[PiggyBanker]

Hello Everyone,

So obviously I am a little bit new to this forum, but not to forums in general or forums of this topic area, and one thing about HF has been driving me slightly crazy. First off, I enjoy the forum and think there is a lot of well educated and well-meaning people here, but I notice that a lot of areas in the forum sections that aren't marketplace sections tend to be missing the tutorials, guides, conversational threads, and in general high-quality content.

Most threads where someone has written a guide, has a method for something, or is offering some piece of advice or anything really, are just very short threads saying "Post here and I will PM you or you can PM me to get XYZ." Hence, almost every single reply in that thread is simply a "hey I PMed you man" and adds ZERO value to the thread whatsoever. These types of replies are even detrimental if not THREAD KILLERS in my mind because they make it much harder to find any valid discussion about the content. Due to it being hard to find any discussion, if there is any, it further discourages anyone to reply and have some type of meaningful input on the subject matter.

On top of this, if you have to post and wait for someone to PM you(IF THEY EVER DO) what the content in the thread is supposed to be about, you are 1000x less likely to go back and post something like a review, opinion, additional information, or anything else that normally gets posted, in any other forum, in relation to what you received in the PM. Even if you do go back and post a high-quality, informative, or meaningful reply, there's a good chance no one will see it and reply because its surrounded by and drowned out by the "PM me please" posts.

This is a vicious cycle that builds on each effect that this posting style or norm causes. The problems keep on compounding(just like the interest on my damn credit card bills) and the end result is super negative for everyone. OP has lots of work to PM people, no discussion, sometimes you don't get the content, new users who need and join for tutorials and guides cant PM, and the list goes on and on and on.

Consistently, I see threads filled with millions of posts of people asking for their PM, and no discussion whatsoever. This really detracts from the quality of the forum in general, makes information much harder to find, eliminates discussions, and so many other negative things, and for what? To try to reduce leeching or something?


I believe that implementing some type of a "thank you" system or something to tie into the popularity or bytes systems, could drastically help the forum and improve the quality of conversation, which is the MAIN thing of importance in my mind. Also, limiting the type and number of threads that require users to post asking for PM to receive the threads intended content with a rule or something of the like would help more than anything.

TL;DR[
Overall, I just think that the users of the forum want to see the original post in a thread that contains the content and the rest of the thread filled with thank yous, thoughts, opinions, additional discussion, reviews, information, etc, etc, etc. BASICALLY, WE ALL JUST WANT QUALITY CONTENT WITH QUALITY RESPONSES AND DISCUSSIONS. Not threads with an interesting title, telling people to ask for PMs, and little to no discussion on the topic if they even know about it because they have a 50/50 chance of getting it within a few days if at all.


Let me know what you think and if you agree with me and would love to see more discussion, have instant access to the content, not see a million posts saying "pm me" and would like to see an improved usage of the bytes and/or popularity systems.

Thanks for reading,
PiggyBanker

[Nachfolger]

[...]

TL;DR[

I believe that implementing some type of a "thank you" system or something to tie into the popularity or bytes systems, could drastically help the forum and improve the quality of conversation
[...]

The TL;DR is as long as the suggestion itself. Defeats the purpose.

Anyway, there is. It's called "Quick Love" and it's the heart in the top of the post content. Also, the purpose of people saying "post and I'll pm..." is so that their thread gets bumped to the top.

PS, you won't find any valuable discussions happening within giveaway threads. That's a fact.

[PiggyBanker]

The TL;DR is as long as the suggestion itself. Defeats the purpose.

Anyway, there is. It's called "Quick Love" and it's the heart in the top of the post content. Also, the purpose of people saying "post and I'll pm..." is so that their thread gets bumped to the top.

PS, you won't find any valuable discussions happening within giveaway threads. That's a fact.

Giveaways that are files more than likely no, but tutorials, guides, methods etc are done this way quite frequently as well and they would benefit from a lot more discussion and easy access to the content. I realize there is the quick love but that doesn't add anything to the quality of the thread or solve any of the problems mentioned. Often times, the posts in the thread are more valuable than the OP. I have seen forums where a thanks or quick love bump the thread as well, and I'm sure that's an easy implementation.

The TL;DR was intended to be just the red highlighted text, could have been a little more clear on that lol