Is discussion and insight dead?

qqg3

qqg3

qqg3

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16 out of 25 threads on the first page of General Discussion (for me personally) right now are "extended threads".

The official video thread, the official cat thread, the official someone died thread, the official look I have expendable cash thread, the official niche hobby thread...

Now I agree and understand the value of each individual thread, the comments wherein and respect the persons contributing to these threads. But they do blindingly contradict the meaning of "General Discussion", whereby they are no longer generally discussing, rather they are generally discussing a specific topic.

Sure it is smart to contain such popular general discussion of a particular topic within one place, but I feel there are now too many of these places and they have now clogged up what was once an interesting and thriving discussion board.

I don't present a immediate solution either, I just want to gauge opinion and see if others agreed or, respectfully, disagreed.

Personally, less than 25% of these "extended threads" interest me to the point that I want to read them, I believe this rough statistic may well apply to many of the other regular users of this board.

They seem to be almost a barrier to organic, insightful general discussion; it seems to be the first problem related to the degraded quality of content here, as has been a sometimes a mentioned or gestured-to trend over the last few years.

Your thoughts are welcome, I don't mean to intrude, invoke change or rebellion. I am just tipping my hat.
 
Jambo said:
Dude, it's called a topic.
Click to expand...


I disagree.

"General Discussion" is the topic. "Motorsport" is a topic. "Music, Box Office, TV & Books" is a topic.

Discussion threads pertaining therein are based on "Subjects" of the high-level "Topic".

I'm simply suggesting there are too many of these extended subject based discussion threads, they crowd the headline and small-scale, organic, general discussion gets less jousting space.

Imagine that, rather getting it's own sub-forum we just gave Mobiles and Tablets its own extended discussion thread. Take all the "Life" topics on OcUK and crowd them into extended threads, theres limited casual headline room left for anything else.
 
Extended threads are useful because otherwise at least that way some people take interest in some of the content rather that just ignoring it all together.

Would you take interest in topics such as "Look at this game I bought", "Look at this random picture I found", or "Look at this video I found"? Probably not, and I know I wouldn't.

Plus it also does an amazing job of keeping certain topics isolated to one thread rather than hundreds/thousands of threads cluttering up the GD forum.
 
?!?! Really not sure what you're suggesting here?

Do you want each "extended topic" to have its own subforum?
Would you prefer to see 30 "look at this funny picture / video" threads per day?
Or are you just suggesting that people shouldn't discuss topics that don't interest you?

:confused:

I feel like I'm insulting my own intelligence by even saying this but... this is General Discussion, and a lot of the things that people 'generally discuss' can be grouped into topics. And so they are. Via threads. It makes it easier for people to share and discuss their general interests with like-minded people.

Look at it this way - grouping related conversations into large threads allows you to more easily ignore the "75 percent" of threads that apparently disinterest you, rather than wading through hundreds.
 
Did it ever occur to you that everything that could be talked about has been talked about. All you're left with is official this and that threads, which are basically just minor updates on things already talked about.
 
Agreed OP.

I'd take interest in some of the topics discussed if a stand alone thread was created, however I'm put off by these 'extended' threads as each post has dozens/hundreds/thousands of posts preceding it which may be relevant to it. Each thread also has its own 'in' conversation which I'm not interested enough to get involved in. Frankly I tend to ignore pretty much all of these threads.

Edit: good example on the front page right now. Why do we need a space thread? Why can't a new thread just be created each time someone wants to discuss a space related topic? It's not like GD would turn into a space forum...
 
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I partially agree, some posts within large threads are often threadworthy themselves, the presence of large silo threads causes people to automatically post there automatically.

On the other hand, without such threads all of the 'spam' posts would clutter GD as individual threads making it much more difficult to navigate the forum.
 
You walk into a house party, 3 days late.

People are split into various groups, having what looks some pretty intense conversations.

Instead of trying to eavesdrop, there are signs above each separate group, indicating to you what they are generally discussing specifically (much like the signs in supermarkets indicating what a particular aisle may contain on it's respective shelves).

You walk up to a group you like the look of, but alas the conversation is well underway- so much so that they virtually ignore your presence. You're struggling to find some sort of a foothold which will enable you to get up to speed quickly and contribute something of worth.

But then God hands you a remote control, enabling you to rewind, digest all of the previous exchanges at a fraction of the rate it took for each individual contributor to utter the words.

Moral of the story:- learn to skim read you lazy sod.:p
 
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Huge generalist threads may sometimes stifle discussion because occasionally people don't want to post in them and/or risk their particular musings on a subject getting lost but they're a pragmatic response in the case of many of the threads we have currently to the dozens of individual daily threads we used to have on topics that were quite similar. As Burnsy2023 says that the threads often seem to be on or near the front page of the subforum shows that they are popular and that people must get some value from them.

Pick the Baroness Thatcher thread for an example - there were half a dozen threads started about her death, designating one thread meant that largely all the comments were kept in one place where it is easier for people to follow what is going on but also, and not entirely coincidentally, easier to moderate. A number of the larger threads do flow from postings about similar topics where there's not really enough for much of a discussion on any specific point beyond say half a dozen posts but there might be interest for a few people there - something like a particular YouTube video might interest a few but often it's just something mildly amusing so a few people will watch it and reply "lol" but there's no point having a fresh thread each time.

Huge generalist threads aren't the answer for everything but they do serve a purpose for a lot of things where there's a certain level of interest from posters but the specific things that might be discussed aren't always discrete topics with enough substance to be a full thread every time. You can argue that they'd die off the front page quickly so it wouldn't be an issue but effectively you've just transferred the problem of people not being willing to read through the large threads to being people not willing to read back through the past half a dozen pages of the forum to trawl through all the threads that may have been created on the bit they're interested in - alternatively they're more likely to not use search and just create a new thread themselves, at which point you might have a number of threads all with a ever so slightly different spin on the same topic/event/discussion point.

It's also worth remembering that GD has always been a repository for lots of topics that are a little bit trivial in nature and the replies often reflect that. If you wanted more serious discussion of current events then Speakers Corner is more appropriate, if you have something else to discuss which fits into one of the other sub-forums then there's a good chance you'll get less flippant responses in there. That's not to say that GD is universally terrible in the posts or threads, there can be some great information and humour present but it's often mixed with slightly less considered viewpoints as well.
 
No, it is not you just have to wait a little longer in GD and maybe dig a bit deeper. Whilst lumping everything together has some disadvantages the alternative of everything being disseminated across multiple threads and losing any substance whatsoever is far worse.
 
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