- That would be unfortunate not to consider the opinions and ideas of users. That's been done before on CC and it's been less than successful.
- Even if our opinion isn't being solicited, we still have them regardless. :)
What’s the problem with long threads? When a thread gets very long, it may be a few who are still interested, but I don’t think that dissuades anyone from responding or posting to something new if they want to pivot. It would be a shame to fix a perceived problem and as a result damage the entire format of the forum. To date, the moderators only step in when needed and to keep the discussion civil and on a good track. If the moderators want to lead the discussion, that’s entirely something else.
I’m fine with long threads. I OFTEN go back to long threads with a specific topic and search for something I knew was discussed there. Examples: tour guide someone recommended on a travel thread; recipes on the Passover cooking thread; hiking boots on the fitness thread.
Those long threads build COMMUNITY.
There are threads that are long-running and have gone to Part 1, 2, 3, etc. Most notable is the Race in College Admissions, which has been going on since before I joined in 2006.
@CCadmin_Jon, I came here for college info. Have stayed because of the friends I’ve made here online and subsequently have met IRL. Fix the programing structure/usability, not the flow!
You are “ fixing” something that isn’t broken. Please stop.
I’m confused.
Is the proposal to condense all of the parent cafe threads into one thread that gets reset every month?
Or just have one loosely moderated Covid thread that is term limited to month long installments?
The first would be a disaster.
The second isn’t necessary because long threads don’t bother most people here but if it is easier for the moderators I would be ok with it.
I personally like meandering threads that veer off into tangential discussions before coming back to the main thread topic. The longer threads are snapshots of our community over time.
What happens to the thread once Covid is in the rearview mirror?
I’m a cs person with a background in broadcast anylytics. CC’s numbers fascinate me. In the last 5 years, the lowest number of page views CC had was fall 2019, and it was about 55,000 fewer than today’s. Today’s number was roughly 55,000 less than early February. If the downward trend continues CC will reach the previous lowest rate in about 6 weeks.
A few years ago there were some changes here. It felt to me like a changing of the guard so to speak. Some long-time members were ushered out. I don’t know the purpose for the change, but I can imagine newer users are easier to control. And they don’t remember a better version of the site either. But if you chase away long-time users on the assumption that you can just get new you have to be successful at drawing in those new members. That doesn’t appear to be happening.
So, what do you do? You can do a facelift, like grocery store chains, and hold a grand reopening. CC did that and we’re looking at the result. It didn’t increase the numbers. If anything, it drove the downward trend further down.
When a company resorts to a public, informal poll it’s not a sign that things are going well. Starting a thread to ask if CC should stick just to college topics and to ask user views on moderation that’s run by a paid employee with a stated bias and one of the site mods isn’t a strategy I’d recommend if you want a successful dialogue. But it doesn’t really feel like we’re being asked. Or that the answers are being listened to at any rate.
I feel for the ad guy…the one who told Jon that if he chases the parents away he’ll be out of a job. Because he’s right. The parents here provide a product for free that’s making some people a decent amount of money. They aren’t really the clients, they’re the product. The mission of the site may be for these unpaid volunteer advisors to offer advice about college, but the purpose is to deliver clicks and users to advertisers. I don’t think the proposed changes will do that any better than the previous ones.
I think making a chapter 2 so to speak, for the long still-existent Covid thread, might make Jon feel better but honestly, it’s still the same number of posts to moderate.
The generic May 2020 chat sounds like an invitation to disaster. It would lack focus and just go all over the place. We need the structure provided by specific titles.
I don’t understand the problem. If the long threads are too much for moderation, you can’t just stop people from posting. The solutions proposed so far won’t reduce the volume anyway.
Maybe moderation of parent cafe mega threads should depend on reports from users.
Hi @Gourmetmom ! One of the problems with really long threads is that it’s hard to read what other people have said in the past. I think I explained my reasoning in the other thread, but I can’t find where. It just got too long! What it comes down to is that in a long thread all sorts of things can happen and when it’s time for a moderator to keep things civil, it’s hard to figure out what happened.
Someone mentioned hiring moderators. Maybe it would help to explain how that goes. Most likely we’d hire someone who has never used this site. They get paid to respond to flags and don’t care about the community. They certainly don’t understand it. If we are lucky, they might try to understand. But most likely they will enforce the rules rigidly and without regard for what’s best for the community.
Let’s say two people are typing at the same time and person A says “this is a dumb idea” right after person B suggests an idea. So B flags A’s post as rude. But the “dumb idea” was really a response to something another person (C) had quoted. The two original posts are unrelated. A good moderator will figure this out. A paid moderator will not look past the surface and delete A’s post. Maybe even ban A. Our volunteer moderators do a better job because they know and care about people here. (Also, they are amazing!)
