I am not that active in kaw anymore and had not looked at the forums in ages. But today I was reading the new threads and was surprised how fast mods lock threads. First one was a thread trolling zaft, some of these get locked some don't so was not surprised to see it locked. Next one was reporting some type of issue, The mod said to contact the devs directly and locked the thread. This one was pretty weird. Traditionally forums are the place where people meet and discuss issues and this mod thinks it is better to go straight to devs. Seems would just add to devs work and be more efficient. Last one had me howling. Someone was reporting a bug that his whole clan was experiencing. The mod locked the thread and said that forums are not the place for this type of thing. He advised person to go to WC. Seriously? Are you kidding mr unpaid wannabe? Forums are exactly where you go with that type of thing. The community sees your issue and can tell u they see same thing. Or tell u how to fix it, or tell you you are insane. That's why forums exist. Go to wc? So question can be seen by 3 people and quickly get buried under clan adds and role play requests? Where you have to pay to post? Where the only person reading the posts is just looking for someone to farm or troll?
Trolling threads would instantly get locked and threads that simply are just spam Without barely no effort would also be locked as well since the spam would throw off active threads on forums.
Forums are just far too active and busy these days. Mods need to lock things to keep it uncluttered since there's so much other quality discussion. /s
So pretty much I will state on how a thread can survive without a lock. If Op knows what they are posting and they are posting along with the rules, creating threads that are a simple one or two liners would get locked and would be advised to be posted on wc. If a thread that stays on topic would also survive but when we warn about those that make it off topic we warn then they continue they'll receive a forum ban for 24 hours but if it gets badly thrown off topic that's when we will lock it. Posting to troll people that also contains lack of effort within a thread is pretty much a waist of space on forums so we have to clean things up. Forums isn't a place to complain about how we do our jobs, usually best to Leave feedback or email into support@athinkingape.com I will be leaving this thread open to have a discussion with you and the rest of the community.
I can only speak for myself and for the one thread that you are referring to me "Mr unpaid wannabe" locking and saying to go to wc. It was a situational thing. At that time I posted that because WC was full of people posting about the equipment stats being off as well as many players and mods posting how to sort the issue. The player didn't need to come to forums and post a low effort thread about it when they could have just taken a look at wc. And as you said, forums is a place to post solutions to a problem, which I did exactly that. There was no need to keep the thread open. And pay to post? Definitely don't need to pay to post in wc, especially since you get 15 speakers a day now.
I would go as far to say that the locking of threads has lead to a decline in activity. People are far more hesitant to express themselves which would lead to activity with the looming threat of the mods breathing down ever thread even if it could clearly be a grey area thread. I think its a very about-face way to go about things in the forum that only sees a decrease in players activity because of it
Unfortunately i have seen some mods lick threads without answering a question, or saying how to find the answer. If a mod is going to lock a low effort question thread, and instead say "ask the devs," they should at least provide how to contact the devs. Fortunately i don't see this often. The majority of the threads that are locked are completely justified, and i am honestly surprised that the mods allow other threads to continue.
The low effort threads are always the most fun! Like 4 Best Of threads are like 3 sentences lol Dilly's Question thread is only like 2 sentences XD #LowEffortThreadsMatter
Well...their technically isnt a "support" or "bug reporting" section... There should be one of those. Also, the forums need more functionality. Like the ability to filter what forum sections pop up in the "active topics". And tons and tons of other functions. I dont think the devs have touched the forums since they were created who knows when (2009?)
Hmmm ok. Support or bug reporting: Devs just came out with a new support tool. Use it. Its actually pretty nice. As for filtering by topics: click the category you want. It will show you the active topics in that category after all the announcements and stickied threads. As for updates: the forums have been updated over the years. Anyone remember when you couldnt reply to a dev thread from AT? Also, i dont recall the search function being there a couple years ago.