For the past decade, off-topic threads have been a huge problem. 4 AM threads, deep sea threads, /v/ mansion, celeb drama, and so on. These apparently make up a good 50-90% of reports on /pol/, /tv/, /v/ and so on. We spend a lot of effort dealing with these every day, and that's great.But one thing bothers me: Shouldn't these guys have a way to make these threads? Obviously, people really want them. Yes we have /b/, [s4s], /bant/, and so on, but because their userbases are different, that need is not met. "Well, they should just get over it" - Maybe, but that doesn't solve the problem of the endless reports. Their problem becomes our problem. "Every time we've tried in the past, it failed" - Maybe we've been going about it wrong.I want to propose an idea called community tags. This sort of content-filter tag is ubiquitous on Reddit, but the example I have in mind now is GameFAQs: Every board on GameFAQs has the option to mark a thread with the "Community" tag. This tag essentially means "Off-topic": It's not about the game or console; you just want to chat with people of that community. An off-topic thread without the "Community" tag gets deleted. Naturally, you can filter out all "Community" threads with a single click on the board page. This would honestly transfer perfectly to 4chan - I can't imagine a single reason why not - and it would solve the off-topic problem overnight. (1/2)
Now, to pre-empt some responses:>Won't this take up space/bandwidth we need for on-topic threads?It shouldn't. I've read from mods in the past that board space is not an issue. If there is a compelling reason, page count on a board may be extended to accomodate demand, like we saw with /vg/ in the past few years. >Won't this encourage more off-topic behavior overall?No, it should do the opposite. Once people exhaust their urge to shitpost and go off-topic, they'll be content to discuss video games or TV like a normal person. Most off-topic posters are not trying to be assholes to us; they just enjoy those threads, to the point if they can't have them normally, they'll break the rules to do so.>What about NSFW?Still not allowed, it's a separate problem.(2/2)Most of you are fairly dismissive of site suggestions, but I'd love some feedback if you disagree, because I can't imagine why we shouldn't do this.
(cont.)So I've realized the biggest foreseeable problem with this is that the ratio of on-topic to off-topic threads becomes too low: What do we do if 80% of /v/ becomes off-topic threads? Even with a content filter, the board is ruined.Well, a solution is: Make off-topic/community threads exist on a separate archive timer, and set your desired ratio: Perhaps we add 2-3 pages to /v/ for community threads. Once both these pages are full, any new community threads would just bump off the last community thread at the bottom. So it would be impossible for these to get out of hand. The only downside is, this would probably be hard to implement. The content filter however is easy: We have filters built into the site, just add a drop-down to the new thread form.Alternatively, we could add a simple check upon thread creation that Ctrl+F's the number of community threads currently alive. If someone tries to make a new one, but we're already at the max # for the ratio, we simply toss them a thread creation error. This should be very easy to implement, no back-end magic required, "If (community && check_community_num() != max) make thread()" etc. Someone with webdev know-how can correct me if I'm wrong. I think this alone would solve the problem, and make tags viable.(3/2)
>>8964you could talk about anything in these threads? essentially board rules wouldn't apply to these threads if im understanding it correctly
>>8967Only the topicality rules would go away; All global rules would still apply, and most other board-specific rules would still apply as well.
speaking solely on /v/, off-topic threads are an established problem but they're not critically destabilizing the board, even the half-hearted spamming/raids or twitter/pol/barely/disguised bait that happen don't make /v/ unusable for a significant amount of timeand frankly i personally dont want a shift towards tolerance of '''''''''community''''''''''''''''''''''''' postsi already take longer than usual to delete well-behaved /v/an/, filename, vidya-but-not-really-vidya-oc, threads etc. and i believe a jannie's own temporary tolerance of rare/regular/harmless strictly off-topic threads is sufficient to handle things, of course it means jannies need to work harder to learn what is accepted from older jannies and mods but so far signs are that it's a system that works
>>8963>NUM lock engaged >open thread>clicks the B>press 1 on the keypad>enterI don't really agree because no one would label those properly nor should we really allow them to begin with. If you want my opinion I'd say that if janitors could move threads (even if it's just to /b/) it would do wonders for off-topic "fun" threads that should belong there, but quite frankly I'd still BR most off-topic threads because death and carnage are the only thing keeping me going I must consume all that is an affront to the rules, the board must be refreshed with the blood of spammers and coffeeposters.An interesting board idea would be a board that is entirely made up of moved off-topic posts from all the other boards where you can see where a thread came from. So /bant/ but not as a toilet for not-/pol/ shit.
