[wp-docs] Moderating the forums

[Matt Mullenweg]

Craig Hartel wrote:

> The relevance and support issues are based on a simple design flaw in 
> the forum, and that is the fact that a thread can drop off the radar on 
> the front page so quickly. 

I'm not sure how best to address this since it's an issue of lots of 
active threads. I don't know that other forums address this better, except 
by providing no recent threads listing they force people to drill down.

I know that people should use the Search, and
> they could also use a Google Search, but we are lazy creatures. Part of 
> the frustration with answering the same questions over and over is due 
> to what I would call an "endless roll of toilet paper" effect the forum 
> design has. The forum should be a "loop", rather than an infinite 
> stream. The same questions get asked over and over, and because the 
> questions themselves vary so much -- "Help me!" "OMGWTF?" "Some install 
> issues" -- that it makes the task of finding a related threat very 
> difficult.

Ideally repeated questions should have a FAQ or wiki entry that can be 
pointed to. However many questions don't lend themselves to this, and they 
tend to be from the type of people who don't know what to search for.

> Part of the problems are because of the forum design, others are because 
> we often focus far more on the software than we do the overall 
> experience. We need development in the wiki...we need development in 
> educating our users...we need development of how to create meaningful 
> content in the forums that reduces the issues of finding it later.

That was a lot of the idea of the new search. Any specific suggestions for 
where we should focus? I could bang out a few more pages this weekend.

> I'm not suggestion that we simply replace the current forum with any 
> particular board software. If you look at MozillaZine, they have a more 
> traditional forum style, but it's just as hard to find information 
> there. Some threads are 20, 50, 100 pages long. What the hell good is that?

Good point. I think the percentage of people who read the whole thing as 
the thread gets longer decreases at an alarming rate.

> Relevance will come with more structure to the forum itself. It will 
> come when there is the perception of more control by moderators who will 
> keep stuff on track. We need to be flexible, and we need to be willing 
> to take some risks and do some experimentation.

Agreed. Hence, this thread. :)

-- 
Matt Mullenweg
  http://photomatt.net | http://wordpress.org
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