Jump to content

How to improve the forums?


melkimx

Recommended Posts

Hi Soompiers,

Here is your chance to help us build a better Soompi! Please give us feedback and let us know what you love or hate about our forums, and any ideas you have to improve things! Whether it's spammers and trolls, organizational issues, annoying ads, inactive or trigger-happy moderators, decrease of community feel, technical issues, or something I haven't mentioned, please let us know. We want to see how we can make the forum experience more enjoyable for you, and fix any problems you've been having. Thanks for your patience!

- Team Soompi

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Replies 44
  • Created
  • Last Reply

I thought this thread was made months ago.

Anyway, the problems are spam bots staying here posting links everywhere, trolls staying here posting crap everywhere, that Camry ad and the ones that get larger when the cursor passes by them, and the reputation system isn't helping anything and people just post to get more points.

Oh, there are those driver errors too. Can someone please explain what's with those?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

There's no harm in making it again, is there? :) Anyway, the last thread was poll format, but reading the responses, I got the feeling that a more open format would be helpful.

Thanks for your response! The more specific you can be, the more helpful it will be. Regarding the Camry ad -- maybe it's just because I have a large screen, but really it doesn't affect my viewing experience much, just maybe pushes the forum down about 150 pixels more, which to me is not a big deal. Does it really interfere with what you're doing? And as for ads that get larger when you hover over them -- where are those? Because that does sound like a huge pain! Personally, my biggest problem are the Meebo ads in the lower right -- those really cut into what I'm trying to look at at any given time. One of them even has a red X that fakes out users into clicking the ad. I'll talk to our ads manager about these, especially if more people are finding them annoying. But at the same time, please understand that we need to cover costs, and our ads are our way of keeping Soompi going so you can continue to use our site for free. I know everyone would like to see no ads or at least completely unobtrusive ads tucked away in a corner no one ever sees, but that's not always going to be a realistic option. And although I know it's tempting to use the Soompi4000 skin as a workaround, using it actually robs us of the ad impressions we are hoping to get. We have no plans to remove the skin, so you can continue to use it if it makes you happy. But just be aware of our side of the situation :)

Spam bots and trolls -- of course we're on the same page! All we can do is take a defensive stance, so I'll see what we can do to control it.

Driver errors happen when a file fails to load on the server. It happens a lot on Soompi because our site is a pretty complicated mess of code built up throughout the years. The situation should improve when we launch our next site, which we're projecting should happen in the next few months, but it means that you'll need to sit tight until then. Sorry -- I get as annoyed as you do when it happens to me. But as with many things, there's just no quick fix.

As for the reputation system, I don't dislike it in theory, but I think it's being misused -- people are voting down every single opinion they don't agree with. Along with all these other things, let's discuss it some more.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

There's no harm in making it again, is there? :) Anyway, the last thread was poll format, but reading the responses, I got the feeling that a more open format would be helpful.

Thanks for your response! The more specific you can be, the more helpful it will be. Regarding the Camry ad -- maybe it's just because I have a large screen, but really it doesn't affect my viewing experience much, just maybe pushes the forum down about 150 pixels more, which to me is not a big deal. Does it really interfere with what you're doing? And as for ads that get larger when you hover over them -- where are those? Because that does sound like a huge pain! Personally, my biggest problem are the Meebo ads in the lower right -- those really cut into what I'm trying to look at at any given time. One of them even has a red X that fakes out users into clicking the ad. I'll talk to our ads manager about these, especially if more people are finding them annoying. But at the same time, please understand that we need to cover costs, and our ads are our way of keeping Soompi going so you can continue to use our site for free. I know everyone would like to see no ads or at least completely unobtrusive ads tucked away in a corner no one ever sees, but that's not always going to be a realistic option. And although I know it's tempting to use the Soompi4000 skin as a workaround, using it actually robs us of the ad impressions we are hoping to get. We have no plans to remove the skin, so you can continue to use it if it makes you happy. But just be aware of our side of the situation :)

Spam bots and trolls -- of course we're on the same page! All we can do is take a defensive stance, so I'll see what we can do to control it.

Driver errors happen when a file fails to load on the server. It happens a lot on Soompi because our site is a pretty complicated mess of code built up throughout the years. The situation should improve when we launch our next site, which we're projecting should happen in the next few months, but it means that you'll need to sit tight until then. Sorry -- I get as annoyed as you do when it happens to me. But as with many things, there's just no quick fix.

