Large forums?

[spotty_dog]

Over on Ravelry, the boards are feeling the pinch of growing pains and the owner/code monkey is seeking input on how to keep things civil on the main forums. He's wondering if there are any other communities out there with 50,000 plus members and a congenial atmosphere, with extra points if moderation is done with a light hand.

Anyone belong to a group like that? I just checked and bikeforums.net has over 100,000 (though I haven't participated there in years) while SDN has about 43K.

Just curious what's all out there.

[HouseofWool]

Re: Large forums?

I'm definately seeing the growing pains that are occuring there. I find it interesting that people don't step back and review what they are writing before they let it fly into cyberspace.

Since I mostly haunt knitting sites, I am wondering how many are on Knitter's Review. I stopped going there because there was one member who was outrageous rude to new people. Interestingly, she is now on Ravelry and has the same behavior, but I just avoid her now.

[PrincessFiona]

Re: Large forums?

No advice here. I have found that the forums that I haunt with more than about 10,000 members tend to regularly disrupt into flame wars and personal attacks. We've even felt growing pains here with just our handful of people . I'm not sure what advice to offer the people at Ravelry besides perhaps breaking groups down? ie....creating subforums where people can gravitate and chat in smaller groups again so that there is more of a feeling of friendship/knowing someone enough not to attack them?

Kris

[spotty_dog]

Re: Large forums?

I'm not sure what advice to offer the people at Ravelry besides perhaps breaking groups down? ie....creating subforums where people can gravitate and chat in smaller groups again so that there is more of a feeling of friendship/knowing someone enough not to attack them?

Yeah, they currently have a few thousand groups formed around subtopics, each with its own independent forum. What you suggest is exactly what Casey is considering: that the few boards to which all members belong should be disbanded, precisely so that people can regain that sense of camaraderie in the smaller groups. It might end up being the best bet. It's just that from my perspective, the negativity going on at Ravelry is not that bad, especially for such a hugenormous group!

But yeah, it's my experience too that the only way to keep huge groups from breaking down into incivility is heavy-handed moderation, and that's not something Casey is willing to do. Sigh.

[poky]

Re: Large forums?

I'm still not reading the big groups, but I just noticed the "report a post" feature. When did that show up? Has it helped the tone of particularly contentious threads at all, do you know?

(yes, I'm being lazy and not wading through the big groups where this is probably being discussed to find out).

[spotty_dog]

Re: Large forums?

From a thread in FtLoR it looks like the report a post is a brand new feature from last night's update. We'll see how it affects things!

There's a sticky at the top of FtLoR about the future of the main boards, but it's got 878 posts now so there's some wading to do. Still though, Casey's posts in that thread (you can find them from his profile page if you want) are very interesting!