Open clogging up news threads

Agree completely with FunkyGibbon on the photo comment problem.

 

Just to clarify, I wasn't suggesting that those items don't constitute news, they just form a large bulk of frequent posts which few people seem to respond to. Each birth, naming competition result or transfer is a success of some level for the zoos involved, and as enthusiasts I can't object to interest being taken in such details. Clearly there are many who are interested in these little features, but it would be helpful if on my account they could somehow be granted a lower priority without ruining the experience for those who enjoy them. For them to go into a thread which I can ignore seems to be a reasonable option (though I'm keen to hear others), as my only other solution in recent years has been to open far fewer discussions, and mostly only those from zoos which really interest me.

 

The problem is the use of a forum of typical structure for what is essentially multiple information streams put into a single information stream.


You can introduce guidelines all you want, but people won't read them and only heavy moderator action would curtail and allow you to control what constitutes "NEWS" within a certain standard. The big risk here is that many (most) forums are suffering reduced memberships and activity (thank facebook for this) so any activity which discourages activity from a segment of the population has to be considered in a negative light. So all those casual bits of news and tid-bits are important. They are not just bits of information but a point of potential social interaction within the community itself; which allows individuals of different backgrounds and focuses to retain an active interest in the site.

Of course any system that is open to the public often devolves toward the simpler end of the scale. It's easier for more people to talk about and the information is easier to access and find. Detailed and insightful news might well not be always posted on the zoos news feed on facebook so you have to do a bit of digging or asking sometimes which not all are willing or able to do.


What you really want is almost a mini-forum for each zoo; allowing effective break down of the information at that site. Allowing you to display animals kept with a rolling up date of what is bred, birthed, died, moved (and where). Along with casual news (new loo seats in the toilets) and major news threads (new building).
However for the vast number of zoos present on the forums its not practical to take that approach. IT's a huge workload and would generate dozens of new threads. Far from the "Oh that thread update wasn't interesting" you'd get FAR more of those than you do now.

I would consider one news thread per site which has a dull update far better than having to subscribe to dozens of minor threads or the risk that the casual news threads are the only ones used worthwhile annoyance.


I do agree, the problem is in the sites structure; but the amount of work involved in moving to a different structure (nor just upgraded software) would be huge. It's likely also the kind of thing that would require customised software to achieve (even if its custom built over a commercial software package engine). It would be a serious investment in time and money and expertise. It would be fantastic to have a forum structure where there was a unified updates feed coupled to each zoo almost having its own mini-forum of discussion threads and media updates = but I'm not really aware of any software package that would deliver that faithfully.

 

While I respect that everyone has certain feelings and opinions about topics such as what constitutes "news", I'm not entirely convinced that this issue warrants some kind of solution even after reading through all of these posts.

It is true that many zoo threads are being updated with PR posts and minor news of little interest while genuinely interesting developments sometimes get buried or ignored as a result. I get that someone could be very frustrated with that development. But honestly that seems like more of a personal annoyance to me than a fundamental problem. Other members have complained about having to look at many threads before finding something that is actually interesting or newsworthy; I do that every day and I'm not sure why it's a problem that merits attention.

As overread pointed out, this development would likely also include a significant bit of moderation. Obviously the mods should decide for themselves how much moderation work they should be doing, but I will say that in arguments about more versus less moderation, I will normally take the side of less. I think heavily moderating or filtering what people can post on the threads is unnecessary and excessive, even if not doing it comes with the cost of overburdened threads.

As for the complaints about post and site "quality", I have heard that complaint from time to time as well. I feel sympathetic towards members who feel strongly about the quality of a site they love and visit so much, but that topic is so inherently subjective that I'm not sure what solutions could be made to solve it that everyone agrees with. As stated before, I'm not a fan of excessive moderation; even with its drawbacks I prefer that everyone have the freedom to post, even if other members are annoyed by it, don't think it's worth posting, or believe it degrades the "quality" of the site.

 

Quality of discussion is not something you moderate out of a site (save to remove obscenities and unsuitable topics/trolling/harassing etc...).

You can't remove the lower level because every single person who posts simpler content is someone starting out who will one day be more knowledgeable. It's the fresh recruitment of new members area and the most likely type of person to newly join a community.

If you remove it what tends to happen is that you get more of a call form people who are trying to make the site what it was in the past; to promote their own circle of friends and discussions and the feeling of the community back then. This is often not an intentional desire on those peoples part; but it is the end result of what many fight toward.


I think if you want a higher quality; if you want more interesting stuff; if you want a site to go in a particular direction then the best and only way to get there is to grab the bull by the horns and to lead by example. To encourage and nurture the "lower" discussions to a higher level and to also show new people how to find new information an what can be really interesting.
This is a constant process that never ends; you can't resolve it with stickies (they can help but won't stop it); you can't resolve it with heavy moderation of content. You solve it with a friendly welcoming atmosphere and, essentially, teaching and guiding people into things.




In the context of this site if you're finding news on a particular zoo dull the good chance is that many of those contributing don't know how to find other info. they want to share and talk about that zoo; but they only know a limited pool of information. So show them where they can find more; if a commonly bred animal is birthed and then announced thank them for it; then perhaps show them information on the historical breeding of that species on the site; or other recently bred rare things or other information sources other than the "sites facebook page".

If you lead them some will follow; others won't; but along the way you might have some neat and interesting chats.

It's a lot of work so this only works when the membership wants to do it.


In my view its the best way forward and only practical way forward save rebuilding the whole site from the ground up.

