Retire the Daily Chat thread

[Barraclough]

John elsewhere in forums in reply to discussion about a General chat thread to replace the Daily one said a moderator “would need to move posts asking for advice or actual discussion to the right subforum and notify the original poster. Flyertalk and other forums also have general chat threads but nobody really uses them because everyone posts in the correct place. But HFP chatters are used to posting everything in the same place. This habit needs to go to make the forums more successful”.

I agree moving posts would be ideal but of course moderation takes time and if it’s at the expense of the daily articles published by Rob and Rhys I think nearly everyone would say prioritise the articles! The content of the daily chat thread does undermine the comprehensiveness of the forum threads though and I hope the Daily Chat thread will be retired as soon as possible.

[memesweeper]

I posted some vague and rambling stuff about a successful redemption a few weeks ago in daily chat, ending with thanks to regular posters and the HfP team. I followed up with another a few weeks later. There’s no way I’d feel confident posting that in a specific forum. It’s just not important enough. Keep the daily chat for nonesense… if folks don’t like it they don’t have to read it.

[John]

memesweeper wrote:

I posted some vague and rambling stuff about a successful redemption a few weeks ago in daily chat, ending with thanks to regular posters and the HfP team. I followed up with another a few weeks later. There’s no way I’d feel confident posting that in a specific forum. It’s just not important enough. Keep the daily chat for nonesense… if folks don’t like it they don’t have to read it.

That’s exactly what I said, you can use the chat thread for bragging, but there is no reason to have a new thread every day. It was only daily because of the limitations of having it as comments to a daily blog.

[memesweeper]

John wrote:

That’s exactly what I said, you can use the chat thread for bragging, but there is no reason to have a new thread every day. It was only daily because of the limitations of having it as comments to a daily blog.

True, but it’s now the custom and practice here. I’d keep it.

[Andrew J]

Why mess with a winning formula? You only need to look at the number of posts – it’s 8am on a week day and normally it would be onto page 2 of the daily chat with a range of subjects discussed but there’s a tumbleweed wasteland on the forum “recent posts” page.

[Thrillington]

Perhaps a Weekly chat thread would be a good compromise?

[toddy]

Andrew J wrote:

Why mess with a winning formula? You only need to look at the number of posts – it’s 8am on a week day and normally it would be onto page 2 of the daily chat with a range of subjects discussed but there’s a tumbleweed wasteland on the forum “recent posts” page.

I think you’re confusing quantity with quality.

A mixture of “Hi from xxxxxx” and the same questions over and over again is not a winning formula.

[Tracey]

More comments on this thread than on today’s daily chat thread!

[Barraclough]

Tracey wrote:

More comments on this thread than on today’s daily chat thread!

But isn’t that’s the point?! The Housekeeping thread is for discussion about the structure of the forums and that includes the Daily Chat to thread, it’s form, content and whether it should exist!

[Barraclough]

Tracey wrote:

More comments on this thread than on today’s daily chat thread!

But isn’t that’s the point?! The Housekeeping thread is for discussion about the structure of the forums and that includes the Daily Chat to thread, it’s form, content and whether it should exist!

toddy wrote:

Andrew J wrote:

Why mess with a winning formula? You only need to look at the number of posts – it’s 8am on a week day and normally it would be onto page 2 of the daily chat with a range of subjects discussed but there’s a tumbleweed wasteland on the forum “recent posts” page.

I think you’re confusing quantity with quality.

A mixture of “Hi from xxxxxx” and the same questions over and over again is not a winning formula.

+1

[Rob]

We are considering making it more of a breaking deals thread, a depository for Airtime codes etc.

The problem is that a lot of this stuff should also go elsewhere. Not all of it, but some of it – there is a Monese gift card thread in the finance section for eg.

There was also a good Istanbul discussion in chat yesterday which would be better moved elsewhere. Moving stuff is VERY painful though as we can only move one comment at a time – there is no backend option to select 10 comments in a longer thread and cut them out in one click.

We’re still only a month in, however, and overall we’re happy. There were over 70 threads with at least one comment yesterday.

[NorthernLass]

I like reading about where people are, and other anecdotes, as someone pointed out there’s no actual need to look at it if you don’t want to!

[BuildBackBetter]

toddy wrote:

Andrew J wrote:

Why mess with a winning formula? You only need to look at the number of posts – it’s 8am on a week day and normally it would be onto page 2 of the daily chat with a range of subjects discussed but there’s a tumbleweed wasteland on the forum “recent posts” page.

I think you’re confusing quantity with quality.

A mixture of “Hi from xxxxxx” and the same questions over and over again is not a winning formula.

Exactly. A 100 messages asking if Creation is refunding fee or transferring points now can be relegated to one thread. Good riddance.

[Aston100]

I agree with several of the comments here.
I think a chat thread is still needed for miscellaneous comments that don’t need a whole discussion thread setup.
Whether it it be daily thread or a long continuous one until it hits x number of comments, or end of the month etc I am not fussed about at this time.

And like some others, I feel the decrease in the number of overall comments on this site may well be due to the lack of unimportant one liners or repeats of same old questions. It helps that the Creation Card debacle is on one dedicated thread; you know it would have led to countless repeated comments every day on the daily chat thread if these forums didn’t exist.

Good work with the forums so far, though a couple of features are still missing or need tuning, after which I would hope more people are enticed to come and post on the forums instead of still seeking the chat thread for everything.

[Rob]

We’re happy with it – 12,000 page views again yesterday which was at the top end of what the old chat thread ever did.

