I think you’ve had a pretty typical experience. Web forums are notoriously messy and wandering. Sometimes this is fun, but it’s like a conversation in a bar among several people: almost impossible to keep on one track, except when it develops into a real argument, which can actually be good, but more often descends into mere name calling. I like nested comments, which allow for branching threads, but I think the consensus is that they don’t really work too well (I think Jim went to flat as our default.)
Active moderating can be an answer, if you’re up to it. In this case you had a good, specific idea: soliciting quotations, but the discussion went off on tangents about the content of those quotes, or the general matter of your preamble, leading in all different directions. I don’t know how easy that would be to manage; you could make sub-pages or new posts for those threads you thought were worthwhile, but coming in and insisting “only quotations in this thread” might have helped.
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Active moderating can be an answer, if you’re up to it. In this case you had a good, specific idea: soliciting quotations, but the discussion went off on tangents about the content of those quotes, or the general matter of your preamble, leading in all different directions. I don’t know how easy that would be to manage; you could make sub-pages or new posts for those threads you thought were worthwhile, but coming in and insisting “only quotations in this thread” might have helped.
- alex 3-05-2004 8:52 pm