Purging Member Introduction Threads

I wrote a blog post about purging member introduction threads and I wanted to see what everyone here thinks about that. Are there any reasons not to purge these threads? What do you think about this?

 

I've never done this in my life of running an online community, its pointless because you good quality threads will always do well if you have links pointed to those pages. See digitalpoint's forum, and sitepoint's? And other forums? Nobody does it.

 

Same here, I have never done it either in my life of running forums. It is completely pointless.

 

No need for it at all. I think locking them after a period of two weeks is better than that, so new members don't dig them up and try to increase their post count that way.

 

Yea I agree. It does get annoying when members do that, specially when they reply to someone's introduction thread and welcome them when the person joined before them.

 

Nobody does it but that doesn't mean that nobody should start doing it. Just because the "big" forums don't do something doesn't mean that their forums are how forums should be run. I can see problems with forums like DigitalPoint

Think about it. The only thing those threads to are increase that post count number in the footer. Do those introduction threads get any traffic on your forums? They don't on mine . Nobody will ever go to look back on those threads. But, they do get linked to automatically. Now if they were deleted there would be less pages for the forum software to link to and that means that all other pages (that probably do get visits from search engines) would get a bit more link juice.

Are you guys following what I'm thinking?

 

That's ridiculous, why would you lock them, what if friends join and want to welcome their friend?

 

Yea.. its best just to leave them along, never heard of locking introduction threads or purging them lol.

 

I don't see the need to, just lock them, or move them to an archive after 28 days, and you should be good to go as there's no point in digging up old topics when "new" members may have been a member for a few weeks or so, etc.

 

I said lock them after a time period. We don't need people welcoming their friends after a month or two, do we?
Anyways, I agree with Kaiser, and I think some people need to learn to not go grave digging.

 

There's no problem with grave digging - it helps boast your communities' content, and how is that a problem? If someone has something interesting to say, what's the point of locking a thread if it doesn't break the rules?

No point at all. Grave digging is really when someone spams the thread, and doesn't say anything interesting, but if it provides quality, then keep it up. I don't see a point in locking anything that doesn't break the rules, and I've been involved with a bunch of communities, only a few have a problem with users bringing up old posts, where others don't mind....

 

Well, I guess it varies depending on the community. I've been on a few where threads are seldom brought up after they've gotten a few weeks old, unless they're one of those "Recent Achievement" threads or the like.
I personally would have a problem with my members trying to boost their post count that way in the intro section, I don't care what's the motivation behind it, it's just not where they should be posting as much. I do want the new members welcomed, but not old threads getting roused.

 

What type of communities are these that you've been apart of? I know cheating communities do it, but not admin forums. I just find it ridiculous to do this, why? Its open discussion, and you should always leave threads open unless they break the rules, yes?

 

A couple computer forums. And no, I lock solved problem threads in my feedback forum, I lock a few announcements, and I lock two month old intro threads.
I think good members should post elsewhere in my forum, not fill up on intro threads and solved forum problems and the like. I'm not against rousing old threads in other sections if they have something useful to contribute to them.

 

Yea I agree... Purging Introductions is completely nonsense, and I dont think members would be too happy with it because they waste their time to write something up introducing themselves to the community hoping to meet new members who will greet them.

 

If one of my intro threads was deleted on some forum I wouldn't care much. It's not like anyone would be going to read it or anything :/

Can anyone give me a reason not to purge threads from a forum (as a whole)'s viewpoint? (Something other then "it's nonsense;nobody else does it; no reason to; pointless; etc.")

The only valid argument I've heard so far is if someone registers and wants to welcome their friends from months ago. I'd say that's not completely valid because I think if a member joins they shouldn't just go welcoming people who joined before them. If someone did this on my forum I'd warn them for it.

I gave two valid advantages for purging. Can anyone invalidate them or give reasons not to purge? (I just want to see what's best for a community.)

 

Then why do you have a introductions forum if its not important at all? Instead of purging why not remove the forum itself? Well you wont because they are important so instead of removing the forum you want to purge them. Just my opinion.

 

Well yeah . That's why I want to purge it.

I think that the introduction section could help people feel more welcome when they first join and it could help bring a member base closer together but I don't think it's happening with how introduction sections are setup right now.

But I don't think that keeping those older threads is beneficial in any way.

 

If thats the case whats point of keeping any old threads and posts on your forum? Might as well purge every single old thread. Just my view, not trying to put you down

 

Well here's the thing I'm trying to get at The introductory threads can be deleted because they're not especially valuable and nobody will ever go to read them. But - regular threads are much more valuable. My forum receives most of its traffic from organic Google searches that go to all sorts of threads.



These threads are worth keeping round because they're driving traffic to the forum. But those intro threads don't get any traffic at all One of the points on my article is that by deleting those threads we can get more authority/trust (in SEO terms) onto these valuable pages