More importantly, we’re creating a lot of good stuff here for Google to index. With three articles a day, we’re basically creating three new topics per day for Google to index. Now, Google doesn’t like forums very much and will usually rank an article above a forum thread. However, adding – say – 25 fresh forum threads per day should really supercharge the new readers who find us.

[zio]

@Rob Firstly continued thanks for all your work getting us travelling in the style to which HfP accustoms us.

I’m glad that you are happy with the way the forums are taking off. There is certainly a lot to like (Bendy under control, and Creation Bashing kept in one place… both topics I have active use for, btw), but I’m interested in whether your page views are really comparing apples with apples. I have no idea how this works, but with 70 active threads is a person doing their daily HfP properly not contributing 70 page views rather than the 7 or 8 for the traditional chat thread?

I have found myself posting more since the forums launched, but I am uneasy that this is not a positive sign; previously others would have been answering queries before I got there.

The thing which I would regret most though is if the HfP “community” dwindled to an (admittedly invaluable) factual set of threads; no off-the-cuff humour, little personality on show. A couple of posts have stuck in my mind since the forums launched… paraphrasing now:

1) someone posting after arriving at their honeymoon hotel (Maldives, maybe?). First reply: post this in the forum rather than the chat thread. It took another couple of replies before the OP got a congratulations. Have my rose-tinted spectacles already turned a shade darker?
2) A post effectively saying get over your affection for the chat thread, these people are just internet randoms you don’t know at all. Well, I never got a ticket to an HfP party, but this is a site which has brought contributors together in real life to meet each other. More recently we have had the example of one contributor bringing practical help to another stuck in a quarantine hotel.

I think the whole HfP team should be very proud of creating a space under the “Bits” articles, and latterly in the chat threads, where the contributing minority of the readership could feel invested enough to meet in person and go out of their way to help an internet random. I feel it would be a great shame for that to be abandoned, but as to how the site can best accommodate it going forward, I’m afraid I must defer to those with technical know-how.

[The Savage Squirrel]

@zio that’s certainly the most cogent argument I’ve heard – far stronger than the kneejerk dont-like-change posts.

Inevitably forums are different from blog threads – it is slightly different. The breadth and depth of information from threads that build over days is far better; and people are able and willing to do it when they know their post will not be dead after a day. Would you ever have got something as superb as this post on the chat thread? No chance. Balanced against that, less friendly content-lite chitchat from the underemployed working from home ( 😉 😉 ). Which is better? Neither really, they’re just different.
Being slightly different it will attract different people in a different way. I like it – my evening posts are no longer missed by 99% of potential repliers. Forums can and do also build communities over time. Never mind a fruit basket; I once ended up in a modestly successful business partnership built entirely by users of an online forum, several of whom I ended up meeting and working alongside; so forums can absolutely create strong real-world events, connections and entities.
Although it will have crossover with the old chat thread, being different and new, I think that the new community will take a little time to build, so the humour that relies on knowing the other posters cannot start immediately. It will lose some old chat contributors but gain some others. I certainly notice a greater breadth of contributor now. Overall I think the change has started out a success and I see no reason it can’t build from that.

• This reply was modified 54 years, 11 months ago by .

[Barraclough]

zio wrote:

@Rob Firstly continued thanks for all your work getting us travelling in the style to which HfP accustoms us.

I’m glad that you are happy with the way the forums are taking off. There is certainly a lot to like (Bendy under control, and Creation Bashing kept in one place… both topics I have active use for, btw), but I’m interested in whether your page views are really comparing apples with apples. I have no idea how this works, but with 70 active threads is a person doing their daily HfP properly not contributing 70 page views rather than the 7 or 8 for the traditional chat thread?

I have found myself posting more since the forums launched, but I am uneasy that this is not a positive sign; previously others would have been answering queries before I got there.

The thing which I would regret most though is if the HfP “community” dwindled to an (admittedly invaluable) factual set of threads; no off-the-cuff humour, little personality on show. A couple of posts have stuck in my mind since the forums launched… paraphrasing now:

1) someone posting after arriving at their honeymoon hotel (Maldives, maybe?). First reply: post this in the forum rather than the chat thread. It took another couple of replies before the OP got a congratulations. Have my rose-tinted spectacles already turned a shade darker?
2) A post effectively saying get over your affection for the chat thread, these people are just internet randoms you don’t know at all. Well, I never got a ticket to an HfP party, but this is a site which has brought contributors together in real life to meet each other. More recently we have had the example of one contributor bringing practical help to another stuck in a quarantine hotel.

I think the whole HfP team should be very proud of creating a space under the “Bits” articles, and latterly in the chat threads, where the contributing minority of the readership could feel invested enough to meet in person and go out of their way to help an internet random. I feel it would be a great shame for that to be abandoned, but as to how the site can best accommodate it going forward, I’m afraid I must defer to those with technical know-how.

I agree that the Daily Chat thread had and has many helpful posts, and many regulars go out of their way to advise and encourage others. The Daily Chat thread though was introduced at the start of the pandemic and implicitly was never intended to be a permanent feature. Perhaps the social dimension could be better met using the HfP FaceBook site and the HfP website left for its original and prime focus on information for its target audiences. Perhaps Rob could put a daily link directly to the HfP FB page for that purpose?

Since the start of the forums I also post more often as I think a minority of the regulars on the old chat thread were sometimes a bit toxic in their ranting, sarcasm and intolerance (of for example code words, nectar point listings, and the creation saga!). They seem to be silent (or reformed!) and the tone of the forums and the new Daily chat thread is much better and encourages new readers and contributors.