As for the reputation system, I don't dislike it in theory, but I think it's being misused -- people are voting down every single opinion they don't agree with. Along with all these other things, let's discuss it some more.

I like this new thread. Thanks for the reply.

The Camry ad actually is not bad compared to the Hatsune Miku one before it. The Hatsune Miku one looks like a regular-sized ad banner, but if the cursor goes near it, it becomes as big as the Camry one. This is a major problem because it actually retreats on its own so we have no idea when we are free to click the buttons under it like the News or Forum buttons. It looks like a slinky when I want to click something and it hasn't retreated 100%.

There also is another thing about the ads when clicking on the regular page (not linked parts) that annoys me. It happens more in the News section. When I click somewhere close to the bottom, a pop-up ad appears. There are no icons for ads or anything and clicking the same place after it is higher in the window doesn't get that pop-up to appear.

I think someone with moderator permissions might be deleting reports because some of the bots I report remain. Many of them are in the Health and Fitness section in the main exercise thread. There are people who actually reply to the bots by quoting them and it makes the situation much worse.

For the trolls, the new members are banned/deleted, but it seems like the older ones are safe just because they weren't banned in the first week here. There also are some trolls in the News section who are spamming like crazy, but it's overlooked because the article just gets buried in there. Even if it gets buried in thousands of articles, it's not good to leave them to do all that.

Thanks for the good news about the upgrade.

Yes, in an ideal world, the reputation system is a great idea, but it doesn't work here because of the people. There are some very helpful people in the Tech forum and they have low/zero reputation points while "OMG so hott" gets 10 points in K-Drama threads. Then there is "I don't agree with you -1" and "OMG it's so funny +1" when something is unrelated and it is insulting to dead people.

People will misuse it because it is in their nature. If 99% of people used it well, then there wouldn't be much of a problem. More than half are misusing it, so I don't see why it should stay.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

okay. actually i'm not sure what that ad is, but if it comes back, let me know. in the meantime, i'll bring it up with the ads guy when i talk to him tomorrow. i think the second thing you're talking about is the meebo ad that i was referring to -- if that's the case, i'm not sure how much we can control what appears there. it drives me crazy so i feel you, but... yeah, i'll ask. i feel like it just appears when the page loads though, not when i'm clicking on the bottom. i could be wrong though.

about the spammers, i seem to recall seeing some of them be warned instead of banned. it may be because i've been asking moderators to lighten up on banning, but this is obviously not what i meant by that. anyway, i'll talk to the mods about this.

regarding the reputation system, i think there's a definite difference in behavior per forum. i have to tell you that it's pretty unlikely that we'll abolish it in the near future, or even in the next version, just because this kind of rating has almost become standard, and we think there are some potential benefits of having it (if it can be used to weed out trolls or highlight good content). but we would like to modify it so that it's actually useful. it may be that we'll need to eliminate it totally for certain forums, but we'll see. we'll continue collecting people's thoughts on this matter so we can come out with a system that's fair. and if that doesn't work, then we'll call it quits T_T

thanks!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

okay. actually i'm not sure what that ad is, but if it comes back, let me know. in the meantime, i'll bring it up with the ads guy when i talk to him tomorrow. i think the second thing you're talking about is the meebo ad that i was referring to -- if that's the case, i'm not sure how much we can control what appears there. it drives me crazy so i feel you, but... yeah, i'll ask. i feel like it just appears when the page loads though, not when i'm clicking on the bottom. i could be wrong though.

about the spammers, i seem to recall seeing some of them be warned instead of banned. it may be because i've been asking moderators to lighten up on banning, but this is obviously not what i meant by that. anyway, i'll talk to the mods about this.

regarding the reputation system, i think there's a definite difference in behavior per forum. i have to tell you that it's pretty unlikely that we'll abolish it in the near future, or even in the next version, just because this kind of rating has almost become standard, and we think there are some potential benefits of having it (if it can be used to weed out trolls or highlight good content). but we would like to modify it so that it's actually useful. it may be that we'll need to eliminate it totally for certain forums, but we'll see. we'll continue collecting people's thoughts on this matter so we can come out with a system that's fair. and if that doesn't work, then we'll call it quits T_T

thanks!

I don't know if it's the meebo ad. All I know is that clicking to the lower left of my window gets Pop-Ups going in the News section and there's nothing there like an image to show it.

