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[staceyj]

Seriously, not trying to be rude, but i assume the Squatch thread is in Random Ramblings? I'm sorry someone's chicken died, but i assume it wasn't a squatch that killed it. But again, that's why that section exists. j/s

Nope, not in the RR section.
I would think that would be a decision of the OP to either move it or mark it solved which it is not in an official manner.

If you'd read back you'd find out that while we're indeed still waiting and watching for the other chicken (so far 1 rooster is in custody) we have formed a friendship and discuss other things in the meantime.

We have welcomed all who have come by mid-thread and briefly and politely updated those who've just stopped by with inquiries such as , "I don't have three hours to devote to this thread but I want to know if you've caught the feral chickens as of now."

Usually the OP , but occasionally others will explain that we are still waiting.
Today a member of the squatch watchers core group lost a very dear baby chick.
The rest of us expressed our most sincere condolences.
So now you are up to date as well.

 

[User395221]

Bugs the poop out of me too...but I think Nifty hit the nail on the head here:
People just don't pay attention....or are paying attention to the wrong things.

or are just plain rude. I don't get annoyed so much on long threads where somebody pipes up with an "answer" after 45 pages where others have already answered (although common sense might tell you that it's likely that somebody has already said it) but you also see replies on ONE PAGE THREADS (not necessarily on this forum, but forums generally) where somebody can't even be bothered reading a few replies to see that somebody has said the same thing in the post right above theirs....

and topic discussion sections were mostly kept on topic, the shucking and jiving was kept in the social sections and it was 'self enforced' by forum members, worked great!

This. when there is a lot of off-topic posting, it isn't just the clueless or rude who might not read it, it's people with time-constraints, or lives

Growing ones post numbers, likes, and yakking seems to have taken precedence over content...look at this thread.....geezuz can't anyone stay on topic?!?!

This can certainly add to it. When I saw 8 pages, I thought "I can't be bothered" but I read through anyway. Not a lot of posts addressing the topic.

I do think keeping the "chat" to "chat threads" might help but that would mean a change in user behaviour and/or increased moderation to move/remove off-topic posts.

As for the marking "answered" or "solved" on other forums the original poster can edit the first post to add the tag. I don't think it should be done by others, someone else might think it's been answered when the OP doesn't think so. (you get that on the microsoft answers, they seem to mark their replies as "answers" when they don't answer the question at all, I think they do it to increase their "reputation" or something).

 

[Ravynscroft]

Ok, I read it before replying... and now have no idea what to reply because I don't even know what I read...

 

[WVduckchick]

Nope, not in the RR section.
I would think that would be a decision of the OP to either move it or mark it solved which it is not in an official manner.

If you'd read back you'd find out that while we're indeed still waiting and watching for the other chicken (so far 1 rooster is in custody) we have formed a friendship and discuss other things in the meantime.

We have welcomed all who have come by mid-thread and briefly and politely updated those who've just stopped by with inquiries such as , "I don't have three hours to devote to this thread but I want to know if you've caught the feral chickens as of now."

Usually the OP , but occasionally others will explain that we are still waiting.
Today a member of the squatch watchers core group lost a very dear baby chick.
The rest of us expressed our most sincere condolences.
So now you are up to date as well.

Thank you for sharing, and i sympathize with that OP, and am glad that the incident has created a bond of folks. I've seen it happen many times! (like the turkey thread I referenced in the beginning of this thread, that actually caused me to start this anyway!).

So i guess it's up to the OP to decide if they want the thread to stay on topic, or become chit-chat, but that's hard to do without seeming rude and snooty.

I'll just say i think it's good practice to let the OP lead the way. So I would prefer this one stay on topic. Even though the original topic has proven to be pretty much impossible to accomplish.

 

[Nifty-Chicken]

Wow, this thread has gone in a lot of different directions!

