Member to Member crickets

[thallidguy]

Whenever I look at the Home Page, I can't help but notice how many threads there are in the Member to Member forums and how many of them have no responses.

I understand the theory behind the Member to Member forums, I think. And if I'm right about the theory, I agree that it sounds like a good idea in principle to limit the people who can respond there, to keep down the signal-to-noise ratio.

But it also looks like there aren't enough people answering questions there. So a lot of multiple/duplicate threads get started by posters who didn't get their questions answered.

[alan@ebay]

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@thallidguy wrote:

Alan:

I'm wrapping my head around what you guys had in mind with this current version of the boards, and I think I get it. I appreciate what you're trying to do, but I also think that in a very short time, the farm animals have trampled the fences and it's getting to be a mess.

I think I understand that Knowledge Base is for factual questions and Discussions is for issues that are more about back-and-forth. I appreciate the distinction. But I don't think the same can be said for 99.9% of the other posters, especially the ones who are not forum regulars and who come here for the first time to ask a question. So they don't pay attention, they post wherever, and the distinctions you want to maintain just dissolve.

This also affects the Member-to-Member boards. Like I said, I sympathize with wanting to maintain this space where only experts are allowed to answer — there have been many times over the years when dealing with all the stupid that gets posted feels like a game of Whack-a-Mole that will never, ever end. But it's not clear when or why you should start a thread there and not in the less exclusive sections of the community.

I'm not sure what the answer is, but there are aspects of the community that feel jumbled right now.

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Thanks for your feedback, @thallidguy. One of our goals for this year is to improve navigation in the Community. We realize there are areas for improvement and insights like this from our users are appreciated.