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p_ps_sock

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Jun 17, 2006
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This rawk disease of having one huge thread encompassing a player or topic is getting irritating. It makes it almost impossible to find anything of any worth. There are lots of things to be discussed over rooney's contract, media involvment, agents involvement, rooney's true motivations etc etc, that when discussed in one huge thread get lost in the general dross that always gets posted. Identical/very similar threads obviously should be merged but I don't think people realise that there are poster who don't live their life on redcafe and just because a video was posted on, for example, 130 of the rooney thread doesn't deserve it's won thread and comments section.

Why don't we have one manchester united thread and feck the forums off, or one football thread for that matter.

In extra ordinary circumstances like this surely a better solution might be to create a temporary sub forum for the discussion of the topic where it would be much easier to find things of interest rather than trawling through 50 pages to find an article or video of significance.
 
P ps sock, even though I've merged a couple threads the last few days, I actually generally agree with you, and I know many of the other mods do as well.

However, like I said, I have merged a couple threads myself during this saga, and it's mainly been when new stuff has happened which was already being discussed in the big thread.

Someone started a thread when the first rumors began. We then got confirmation from Fergie so someone started a new thread. That thread however was identical with what people had begun talking about in the big thread as a result of Fergie's statement, so it was silly to have two identical threads.

We then got the statement from Rooney resulting in a new thread. But that was again the agenda of the big thread, so there was no point in keeping both threads. And finally we now got that he was staying which was naturally all that people talked about in the big thread, so again no need for a new thread.

A video which has been posted several times in the main thread doesn't really deserve it's own thread.

We have let threads stay - like the MUST thread, Rooney songs, Wage discussion as result of Rooney's new deal etc. Maybe there have been some threads which we should have kept, but I think we've generally got it right. The conspiracy threads were not really worth keeping.

As said, I'm very much against having a single thread on each player like they do at RAWK, but sometimes it's best to have certain threads merged.

That's also why I have closed a Bale thread in the transfer forum as people were just discussing his Inter performance which was already being discussed in the Football Forum.
 
Break up a thread such as the Merged Wayne Rooney one and it makes it impossible to keep track of everything. One thread on one broad topic makes it nice and easy to go back and have a browse in chronological order of what's been going on.
 
Top said:
And finally we now got that he was staying
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This how I have found out! I couldn't be arsed with moaning and bitching about Rooney any more so I was avoiding the Rooney ones like the plague. A thread called "Rooney signs new contract would have helped".

When the feck did this happen anyway? :eek::wenger::confused::confused::confused:

Sorry, I'll go to the megathread before you merge this one into it. I guess I'm a few dozen pages behind...
 
I agree.

Something else that seems to have become common place over the past year is the bumping of old threads to post a story that is only vaguely related to the original thread. It's just annoying when you don't open a thread because the title has no interest to you, then to open it later on to realise the OP is from 6 months ago and there's a discussion going on about another story.
 
rednev said:
I agree.

Something else that seems to have become common place over the past year is the bumping of old threads to post a story that is only vaguely related to the original thread. It's just annoying when you don't open a thread because the title has no interest to you, then to open it later on to realise the OP is from 6 months ago and there's a discussion going on about another story.
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Yup, someone did that with another Bale thread yesterday, which I also closed and deleted the new posts.
 
fergieisold said:
Break up a thread such as the Merged Wayne Rooney one and it makes it impossible to keep track of everything. One thread on one broad topic makes it nice and easy to go back and have a browse in chronological order of what's been going on.
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I think the Rooney thread is the exact opposite. There's so much going on in that thread that you can't really follow anything. You can post a genuine question or opinion and you'll find it two pages previous within minutes. Not many people will ever see it.

Meanwhile, you get pages full of jokes, comical gifs and laughing smilies, which i don't disagree with at all, as at the end of the day they are hilarious. But in a 150 page long thread, it's just a huge chore to find anything of note.
 
Top said:
P ps sock, even though I've merged a couple threads the last few days, I actually generally agree with you, and I know many of the other mods do as well.

However, like I said, I have merged a couple threads myself during this saga, and it's mainly been when new stuff has happened which was already being discussed in the big thread.

Someone started a thread when the first rumors began. We then got confirmation from Fergie so someone started a new thread. That thread however was identical with what people had begun talking about in the big thread as a result of Fergie's statement, so it was silly to have two identical threads.

