Limit Thread Bumping
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Limit Thread Bumping
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Posted 2022-05-20 16:32:09
Hi. I have a great annoyance in the forums that I've complained about before but after it happened again, I went looking for a suggestion like this to vote on and found that there isn't one. I cannot put into words how inconvenient it is that anyone can bump a thread regardless of whether they made it. Too often, I'm looking at the trade or art forums and click on a thread near the top of the page and see something I like. I want to trade with someone or order art so I make a comment in their thread, only for someone to comment that the thread's owner has been inactive for months, a year, or longer. I have just created an unnecessary notification for every single person subscribed to that thread and given them false hope that the trader or artist is active again. It's inconvenient and completely unnecessary, but someone chose to bump an inactive thread and made it appear active. This is partially on me for not checking when the thread creator was last active before posting but I also want to bring up the fact that this wouldn't be necessary if users couldn't bump threads they didn't create. Bumping a thread you do not own does not send a notification to the thread's creator, there is no benefit to bumping inactive threads, but it does create an inconvenience for others. I would thus like to suggest that bumping should be limited to:
Since I don't know why else anyone would touch inactive threads, I can only presume that new players think bumping a thread notifies its creator that you're interested. This does not happen. They do not receive a notification, but dozens of other people do when unsuspecting people comment on old and inactive threads. There is no benefit to bumping a thread that hasn't been active in a year but there certainly is an inconvenience caused for many by the actions of one. I don't believe this needs more from the development team than some coding, but I'll be the first to admit that I'm fairly technologically illiterate so I don't know how difficult this might be to implement. |
 Flower #3196 |
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Posted 2022-05-20 18:37:43 (edited)
I've seen this happen too many times. While I've never been duped by it because I automatically check the activity of the thread creator, I've seen lots of other people fall into the trap. It gets in the way of actual active threads too, instead of fading out naturally. Nobody should necro a thread that's been dead forever, but it'll always happen. However, I don't agree that nobody should be able to bump others' threads permanently. I've bumped threads for giveaways and random games, among others. Particularly with the giveaway or otherwise free stuff one, I've had people bump my giveaways before, despite them not entering the giveaway. They just bumped to help me out, and that's greatly appreciated. Maybe instead of an outright inability to bump threads across the board, only threads with active owners can be bumped. The main post on a thread hasn't been edited in, say, a week, and nobody is able to bump it anymore as it is viewed as inactive. (People can still reply and the thread owner can still bump if they want, but other people can't.) Or as an alternative, if the thread creator hasn't rolled over in a week, the same thing. Something like that. I just don't support bumping other people's stuff being removed (almost) entirely. |
 Whirligig (Hiatus) #11137 |
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Posted 2022-05-20 19:04:22 (edited)
Unless, of course, you mean that the development subforum should be an exception, I just thought that it was worth pointing out. I'm firmly of the opinion that this specific subforum should have threads anyone can bump because they affect everyone. (Editing for clarity: I feel that time limits shouldn't exist on this subforum.) For the time limit, while I like the sound of it, I'm not particularly technologically literate and I don't know how much harder that would be to implement. One is removing buttons, the other is implementing a whole system that checks the last time a user has logged in (or rolled over, I suppose), and I don't know if it would add additional difficulties with implementation. In either case, what you listed here as positive is something I view as a part of the problem. You say that it helped make your giveaway more visible when someone bumped it and I agree, it helped you. Did it help the person whose active giveaway was pushed off the first page as a result of this? If your thread is active, there is no reason why you can't be the person bumping it up. By your own admission, the person who bumped your thread wasn't even participating in it, therefore they had no personal benefit to gain from doing that and while they helped you, they likewise inconvenienced someone else who now has to compete with two of you to make their giveaway seen. I understand why that helped you but I don't think it's fair, especially towards newer users who create their own threads and won't have the same kind of following that other people will. This would help even out the playing ground and hopefully ensure that new users don't get muscled out because someone is popular and people like seeing their name pop up. |
Flower #3196 |
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Posted 2022-05-20 19:41:16 (edited)
