Communities vs. Fora

[charmian]

So now DW has a population of over 1000. The average age seems quite a bit higher than on LJ.

ONTD on LJ has over 90,000 members. Man... Now that's a huge comm.

Speaking of comms, I was thinking that LJ comms are basically group blogs, but a group blog is not always what a community needs. It all depends what the topic of a community is. For things that are time dependent, or where the object of the discussion is to comment on the OP's post, group blogs work fairly well. Examples of this are gossip, and to some extent groups dedicated to sharing creative works (although there are downsides to the blogging format, and often such groups would also be well served by a non-time dependent CMS/gallery format), links sharing sites like mefi, news discussion groups, anything where there is quick obsolescence.

However... for a group designed for discussion, is that really the best format? If we're discussing a book series, where there is not frequent new information, isn't a forum in some was a better format? That way topics are bumped up to the top of the list depending on how many people reply to them, and older topics can retain their prominence on the forum if people find them relevant enough to keep posting to them. I think this format also helps newbies find older important discussions more easily. There might also be an end to annoying "hi, introducing myself" tendencies if there was a dedicated forum post for them pinned to the top.

Comments

[charmian]

Threading commenting sometimes turns threads into dialogues between two people. Also, it messes up the formatting when you get into really deep threading. It depends on what kind of discussion is wanted. On a personal journal, threading can be good, but sometimes in a group, it's counterproductive and inconvenient (see all the clamoring for an 'expand-all' option on LJ.)

[troisroyaumes]

That's true. I guess I was thinking that threaded comments might help for the really long forum threads that stretch on for 50+ pages, but possibly those could just benefit from being made into new threads under a new category rather than just kept in one.

Or possibly what I want is the ability to have linear "subthreads" in a thread.

[charmian]

I'm not sure. In a lot of situations people who comment on 50 pg forum threads are not directly replying to others, so there are no threads in the first place, or if they were, they wouldn't necessarily make things easier to read. Perhaps what is needed in some of those situations is LQ view. But, big topics, no matter whether they are threaded or not, are just going to be... long. I think Mefi handles this well, but it's non-threaded, and also chronological so it's not like, most of the time, it would get into the 800 comments plus realm.

[troisroyaumes]

Hm, well, I guess what I'm thinking of is like the forum at Soompi, where you basically have a thread devoted to each drama series/actor/musician, and these get updated with news or information, which are subsequently followed by a sea of replies (which I usually want to skip). So the interesting comments are sort of scattered throughout the 50+ page posts. You're right that LQ view would help, but I kind of want the new information posts to start their own "subthreads" to make it easier to search.

Possibly I would not have this problem if I were an active forum member who regularly posted rather than just lurked to find resources. ^^;

[charmian]

That might be the sort of thing a group blog is better suited for (news/information) vs. a forum. On a group blog those new news/info things would be posted as posts, and therefore you could simply ignore the replies, especially if they are useless 'OMG HE IS SOOO HAWT' ones.