Can a subforum change the WORLD?

Growmau5

Well-Known Member
Forums > The Grow Room > Indoor Growing > LED and other Lighting is where you go to learn the REAL science and techniques to employ the most efficient/effective grow room lighting solutions on earth.

Visiting other similar forums, you quickly realize that no other website compares. These other discussion forums have infrequent posts, out-dated techniques, and are generally filled with anecdotal reports such as "my buddy rocks BlueCat 5000s and he grows fire"

Over the past year, this subforum has nearly doubled in the quantity of discussions from 125,000 to 209,000. What once contained half the amount of interest and discussion as the CFL/Fluorescent Lighting subforum will quickly dwarf it. Additionally, with many city & state legislatures attempting to pass laws banning HID lighting for grow operations, the information contained here will become increasingly valuable. Particularly the threads started by Stardustsailor and others.

But there is a systemic problem... Many of the people that were doing the high level work , testing and discussion have disappeared from this sub forum. Perhaps they grew tired of talking about LEDs, or perhaps their knowledge on the topics reached a level that there was no one here to learn from.
Maybe they grew tired of taking the time to start a thread on an advanced topic, citing their research, graphs, spreadsheets, & peer reviewed data, only to have the thread buried by "where does this wire go" questions.

So what is my point, or is this just a droning manifesto?
Forums like this need to keep their users happy, and engaged so that they can present user traffic data to potential advertisers and sell banners. It is an ecosystem. This ecosystem needs to support the small fish with potentiometer questions, as well as the bigger fish that want to discuss light quanta.
But an ecosystem needs fish of all sizes or it dies. And we are getting dangerously low on big fish.

High level discussion that starts out informative and interesting has been getting clobbered by pages and pages of off topic posts, side conversations, and a gratuitous amount of 80s YouTube songs. I like to have fun and enjoy these pages as much as the next guy. But there is a place for it. or is there?

I am calling for more support from the administrators of this forum. We need a moderator(s) here, We need stickies of some of the most valuable threads that get lost beneath hundreds of "what does this wire do" threads. @sunni we need some kind of engagement, or this subforum will be left for dead.
 

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sixstring2112

Well-Known Member
Well said gm.i nominate growmau5,greengenes,and robincnn as led section mods.these 3 know what belongs where and what is total clutter,bs.
It would be nice to see the most important topics stay clutter free so the info doesnt get buried. I think sometimes a really good topic comes along that just needs to be stickied and then closed to further reply.
Hoping you stick around for a long time to come gm.i feel like we are just seeing the tip of the iceberg with your knowledge and invention. Peace
 

Growmau5

Well-Known Member
Well said gm.i nominate growmau5,greengenes,and robincnn as led section mods.these 3 know what belongs where and what is total clutter,bs.
It would be nice to see the most important topics stay clutter free so the info doesnt get buried. I think sometimes a really good topic comes along that just needs to be stickied and then closed to further reply.
Hoping you stick around for a long time to come gm.i feel like we are just seeing the tip of the iceberg with your knowledge and invention. Peace
I am not going anywhere in the immediate future. This subforum is a very important place to me, and I only want to see it improve and thrive. I have only been around here for a year and a half, but you guys that have been around the LED section since 2011, 2013... know what I am talking about.

Some features that I believe are realistic and would not lead to abuse are:
-Allow a "well known member" who is the owner of a given thread to collapse useless messages(not delete them). in the same way that a long "quote reply" is collapsed.
-reduce the size of embedded YouTube links. when you share a youtube link, it auto embeds, the option to have that video link remain a text link would be nice. or a very small embeded video
-allow a well known thread owner to have more control over his or her thread.
-images over a certain size cannot be 'fullscreened" and must remain thumbnails unless you are the thread owner. These massive images that are often off topic take up a whole page in a thread. and you cant even get a good view because you have to scroll up and down since the image wont fit on even a 27" monitor

Time out people (from starting new topics) that start useless threads, sometimes 3 or 4 in a day titled "HELLPPPPP!!!!!! where does this wire go"!! you guys know who I am talking about.

Too many stickies can be just as messy as a messy forum, and are often over looked. So we need a sticky with the most useful thread links. like nogod did with Supras spreadsheets. but all in one place.
 

