Suggestions for the INFP forum?

5737 Views 110 Replies 22 Participants Last post by Sily, Feb 11, 2013

Promethea

Discussion Starter · Apr 15, 2012

Someone has brought it to my attention that some of the infps may have suggestions for the infp sub-forum. I read the thread asking for an infp moderator for the infp section ( http://personalitycafe.com/infp-forum-idealists/94125-infp-moderator-needed.html ), and I will run it by Happy. The reason I have asked him about it is because of the volume of infp threads, and activeness of the forum. It could be beneficial to have someone look over just it. Plus, its clear to me that many of you want an actual infp to oversee it.

Does anyone have any other suggestions? Anything reasonable and within our power will be considered.

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21 - 40 of 111 Posts

Stephen

· #21 · Apr 16, 2012

@basementbugs and @ethylester mentioned the idea of creating subsections of the subforum. I'm not sure that's possible with the software, but it might help quite a bit, so I'll ask Happy if it's possible. So far, I've been focusing on merging identical threads and sticking the busiest ones. I would like to have less sticky threads, but as long as they're busy, I'll keep them there. I won't be deleting threads that don't violate the rules, so no worries there. They'll either be combined with others or moved somewhere else if they belong there.

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jennandtonic

· #22 · Apr 16, 2012

eyenexepee said:
Of course I could be wrong - I generalize and I theorize. But at the moment, yeah I'm not convinced that INFP would be the best suited for the job.

As a sidenote, I've always had the impression you weren't a 'typical' INFP - which you may interpret as a compliment, yes. ^^

I do take that as a compliment.

I'm keeping my personality listed as INFP for now but the more I see of the behavior of INFPs here the less I'm convinced I'm INFP. If I had met one in "real life," one that was healthy and adult or at least my age (26), maybe I would know. Either many of the INFPs here are all wrong, or I am, and I kind of think it could be the latter.

In any case, I'm great at mediation and putting myself in others' shoes so I'm pretty good at modding. However, from what I've seen perhaps some INFPs would get too emotionally involved to mediate...

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basementbugs

· #23 · Apr 16, 2012

jennandtonic said:
I dunno, I've modded another form for several years and if I do say so myself I'm pretty good, I tend to look at it from everyone's side even if the perpetrator(s) are people I like, and then I make my decisions; and I'm great at sensing and diffusing potentially tense situations.

Yeah, I don't think I have too hard of a time being fair in such situations, either. Surprisingly, haha. I moderated a forum full of other people with whom I had/have a particular trait/issue/whatever-you-want-to-call-it in common, and I didn't encounter any major problems. One of the other members was my boyfriend (now husband) and several times I sided with the moderating team over him, haha. Makes for an interesting situation, to say the least... but I never had any serious difficulties doing my job. Sometimes I surprise myself with my ability to "stick to my guns", so to speak. Despite being an emotional person, I'm usually pretty good at being fair as well -- which includes both taking into account the feelings of others and doing what's right.

Anyway, ramble ramble ramble.

I do think there are a number of INFP members here who'd do just as good a job as anyone else.

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basementbugs

· #24 · Apr 16, 2012

Stephen said:
@basementbugs and @ethylester mentioned the idea of creating subsections of the subforum. I'm not sure that's possible with the software, but it might help quite a bit, so I'll ask Happy if it's possible.

Sounds good. I hope it's a possibility, because I imagine it would make certain types of threads so much easier to find. *fingers crossed*

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jennandtonic

· #25 · Apr 16, 2012

Stephen said:
@basementbugs and @ethylester mentioned the idea of creating subsections of the subforum. I'm not sure that's possible with the software, but it might help quite a bit, so I'll ask Happy if it's possible. So far, I've been focusing on merging identical threads and sticking the busiest ones. I would like to have less sticky threads, but as long as they're busy, I'll keep them there. I won't be deleting threads that don't violate the rules, so no worries there. They'll either be combined with others or moved somewhere else if they belong there.

I like the idea of thread merging better than subforums. Reasons being:
-Sometimes posts for Sub-sub forums are just a little bit too hard to categorize, and you'd end up having people posting in the wrong ones and put things where they didn't belong. A LOT. Nothing against the people it's just sometimes threads are a hybrid and you just don't know where to stick them (I see this again and again at my other modding "job.").
- Either that or these sub-sub forums would be hard to find and you'd have people posting them in the general area and you'd be right back to where you started.

It's easier to merge and redirect, in my experience. Of course, if that isn't the way it ends up going that's ok too, I'm just sharing my thoughts on the matter.

