What Price Success? Improving Posting Quality on HPfGU

[potioncat]

Susan wrote:
I'm also a (new) member of the elf team but am shedding my elfy 
attire and postin' nekkid right now as Siriusly Snapey Susan.
> 


TWO-WEEK BREAK/HOT QUESTIONS LIST
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPFGU-Feedback/message/625
Susan wrote:
I would still love to hear more feedback on a two-week "off" period
(not a moratorium on joining but on posting) after HBP's release, as
well as thoughts on Becky's suggestion of a just-before-going-live
list of expected-to-be-FAQs for the new book.

Potioncat:
I planned to avoid the list until I'd finished HBP anyway. It would 
be nice to come back without having to wade through a mountain of 
posts, and it would be very nice to have "HBP topics" already set up.
Allowing new members to come during this time, strongly encouraging 
them to catch up on the Humongous Big File, might be a good way to 
avoid some of the problems of the tidal wave of newbies.

COMBINING POSTS:
One thing I've seen already, is that a number of posters are making 
the effort to combine their responses to several posts into one long 
post.  It makes for very nice reading and flows much better than the 
many short posts. Even though the short posts would have been well 
thought out, the flow is so much better! 

In particular, I've noticed and talked off list to Nora, Alla and 
Susan about their posts.  It's taken all three of them to teach me 
how to do it. I'm a real computer dummy. (I've done it in this post, 
but it has been very slow work!)  Could the general membership, old 
and new, be encouraged and taught to do that?  A new section for the 
HBF
HPfGUfDummies.

POSTING LIMITS
There is no doubt that if members were limited to, or restricted 
themselves to fewer posts the quality would improve. I've talked off 
list to fellow members about one concern I have with a strict limit 
of posts per day. From time to time there is a burst of creativity 
and humor, with a rapid-fire exchange of posts. Now, maybe they 
really are of interest to the few who actually participate, or maybe 
lurkers are enjoying the exchange too. Certainly they won't be of 
great interest to those who later are trying to catch up. But they do 
add flavor.  I suppose this falls under the "party" view.
 
Could this sort of thing be tolerated?  If Elves are going to step in 
to remind the tennis players to go offline, maybe this "party talk" 
could be nudged off if it was out of hand?

BACK TO "WHAT PRICE?"
So far we've only discussed the possible rules for improving posts, 
but what about these ideas from Carolyn and Kneasy?  (Post 556) 
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPFGU-feedback/interrupt?st=2&m=1&done=%
2Fgroup%2FHPFGU-Feedback%2Fmessage%2F556 
Here they are, snipped a bit. Can any of these be set up?
1. Topic debates
An ever-changing group of rabble-rousers should be tasked to post a
piece of good-quality, provocative analysis on a weekly basis.
Subject-matter and orientation as wide as you please, but it has to
be sharp, well-referenced and demanding. 
2. Special guest posts
Guest authors could be invited in to write op-eds. These could be
authors of books about HP, other authors, journalists, commentators
etc. 
3. Revisiting FPsGood posts from the past could provide an endless 
source of
discussion. Each week a new one could be selected for debate. 

4. Digests of off-list discussions. Posters quite often continue 
discussions about topics offlist, especially if the topic is a bit 
specialised. 

OK, that's it for me today.  BTW, I am wearing sweat shirt, jeans, 
and sneakers. (trainers?) And I'm very happy to hear Susan is an elf!

Kathy/Potioncat