Rahz

Well-Known Member
One issue I've had is the inability to edit posts after a certain time length. I've hesitated to start posts that contain useful links... without the ability to edit them they go out of date. New posts can be added to the thread but it's just a disorganized way of going about it.
 

PurpleBuz

Well-Known Member
simply put a couple of small changes could do a lot.

Allowing the person that created a thread to have the ability to delete posts and editing control of their own posts in perpetuity.

This allows for removal of off topic messages and trolls.

It also allows for a thread to become a sticky that doesn't become endlessly randomized, If the OP cares.

That also allows for a threads that are stickied to become a real summary source of known information, since the noise can be removed, and the info can be updated.

For example, a while back somebody started a thread on cob efficiencies. http://rollitup.org/t/cob-efficiency-spreadsheets.865238/ a very helpful thread. But eventually it gets filled with random noise, and can't serve as a summary of cob efficiencies.

you want advertisers ? allow advertisers to run and control their own thread (for a fee of course).
 

Growmau5

Well-Known Member
Not happy ...move on ...obvious no?
Yes, thank you for your contribution to this discussion on :: how to make this incredibly valuable resource an even better place.

this exemplifies the kind of dribble and background noise that is so utterly useless that it should be collapsible or deletable, so that other people that want to participate in a constructive conversation can do so efficiently.

agree 100% @PurpleBuz
 

JorgeGonzales

Well-Known Member
Just removing the timer on editing messages would go a long way towards helping, and if it's a major concern remove the limitation for the thread starter only, if that's easy to do with XenForo.

Here is why: letting the first post be curated and updated by the thread starter with relevant information as a thread evolves fixes a lot of problems, especially with technical discussions. For instance, in the "let's collect all Supra's stuff" thread, everything that followed could have been consolidated into the top post as it was added. That still leaves plenty of freedom for youtube videos, while keeping useful information "stickied" in the first post.

It's a common pattern, and allows a thread starter to control the discussion, help prevent repeated questions, without going all control freaky on everybody.

God the amount of times I've visited certain threads while trying to remember what page I saw something on...stick it all up front.
 

vostok

Well-Known Member
'....Experienced knowledgeable people are moving on?'.

Cause they are exhausted.. 20% of teen weeners growing weed is one thing

95% of under 25yo's trying weed for the first time, with 'crap' gear, and little knowledge is very small potatoes indeed

best imo listen to the advice from your local grow shop

then you too can believe anything ....lol

good luck your gonna need it lol
 

PurpleBuz

Well-Known Member
'....Experienced knowledgeable people are moving on?'.

Cause they are exhausted.. 20% of teen weeners growing weed is one thing

95% of under 25yo's trying weed for the first time, with 'crap' gear, and little knowledge is very small potatoes indeed

best imo listen to the advice from your local grow shop

then you too can believe anything ....lol

good luck your gonna need it lol
go away troll. The experienced people I was talking about have proven science based experience and experts in their own fields that happen to have a passion in plants, lighting, and engineering. If I listened to my local grow shop all I would be doing is making them $$ with BAD advice. Last time I went to a grow shop in an emergency I ended up wasting my $$ on a PPM meter that was a POS.
 

Growmau5

Well-Known Member
Just removing the timer on editing messages would go a long way towards helping, and if it's a major concern remove the limitation for the thread starter only, if that's easy to do with XenForo.

Here is why: letting the first post be curated and updated by the thread starter with relevant information as a thread evolves fixes a lot of problems, especially with technical discussions. For instance, in the "let's collect all Supra's stuff" thread, everything that followed could have been consolidated into the top post as it was added. That still leaves plenty of freedom for youtube videos, while keeping useful information "stickied" in the first post.

It's a common pattern, and allows a thread starter to control the discussion, help prevent repeated questions, without going all control freaky on everybody.

God the amount of times I've visited certain threads while trying to remember what page I saw something on...stick it all up front.
wow, man. this is probably the easiest cheapest highest impact solution mentioned.
allow me, the thread starter to update and edit post #1 forever.
-if I care enough about my thread and engaging new readers, I can edit post #1 to contain useful links as well as direct them to specific pages and post #s
-this makes the task of catching up on an 80-200 page thread much less daunting.
 

vostok

Well-Known Member
It would be nice to have something like they have over at Icmag forum "user created social groups". A user can create a group with consent of a mod,that user has some control over the group,invitation only,not sure if they have edit permissions.
Yes this was popular, but then again if its so great why have all the other forums wiped it off..?

simply as it encourages elitism,

lock a bunch of rats in a box and see for urself

over time only 2 will remain

u gotta ask why...?
 