Longer threads bring in more people and more context and more potential for negative feelings.
I’m glad so many people don’t have any problems with these threads. If everyone
had no problems, I wouldn’t have a problem either. But people do have problems and flag things in these threads. Moderators are getting frustrated. People who didn’t have a problem with the threads before are annoyed with the moderators when they respond to flags. And angry with the people who flag. (This is a huge warning sign by the way.) When I try to step in, everyone gets annoyed with me too.
The common thread, so to speak, is these really long threads.
At any rate, my suggestion is very close to the status quo and I’ve touched a nerve suggesting it. Literally my idea is to close one thread, start another and ask the moderators to only lightly moderate that thread. (Even less moderation that they have attempted so far.) This would happen once a month. I suggested what I thought was a very minor change so that we could test out the idea of breaking up threads by month. What I’m reading in response tells me people think I’m suggesting some sort of radical change that hadn’t crossed my mind.
I’m planning on closing the [Coronavirus: What are You doing ( if anything) to prepare/ What are you personally observing?](Coronavirus: What are You doing ( if anything) to prepare/ What are you personally observing? - Parent Cafe - College Confidential Forums) thread. The only real question is if anyone is willing to create a continuation thread for me to link to.
Here you go - if this is not what you had in mind, please delete.
So @CCadmin_Jon to clarify once more, and please be specific, this monthly thread you’re proposing is only covid related and everything else will stay the same?
That would work too, but it isn’t what I’m suggesting. When the COVID-19 ceases to be a topic of conversation, I don’t want to go through this same argument for whatever thread comes after. I want a thread that everyone knows is held to a different (looser) standard than the rest. If this idea works, it means you can have this sort of thread (with less moderator intervention if that’s desired) for the life of the site rather than for the life of the pandemic.
Got it, sorry I misunderstood, and very glad you cleared that up. So the Covid thread is closed at the end of the month, and a new covid thread is opened immediately thereafter? And so on, each month. While all the other “normal” threads stay the same? (Unless they get too long and would then also go to the monthly format).
No problem:-)
PS the way you describe paid moderation is not how it is on the Chronicle Of The Horse, at all. No idea how they’ve been so successful at it.
OK, like this? http://talk.qa.collegeconfidential.com/parent-cafe/2185532-may-2020-current-events-information-and-discussion-p1.html?new=1
I don’t think the title can be too generic so used Current Events. Like in school.
Thanks @Marilyn ! I edited it a bit to include some explanation. Now I’ll close the previous thread and point it your way.
I am still confused. Will we still be able to have our wonderful, sometimes rambling mega threads like the wedding thread? Or threads like “our” baby mama’s thread? A number of us contribute to college-related conversations, even though our kids are now grown up. Part of the reason we continue to do it is because we also visit non-college-related conversations that keep us coming back to CC. If we leave, I think some really good knowledge leaves with us. And I would be so sad to lose my CC parent community.
Probably? Wedding and baby threads are great and seem less contentious than the coronavirus discussion could be. Certainly there’s no risk at the moment since this is the first I heard of these threads. 
Can you delete the current events thread?
I’m not saying paid moderation is certain to be as I describe. It is possible to hire excellent moderators. But it’s a much harder task than to just empower people within the community.
Probably? Wedding and baby threads are great and seem less contentious than the coronavirus discussion could be. Certainly there’s no risk at the moment since this is the first I heard of these threads. 
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Jon, just when I think you get it, you post something like this!
What we have just spent 3 pages telling you is that these threads are the lifeblood of CC and its community.
And you are saying we can probably * have these threads??! Are you nuts? You *are about to throw the baby out with the bathwater.
I’m done trying to help.
@CCadmin_Jon , with all due respect, your initial post on this thread isn’t very clear. It was difficult to tell if you intended to replace only the Coronavirus/Personal Experiences thread, or if you intended to replace the entire Parent Cafe with a single “chat” thread. I think the latter possibility is what caused so many people to have a negative reaction. (With good reason, I think - one gigantic chat thread would be complete chaos.)
Also, it seems to me that it isn’t length of threads that is causing moderation issues. Rather, it is very active threads. There are a number of examples of threads with higher post counts than the Coronavirus thread. However, those threads have taken much longer to reach their respective lengths. Based on this, I think it is the high volume of posts in a short time that result in the Mods not being able to keep up. If this is the case, I’m not sure how dividing the same volume of posts into month-long chunks will diminish the workload. (Note: I’m not criticizing the mods in any way, just saying that there is too much work for the number of mods.)