Reported posts - Wrong Forums

[Victor Laury]

Here's what today's email looked like -

Please be carefull which forum you select, and Please remember that "Articles from our Members" is reserved for "How to" articles only.

[montoya_fan01]

Victor:

Sorry to overwhelm you. Most, if not all, of those reports were from me. I decided to check out the "Articles From Our Members" forum to hopefully learn something and the biggest thing I learned was that fully 2/3 of the first page, and almost 1/2 of the 2nd page in that forum was CRAP that didn't belong there.

I can't imagine why it's so difficult for people to pay attention to where they are posting.

FWIW, I think this site should have a place for these articles where a moderator approves each and every one before it appears, and LOCKS the thread closed so no one can polute the information with opinions, and other nonsense. If questions need to be asked, members can PM the author who can submit clarifications to either the moderators for inclusion to the thread, or reply to the PM personally if it's a matter of minor importance or something else that doesn't require correcting the article as posted originally. Questions could also be posed in the Engine, Suspension, etc forums with a reference to the article being discussed as well.

I don't know of any other website where great Technical Articles get watered down with so many other postings.

[Zedrally]

snip

FWIW, I think this site should have a place for these articles where a moderator approves each and every one before it appears, and LOCKS the thread closed so no one can polute the information with opinions, and other nonsense. If questions need to be asked, members can PM the author who can submit clarifications to either the moderators for inclusion to the thread, or reply to the PM personally if it's a matter of minor importance or something else that doesn't require correcting the article as posted originally. Questions could also be posed in the Engine, Suspension, etc forums with a reference to the article being discussed as well.

I don't know of any other website where great Technical Articles get watered down with so many other postings.

You wern't the only one that reported that post.

Lock up that forum, it's the only way it isn't going to become useless.

Shame on members who shamelessly post to it when with some common sense you can post in the correct forum.

Victor, you're doing a great job, we are only trying to make it easier for you.

MOM

[Virto]

Victor:

Sorry to overwhelm you. Most, if not all, of those reports were from me. I decided to check out the "Articles From Our Members" forum to hopefully learn something and the biggest thing I learned was that fully 2/3 of the first page, and almost 1/2 of the 2nd page in that forum was CRAP that didn't belong there.

I can't imagine why it's so difficult for people to pay attention to where they are posting.

FWIW, I think this site should have a place for these articles where a moderator approves each and every one before it appears, and LOCKS the thread closed so no one can polute the information with opinions, and other nonsense. If questions need to be asked, members can PM the author who can submit clarifications to either the moderators for inclusion to the thread, or reply to the PM personally if it's a matter of minor importance or something else that doesn't require correcting the article as posted originally. Questions could also be posed in the Engine, Suspension, etc forums with a reference to the article being discussed as well.

I don't know of any other website where great Technical Articles get watered down with so many other postings.

I noticed that too, last weekend. Other forums I used to visit had a similar arrangement. Mod approves article, article posted, thread locked. Worked pretty well. I'd like to think people can pay enough attention to where they should be posting particular topics, but I'm all for locking down the Articles section.

[montoya_fan01]

You wern't the only one that reported that post. MOM

"that" post? I'll bet that today I reported at least 20 posts that didn't belong there.

(not trying to be picky about your comment, but just to illustrate that the problem is really out of hand IMO. Not the mods fault, they can't be everywhere, all the time)

[texasz]

I have reported a few lately too. People just are not paying attention it seems. Some of the ones I reported were from newbies...1, 2, 4, 8 posts showing in their profile...so these people just don't know yet and didn't read before posting.

[Mr Camouflage]

I didnt even notice the report bad post link. I usually just hassle the poster a bit about posting in the wrong forum. If you make the poster aware they are doing the wrong thing they might get the message, rather thatn having a moderator move or delete the post without fixing the source of the problem.

Correct me if i'm wrong Victor, but when you delete or move a post, the poster isn't (informed via email or whaterer) by the system that they made a boo boo, and their posr is delete or moved.

[Victor Laury]

I don't know. Maybe one of the folks who's posts I have moved will tell us?

[Mike]

I'm trying to figure out why newbies think the technical articles forum is for posting questions. Does that forum come up before other forums? I could re-order the forums to make it more difficult to post a tech article.

I don't want to lock it down because then it would prevent users from posting their articles.

[Mike]

I could set up that forum to require approval before a post is shown.

[Victor Laury]

That would be best.

Surprisingly as it might seem, most of the posts I move were from site veterans, not newcomers. Most likely they were in a hurry to put something up and were not paying attention to which forum they were in.

[a7dz]

To the posters defence there are no clear instructions or expectations I have found. Where to post, whats required, when to start a new post, how to do that? What information is required in the users profile. I am a site veteran started with the old style forum and do not understand the above things either. So, we need to make it easier to understand and I think most of these problems will solve them selves.