Willie Neslon
Footballguy
If you've been paying attention you'll know there has been a mass exodus from this place in the last few years. As I write this, there are only 49 members perusing the board. 4-5 years ago that number would have been at least triple. There are a number different factors as to why people have left never or rarely to return and I'd like to address one of the not so obvious reasons now, constantly changing the titles of existing threads.
(Before I get into it let me say there can be legitimate reasons to change a thread title. If you've shared something about your life here and have news about an ongoing personal situation, an update regarding the status of your original post, a thread title change can be absolutely warranted as to alert the community of fresh information. I am not referring to those thread title changes. I am referring to the title changes of threads where no breaking news has been dropped, only an arbitrary change for no other reason than the op feels like it.)
When arriving to the board each visit the first thing we do is scan the front page to see what's going on. Everybody knows there are going to be certain long time threads that will be on the front page almost constantly (political threads, tv show threads, sports threads, gm/tim thread etc). Even though these threads have been on or near the front page for years I no longer see most of them. My brain processes the title in milliseconds and skips it. These titles are just blank spaces now, patterns that my eyes have seen countless times that they no longer register as words. The rest of the thread titles ("fresh" titles) are scanned, considered and if interested I click and browse the thread.
I don't know exactly when it started but several years back a board regular came up with the idea that a thread title change could ignite new interest in his topic. A "funny" new title based on something someone wrote in the thread or something that happened during a game or catchphrase from the TV show the thread is about. Anything. This was a pivotal moment in the history of the board as other original posters of long time threads began to emulate that. Suddenly you had several threads that had been on page one for years, threads that the majority of the community would instantly skip over (in the manner I described in the last paragraph) that now had new titles, sometimes a new title every few weeks or even every few days. Our brains were unfamiliar with these new titles. These new patterns of words must be perused and reconsidered. It had taken months if not years for the original titles to become cerebrally ingrained, now all of that processing was out the window and new recognition would have to begin before we could get to that place of auto-skipping those titles whose threads we had no interest in to begin with. And a few days or weeks later a new title would arrive and it would begin again. And again and again and again. That's when people began to leave. It may not have been the board's first fatal wound but a fatal wound it was.
In the present, thread titles are now changed multiple times in a single day in some cases. Scanning page one for the fresh and interesting has now become exhausting because we must wade through the clutter of forever changing titles in which we don't and never had any interest of the content. I would like to take this moment ask the community to join me in a pledge to stop changing the titles of existing threads. If people want to discuss for years on end the video game they are playing, that is their right. If that's what you enjoy doing, more power to you. Just keep the same thread title and the 99% of us that have no interest in your games or how you play them will never even see your thread on page one even when it's there. I'm not looking to single out anyone individually as I believe the people changing the titles have decent intentions and simply can't see the damage they're creating. I ask you, the thread title changers, to join the rest of us in this pledge to eliminate thread title chance. Once we all take this pledge and end the madness the healing can begin. And once the healing begins and people slowly return to this great community, maybe then we'll have more than 49 people to converse with on a Wednesday afternoon.
(Before I get into it let me say there can be legitimate reasons to change a thread title. If you've shared something about your life here and have news about an ongoing personal situation, an update regarding the status of your original post, a thread title change can be absolutely warranted as to alert the community of fresh information. I am not referring to those thread title changes. I am referring to the title changes of threads where no breaking news has been dropped, only an arbitrary change for no other reason than the op feels like it.)
When arriving to the board each visit the first thing we do is scan the front page to see what's going on. Everybody knows there are going to be certain long time threads that will be on the front page almost constantly (political threads, tv show threads, sports threads, gm/tim thread etc). Even though these threads have been on or near the front page for years I no longer see most of them. My brain processes the title in milliseconds and skips it. These titles are just blank spaces now, patterns that my eyes have seen countless times that they no longer register as words. The rest of the thread titles ("fresh" titles) are scanned, considered and if interested I click and browse the thread.
I don't know exactly when it started but several years back a board regular came up with the idea that a thread title change could ignite new interest in his topic. A "funny" new title based on something someone wrote in the thread or something that happened during a game or catchphrase from the TV show the thread is about. Anything. This was a pivotal moment in the history of the board as other original posters of long time threads began to emulate that. Suddenly you had several threads that had been on page one for years, threads that the majority of the community would instantly skip over (in the manner I described in the last paragraph) that now had new titles, sometimes a new title every few weeks or even every few days. Our brains were unfamiliar with these new titles. These new patterns of words must be perused and reconsidered. It had taken months if not years for the original titles to become cerebrally ingrained, now all of that processing was out the window and new recognition would have to begin before we could get to that place of auto-skipping those titles whose threads we had no interest in to begin with. And a few days or weeks later a new title would arrive and it would begin again. And again and again and again. That's when people began to leave. It may not have been the board's first fatal wound but a fatal wound it was.
In the present, thread titles are now changed multiple times in a single day in some cases. Scanning page one for the fresh and interesting has now become exhausting because we must wade through the clutter of forever changing titles in which we don't and never had any interest of the content. I would like to take this moment ask the community to join me in a pledge to stop changing the titles of existing threads. If people want to discuss for years on end the video game they are playing, that is their right. If that's what you enjoy doing, more power to you. Just keep the same thread title and the 99% of us that have no interest in your games or how you play them will never even see your thread on page one even when it's there. I'm not looking to single out anyone individually as I believe the people changing the titles have decent intentions and simply can't see the damage they're creating. I ask you, the thread title changers, to join the rest of us in this pledge to eliminate thread title chance. Once we all take this pledge and end the madness the healing can begin. And once the healing begins and people slowly return to this great community, maybe then we'll have more than 49 people to converse with on a Wednesday afternoon.
Not sure I can believe anything you say anymore, Willie.
