I have another suggestion: One thing that might have turned off newcomers in the past has been the "teasing" by members when someone finds a relevant topic in an old thread, & adds their question or comments to it, only to be met with "dead thread" comments from us, instead of answers. I think we all need to remember that some of these folks are just finding their way around here & posted where they thought their topic fit the best. This happens fairly often, so IMO there's a few things we could (& should) do about it.
For one thing, old threads are valuable reading, but maybe we should lock them at some point, so no further comments are added & a new thread on that topic must be started? That would eliminate the chance of anyone reopening an old thread. If someone really has relevant information later on, they can always post a link to the old thread & continue with a new thread, right? (I participate in another forum- a political one- and on that platform, once there are no replies for 15 days following the last comment, it's automatically locked. Would that work here? Not necessarily 15 days though, but maybe after several -3 to 6- months?- since many topics here are health issues that takes time to change or resolve.)
Second, maybe we could all be more aware of the way "dead thread" comments might be backfiring on us here- it's not exactly a "welcome mat" is it? It seems to me that many of the new members that were met with jeers of "dead thread" disappeared & posted no more after that? Perhaps they thought "here it goes again" -meaning the hostility found on other social media sites? If we're really here to be of help, I think we've been sending to wrong message at times. If we start locking old threads, that will eliminate the problem easily.
Since we're still billing ourselves as "the friendliest online community for all your herping needs", I think this is one easy way we could improve. What do you all think?
Reply With Quote