Reactions: 3

basementbugs

· #26 · Apr 16, 2012

jennandtonic said:
I like the idea of thread merging better than subforums. Reasons being:
-Sometimes posts for Sub-sub forums are just a little bit too hard to categorize, and you'd end up having people posting in the wrong ones and put things where they didn't belong. A LOT. Nothing against the people it's just sometimes threads are a hybrid and you just don't know where to stick them (I see this again and again at my other modding "job.").
- Either that or these sub-sub forums would be hard to find and you'd have people posting them in the general area and you'd be right back to where you started.

It's easier to merge and redirect, in my experience.

I guess that's why my suggestion was for only one subforum -- a sort of "games/long-running threads" one. And within that subforum, I'd still support the merging of threads, of course. No need to have tons of similar threads floating about just because they're in their own subforum. The ultimate objective is to do as much as possible to make the place easy for members to navigate.

I do agree that tons of different subforums could likely be more confusing than helpful, yes. I don't see the INFP forum as so overwhelmingly out of control that it needs any more than just a separate section for the types of threads I mentioned above.

jennandtonic

· #27 · Apr 16, 2012

basementbugs said:
I guess that's why my suggestion was for only one subforum -- a sort of "games/long-running threads" one. And within that subforum, I'd still support the merging of threads, of course. No need to have tons of similar threads floating about just because they're in their own subforum. The ultimate objective is to do as much as possible to make the place easy for members to navigate.

I do agree that tons of different subforums could likely be more confusing than helpful, yes. I don't see the INFP forum as so overwhelmingly out of control that it needs any more than just a separate section for the types of threads I mentioned above.

Yes, maybe one sub-sub forum wouldn't be bad. A bunch would definitely be too scattered.

Reactions: 1

wisdom

· #28 · Apr 16, 2012

I would like to see the "INFPs Only" thread option mentioned in red, at the end of the "Below you will find a list of discussions in the INFP Forum" text.

Also, when someone goes to create a new thread, there ought to be text on that page that urges first searching and posting to the right forum (many threads in this forum aren't original or could easily go elsewhere). Even better if there's an add-on to display links to similar threads on that screen. It works by searching for terms in the pending subject line; I've seen it on at least one forum.

Stephen

· #29 · Apr 16, 2012

wisdom said:
I would like to see the "INFPs Only" thread option mentioned in red, at the end of the "Below you will find a list of discussions in the INFP Forum" text.

We've talked about this in the past. I'm not going to support anything that goes against the inclusive atmosphere we want to keep here. It's fine to put "INFPs only please" in a thread title.

Reactions: 5

wisdom

· #30 · Apr 16, 2012

I think it has to be mentioned someplace that gets regular views, or people won't even know to use it.

locofoco

· #31 · Apr 16, 2012

wisdom said:
Also, when someone goes to create a new thread, there ought to be text on that page that urges first searching and posting to the right forum (many threads in this forum aren't original or could easily go elsewhere).

I do agree with this. There are a few threads that are better suited for other forums. I think just making it clear that threads have to deal with INFPs in the INFP subforum, or just moving/redirecting threads to the forums they're better suited for. Such as threads like this: http://personalitycafe.com/infp-forum-idealists/94552-nirvana.html

Reactions: 1

Stephen

· #32 · Apr 16, 2012

locofoco said:
I do agree with this. There are a few threads that are better suited for other forums. I think just making it clear that threads have to deal with INFPs in the INFP subforum, or just moving/redirecting threads to the forums they're better suited for. Such as threads like this: http://personalitycafe.com/infp-forum-idealists/94552-nirvana.html

I moved it to Books Movies and Music.

Reactions: 1

wisdom

· #33 · Apr 16, 2012

I don't have any suggestions about posting frequency that people would like, but I'm hoping some ideas will be shared here. Those who post dozens of times per day make it harder to follow the forum, albeit it's not as bad when concentrated in stickied threads. That's the oldest complaint of mine.

Wulfyn

· #34 · Apr 16, 2012

I think that sub-forums within the infp area would generally be a bad idea, because every level of depth tends to have less footfall. This means that people won't be searching through every sub-forum regularly andone of the things I like about forums is how threads you didn't think you would be interested in surprise you.

Stickies are also generally a bad idea, because people start to ignore them. Like anything they become old after a while, and it reduces the number of other threads on the page. If they are active enough to be stickied then they should be active enough to keep coming back to the front page, and the software here does a good job on providing notifications to people if shouted out or quoted to keep a conversation going even if the thread has slipped back a few pages.