Regarding "off topic": I have mixed feelings about this. Sometimes it's fun and sometimes it's frustrating. I think the line is crossed at different times for different people. For example, if I'm involved in the off-topic discussion (or if I started it), I might be less bothered by it than by the exact same thing done by someone else. Oh... human nature, you so crazy!

That said, we do request, especially in this section, that people try to stay on topic a bit more than they might in the more social sections of the site.

So, thinking about it... why not recruit some volunteers that could scan through posts while they're on and edit the post #1 once they see it's solved?

I appreciate the idea, and with unlimited time/resources, that could maybe work. Unfortunately it would be a LOT of time and work. We definitely want (need) help from our members, but there are lots of other projects and ways members can contribute (like writing great content, welcoming new members, etc.) that would be time better spent than marking posts, etc.

@Nifty-Chicken i would volunteer to read through and mark as answered
I am sure others would as well

That's nice of you to volunteer, but we've definitely got some other projects that would be much more helpful to the community and to site visitors (for example, our @Project Manager group are currently working on cleaning up our coops section and articles section).

If you catch someone replying "wrong" you can always remind them to read back.
I have done this quite a few times. It usually works...they remember it when reading the next thread.

Yup, if done in a very friendly and respectful way, this can be a great way to help new members! Additionally also being patient with new members or people who may not be used to how to interact on a discussion forum.

I think what forums used to be will never be again.
Things just change.

I have been running forums for 13 years and using them for even longer. I honestly haven't seen a ton of change over the years. Sure there's more / different "competition" and mobile devices have changed the ways people interact with and generate content, but overall, the ways people want to share experiences and learn from one another hasn't changed much in all those years.

I would think that would be a decision of the OP to either move it or mark it solved which it is not in an official manner.

I tend to agree!

As for the marking "answered" or "solved" on other forums the original poster can edit the first post to add the tag. I don't think it should be done by others, someone else might think it's been answered when the OP doesn't think so

Yup, ditto!

 

[007Sean]

Ok, I read it before replying... and now have no idea what to reply because I don't even know what I read...

I felt the same way....too much filler!

 

[staceyj]

Thank you for sharing, and i sympathize with that OP, and am glad that the incident has created a bond of folks. I've seen it happen many times! (like the turkey thread I referenced in the beginning of this thread, that actually caused me to start this anyway!).

So i guess it's up to the OP to decide if they want the thread to stay on topic, or become chit-chat, but that's hard to do without seeming rude and snooty.

I'll just say i think it's good practice to let the OP lead the way. So I would prefer this one stay on topic. Even though the original topic has proven to be pretty much impossible to accomplish.

A thread title could be edited to state that the thread has wandered and become (JFF) just for fun and is no longer an educational discussion or an emergency.

And maybe remind people that certain trigger words in thread titles such as HELP!
or EMERGENCY or IMMEDIATE example: to finding out what breed/sex/age a bird is, and that the above stated words should be considered sacred to matters that are indeed TRUE emergencies.

Another idea is to offer an option for an OP to end the thread at their discretion or move it to another location.

 

[User395221]

Even though the original topic has proven to be pretty much impossible to accomplish.

I think the difficulty is that to many it is obvious that if you've got an acute illness or injury, it won't be the same a week after the OP has posted. Anyone who "misses" that, might not be the type to carefully read forum instructions or rules that might spell it out.

People can be encouraged to update their first post, but i've seen added replies where they have done, and a poster hasn't even read the first post, they've replied to the thread title only without reading anything

Where there has been a repeated query in a long thread, the OP (or somebody else) might want to extract it to create a FAQ post somewhere.

Otherwise, chat, or deviation from original thread topic can be split off into a new thread. I don't think any OP could be seen negatively to try to keep their original thread to the point of their query. Not everyone has the time or inclination to search/read long threads.

 

[WVduckchick]

One thing that many folks don't know, and maybe its a Premium member option, but an OP *can* close a thread for further comments.

 

[WVduckchick]

@Nifty-Chicken would it be too much trouble if we could use the "report" button to report off-topic comments and ask that they be removed??