been moved. At least if you read the forum daily as probably most do. And there arrives my second problem with this forum,... its totally messed up with ten's of subthreads... You can barley find what you looking for and there's just too many sub threads which could be summed up by one general Thread.

For example writing about exhaust in Red Bull thread just to find it being moved next day to a separate "Red Bull exhaust" thread... where's the point in doing that? Maybe to be the most threaded forum in the world?!? Sorry but I just don't get it. Your making sand out of already built concrete.

The issue we are experiencing is that we have too many different discussions in one thread.

Since 2010, the popularity of this forum has increased massively. This brought in members who gathered huge amount of info, data and pictures. The consequence of that is that we have a lot more to talk about then back in 2009. Nowadays each part of any car is being enlarged and discussed heavily.

Which is good, it improves knowledge, but currently we have all those discussions just pumped into a small set of threads. We often have issues with discussions being very interesting but getting abruptly ended because they get lost into other discussions. For instance any in-debt analysis on the butterfly suspension is unfindable in the Mp4-29 thread. It destroys the quality of good on topic discussion.

On top of that, we have discussions constantly dwelling off. People have to accept that while discussion about intercoolers in general are very interesting, they don't belong in one single car thread. They need to be split off, simple to have the discussion survive the onslaught of the rapidly evolving attention.

We aren't in fact changing anything in philosophy: discussions in the past were focussed, to the point and have a high quality. We simply strive to continue on that. The big change is the increased activity, which brings necessarily changes in moderation along.

That being said. I believe since the announcement we only splitted off one or two topic at most. One of them, rear wing vibrations coming from the W05 thread, was a huge success. Very sciencitifc, very technical, without any off topic jibber jabber. I personally believe most of you guys blow it up way too much, without realising how little we even have done. It's another sociologic cliché where society is afraid of change.

[GrandAxe]

But I wanted to read about the intercooler on this car, not the other cars... Or generic intercoolers....

To elaborate on Turbo's point a little : when this car thread is 600 pages long, it will be far easier to find out about the Mercedes intercooler in the Intercooler thread that is only 20-30 pages long.

For most people, a site like this is about socialising around their interest in F1, not being led down highly regimented structures that can be very counter-intuitive. As far as socialising is concerned, highly rigid structures are intrusive and kill the spirit. These are my opinions anyway.

We should run two polls; one to ask how members feel about the rigid structuring and the second about how they navigate (or wish to navigate) the site.
We should create a separate thread for this discussion and really thrash it out.

[db__]

How about a third option - tagging individual posts within a thread and the ability to filter your view of the thread based on those tags.

That way those that want to follow the natural ebb and flow of a discussion with posts that could very easily be on one or more threads can do so without having to play 'hunt the thread'. Those that want to limit their search would also be able to do so.

[SiLo]

Or launch a site wiki? Which has the best info on all the cars that aren't discussion related, just hard facts or very good reasoning. That way the discussion still stands and mods can pick stuff out rather than delete it and add it to the car wiki.

[turbof1]

Or launch a site wiki? Which has the best info on all the cars that aren't discussion related, just hard facts or very good reasoning. That way the discussion still stands and mods can pick stuff out rather than delete it and add it to the car wiki.

You got the wrong impressions - we don't want a wiki, even if you believe that our efforts resemble that. Second, we have database of articles that resembles that already.
Again, the issue is with the discussion being too wildspread, too unfocussed. A bit of chaos is fine, but it evolved too far off line. We even had complaints about moderating in the W05 car thread. That couldn't have gotten further from the car then anything else. I understand the frustration, but if you have issues with that you could either PM us or find an appropiate thread.

You guys also speak of a natural flow of discussion. However, the discussion never was that natural as you guys claimed - you post in car threads we set up. A SYSTEM applied for years. If you want to compare the discussion to rivers, then you actually were using channels. The problem is that our channels are overflowing; they can't keep the water contained. So we have to direct some of it to side channels. Water flows from high to low; that's its only natural aspect in terms of flow.

The point of the metaphore: the discussion will still keep flowing when we redirect to subthreads. Every time we splitted off a topic in past, the discussion flourished and the operation was highly succesfull.

How about a third option - tagging individual posts within a thread and the ability to filter your view of the thread based on those tags.

That way those that want to follow the natural ebb and flow of a discussion with posts that could very easily be on one or more threads can do so without having to play 'hunt the thread'. Those that want to limit their search would also be able to do so.

Actually not a such a bad idea. I have my questions about it however: say one uses a filter, replies on a message several days old, then somebody who doesn't use a filter will get to see that reply parked in the middle of a different discussion. Imagine this happening constantly; for the ones not using a filter it would become unreadable, as he would have pieces of different broken discussions all over his screen.