'Did it help the person whose active giveaway was pushed off the first page as a result of this?' I'm sorry, I'm not sure exactly what you mean by that. ^^' The giveaway I was speaking of was actively ongoing, it wasn't dead or anything. That person who bumped it for me a few times did so while I wasn't paying attention to WD. I never asked them to do that; I got the impression they just wanted more newer players to see it. (It was for non-veteran players.) Helping other players in this fashion is a positive to me, not a negative. The fact that people can bump others' threads is a nice community thing, and that's speaking as someone who normally sticks to myself. Especially for threads giving away free things. I'll gladly bump someone else's giveaway if they aren't online, regardless of whether I'm running one myself or not. (Only if it's alive, of course.) I can't imagine someone else bumping my thread inconvenienced anybody, as there's already a limit to bumping. It's a five-minute timer, so anybody else who has a giveaway can bump at the same pace, regardless of who's doing it. In terms of it being fair, i consider it completely fair, because other people can bump their threads just as the same as that one person did to mine. It's an even playing field in that regard. And it most definitely wouldn't be a popularity contest on my part, pretty sure most players have no idea who I am lol. Again, there's a bump limit already in place, so it doesn't matter if someone's super popular, the amount of bumps cannot be done more than once in 5 minutes. Specifically to avoid excessive spam or pushing other posts off the first page. And I think replies function in the same way, where the bumping timer refreshes. Regardless, if it comes down to the full removal of bumping except on your own topics, I'll still have to oppose. I agree that there should be something done about the revival of dead threads, but not like this. I personally believe there are too many downsides to it, even if Development stays untouched. Edit: I didn't expect my post to get so long, sorry about that. :'v |
Whirligig (Hiatus) #11137 |
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Posted 2022-05-20 19:56:42
What I meant by saying that is that while it helped you, it also gave you an unfair advantage compared to other users. Regardless of whether your giveaway was active or not, there were now two users bumping it instead of one. This creates a rift I'm not comfortable with, where newer users struggle to have their content seen because people go out of their way to support threads made by users who have been here for longer. In simple terms, every time your thread is bumped, other threads are pushed down. Each of us only has so much time in a day to dedicate to wolvden and we do our best with what we're given, but there's an inherent disparity in how much visibility a thread will get if multiple people are bumping it versus one person. This, by default, puts new users at a disadvantage. If people want to help contribute to existing threads, there is already a way to do this - by commenting in them and participating in the discussion. By your own admission, you've bumped threads of users who were offline. They weren't inactive for long periods but they were at the time you were doing this, and active threads with users who were online got pushed down because of it. It may not be as frustrating as seeing an old thread get necro'd but I maintain that this is still a part of the problem. That's fine. Thank you for offering your opinions anyhow. I'd love to hear if a time-limit like the one you suggested could be implemented if someone more tech-literate than me can offer their two cents, I think that would help a lot. I would still very much prefer if we could only bump our own threads (sans Development), but that would be an acceptable alternative. TL;DR: I don't agree with everything but I do like the suggestions, thank you! |
Flower #3196 |
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Posted 2022-05-21 21:16:45
I appreciate the discussion and I wish you luck with your suggestion! ^^ |
Whirligig (Hiatus) #11137 |
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Posted 2022-05-21 22:09:49
Thank you for the suggestions, I appreciate them! I really hope someone with more tech knowledge can give their input on whether the time limit is possible. It may not be my preferred solution but I'd be thrilled even with just that to help out! |
Flower #3196 |
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Posted 2022-05-22 03:35:55
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 Dżanek #24018 |
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Posted 2022-05-22 14:10:10 (edited)
In a way that bumping (via button press) can't be 'outlawed', so to speak. This might be a bit clunkily worded since English isn't my first language, I apologise up front if it is and I'll try to clarify better if you have any questions. Sorry about that. You can't make a rule against bumping a thread. It's impossible to enforce. One person would bump an old thread up, and by the time another person's replied to it thinking it's new, you already lost sight of who bumped it prior. There is no way for the moderation team to keep track of it, it's impossible. Replying as an alternative to bumping is good on two fronts: 1) People must actually contribute to a thread to participate in it (which produces posts with timestamps!) 2) Wolvden can, like most forums, implement a "no spam/necroing" rule of some form. What this means is that you can simply outlaw comments that contain nothing but "bump" or "bumping," or some variation on the same. Since there is a sizable amount of users who would get annoyed by notifications, it's a problem that would actually sort itself out: users would now be able to report those abusing forum features, which was previously impossible. It might be annoying for a week but the more people report it, the sooner it would come to a halt. An alternative (or additional) change to the rules that could happen is to forbid posting in inactive threads past a certain age limit (a month, two months, six months, a year, however long) unless you were the person that created that thread. Again, this takes a bit of work from the userbase itself in reporting problems where they see them, but I also don't see a problem in us working to make our environment a bit nicer. I'm genuinely surprised this isn't already a thing, to be honest. I can't think of any other website I've seen where there's no rule against necroing and spam in the forums, let alone where a bumping feature is so abusable. |
Flower #3196 |
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Posted 2022-05-22 15:41:54
Hiya! Can I buy some of those items? Hai, I commissioned an art 3 months ago, could I get an update? I'd like to participate in this giveaway. And then other users jump in thinking it's an active thread. How should those cases be handled? Even if somehow it was enforced that players shouldn't be allowed to gravedig threads, it won't solve the new player problem. A player is instructed, another one will come and so on. Different players will keep replying to old threads. |
Dżanek #24018 |