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Stickied topics in the Pub Forum.
Scot
Member LegendaryPosts: 22,955
MMORPG.com responds to the news, when E3 comes round we get a lot of articles from staff writers about E3. When Lotro goes F2P you are going to get a lot of articles about F2P versus P2P in our forums. Sometimes debates flare up, like group versus solo every now and then.
So the policy in the Pub forum to have stickies for first ‘group versus solo’, then ‘F2P versus P2P’ is a strange one. News happens, topics flare up, then they go away. Having a sticky just stifles debate as one thread cannot cope with the variety of starting points of our OP’s. After a while the excessive number of new threads dies out but the sticky remains, it does not get changed to a normal thread. The policy seems to be that once a topic needs a sticky, then it needs it for eternity.
If we were to apply this policy to the recent E3 articles by staff writers then they would all come under one stickied article. This time next year the E3 sticky would still be there for staff writers to add more articles to. A rather strange thing to do, but that is an analogy in my eyes of what is happening to the Pub forum.
I do understand you were responding to an excessive number of threads, but that number seemed natural to me and it always goes back to normal. Ride it out rather then round it up is the best policy.
Comments
Seconded!
F2P/P2P excellent thread.
http://www.mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/thread/282517/F2P-An-Engineers-perspective.html
The stickies were created as you said due to the frequency the general discussion of these topics comes up. If EQ2 announces they are going free to play, you can discuss that specific issue in the EQ2 forums, for example. This wouldn't belong in the pub anyways. Discussing the larger issue of F2P vs. P2P, Group Play vs. Solo play, even as it affected by current events doesn't require new threads.
If the topic is significantly divergent from the discussion in the stickied threads you can feel free to create a new thread but in most cases it really would not be necessary. Those stickied threads are for the general discussion of those particular issues. I.E. We don't need five threads for "Is F2P bad?" or something to that effect.
If you found some study that revealed that the F2P model's increased accessibility linked to increased MMO addiction in gamers (just made that up) you could create a new topic for it.
I hope that helps, and we do appreciate the feedback. Thanks!
OK Mike that does help, it was the OP’s coming up with a new angle that worried me, the topic is more complex than just ‘good or bad’.
But I think the move of say F2P into a new MMO like Lotro is a new angle; remember that for many posters who have not seen it all before that was a big event. I agree that most MMO specific items should go in the relevant forum but big news items will leak into the Pub that’s only natural as posters think it deserves a wider audience.
You still have the problem of stickie proliferation. There is a lot of ‘this versus that’ topics in the MMO world. If the stickies are not put back into the main forum eventually then you just end up with way to many stickies.
Here is what I would do if riding it out is to laissez-faire for you:
Create a sub forum in the Pub forum and put all the F2P versus P2P threads in there. After a couple of months or whenever you think it has died down transfer the threads back to the Pub forum and delete the sub forums. As long as those threads go back in last post date order then they are well and truly gone.