One stickied "interesting thread" topic, each forum

[Tartan Jack]

In each forum section, there are great threads that have gotten buried and asked again.

I'm thinking that there should be one thread w/ internal links to the main, most interesting, and best reference threads in that section. This way, there won't be too many sticky/pinned threads at the top of a section (keeping it clean), while still having a way for someone to find a relevant w/o having to dig through piles of replies.

Ex:

In Captain Twill, there are great threads on flags, cannons/guns, various historical elements (like the period company logos one I just re-asked). A way to format a one thread "To good to be buried" would be:

Flags-

-Construction-

Thread

thread

Thread

-Did each pirate have their own?

thread

thread

thread

Period companies (who pirates attacked

thread

tread

Repeat for different topic.

Think of it as a section index.

Edited April 2, 2010 by Tartan Jack

[Mission]

I have put a few of these together. If you want index threads, feel free to create them. I have found the mods are usually happy to sticky them if they're well done and kept current.

In a related vein, I am also a fan of combining some old threads into master threads, although only the mods and admins can do that. It's kind of a tricky thing to do, though. You don't want to water down the topic so much by combining "related" threads so that it's impossible to find specific info because your thread is too broad in scope and large in content.

I also used to be a big fan of confining things to one topic at another forum where I was moderator (in fact, it was a rule of that forum), but I eventually found that it squelched conversation and prevented people from adding new insights. A new topic brings new people to the conversation and may even bring out new ideas from people who responded to the original topic. Confining people to a mammoth old topic scares a lot of the new posters away because some of them don't want to restate something that might have already been said, but they don't want to have to wade through pages of mostly irrelevant posts (such as when people get OT). So master topics can ruin what might have been a good conversation

I personally believe combining all the topics on a single well-defined subject that haven't received a new post in, say, 6 or 12 months is a good idea. That way there's only one thread to reference rather than 6 of them scattered thoughout the years. (You would not believe how many topics there are on pirates and marriage. We haven't talked about it in several years, but I'll bet you'll find at least 3 or 4 of them in the archives of Twill.) I DO like combining two fairly current topics into one so that there aren't several threads running on the same topic in a single forum. That's just gets confusing for the posters, so it's often better just to paste them together.

Feel free to create a master index thread for a forum if you're willing to wade through the archives. With Google having its hooks in here, it should be even easier to do once you figure out how to properly confine your search. Just recognize that it can be a lot of work - especially in a forum like Twill, which has almost 50 pages of threads. (And it used to have a lot more before we split up the forums...)

[Tartan Jack]

I don't mean one big topic, but one w/ links.

I'll make ones for twill and ship sections. Those are the ones I usually look at for info.

Edited April 2, 2010 by Tartan Jack

[Mission]

Oh, I knew you weren't talking about large topics, it's just the next natural thing you'll probably find you'll want once you see how many times the same topic gets repeated in the archives. (If there aren't at least 10 topics about pirates and tattoos in this place, I'd be totally shocked.) Believe me, you're talking about something I've thought a lot about...and even argued with Stynky about...and I'm just telling you what I've seen and learned over time.

If you're going to do it, I'd start with the Ship forum. I think I only wound up moving 3 or 4 pages of topics from Twill into that forum. Twill would be a sonovabeach to do. (Believe me, I culled the archives many times when we were creating the new forums. There's an awful lot of stuff in there.)

If you like perusing the archives, tackle Twill second. (You could always do it in stages. Or you could establish different kinds of Index threads and then we could stitch them all together under subheads as you completed them.) I'm all in favor of it, though. Places like this tend to defy organization even though it is a dead useful thing to have.

[Tartan Jack]

I did a starting one for Shipyard, which needs to be pinned.

Twill is a bit large. That will take time to weed through.

[Dutchman]

Tartain, consider the one in the shipyard pinned. I'm going to be a bit busy this weekend but if its ok with you I may rearange and add some things. If anyone else finds any topics too good to be lost let me know and i'll slide them into what Tartain has started. Good idea mate!

[Tartan Jack]

No problem w/ me.

Like I said, it was a start.

My idea was a way to "sticky" great info threads w/o having to have a huge list of topic at the start of each section. Do w/ it as you like, whatever gets the info out and locatable.

Info is useless if one can't find it.