stratmaster4
Active Member
Hello,
I have been a member for almost a year now and I have been taking notes in my head on how things work here, the state of the community and what the forums are like. for the most part AudioKarma is a great community, with a lot of knowledgeable people that are willing to share their advice , talk gear, share DIY projects, and generally just have a great time.
My critique is not with the community in general but with some of the organizational practices of the forum. I am an active forumite on many other forums, a lot of which have fairly strict rules around the forums and how they are organized. I think if we adjust the way to run the forums a bit and add some new rules as well as be good about enforcing them, I think we can improve the community as a whole and just make AudioKarma better!
On most of these pages a lot of the rules and practices are concerned with keeping the forums clean and more active. What I mean by clean is that there are very few short-lived throw-away threads, instead there are mostly long threads that remain active for a long time before they drift to the bottom of the forum. Short threads are brought down to a minimum by having multiple sticky threads that contain very common topics. By organizing common questions, topics, and information into sticky databases we could reduce a lot of the thread pileup in the forums. When users get gear and need help getting it working they can quickly check to see if theres a solution already here and may not have to ask a ultra-specific question. Or when new/current users need to troubleshoot, ask basic questions, or what general information quickly they can just search the sticky's for what the need to know.
I know this poses some risks such as potentially reducing the interaction of new users with veteran users in some regards (mainly reduce their initial posts, like reduce beginner type posts) but ultimately I think it will make the forums and the community better as a whole, if we organize and build this database sticky's well we could also become an information resource for other Audio communities on the web. Another risk that this idea poses is that if our database sticky's are well built enough it may cause people to not join because they would be able to get their questions answered by just searching through our sticky's in each forum category. The risk of new users not joining sounds upsetting but look at it this way, we would still be helping out vintage/modern audio enthusiasts in the long run even if they don't join our boards and we would still get new members but I think that new people that would signup for out community after this idea is implemented would be more dedicated to being active in the forums and participating more frequently, those are the kind of people we want in our community it would make things a lot more fun if there were lots of very active members conversing the range of topics related to vintage/modern audio.
Now for what I would like to implement and my comments on the current sets of sticky's. For the most part a lot of our forums attempt to provide database sticky's kept at the top for users to lookup basic info/common questions but I believe the ones that are currently in place are inadequate. I think that there should be more sticky's in each forum category that cover a larger range of beginner topics as well as information for experienced users. I have a basic framework in mind that can be applied to all the different forums other sticky's in addition to this framework should be added on a case by case base (specific to the forum category), the framework:
1. "Help I am buying my first X" - compile all buying advice on that subject into one sticky thread
2. "I got this X and it is broken/not working/need help setting up" compile all basic setup / repair information for that category in one thread, this may be difficult because there are many different pieces of gear people are after. I still think it could be pulled off if things were organized by brands, for example the turntable forum could contain multiple sticky threads pertaining to service,repair, and set up of a particular brand of turntable, there would be a sticky for nobly the most popular brands people go after. In addition to being the turntable forum these brand based threads would be mirrored int he corresponding brand forum, but this is just an example.
3. "general fact thread sticky about forum category" - general facts that pertain to that forum category.
I realize that there is a lot more to this and that framework suggestion is only what I have come up with on the spot. If we really want to put some work into this over time we could possibly create an AudioKarma wiki that only AK members can edit, that way we can slowly build a massive database on audio to be used by our members, new members, and the general public.
I am posting this in the polls section of our forums because I couldn't think of a better place, usually a lot of forums have a improvement topic category, speaking of which I think we should ad that category as well so that posts like mine can be compiled into a separate location, I also believe it would promote other users to think about how we can make our community better and stimulate conversation such as this one that I am starting with this post.
The Poll is at the top let me know what you think, and Mods if you are watching please partake your input is just as important.
EDIT:
I can't figure out how to add a poll so just post back what you think until I figure it out.
I have been a member for almost a year now and I have been taking notes in my head on how things work here, the state of the community and what the forums are like. for the most part AudioKarma is a great community, with a lot of knowledgeable people that are willing to share their advice , talk gear, share DIY projects, and generally just have a great time.
My critique is not with the community in general but with some of the organizational practices of the forum. I am an active forumite on many other forums, a lot of which have fairly strict rules around the forums and how they are organized. I think if we adjust the way to run the forums a bit and add some new rules as well as be good about enforcing them, I think we can improve the community as a whole and just make AudioKarma better!
On most of these pages a lot of the rules and practices are concerned with keeping the forums clean and more active. What I mean by clean is that there are very few short-lived throw-away threads, instead there are mostly long threads that remain active for a long time before they drift to the bottom of the forum. Short threads are brought down to a minimum by having multiple sticky threads that contain very common topics. By organizing common questions, topics, and information into sticky databases we could reduce a lot of the thread pileup in the forums. When users get gear and need help getting it working they can quickly check to see if theres a solution already here and may not have to ask a ultra-specific question. Or when new/current users need to troubleshoot, ask basic questions, or what general information quickly they can just search the sticky's for what the need to know.
I know this poses some risks such as potentially reducing the interaction of new users with veteran users in some regards (mainly reduce their initial posts, like reduce beginner type posts) but ultimately I think it will make the forums and the community better as a whole, if we organize and build this database sticky's well we could also become an information resource for other Audio communities on the web. Another risk that this idea poses is that if our database sticky's are well built enough it may cause people to not join because they would be able to get their questions answered by just searching through our sticky's in each forum category. The risk of new users not joining sounds upsetting but look at it this way, we would still be helping out vintage/modern audio enthusiasts in the long run even if they don't join our boards and we would still get new members but I think that new people that would signup for out community after this idea is implemented would be more dedicated to being active in the forums and participating more frequently, those are the kind of people we want in our community it would make things a lot more fun if there were lots of very active members conversing the range of topics related to vintage/modern audio.
Now for what I would like to implement and my comments on the current sets of sticky's. For the most part a lot of our forums attempt to provide database sticky's kept at the top for users to lookup basic info/common questions but I believe the ones that are currently in place are inadequate. I think that there should be more sticky's in each forum category that cover a larger range of beginner topics as well as information for experienced users. I have a basic framework in mind that can be applied to all the different forums other sticky's in addition to this framework should be added on a case by case base (specific to the forum category), the framework:
1. "Help I am buying my first X" - compile all buying advice on that subject into one sticky thread
2. "I got this X and it is broken/not working/need help setting up" compile all basic setup / repair information for that category in one thread, this may be difficult because there are many different pieces of gear people are after. I still think it could be pulled off if things were organized by brands, for example the turntable forum could contain multiple sticky threads pertaining to service,repair, and set up of a particular brand of turntable, there would be a sticky for nobly the most popular brands people go after. In addition to being the turntable forum these brand based threads would be mirrored int he corresponding brand forum, but this is just an example.
3. "general fact thread sticky about forum category" - general facts that pertain to that forum category.
I realize that there is a lot more to this and that framework suggestion is only what I have come up with on the spot. If we really want to put some work into this over time we could possibly create an AudioKarma wiki that only AK members can edit, that way we can slowly build a massive database on audio to be used by our members, new members, and the general public.
I am posting this in the polls section of our forums because I couldn't think of a better place, usually a lot of forums have a improvement topic category, speaking of which I think we should ad that category as well so that posts like mine can be compiled into a separate location, I also believe it would promote other users to think about how we can make our community better and stimulate conversation such as this one that I am starting with this post.
The Poll is at the top let me know what you think, and Mods if you are watching please partake your input is just as important.
EDIT:
I can't figure out how to add a poll so just post back what you think until I figure it out.