Maybe I'm just jaded but I think most people would just ignore it or use it as an extra low quality shitposting venue.I can admit many completely off-topic threads on /tv/ I find absolutely hilarious, and so do the posters and repliers I'm sure. I think those people just want a lot of eyes on their posts, and shunting it to a 'lesser' place wouldn't help whatsoever. Perhaps some boards are different, but I think a lot of /tv/ funposting isn't looking for genuine discussion, just memes, so such a section just doesn't really provide much.
This is a terrible idea and would make every board basically impossible to moderate in any meaningful way overnight.
>>8981This lol. Also boards would quickly devolve into their worst selves with little meaningful or rich discussion available.
>>8981this desu
>>8981Content filtering has proven to work for tons of other sites, but it won't work for 4chan because... why exactly?
>>8984Still seems to be a solution searching for a problem. Users occasionally feeling the need to post off-topic isn't a problem nor a need that is inadequately addressed and/or requires catering to. Off-topic posts from a rulebreaking/board disrupting view are sufficiently controlled in the long-term. Off-topic subjects that have a significant amount of interest in them by users already constitute acceptable board culture in many cases (e.g. gun politics on /k/, filename/webm threads on /v/) and users generally behave sufficiently well enough that there's no need for tagging.It's also disingenuous to compare 4chan with other sites. There's nothing like it out there. Bans are easily evaded, no registration required, far looser moderation (depending on board), very intricate board/fandom/general cultures that would be disrupted, gigantic userbase etc. A bad comparison isn't a sufficient reply to why users wouldn't ruin boards with community tagged posts either.
And for boards like /v/, no I don't want eceleb or twatterscreencap or other trash being posted except now users can use a 'community tag' as protection from jannies/mods. No, I'd rather /v/ remain as close to video game discussion as possible.
>>8985Well, I'll agree that it's a flawed idea, but>Still seems to be a solution searching for a problem.That's wrong, the problem is already stated. You don't notice it because it's normal to you and everyone else, the constant off-topic threads that have to be banned. Isn't the best thing for a crime-ridden city to fix the source of the crime, instead of arrest people over and over? etc.
>>8984content filtering works perfectly fine on 4chanthere are tons of boards for random/anything goes content and plenty of boards for specific content. if you post your thread for X content on the wrong board, it'll get moved or deleted and you can post it on the right board.the question I see in this thread is this - is 4chan one big community or is each board its own community. to me, I see it as more the former - just like there are plenty of one board janis there are plenty of one board posters, but just because a poster only goes on /v/ doesn't mean /v/ should cater to their every interest. we should be encouraging people to post on more boards if they want to talk about more things, not turning every board into that board + /b/
Rewriting 4chan code to allow a bunch of hidden threads seems like overkill. You could achieve the same effect by allowing each board to have 1 (one) Off-Topic General thread, which is only allowed to make a new thread when the old one is at Page 10.
>>8988>You don't notice it because it's normal to you and everyone else, the constant off-topic threads that have to be bannedIf it's normal to me and everyone else, is it a problem? From a higher no-jannies-allowed?? perspective, community tags give the average anon far too much power to dictate 'board culture''''. The rules give mods and jannies an unshakeable place from which to justify actions taken to preserve 4chan. A community tag is essentially carte blanche for anons to do anything as long as they add a community tag. I value the freedom to anonymously post whatever you want (within rules that thankfully haven't updated to modern ''standards'''''') immensely, and users have more or less adapted to those rules with very delicate microcosms of culture (see /a/'s almost impregnable adherence to ontopic, /v/'s loose but ultimately consistent adherence to ontopic posting, /k/'s ability to adapt but remain on topic with tangential topics e.g. military recruitment general, ukie war threads), and a community tag that suddenly gives anons the freedom to post almost whatever they want, would severely disrupt even ruin what 4chan currently has.In other words, from the perspective of preserving what we have right now, which is something worth preserving imo, a community tag system cannot be allowed.
>>8963>Shouldn't these guys have a way to make these threads? Obviously, people really want them.No. We can't always have what we want, anon.If the problem is "users create off-topic threads" and the proposed solution is "allow users to create off-topic threads in a ghetto" then that's not really a solution, that's just looking at the problem and deciding after further review that it's not actually a problem. Yeah, you can post politics on the vidya board as long as OP ticks a checkbox when making their thread and if it adheres to some arbitrary percentage-based limits.I understand the motivation behind evaluating new approaches to resolving old long-standing problems, but this ain't it. It would be nice to be able to request thread moves more easily than pinging a mod. If users want to have "community" posts then can have them on the off-topic boards. Move enough threads to /b/, and maybe the off-topic posters will just stay there and continue to shitpost about celeb drama and mansions and how jannies are fags. That's when it might stop being a problem. Then again, /qa/ was an attempt, but it did NOT go well. We can't always have what we want and it sucks.