However, it's the first true proposition I see. I'll discuss it with the other mods. I personally feel it would do more bad then good, but I do owe it to atleast consider it.

[elf341]

Why not create an informal thread for the cars which you will not moderate?

Sometimes people want to discuss the general merits of a car, e.g. good or bad in slow corners, or "this car doesn't have enough rear df for vettel", etc. - but this discussion is banned because "it has to be ON the car" for it to be in the thread. I've seen such discussions also moved into the team thread, which also is not the right place for this subject.

The pre-season speculation threads were perfect in this regard as you could post anything and not have discussion deleted.
Sometimes we like to converse in an informal and non-technical way, but still about a directed topic like a particular car.

[turbof1]

Why not create an informal thread for the cars which you will not moderate?

Sometimes people want to discuss the general merits of a car, e.g. good or bad in slow corners, or "this car doesn't have enough rear df for vettel", etc. - but this discussion is banned because "it has to be ON the car" for it to be in the thread. I've seen such discussions also moved into the team thread, which also is not the right place for this subject.

The pre-season speculation threads were perfect in this regard as you could post anything and not have discussion deleted.
Sometimes we like to converse in an informal and non-technical way, but still about a directed topic like a particular car.

Actually once we get a good division of threads we'll thread the car threads way less strictly. You are right - we need a thread that is way less strict. I think I'll take a note of this too and discuss with the other mods how informal we'll go with the car threads once discussion is channeled correct in the side threads.

The difference with the speculation threads sits in the title: it's speculating. Nobody can verify what will get on the car until the launch, at which point we switch to the official thread. It speaks for itself we don't touch the informal talk, the topic title basicilly states it is informal!

Keep this line up guys; less complaining, and more suggesting things!

[Owen.C93]

It seems like you're creating solutions to problems that nobody really has a problem with. Yes the car threads are long but I really don't have the time to go through the W05 intercooler topic, the W05 diffuser topic, the W05 nose topic; for every single car. Especially as there is an abundance of users who simply keep asking the same "When are the updates coming and how much money should I bet on Ferrari for the next race?", not to mention the 50 same pics of a front wing.

I think there should be a discussion topic and then a locked update topic where after every race/test the changes to the car are logged along with brief descriptions and a link to the point in the main topic where people discussed it. That way you have a nice small thread for users to browse all of the updates and new tech, and an actual discussion topic for that thread.

I'm willing to do the locked threads for the car updates although I would suggest splitting the work load between a few members.

[turbof1]

It seems like you're creating solutions to problems that nobody really has a problem with.

You are mistaken. We got dozens of reports each day about off topic discussion. This happens at the background, of which only moderators have a view on, and because very few people complain about it in the threads itself, it's understandable you have the perception that nobody has issues with the current affairs.

For the record, I probably would have shared the same opinion back when I wasn't a moderator. As a member, you aren't pressed into the issues that go around. 4-5 weeks being moderator, and in that time being confronted with what's actually going on underneath the skin, completely changes your viewpoint.

Yes the car threads are long but I really don't have the time to go through the W05 intercooler topic, the W05 diffuser topic, the W05 nose topic; for every single car. Especially as there is an abundance of users who simply keep asking the same "When are the updates coming and how much money should I bet on Ferrari for the next race?", not to mention the 50 same pics of a front wing.

How is that concerning time space any different from today? Today we have tons of pictures mixed with several discussions going criss cross through the car topics, in ONE page. Following an interesting discussion about a particular subject is time consuming because chances are you are looking at a post about discussion A and then have to scroll through discussion B,C and D before getting follow up on A. Not to mention the off topic chatter.

Compare that to one single place from where you have access to the W05 topics (we intend to integrate some sort of box in the main car thread with all the links to the subtopics): you click what you are interested, scroll through a much more fluent and coherent discussion without interruptions inbetween. That reads actually much faster. When done, go back to that one place, next topic. It involves a handful of extra mouse clicks, but that's it.

Actually the ton of pictures are one of the reasons why we split off topics. We'll be more strict on the usage of pictures there.

I think there should be a discussion topic and then a locked update topic where after every race/test the changes to the car are logged along with brief descriptions and a link to the point in the main topic where people discussed it. That way you have a nice small thread for users to browse all of the updates and new tech, and an actual discussion topic for that thread.

That actually isn't a bad idea. Alright, I'll put that up for discussion too. However, we don't want to kill off discussion, we want to have people discussing the parts of the car, but not in criss cross way throughout eachother. IMO, this idea isn't that much different then our articles on the front page and the car threads in the forum. But again, we'll consider it.