Growmau5

Well-Known Member
Yes this was popular, but then again if its so great why have all the other forums wiped it off..?

simply as it encourages elitism,

lock a bunch of rats in a box and see for urself

over time only 2 will remain

u gotta ask why...?
I have been a member of many forums over the years. Everything from photography, automotive, gaming etc. Elitism runs rampant in every single forum I have ever been a member. And certainly its present here. that is the nature of online personas, dark rooms & keyboards.

But I must say, the people around here that are the most knowledgeable are also the most helpful & humble. The people here in this LED section that have the biggest reason to have an ego or be elitist, simply are not.
 

sunni

Administrator
Staff member
I just had a baby about a week ago so I'll answer but it will be sweet short and straight to the point not to be confused with being rude I just don't have the time to be lenghty about it

A lot of these things you have asked for cannot physically be implemented like it isn't possible in the system we have to realistic we aren't going to buy new add ons for xenforo so we gotta work with what we have :)

In addition to that a lot of these things cannot just be done for one subforum it would change the entire forum rollitup
Ie the music videos
So try to think of changes that don't impact the entire forum of rollitup

I can't change the entire forum to make led forum happy that's just not a win win situation or the rest of the forum it's not fair and a lot of other users would not be happy about it so I have to decline on the YouTube video suggestion

We are not interested in allowing thread starters or advertisers to mod their own thread that would be heavily abused by most forum users sadly we have been asked this before and we decline it


Advertisers have their own area so I won't touch on them here well just talk about users

I'm not going to penalize new users who are just annoying with their help threads

This is an open forum everyone has the right to talk here , join make threads

Yes a lot of times newbies don't understand how the forum works but we're not going to penalize them because of it
I get it it's annoying I get asked like 20 times a week how come people can't like posts and yet I have a well done sticky thread in support detailing how to use the website to a T so I emphasize with you guys

This also goes for general chatter i get that it's distracting or frustrating but it's again an open forum and it isn't against the rules to have a discussion with your buddy frank about your dog and how your wife is doing so to delete those messages users would scream of censorship they would be pissed they can't have a general talk with a friend on open forum and it isn't against the rules at all or the TOS so your mods would seem very delete happy

As for new mods sorry we have no plans for new mods at this time however you can help the staff by using the report feature should you think something needs to be removed this is a community therefore it takes the effort of the entire community to help make it a nice place so please use the report feature that's why it's there that's basically being a mod so use it please :)

What I do agree with is

Picture size they can be freaking gigantic I will send off a message to the owner

Stickies I have always said if the LED group wants to create a sticky please do so I will review and sticky it for all you guys
Collaborate together in PM or a thread whatever you guys wish to do and get back to me when you want it stickied :)

Editing time , for whatever reason in the new update it went from 72 hours to 12 I will ask to get that fixed
Riu has always had an editing time 72 hours since the start in 2006 most forums have time frames
You can always ask a mod to edit your thread for you that's allowed shoot a mod a message we are happy to do those things for you

I hope that answers some of your questions feel free to brainstorm some more and I'll check back in a bit
I'm sorry we are unable to implement everything you wished for but in sure we can compromise and make the LED section happier it just has to be within our physical limits and reasonable for the rest of the forum
 

JorgeGonzales

Well-Known Member
If there was a way to let the thread starter edit forever, and even add posts to the top of the thread, that would benefit the entire forum. I'm not sure about XenForo, but these are common core or add-on functionalities in other forum software.

It's a mess right now. Real talk.
 

captainmorgan

Well-Known Member
Yes this was popular, but then again if its so great why have all the other forums wiped it off..?

simply as it encourages elitism,

lock a bunch of rats in a box and see for urself

over time only 2 will remain

u gotta ask why...?
Is that why I love cheese? There are still groups at ICmag,I belong to one and for the most part everyone in it is respectful of others.
 
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