Purging Member Introduction Threads

But why remove any threads? Just leave them as is...

 

Lol I discussed reasons for it in my article

Basically I think it will boost activity in the introduction section, and also (my main reason) is that it's good for search engine rankings. Why? Because threads get links to them from other pages on our forum. Every page has a specific "trust" ranking to it; let's just use the word pagerank for this. Now let's say a page has a pagerank of 5 and 100 links on it. Google will pass an equal amount of pagerank onto all links. Now let's say that the PR5 is divided by 100 [even though it doesn't work exactly like this in reality, but it works in this way and this example helps teach it], and each link receives 0.05 pagerank points. Now, if that page only had 50 links (because a lot of threads were purged), every other link could get twice as much pagerank!

This means that the valuable pages that are ranking in Google and bringing you traffic could rank even higher

 

lol im not that desperate for Higher rankings to purge introductions and what not.

 

I don't purge them, but I do lock old ones every now and again because members like bumping them. I see no reason to remove them, some long-time members might want to look back on them.

 

Locking them is certainly the best way to go, especially for the really older ones where the OP has been a member for weeks/months

 

I wouldn't lock them either, I think its something that should stay open.. its an important part of a community.

 

I know but locking them after x amount of time stops the stupid people from replying to them just to get the post count up, and tells them to stop before even thinking about it because if you warned them for doing it, they may not come back.

 

The whole introduction section and all its posts were removed at my forum

 

Not much of a community then as members cant introduce themselves.

 

I would never get rid of posts unless the member has been banned then they would be put in the Archives ,

 

I never purge introductions. Introductions are introductions. You get to know your community better and purging is just odd.

 

What percent of members will actually take the time to write a decent introduction that actually says something valuable about them?

Now what percent of members just say "Hey, I'm here now. It's nice to be here..."

 

Yea, its an essential part of a community, I would never purge or remove them.

 

Many members here often introduce themselves when they join. You may have a point where it isn't a two paragraph introduction but I still find it important.

 

All introductions are important, which is why I always have that section near the top within the main forums (announcements, feedback, etc.) but rather than purge them, I still think it's better to lock those introduction topics that are old to avoid unnecessary spam, etc.

 

I actually decided to go with a single introduction thread instead of an entire forum for it--since half of the replies are always the same three people welcoming the user in the same way, I figured I could just merge them all into one thread and do it like that. There's not a distinct advantage other than the lack of bumping old threads, but I prefer using the single thread method since it alerts all members (we're on XF), which I think has increased the amount of welcomes given back to new members.

 

Now that is very smart. It's probably the best forum-related thing I've heard all week Because it's not a disaster from an SEO standpoint and everyone gets welcomed

 

Yes but I think it lacks the personal aspect of their own thread. Using your way, members might end up feeling left out when they post in there and then another new members posts and everyone welcomes that member instead. I've seen that happen on moderate activity forums, and it's not good for the community in my opinion.
I encounter a lot of users on other forums who are used to making their own intro thread, end up not seeing the official intro thread and then posting their own thread, which then can lead to further problems.

 

I honestly don't understand the big deal about introductions. As a member of other sites I don't feel like introductions are important and I feel like on my own site the people welcoming others are those who want to artificially boost their post count.

 

That's a good point, but I think we've avoided such occurrences since people have quoted posts and welcomed each member or "blanket" welcomed all of the newest members. To avoid the issue of people making their own thread, all new members see a little alert at the top of the forum after registering that links them to the introduction thread right away.