- Joined
- Nov 6, 2005
- Messages
- 3,100
- Trophies
- 0
- Age
- 35
- Location
- Foggy California
- Website
- heranbago.com
- XP
- 1,187
- Country
I really liked ask GBAtemp. It gave users recognition for providing newbies with help and that incentive got questions answered quickly. It also drastically reduced the number of small threads that were made to ask one question.
To me forum discussion is about just that, discussion. I like when there are mega threads or stickies or subforums for small questions. The subject matter presented at GBAtemp is partly specialized, but not to the degree it was during the GBA days. By making itself incredibly accessible GBAtemp has seen a ton of activity and new users over the DS's lifetime. This is a huge positive for the site and community. The problem with a huge influx of new users and those in their internet posting infancy is that they don't understand the concepts of stickies and won't dig through subforums to find a thread about a topic they have questions on.
Not only is it natural for a newbie to make an entirely new thread about one small question, it is encouraged with a higher amount of traffic. This influx of small question threads makes the average thread not interesting or not really debating or discussing an topic or issue. This makes the latest threads contain more short and uninformative topics and posters who want the latest discussion must sift through short threads.
Ask GBAtemp was not a perfect system and people did still occasionally post short questions as full of threads, but that was okay! They could get redirected by experienced posters, the thread could get moved (well, maybe it couldn't), or it could just slide by without the guy answering the question getting recognition. That was good. The number of uninformative latest topics were drastically reduced because of the big "Ask GBAtemp" section on the default front page.
I'm not pushing for a rep system and I'm not too focused on the recognition for people that go out of their way to re-explain to a newbie how to hack their wii because they won't read a sticky. I am just asking the staff to strongly consider a system like this. The immediate effect of GBAtemp for experienced posters was a huge increase in quality of average forum threads. The immediate effect for new users was they they could quickly and conveniently ask questions and get answers from experienced users. The long terms effects helped strengthen the community as new users got attention and were encouraged to stick around. Even if responses were just to read a sticky somewhere they were much more friendly than ones where a newbie made a thread in the very subforum containing that sticky.
Thank you for reading this huge wall of text, staff. Ask GBAtemp was one of the best things I've seen a hacking forum of any kind do to its format and it sucked to see it go.
It helped everyone and improved the forum experience. Please bring back Ask GBAtemp.
To me forum discussion is about just that, discussion. I like when there are mega threads or stickies or subforums for small questions. The subject matter presented at GBAtemp is partly specialized, but not to the degree it was during the GBA days. By making itself incredibly accessible GBAtemp has seen a ton of activity and new users over the DS's lifetime. This is a huge positive for the site and community. The problem with a huge influx of new users and those in their internet posting infancy is that they don't understand the concepts of stickies and won't dig through subforums to find a thread about a topic they have questions on.
Not only is it natural for a newbie to make an entirely new thread about one small question, it is encouraged with a higher amount of traffic. This influx of small question threads makes the average thread not interesting or not really debating or discussing an topic or issue. This makes the latest threads contain more short and uninformative topics and posters who want the latest discussion must sift through short threads.
Ask GBAtemp was not a perfect system and people did still occasionally post short questions as full of threads, but that was okay! They could get redirected by experienced posters, the thread could get moved (well, maybe it couldn't), or it could just slide by without the guy answering the question getting recognition. That was good. The number of uninformative latest topics were drastically reduced because of the big "Ask GBAtemp" section on the default front page.
I'm not pushing for a rep system and I'm not too focused on the recognition for people that go out of their way to re-explain to a newbie how to hack their wii because they won't read a sticky. I am just asking the staff to strongly consider a system like this. The immediate effect of GBAtemp for experienced posters was a huge increase in quality of average forum threads. The immediate effect for new users was they they could quickly and conveniently ask questions and get answers from experienced users. The long terms effects helped strengthen the community as new users got attention and were encouraged to stick around. Even if responses were just to read a sticky somewhere they were much more friendly than ones where a newbie made a thread in the very subforum containing that sticky.
Thank you for reading this huge wall of text, staff. Ask GBAtemp was one of the best things I've seen a hacking forum of any kind do to its format and it sucked to see it go.
It helped everyone and improved the forum experience. Please bring back Ask GBAtemp.
