Suggestions RE: Thread Conventions to Improve Overall Experience

[AC in NC]

The following is a sub-thread I'm carving out of the SpaceX "Launch, Land, and Relaunch Party Thread" on suggestion of Lar.

It’s nice to have more folks joining in party thread fun with heartfelt congratulations for SpaceX and hope for the future posts.

Wouldn’t it also be fun if we had a stand alone Congratulations thread where these nice, serious posts wouldn’t be diluted by party thread puns, alternate song lyrics, naming contests, diversions about LEGO (tm) elements, and such? You could even call it the “MTPTGA Congratulations Thread” (Make The Party Thread Great Again) ;-)

Our Top Men are working on this idea (translation, let me talk to Chris)

Lar:

At the risk of seeming obsequious, the moderating here is outstanding.  The team has cultivated a very strong culture of self-moderation and particularly one of providing quality feedback to help users do the right thing.  I hope you guys reap the benefits of that rather than having to respond to too much noise.

In the vein of suggestions that might further reinforce that strong foundation, I wonder if these might be well-received.  I know I found myself reluctant to open new topics due to general lack of awareness and time to research what topics might have been well covered historically.

1)  A SpaceX General Section Thread to guage interest relative to a new Topics before opening one.  Feels like perhaps silly not to just open one up but I really feel reluctant to do so sometimes for a couple reasons.  No one really wants to open what might turn out to be a dud.

2)  A SpaceX General Section Thread on pointers on Topics that have been discussed well in the past.  The internal search tool is a little challenging.  The external google indexing is often helpful but sometimes knowing how to frame the proper search is difficult.

I suppose those might easily be combined in one thread as well.

This is gonna sound crazy but these are off topic! Probably the best place for these excellent suggestions would be this section
https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?board=50.0

(which is

    NASASpaceFlight.com Forum »
    NSF Landing Page (Site Rules, Overviews Development, Feedback) »
    NASASpaceflight.com and NSF Forum Site Rules/News

)

either as a new thread OR as a post to https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=44520.0 the current NSF forum feedback thread.

That said .. (this might get moved)

point 1 - We had this on Wikipedia, a place for people that weren't quite sure if an article was justified to go to request/discuss it. Usually it's better to just up and start the thread, if it doesn't work out it gets merged or deleted but maybe?

point 2 - REALLY needful. We don't really have a good way of doing a FAQ or Wiki with answers and pointers. All we have is threads. We can pin them which helps but only if there aren't so many pinned threads that no one can find anything...

The reason I feel like Point 1 is important is that it may foster the capturing of interesting threads that might otherwise never come to light simply due to reticence.

EDIT TO ADD:  I think I'd personally envision this a Sectional Convention, perhaps appropriate to some sections and not others.  I personally only inhabit the SpaceX sections.  It feels to me like the circumstances in those sections particularly could benefit.

[Lar]

Point 2... it was pointed out to me that no one is stopping a volunteer from creating index threads... it just takes work. Some sections already have them, and with a committment to periodically taking a pass through them, they are useful.