We then got the statement from Rooney resulting in a new thread. But that was again the agenda of the big thread, so there was no point in keeping both threads. And finally we now got that he was staying which was naturally all that people talked about in the big thread, so again no need for a new thread.

A video which has been posted several times in the main thread doesn't really deserve it's own thread.

We have let threads stay - like the MUST thread, Rooney songs, Wage discussion as result of Rooney's new deal etc. Maybe there have been some threads which we should have kept, but I think we've generally got it right. The conspiracy threads were not really worth keeping.

As said, I'm very much against having a single thread on each player like they do at RAWK, but sometimes it's best to have certain threads merged.

That's also why I have closed a Bale thread in the transfer forum as people were just discussing his Inter performance which was already being discussed in the Football Forum.
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Cheers Top, at least I know the mods are thinking about it. I understand the problem of a discussion starting out in the huge thread then another thread being started on the same topic somewhere else, but I think that only goes to show that having several related discussions going on in one huge thread makes it difficult for those of us that aren't on here all the time to find things of interest in them.

The title was meant as a joke and in general I agree with most of the merging of threads that goes on, I was talking more about exceptional circumstances like this rooney saga.
 
rednev said:
I agree.

Something else that seems to have become common place over the past year is the bumping of old threads to post a story that is only vaguely related to the original thread. It's just annoying when you don't open a thread because the title has no interest to you, then to open it later on to realise the OP is from 6 months ago and there's a discussion going on about another story.
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This is also very irritating and can be misleading
 
Posters get the moderation their behavior deserves. If they remain sane and don't create 4000 Wayne Rooney threads there would be no need for merging.
 
Their behavior or others' behaviour wibble? As stated, not every merged thread needed/deserved to be, but they were. Did those ops get what they deserved?
 
I agree with the OP. People were talking about the other players' reactions to Rooney's comments and it was implied that you had read them as they were posted in the huge Rooney thread, which I couldn't be arsed reading as it was updated quicker than I could read the monstrosity. If the other thread, specifically talking about the reactions, hadn't existed and been merged (despite being about Rooney's comments) with the monster thread they would've gone missing in the mix too. As long as a thread title is specified and the topic is kept on track I don't see the problem with having separate discussions about Rooney in different threads.

I mean, for example, if I want to read about and discuss the subject "does Rooney have a point?" I should be able to do that in a separate thread rather than to trawl through "all Rooney related stuff" and follow ten separate discussions to read up on what I'm interested in.
 
I think we should merge this thread with the Rooney one.
 
My two cents, I post mainly in the general for reasons I've previously outlined, but i lurk quite a bit in the football, and I found the Rooney thing impossible to follow.
 
I don't bother reading those mega-threads, they always seem to be so full of shite and single-issue posters with no intention of backing down that there's rarely any point posting. As people have pointed out, unless you post something ridiculously controversial then whatever you've posted suddenly goes back 3 pages and nobody even knows it's there because they're so busy threatening death or displaying their undying love.

I agree that there's no point in a set of "He's not signing", "He might sign", "He has signed", "Do you remember when he didn't sign" threads, but it would've been better if people could've started topics on various issues, like contracts, "conspiracy theories", replacements, motivations, so on rather than the implication being that whatever you're interested in it still has to go into the monolithic pile of crap thread.
 
Coincidentally, the whole exchange which led up to me being banned (which as I've said was a perfectly innoffensive exchange, but that's for another thread!) was brought about by an over-zeaolous merging.
Because I could see exactly where the debate would go if I went into the main MUST thread that was running and started trying to encouraging MUST members to use their vote etc, I started a new thread which opened with a massive proviso explaining who my comments were aimed at, and which predictable replies form people opposed to MUST weren't required in that thread.
Once it was merged, this went by the by, and the point I was making could no longer be debated in isolation, leading to a very predictable series of exchanges. As it happens, somebody had a big hissy fit over that particular debate.
 
PJ said:
My two cents, I post mainly in the general for reasons I've previously outlined, but i lurk quite a bit in the football, and I found the Rooney thing impossible to follow.
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On the contrary, its best to have everything put into a single thread than have numerous threads on similar topics cluttering the forum. Most threads except few are based on rumours and are repeated over and over. I find it easy following a single thread in situations such as this rather than multiple threads.
 
