What I mean by this, is that there is now an increasing rate of threads being locked and merged into larger threads that serve as a list of various subjects. That might not seem like a problem, until you figure out that part of it might be to crack down on the ability of members to have lengthy discussions on various things like new products or cultural practices.
Is there a reason for this, is the staff really trying to force the use of the delightfully impersonal method of clicking the heart icon instead? Is it to make the board look more palatable to studio executives looking to introduce Blender to their content pipelines? If anything, the drive to reduce the number of individual threads in general may be a major reason why traffic has been stagnant or going down, joining the trend of sites looking more and more curated and less and less lively. I hope this is not the case or some here might just throw their hands up and introduce an alternative community site.
This seems a little like the news speculating on an uptick in shark attacks because it’s a slow day.
All three of the recently merged posts were posted outside of the active threads dedicated to a single subject that didn’t need threads of their own. You’re going to have to point to specific examples of these “various subjects” threads.
@Ace_Dragon, instead of randomly speculating and hyperbolically attempting to draw connections or conclusions where there might not be any, how about you ask us directly? We have the Blender Artists Website Support category specifically for questions and feedback. If you aren’t comfortable posting in this category for some reason, then you’re welcome to send me a DM directly.
In this specific circumstance, I’m having a difficult time knowing exactly what it is that you’re talking about. Your post is incredibly vague. If there is a specific set of posts that you’re seeing merged and you disagree about the moderator action taken, link to them specifically. Otherwise, it just sounds like you’re trying to stir up animosity without anything to back it up.
There are some people who post some “new” things which were already discussed in some other threads.. so i think it is helpfull for this user (if it’s not a troll) and also for the whole community ( in both cases) to merge those into older ones and not diverge too much.. especially if the “new” poster chooses a already hot disccussed issues like:
brand new / i-can’t-believe-this discoveries according to AI tech already posted in the new technologie thread
brand new / i-can’t-believe-this thoughts according to AI tech already posted in the AI thread
questions about an addon which does have a thread here on BA since 201x and this is mentioned in the blender market / gumroad / docu pages
post done in multiple categories (there is a tag system)
repeated post.. because there was no answer after half a day ( Hello !! Anyone ??)
Are you kidding
The number of posts are the same, the number of different threads would be less but those numbers says nothing about quality. As you can see on those more chat like communities..
here on BA you can look into threads very easily and can find even answers already given with the search function (top right icon.. which some users might be not aware of..)
there.. most question repeat and disappear in the flood of (silly) questions.. [silly : because they are answered in the manual or the user wants by far too much without any basic knowledge about 3D graphics ingeneral]
So the later seems to be more lively.. i think they are just more crowded.. in a bad kind of manner..except maybe if someone asked after a few hours: hello ! nobody ? and demands prompt ansers..
I myself had already some disccusions with replies over 10h apart.. so they where “arround the world” between different time zones.. but maybe some people aren’t aware how big this world is and they just cant look over the edge ??
Anyway:
What is so bad to join the community and participate in an already ongoing disscusion instead of (being egoistic and ignoring all other users already giving their comment and) starting a new thread ?
for example: What would BA/we have achieved if any of the new AI and trouble AI posts mentioned above would be seperate threads.. ??
icon.. which some users might be not aware of..)