 

I think the 'like' button should remove many of the pointless posts like 'great news' or 'nice shot' which previously filled up the threads after every post about a birth or good photograph. It shouldn't be such a problem moving forward....

 

I don't think this is true. Newer members who might politely be described as having no filter can be an issue, but I think it is mostly separate from news. The people who are posting the 'small news' we are talking about are usually people who post a lot.

The problem is that these people presumably enjoy sharing this stuff, which makes it a shame to ask them to stop. If we could build up a genuine picture of public opinion it would be easier to make informed statements on this, let alone judgements.

 

Zoochat is my one stop for zoo news, I hope there is no plan to diminish this, news from zoos, surely is a starting point for conversations, along with actual visits.
I for one would certainly be guilty of posting news items, but my internal filter, refrains from posting what I consider trivial irrelevant posts (hopefully).
This has always been an open site, full of responsible member and contributors, I hope this can continue in the same context, but if change is required by a few disgruntled members, fair enough, but let's have a balance that will suit ALL members.

 

Personally, I think a simple remedy would be introducing "major" and "minor" news threads for certain high-traffic zoos, eg. Chester, Brookfield, and Toronto. Those who discuss every detail would be accommodated, but the major news threads would remain readable for interested bystanders. An equivalent system, enforced by the moderators, semi-successfully filters the rubbish posted about South Lakes.

The "Minor News from Australia" approach is too general, because I imagine most only care about smaller items from their home zoos.

 

I'm very pleased that I've been able to prompt a discussion about what purpose we all want Zoochat to serve, and how to best enable that. I do want to push back, though, against the idea that this is an attempt at 'unilateral' decision making - if indeed this comment was a reference to my posts.

I've made clear that I'm not trying to limit what can or should be posted, but only to seek a way of making the site more usable than I feel it currently is. The suggestion referenced above is only my best guess at a possible solution, but anything that enables us to split out the 'news feed' and 'discussion board' functions of the site is welcome.

If the problem is only experienced by myself and a couple of others then vox populi, vox dei, but I haven't interpreted the flow of discussion to indicate that so far.

 

One man's major is another man's minor and there is your difficulty, right there.

 

I fall towards your side of this debate in general and I'm certainly grateful for you for bringing it up. I was specifically referring to the new Minor News thread which I think is a bad idea. Since for that to be trialled it requires everyone of the Australian forum to be on board I just thought it was a bit hasty!

I really like Sim's suggestion of having curated news. That way you could actually stream news into major and minor, as well as taxonomic, zoogeographical or architectural categories. Of course the problem would be the potential delay in news hitting the site.

It's been obvious for a long time that the news threads are being worked to hard when a lot of discussion takes place on them, but so often that discussion is sparked by the news posts. I've often wondered if a separate discussion thread, like the South Lakes system, would be a good idea, but I suspect it would just lead to less discussion which, as a lot of people have pointed out, is not the idea.

 

The problem with curated news is any form of post moderation stifles discussion heavily. Discussion and interaction on most threads happens within the first day of information being posted; both by those who see it and by the person who posted it. The more time there is after a post is made before any discussion happens the greater the chance that no discussion takes place.

If you curate the news then chances are, you won't see your post appear for a few hours at best and even up to a day (depending on when its posted). As a result the person who posted the news and "started" things might well not be around to engage. So you do in a way lose out - you gain a much more efficient news stream, but the forum loses out on discussion and interaction.


And that's a key problem here. Organising news isn't really the issue. Indeed if you went for curated news chances are your news curators could post most of the news themselves and would probably find that easier (if they are cross referencing and checking accuracy of news anyway then chances are they'll be more informed than most anyway so why have a middleman; they'd be quicker and easier to post their news direct). The issue is the discussion which is generated around the news as discussion is the lifeblood of forums. Once you get gaps and the discussions break up you quickly lose membership on forums today (mostly because of the monster that is facebook).

 

Just thinking on this a bit more I came to a realisation.

This thread is talking about news and discussions and trying to keep the two together; but at present there's a conflict of interest. However if we consider that most news is going to be at around the time a person visits a zoo we can make a crude assumption that news comes from two primary sources for most users:

1) As a result of formal news releases through known and public information sources

2) As a result of a visitation to a particular site.

I would also argue that conversation generated by posts as a result of visitations are the most personal to individuals and thus the most likely to be personally ones they are engaged with. Thus situations where they will want to chat and converse with the forum population.
Furthermore the former situation is likely to highly specific information streams and leave out smaller and more minor bits of news that might otherwise make up part of a persons experiences at the zoo (and thus appear as a result of a visitation).

A third stream is also possible which is rumour/word of mouth or otherwise news from official sources in a non-official capacity. Thus people posting information that is otherwise not gained by the general public.


This trio of types could be collected into three separate information streams.

1) A moderated official news thread where content is approved before it becomes publicly visible.

2) A non-curated visits and discussions thread which allows for casual discussion of the zoo; sharing of more minor news stories and also general discussion of major news stories.

3) A Media gallery showing the media (photos) taken at the site.


More popular sites might gain an additional break down of having the non-curated thread broken into minor news/visits and general zoo discussions. Allowing for increased popularity to break up the discussions about news and visits from each other.



I feel that approach might be the most suitable. It puts very little pressure on users to heavily moderate their own content themselves; retains open and friendly discourse between members of all interest and skill levels; promotes additional conversation and interaction by not limiting itself to just news and also presents all of a zoos content in one package.