The Taurean said:
On the contrary, its best to have everything put into a single thread than have numerous threads on similar topics cluttering the forum. Most threads except few are based on rumours and are repeated over and over. I find it easy following a single thread in situations such as this rather than multiple threads.
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Disagree. From Monday till Thursday I'm at uni until the evenings, it's really difficult to follow a long and merged thread closely and I tend to skip many posts or to just skim through them. I find it great that there is no seperate thread for each little aspect of the debate but a big merged thread is just too much.

It would help to have more threads or at least to insert the most important links, news and videos into the opening post or into a seperate thread.

Threads who cross a certain posting mark should be closed anyway and if there's still the need for discussion, a new thread should be opened.

Just my 2 cents.
 
I was thinking this exact same thing in the last couple of days too, when the Rooney thread jumps by 10 pages just because I've left the caf for a few hours to get on with life, I just can't be arsed to spend an hour catching up. It's a pretty impossible thing to moderate, but although the current method of moderation leads to aesthetically organised forum, it's pretty terrible from a usability standpoint.

It would be ideal if we could have threads with subthreads or something, so when you click on a little icon next to the thread title a box expands down like the spoiler boxes to reveal the subthreads of the discussion. It'd clear up the thread clutter on the forum, but still allow a greater variety of discussion on the more popular topics. I doubt that'd be a trivial thing to do on vBulletin though, if even possible at all.
 
Wibble said:
Posters get the moderation their behavior deserves. If they remain sane and don't create 4000 Wayne Rooney threads there would be no need for merging.
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I agree with that to a certain extent, it all depends on whether a new thread is someone attention seeking or genuinely trying to start a related but seperate new debate. When a thread gets 150+ pages in 3 days there must be a case for having quite a few threads on different aspects of the same topic, even if it means some repetition.

TBH I just avoided the Rooney thread because it was just impossible to follow and find/discuss anything of consequence, which for the biggest united story of the year is pretty depressing.
 
p_ps_sock said:
I agree with that to a certain extent, it all depends on whether a new thread is someone attention seeking or genuinely trying to start a related but seperate new debate. When a thread gets 150+ pages in 3 days there must be a case for having quite a few threads on different aspects of the same topic, even if it means some repetition.

TBH I just avoided the Rooney thread because it was just impossible to follow and find/discuss anything of consequence, which for the biggest united story of the year is pretty depressing.
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Very good point made in this thread.

I had to stop reading it and had to go to different sites in order to read different aspects of the situation.
One bucket thread was impossible to follow as it was updating too quickly with statements. Nobody was engaging with one another and thus it just turned into one statement after another.

Mods need to give threads on different aspects of a story a chance. If they end up running into the same arguement that is being discussed in another thread, then the merge should take place.
 
Lynott said:
Very good point made in this thread.

I had to stop reading it and had to go to different sites in order to read different aspects of the situation.
One bucket thread was impossible to follow as it was updating too quickly with statements. Nobody was engaging with one another and thus it just turned into one statement after another.

Mods need to give threads on different aspects of a story a chance. If they end up running into the same arguement that is being discussed in another thread, then the merge should take place.
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Yeah,

Wibble made the point that if you have someone starting a thread saying

"i think wayne is an idiot"

then he should be destroyed, but out of the whole rooney thing there were a host of seperate issues devolving from the central premise. I think mods need to take a bit more consideration when merging threads, because it really is obvious when someone is starting an attention seeking thread
 
Indeed, it was nigh on impossible to keep on top of what was going on with just that thread especially with the daft number of new posts in there every hour.
 
I would say on this topic that the OP made a very worthy piont. Maybe for occasions like this a Sub Forum coul dbe created to prevent every page on the Football section getting bogged down with the one topic. There is a reason though that the entine page was almost rooney topics. It was because it was all anyone could talk about for a week. The megathread is a disaster to keep up with. When im at work I try to have a sneaky look every half hour, and in this time there could well have been 2-3 pages of bullshit. It puts you of posting, because unless you say something really controversial no-one takes any note because they are all skimming at this stage.

Possibly the bosses should get together and have an action plan ready for the next time something like this occurs. That way with a sub forum the same general idea can be explored comfortably in many different ways in the appropriate amount of threads. If they are carbon copies then by all means merge them.
 
The onus should be on posters to take more responsibility for their posting, not for us to tidy up after them. Everytime someone has a brain fart they think that they have a different perspective on the topic of the day. 99% of the time its already been said and the poster has been too lazy to check the other topics.

Big topics are here to stay lads
 
golden_blunder said:
The onus should be on posters to take more responsibility for their posting, not for us to tidy up after them. Everytime someone has a brain fart they think that they have a different perspective on the topic of the day. 99% of the time its already been said and the poster has been too lazy to check the other topics.