Instead this should be replaced by an index system. There is one that has been started, but I guess there is no time for that mod to keep it up to date. The first job of the mod should be to index all the stickies and then release them. I'd personally organise it as:

Resources (because many INFPs first come here as a journey of self discovery)
Advice (for all the inspirational threads telling infps they don't suck)
Popular (for all the threads that are dozens of pages long, and an important part of infp perc history)
Hot! (for new threads they are getting a lot of attention)

The index should have the thread title as a link, and a brief description of what the thread is about. That will allow you to release the stickies.

Another sticky that I would have is an introduction thread, called "Are you new? If so read and post here!". The top few posts will contain some brief chatter, and introduction. A brief explanation of some of the rules and mannerisms of posting, and a request to say hi in the thread. This will let people new here get up to speed on what is going on. It should also encourage lurkers to sign up - I lurked here for a year before registering an account.

I think the only other sticky I would have is a rant thread. The rule here is that nobody is allowed to offer advice. People sometimes just want to shout at the world, and the last thing they need is other people making them look stupid by offering good ideas or concrete advice, or pointing out why they are messing things up. People can respond of course with supporting messages, becomes sometimes you just want a hug.

If the software allows I'd auto lock any thread more than 3 months old. Because sometimes it is good to start a new thread on something. If a conversation gets to 20 pages long, is exhausted and stops then it can be hard to find new ground because things have becomes established. Often with a new thread things will go in a new direction, if nothing else then because there are new people. And the conversation can be worth having again even if it just rehashes what has been talked about before, because often the journey is as important as the destination.

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kaleidoscope

· #35 · Apr 16, 2012

@Wulfyn

I rather like the idea of sticky threads - provided that they were more compressed. The INFP forum is way too active, and so the stickies would be lost in the second, third, and fourth page. That kinda sucks. So no, I'd want the stickies to stay.

Also, no categorization. Too complicated. I like it this way! Why is everyone voting for so much drastic change, especially relatively new members, or members that aren't regulars ? I don't mean for this to come out the wrong way, but at least be somewhat of a regular..

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kaleidoscope

· #36 · Apr 16, 2012

For example, the 'our own blogs and videos' shouldn't be a sticky, because it's relatively inactive compared to others. If someone wanted to post, they could just find it. Also, the depression sticky is kinda inactive as well - compared to other stickies. I think those two can be thrown back into normal threads and they'll do fine.

I think the "NEWBIES INFP[..]" and "Important INFP thread index" could be compressed together, since the both fulfill the same purpose: directing the newbies. So I suggest we blend them into one thread, the Newbies thread maybe.

I don't know, those are just suggestions, but they could help clean up the stickies a bit and organize them. Besides that, I don't think the forum needs anything else, except maybe ONE category called "Advice", although that'd be a huge portion of the subforum, so I still think it's unnecessary.

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ethylester

· #37 · Apr 16, 2012

I don't like the idea of making rules as to what people can and cannot post within a thread. It would make me feel paranoid about being judged. right now i feel pretty free to say what I would like to say to people, but if we had some rule like "no advice" or "only post here if it's totally relevant" or "infp only or else your comment will be deleted" or "you can only post 8 times a day max" or whatever, I would be a lot less likely to post anything. the thing I like about it here is that I feel welcome. Those types of things would make me feel less welcome and more watched.

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Stephen

· #38 · Apr 16, 2012

Wulfyn said:
Instead this should be replaced by an index system. There is one that has been started, but I guess there is no time for that mod to keep it up to date. The first job of the mod should be to index all the stickies and then release them. I'd personally organise it as:

I really like this idea. I think I'm going to use it. Thank you.

Stephen

· #39 · Apr 16, 2012

ethylester said:
I don't like the idea of making rules as to what people can and cannot post within a thread. It would make me feel paranoid about being judged. right now i feel pretty free to say what I would like to say to people, but if we had some rule like "no advice" or "only post here if it's totally relevant" or "infp only or else your comment will be deleted" or "you can only post 8 times a day max" or whatever, I would be a lot less likely to post anything. the thing I like about it here is that I feel welcome. Those types of things would make me feel less welcome and more watched.

Rest assured that I will not support anyone discouraging posts. We want activity here, and everywhere else on the forum as well. We have rules here about derailing, spamming, and the like, and I think those are sufficient to handle real problems in this area.

Reactions: 1

wisdom

· #40 · Apr 16, 2012

Maybe polls should be indexed and associated with each other somehow. Almost all of them should remain open indefinitely.

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