Too many circular arguments on the forums

[shoelessone]

I personally feel like mods should not hesitate to start dropping the ban hammer on all of the circular arguments around these forums, especially in the areas relating to iPhone/iPod because there are quite a few "controversial" topics that constantly pop up.

I see about 5 threads a day that cover the topic of "my iPhone is locked and I'm pissed!". I may or may not agree with the people who post these threads, but regardless they get old. I wouldn't mind the threads if they were posted and died, but forum members here teld to fall into the trap of feeling they need to respond to whatever was last posted in order to show their opinion. So a thread like this might be 10 pages long, but any 1 page picked at random will have 100% of the content of all 10 pages. What's more, you could condense all of the USEFUL information found in this type of thread down to ZERO pages.

I know the whole, "if you don't want to read the thread, don't click" idea, and most of the time I agree and support this. But the frequency of garbage and useless threads is growing (I'm again speaking mainly of the iPod Touch and iPhone subforums, NOT overall - most of the subforums on this board seem to retain as much quality as ever, which is to say - a lot).

I personally feel like useless threads dealing primarily with ethics should be locked and the creator/aggravators be warned. I also feel like mods should start encouraging people who make threads to think twice before posting something that might have already been posted. In the iPod Touch/iPhone forums there are sometimes 4, 5 threads on the front page with the exact same content. It's like, "look, I'm happy that you were able to jailbreak your iPod, but do we really need a thread with nothing but a picture of your iPod Touch in it? We already have 5 more on this page alone...".

Anyway, just wanted to voice my opinion - I love this forum (I'm new here, but not to forums!), I just wish the iPhone/iPod Touch (and sometimes the front page even) would clean up a bit and get rid of some of the endless stream of circular arguments that happen.

 

[MacNut]

The best thing you can do is just ignore those forums. But its like a car crash everyone has to look no matter how bad it may be.

 

[FJ218700]

I know what you mean, and have resorted to turning off iPod touch and iPhone sections in the forum spy prefs. It isn't worth having to sift through all the junk to find something useful.

 

[Blue Velvet]

A mod's perspective:

The key to most, if not all, moderating decisions is based on the forum rules and post reports.

What's more, all the mods here are volunteers, and in their spare time and sometimes while at work (yes, we have day jobs), we clean up where we can and where post reports indicate problems. Personally, I'll also do work on threads I happen to be reading and certain forums that are of specific interest to me.

Circular arguments are not against forum rules, nor are posts about ethics. Furthermore, the work involved in corresponding with those who make minor transgressions is considerable versus the gains. Banning a 15 year old kid because they're excited about hacking their touch and want to post about it, is not the kind of forum most of us want to see.

I fully understand people's frustration; you're not alone, but for now, the solutions lie in trying to set a good example for everyone and reporting posts that contravene the forum rules... and not rising to the bait, because we're less impressed by insults and trolling than we are about someone being overly enthusiastic.

I use the word 'we' generally and speak for no-one else.

 

[shoelessone]

I understand and appreciate the situation.

One alternative would be to sticky threads more often.

For instance, somebody just made this thread:
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/367730/

In my opinion not only does it deserve a sticky because it's helpful and well done, but it would help people who are new to the subforum and perhaps even cut down on the number of basically useless-beat-that-horse sorts of threads

Anyway, thanks for everything mods

p.s. I have a day job too, it just so happens that I program and I'm on a computer at work all day

 

[Doctor Q]

One alternative would be to sticky threads more often.

Just so you understand the tradeoffs: We have very limited space for sticky threads. If we honored all the requests for them that we get, the first page of every forum would be nothing but stickies! Now that many people are viewing the forums on mobile devices, we have even less space to work with. That's why we ask members to contribute to Mac Guides when they have "reference material" to share with others.

 

[Peace]

Do what I do.

Use the forum spy and set preferences.I deselected ALL iPhone discussions.