Big topics are here to stay lads
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I wouldnt be saying a sub forum should happen very frequently. Like, how often have you had as much traffic as has been on here over the past few weeks about I topic.

Either that or hand out a few infractions for the one word answers and smiley face bullshit that have no place in a football forum on a topic as serious as that.
 
The problem is, it's a pain in the ass to read 1000 pages of threads. Seriously.... It's not the merging that i have problem with, but surely you can't have a discussion when you can't even find the reply buried in the 100000+ posts.

More over when on an on going discussion and suddenly the thread merged, i'm lost at who's replying who.

And to be fair to the caf, I think most poster are quite reasonable, perhaps you can just delete the least commented on as necessary.

Normally I just stay away completely from 5+ pages thread unless i'm having something there.

Just my 2cents
 
Sky1981 said:
The problem is, it's a pain in the ass to read 1000 pages of threads. Seriously.... It's not the merging that i have problem with, but surely you can't have a discussion when you can't even find the reply buried in the 100000+ posts.

More over when on an on going discussion and suddenly the thread merged, i'm lost at who's replying who.

And to be fair to the caf, I think most poster are quite reasonable, perhaps you can just delete the least commented on as necessary.

Normally I just stay away completely from 5+ pages thread unless i'm having something there.

Just my 2cents
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Fair piont, and i do something similar. What i love is when you can get into a really good to and fro with a few guys of differing opinions who can argue their cases sensibly without getiing petulant about it.
 
golden_blunder said:
The onus should be on posters to take more responsibility for their posting, not for us to tidy up after them. Everytime someone has a brain fart they think that they have a different perspective on the topic of the day. 99% of the time its already been said and the poster has been too lazy to check the other topics.

Big topics are here to stay lads
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Lazy buggers, do your job properly!

:angel:
 
p_ps_sock said:
This rawk disease of having one huge thread encompassing a player or topic is getting irritating. It makes it almost impossible to find anything of any worth. There are lots of things to be discussed over rooney's contract, media involvment, agents involvement, rooney's true motivations etc etc, that when discussed in one huge thread get lost in the general dross that always gets posted. Identical/very similar threads obviously should be merged but I don't think people realise that there are poster who don't live their life on redcafe and just because a video was posted on, for example, 130 of the rooney thread doesn't deserve it's won thread and comments section.

Why don't we have one manchester united thread and feck the forums off, or one football thread for that matter.

In extra ordinary circumstances like this surely a better solution might be to create a temporary sub forum for the discussion of the topic where it would be much easier to find things of interest rather than trawling through 50 pages to find an article or video of significance.
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Spot on. As a long-standing casual user, I spend WAY less time here than I used to, precisely because I don't have the time to invest in reading 50 pages of every thread to find out whether there is any discussion of anything that I am interested in.
 
I always did dislike these mega threads. I suppose it hasn't been that bad lately, but there have been some rather annoying occurrences over the years, where it seems like every single thread that deals with the same overarching theme has been merged.

The end result is almost always one huge thread where the discussion will inevitably turn to one specific topic (the most "popular" one), leaving all the other potentially interesting topics untouched.
 
Great example of this today with the £600m bond thread.

Significant new information today. How do I access discussion of this without wading through 70 pages of very strong opinions on this issue provoked by months of announcements and speculation?
 
To be fair, if a new thread was started for it that new thread would soon contain duplicates of all the posts in the main thread, and be just as loaded with strong opinions and arguments.
 
I agree with buildabonfire. I think today's news merited a thread of it's own.

As far as I know the reason it's part of the other massive thread is because whoever first posted the story didn't start a new thread. There was no merging of threads involved.

My take on this is if in doubt people should err on the side of starting a new thread. A quick search should make sure there's no duplicate threads but people shouldn't hesitate in starting new threads if they've come across something interesting or important about the club ownership.

This is also true of news about players. I don't think people should be scared of starting new threads in general, so long as they;re not duplicates. Worst case, they end up getting merged but that's better than people not realising there's been an important bit of news about the club because it's been buried in the depths of some mega-thread.
 
R_Nick said:
To be fair, if a new thread was started for it that new thread would soon contain duplicates of all the posts in the main thread, and be just as loaded with strong opinions and arguments.
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True, but it's much easier to skim those in the context of a 17-page thread than a 170-page one.
 
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