Re-occurring topics (suggestions please)

stevenmu

As some of us have seen, there are certain topics which turn up on the forum quite regularly. Some examples would be: Ouija Boards,Most Haunted/Derek Acorah,Sleep Paralysis,Deja Vu,Upcoming/Past Investigations, and there's probably a few others that I can't think of right now. After a suggestion, I want to see what people think is the best way to deal with these.

I can think of a few different things we could do:

• Nothing: i.e. leave things as they are
• Individual Stickies: Each topic considered important (or re-occuring) enough would get it's own sticky giving a bit of a blurb about the topic with links to previous threads
• One 'Common Topics' stick: One sticky with a seperate post for each topic giving blurb, links etc...
• Biki Entries: Each topic could get a page in the Biki, linked to from the Paranormal Biki Page with blurbs, links etc. A sticky would point people on the forum towards the biki.

Personally, I prefer the Biki option as people can edit it and add to it themselves as needed, or even expand it out to cover more and more topics. If used properly it could turn into a wonderfull resource for anyone arriving at the forum or for those of us who've been here a while. I think each article could be structured in a roughly similar way to a skepdic or wikipedia article, both of which tend to explain the theory/claims behind a topic and then outline some of the criticisms against it, followed by links to threads here about it and maybe some external links too.





Of course none of this is meant to stifle discussion in anyway and people may still want to discuss things, maybe from some new angle or with new information, or just to go back over stuff that was discussed before, both of which are fine.

6th

I think something definately needs to be done but tbh i would really have tothink about it.

One thing for certain is that i think Sapiens post about Ouija Boards should be stickied and losked as a single post. Post Here.

Nevyn

Individual Stickies: Each topic considered important (or re-occuring) enough would get it's own sticky giving a bit of a blurb about the topic with links to previous threads

REally Biki wars are not fun and they stiffle disscussion and most people want to talk about thier personal experiences and a b/wiki is not really the place for that.
People want to post thier experience and to read others and a single thread on each topic would allow for this and for posts which have the best practice and the scienctific/rational explainations.

6th

It does get frustrating when you get 5 or 6 Most Haunted/Derek Acorah threadds in the space of a couple of month, especially seeing as they rehash the same things over and over again.

The sticky for Ghosts in the news works very well in that it lists lots of different stories and people can choose to start a thread on any one story that picks their interest.

Zillah

A dangerous question you ask, Stevenmu. If we say "Ouija Boards will be handled in the following manner...", what happens if someone doesn't handle it in such a manner? Do we forbid people from discussing these topics in relevant threads? When someone mentions it, it will invariable be reduced to "Read the sticky/biki".

That said, 6th has a point on the 5/6 Acorah threads. I think a "Common Topics" thread would be a good idea, along the lines of "The following topics have been done to death. If you wish to discuss them please first take a look at this thread, this one, or this one."

Combine that with some megamerges and occasional bumpage and it should work.

6th

Zillah wrote:

A dangerous question you ask, Stevenmu. If we say "Ouija Boards will be handled in the following manner...", what happens if someone doesn't handle it in such a manner? Do we forbid people from discussing these topics in relevant threads? When someone mentions it, it will invariable be reduced to "Read the sticky/biki".

I suppose if something new is being brought to light in the thread it can stand on its own, obviously newer posters wouldnt know how much it comes up and most people dont bother searching before posting. A polite "have a look here" should be enough and copy the posts over. Its not a case of stickying a topic and locking it so people would be free to discuss it. In regards to Sapiens ost i just think it was so perfectly written it deserves a seperate sticky for those wishing to read something intelligent about the subject as opposed to personal accounts and urban myths.

Zillah wrote:

That said, 6th has a point on the 5/6 Acorah threads. I think a "Common Topics" thread would be a good idea, along the lines of "The following topics have been done to death. If you wish to discuss them please first take a look at this thread, this one, or this one."

Combine that with some megamerges and occasional bumpage and it should work.[/QUOTE]

Yep, or we could just shoot people who start MH threads?

Nevyn

6th wrote:

Yep, or we could just shoot people who start MH threads?

What and have them haunt us ?

6th

*Edit: Actually thats bad, make me sound like a snob that doesnt like new posters!

I think a megamerge of recent MH/DA threads stickied would be best, though i'd imagine its alot of work?
A Megamerge on Deja Vu would be good to though it doesnt pop up too much. And finally maybe a good sticky on SP too, just describing what it is etc.

Zillah

Yup, sleep paralysis sticky needed very badly.

6th

Its not a paranormal topic but a sticky would be handy, though i personally dont believe it will explain away everyones experiences, i know it doesnt for me.

stevenmu

Thaedydal wrote:

REally Biki wars are not fun and they stiffle disscussion

That's a good point, altough from what I've seen though most defacement on the b/wiki tends to be mass defacement of lots of pages which gets rolled back very quickly.

and most people want to talk about thier personal experiences and a b/wiki is not really the place for that.
People want to post thier experience and to read others and a single thread on each topic would allow for this and for posts which have the best practice and the scienctific/rational explainations.

I see the biki option as being something to aid people in their discussion, not something to replace it. For example many of the ouija board threads are started by people who want to try one and want to hear what others think. With the biki option, they can look at the biki entry and get some quick information on Ouija boards and then look at some of the threads we've already had on them (each link to a thread would need a little description so they'd know which ones to look at). From there a number of things could happen. The poster may still have questions or may want some clarification on something mentioned somewhere else, so they might start a new thread, or post on old one.

