Thread: Has anyone else noticed this?

Originally Posted by gugi

As all of you noted, the forum is not the software or the technical stuff but all of us, the people - our knowledge and expertise, our willingness to share and help each other. The software is just a tool that makes it easier and we do want better tools.

However, this particular software does not make it easier. I can be done, though. The two German forums, while significantly smaller, have been moderated more stringently since their inception. The result is that there are far less threads, but the ones that exist are narrowly focused. Consequently, these forums are easy, and efficient, to search.

I know that searchability is not very high on the list of every existing user. But we both know that it is very high on the list of every visitor. And converting visitors into contributing members is the only viable strategy for making any niche forum sustainable.

Originally Posted by gugi

Even if the reviews people post are not organized neatly in a dedicated software with appropriate categories and ratings, they are still highly valuable because they expand our common knowledge, and enhance our experience. I sometimes think that more organic reviews, such as what we have now, spread throughout the forum and hard to find are not all that terrible - life itself is quite messy and not neat But then other times I think it would be really spiffy if I could find what I'm looking for the moment it occurs to me

Hard pass, Ivan. Very, very hard pass. Case in point, I just tried to find three of my own post around this subject. I found one (because I knew exactly what I was looking for). It is this one: Putting things into perspective, or why some reviews make me sad. The ones I was actually looking for are now gone: How to write a good review and Review templates.

By any reasonable standards, most reviews being written these days do not fulfil minimum requirements for them to be useful. The lack of templates to make them at least comparable does not help, either. Oh, my two review series "the great (lavender|lime) shootout" are gone, too. Pity. I was about to use them as cautionary tales.

But I think that the following paragraph should still be the gold standard for reviews on this site. Hardly any reviews I read here over the past few years match it.

Originally Posted by RobinK

Do you understand the significance of your review? [...] This is SRP, the leading straight shaving resource on the internet. We are older, bigger, but most importantly more sophisticated than any other straight shaving forum. We retain the most honemeisters, we offer the most accurate and up-to-date information, and despite our size we are able to accommodate the needs and interests of beginners and experts alike. Therefore, our reviews carry a certain weight. Because especially beginners form their buying decisions based upon them.

Originally Posted by RayClem

Two things I really like about this site that are missing from many others are the "Like" and "Thanks" buttons. They give me an opportunity to express my appreciation for posts that are meaningful/useful to me as a reader.

These buttons are mostly meaningless. What one really wants is a web reputation system, commonly referred to as "Karma". Here is a brief explainer. Especially when it comes to reviews, Karma systems can work surprisingly well.

That said, had we implemented the Karma system for vBulletin years ago, that add-on, too, would be broken now.