Here's the #1 most important thing to understand about why we move threads out of 5th Gen General: except under rare circumstances we do not care one bit about the number of views that a thread gets today, this week, this month, or this year. And neither should you.
Also, threads are far more likely to get lost in 5th gen general than anywhere else on the site. How? Well, how often do you go past the first page of threads in a sub-forum? Approximately never, right ... same goes for everyone else. Each sub-forum displays 40 threads (I think). Each day, there are usually between 50 and 60 new or replied to threads in 5th gen general. Which means 10 to 20 new or recently active threads get pushed back to the 2nd page every single day.
In the sub forums, it might take a week or even a month for the same thing to happen. Furthermore, the people that visit those sub forums are more likely to have knowledge or interest in your topic and therefore can provide a better reply (on average) than what you would get in 5th Gen General. This is why 'thread views' is so utterly meaningless, and to a lesser extent replies. If I have a question, I would much rather have 1 person who knows the answer to give it read through 30 people squabbling over who's opinion is more right. And I have seen a number of instances where someone asks a question and 60 posts & a couple days later the actual answer still hadn't been given (one specific example was why overseas Camaros made more power, the answer is they were rated in a different unit of horsepower).
Now, why do I say that you'll get a better quality of answers in the subforum? Well, anyone that has a particular interest in that topic will (at least on occasion) visit that area. And if there is a new thread there, they will see it. The same cannot be said about 5th Gen General. Some people don't frequent it all that much (as hard as that may be to believe), and even if do they probably don't look past the 1st page of threads (which means there is a good chance they'll miss something thats been inactive for more than 12 hours). Its the busyness that many consider to be the 'strength' of 5th Gen General that is actually is biggest weakness.
Lastly, the difference in replies per day isn't nearly as big as some people make it out to be. I did a random sampling a while ago and saw that typically, they were within about 15% regardless of the section -with quite a few of the sub-forum threads actually out performing 5th Gen General threads.
All in all, there isn't much thats actually lost by having threads in the proper section, and quite a bit to be gained. That is why we move threads. If you don't know where a thread should go,
read this sticky
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Originally Posted by GMTool
No consistency is right. I can look at the first page right now and see a couple threads that were moved and other threads that should be moved but are not. Some subjects on the forum are so strict and others especially in this section are the opposite of strict. A lot of threads should be deleted immediately. This general discussion section is silly and juvenile.
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If you see a thread that needs moderator attention, either report it or PM us. Whether it should be moved or deleted or there's a troll harassing members or if its just something you think we should keep a close eye on just let us know, and we'll do what needs to be done.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Sigelitest
I thought u got booted for posting in the wrong area????
I think trolls should get booted for posting stupid threads bashing camaros
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The only times that we have suspended the account of someone for posting in the wrong area is if they are repeat offenders who ought to know better and are clearly doing it out of laziness/view count.
As for trolls, we have banned plenty of them. Some are gone within hours and perhaps only a few dozen people even knew of their existence, while others walk a very fine line & hardly ever cross it -those ones take quite a bit longer to deal with.