Personally, this is how I like to use forums anyway. When I go to a forum, I like to see if the question I want answered, or the topic I want to discuss, has been raised before. From this point of view I hate 40 page stickies that have about 2 pages of usefull info repeated over and over, and you have to read every page because you just *know* the one little piece of information you want is hidden away on one of them and if you skip any, then that's where it'll be. With stickies like this, most people won't bother reading through them after they get to about 3 pages, they'll just open it up and stick their question at the end, even if it has already been asked at least twice on every page already. Altough with that said, the ufology thread does seem to work well.

A dangerous question you ask, Stevenmu. If we say "Ouija Boards will be handled in the following manner...", what happens if someone doesn't handle it in such a manner?

Yes, if we got into dictating how people should do things, or how they should discuss them (beyond the nessecary charter limitations), that would be quite dangerous. If we were to sticky Sapien's post as 6th suggests, then I think it should be clear that that's only Sapien's opinion, and the thread should be left open for others to contradict it if they see fit.

Do we forbid people from discussing these topics in relevant threads? When someone mentions it, it will invariable be reduced to "Read the sticky/biki"

No, people would and should still be free to discuss these topics. The idea behind these suggestions (or any others that people make) should be that by making it easy to see what discussion has gone on previously, new discussion would be more likely to be fresh and original, instead of the exact same thing popping up every few weeks from the exact same perspective.

And I think the 'RTFM!' style replies should be discouraged, altough kindly pointing out to people where they might find suitable answers to their question, would not be.

6th wrote:

In regards to Sapiens ost i just think it was so perfectly written it deserves a seperate sticky for those wishing to read something intelligent about the subject as opposed to personal accounts and urban myths.

It was a good post, but stickying it on it's own like that is practically making it the official forum policy. I really don't think we should be going down that road.

I think a megamerge of recent MH/DA threads stickied would be best, though i'd imagine its alot of work?
A Megamerge on Deja Vu would be good to though it doesnt pop up too much. And finally maybe a good sticky on SP too, just describing what it is etc.

Megamerges aren't much effort, the problem with them can be that if the threads were active at the same time, it can be a little inconsistent and hard to make out who is responding to what, especially when people aren't using quote tags.


If we are going to go the individual sticky routes, which I think is what everyone is saying, then what topics should get their own stickies (keeping in mind that having too many stickies looks terrible) ?

Nevyn

I don't think it looks terrible and the title of them can help instead of the threads saying ouija boards label it disscussion of........
If there are a few stickied threads about the topics which a clearly label disscusion then people will be more likely to add to a thread then start one.

stevenmu

Thaedydal wrote:

I don't think it looks terrible and the title of them can help instead of the threads saying ouija boards label it disscussion of.........

Another 10 or so stickys on top of the ones we already have would

With that said, we probably won't come up with more than 3 or for topics to be anyway. It's probably just the software developer in me that prefers the solution that can scale up easily and neatly.

6th

Well the current stickies can be slimed down a bit. Ghosts in the News doesnt have to be there, if i'm doing my job right it will alwasy be on the front apage anyway. Also the Investigation thread wont be up there much longer anyway?

What new stickies would you suggest?

Most Haunted & Other TV Shows
Ouija Boards
Sleep Paralysis (does it really need one? I know it comes up when people post there own experiences.)

What else?

Gillo

Biki's are good but I don't think many new people are aware of them, navigateing Boards to it's full potential is very much a learning experience; i honestly don't think a lot of people realise you can do more than just read and post.
The number of stickies has to be limited; there are already 7. New topics that could be added;
TV - definetly not limited to MH (any other MH thread incur a beating!!!)
Ouija Boards, seances, etc
Personnal experiences - There is a pretty good thread here, but limited to expereinces, if you want an explaination start a thread otherwise you'll very quickly have a massive sticky
Links- As well as pointing people to other site, it could also point out good threads here (although if a thread is worthwhile it should stay near the top for a long time)



Bear in mind you will always get new people who will post previous topics, it's not their fault they don't know what happened in the past.

stevenmu

Ok, so we have

TV (Most haunted + others)
Ouija Boards/Seances (I think these go ok together, good thinking Gillo)
Sleep Paralysis
Personal Experiences (that was a very good thread)
Ufology
Psychic Mediums

There's already one for links and updates. I think we do need the Sleep Paralysis one, there's regular threads along the lines of "I woke up and ..." and then someone says "It's only sleep paralysis" and someone else says "No, it's paranormal", and then I say the two aren't mutually exclusive etc... etc... The psychic mediums thread, probably should be a sticky too if we follow the pattern of the others, altough it does quite well not being stuck and I can always merge in other threads that get started ? The same would probably apply to the ufology thread too. I'm not so sure about the Personal Experiences thread, if someone started a thread about a personal experience I wouldn't like to just merge it in with all the others, so if it's made a sticky then people have the choice of either posting in it, or a new thread, as they feel is appropriate.

6th

I think your list is perfect, there will always be threads that hold there own as seperate from the stickies (with Personal experiences for example) but there are so many 3/4 post threads about particular mediums/readers that could be under the relevant sticky.

Ghosts in the News doesnt need a sticky anymore as i said yesterday.