It doesn't weed out trolls so much but it does encourage them because people vote up the troll posts and I guess that's one way to highlight a post, but it's not in a good way. Abolishing it in some forums where it's misused probably won't do much because that's where most of the trolling takes place. The reputation system would be better if it's just in the Tech forum, High School Students, College Students, and the Rules forums but most people have an all-or-nothing mentality.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Guest monkeyinabarrel

Can't you remove spammers privaliges like starting new topics? I'm in another forum and they don't allow newbies to post links.

How about the rep system like a barter? Soompi already places a finite number on repping. If youre more repped you get more rep points. Negs = 2 positives.

I checked out IP. board mobile, it's seriously lacking. 6theory has a better mobile site.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Can't you remove spammers privaliges like starting new topics?

I think that was done to have 5 posts give the privilege of making a thread. I think that's why the racist dude in the Love & Relationships forum posted that he finally was able to make a thread.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Guest monkeyinabarrel

I think that was done to have 5 posts give the privilege of making a thread. I think that's why the racist dude in the Love & Relationships forum posted that he finally was able to make a thread.

I know newbies are not allowed to start a new topic without so many posts but I'm talking about taking it away completely until s/he makes posts that contribute to a thread(s).

I don't think spammer care about warnings, they'll keep spamming until banned.

Btw, I've seen a few spammers where all their posts are new threads, meaning they haven't needed to post a certain amount of posts before starting a new topic.

Though it would better to find a way to block spammers from posting links,it would deter a lot more spammers

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Guest freeminded1430278377

I am not sure if this has been posted or not but I think it will be nice to have a feature that members can select to make their posts invisible to guests or people reading this thread without logging in or a feature that allows their posts to only be visible to a certain group of people. What I have in mind is similar to allowing certain people to see your wall on facebook.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I am not sure if this has been posted or not but I think it will be nice to have a feature that members can select to make their posts invisible to guests or people reading this thread without logging in or a feature that allows their posts to only be visible to a certain group of people. What I have in mind is similar to allowing certain people to see your wall on facebook.

Some forums are protected. Check the forums as a guest and you'll see that 411 and I think K-Dramas Official and K-Entertainment are protected.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Guest monkeyinabarrel

I am not sure if this has been posted or not but I think it will be nice to have a feature that members can select to make their posts invisible to guests or people reading this thread without logging in or a feature that allows their posts to only be visible to a certain group of people. What I have in mind is similar to allowing certain people to see your wall on facebook.

Like odesean said.

But the point of a forum is for everyone to collaborate. As a guest it would be weird to read about bla bla but have nO idea who/what bla bla said.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I don't know if this helps to improve Soompi... but just a suggestion :) :) ---

when I type what I want on google and the link brings me to it, at times when I'm not logged in I can't view the page. then when I've logged in, I'm not on that page anymore (back at the main forum) and I have to google it again to go to that page. Is there any way you can make it so that once logged in we're still at the same page (not the main)? :)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

^ It sure is.

I have another suggestion. Can something please be done about the behavior in the News section? There are many trolls who are cussing and they insult others there.

The josephsones guy is the worst I've seen. He spammed more than 10 straight pages of comments for the preview of Teddy Riley's "The Boys" with "TIFFANY TIFFANY TIFFANY", "YOONA YOONA YOONA" and some other stuff.

I think he just posted that Wonder Girls should kill themselves.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Hi odaesan

thanks for the heads up!

it helps us greatly when members who come across trollish comments in mainsite news can report them to any moderators or admins for immediate action or flag them for review.

^ It sure is.

I have another suggestion. Can something please be done about the behavior in the News section? There are many trolls who are cussing and they insult others there.

The josephsones guy is the worst I've seen. He spammed more than 10 straight pages of comments for the preview of Teddy Riley's "The Boys" with "TIFFANY TIFFANY TIFFANY", "YOONA YOONA YOONA" and some other stuff.

I think he just posted that Wonder Girls should kill themselves.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Guest graceyoon

On the above note, I find that people most likely use the negative button on spam posts, and not the report button. My suggestion would be perhaps to remove the negative button and replace it with the report button? Or perhaps modify the negative button with 2 options-- 1 because you disagree with the post or 2, because it's a spam post and a mod would be notified.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 2 weeks later...
Guest .rainbow

I noticed that a lot of times really old threads get bumped up by someone and it gets annoying.

It'd be nice if theres a way to report that its an old thread? o:

(Sorry if this is already a feature and if it is I apologize for being a noob xD)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.


×
×
  • Create New...

Important Information

By using this site, you agree to our We have placed cookies on your device to help make this website better. You can adjust your cookie settings, otherwise we'll assume you're okay to continue..