Should I Have An Archive Board?

[Kami]

Dec 31, 2008 14:32:15 GMT -8 Rosario Foxx said:

It's very helpful. I don't know how many times I've accidently deleted a topic that I wanted back when I used IVF. It was pretty bad.

As per board rules [as I stated only six posts above you], please keep all posts at least four, well-thought-out sentences long.

[ToriJ]

I don't have an Archive board on my forum as I see no reason for them. Any old threads I have on the current RPG boards are usually locked. If one RP thread is finished it's locked and left there. OOC boards are usually left alone if they die out and are bumped down the page and I feel putting them in an Archive board just takes away from the post counts in the boards they're in and that may look bad to some quests, as post counts seems to be a big deal with some guests. I also see no point to having an Archive board that only staff members can see, as some members may want to go back and read old topics. If there's a thread I don't want to be in the public eye I'd either delete it or move it to the staff board.

[aatiyah307]

I have an archive board usually to always make sure members can backtrack any of the previous post they have done. When I delete post I feel a bit bad because it decreases the amount of post and topic count--not to say that I should keep the inactive and irrelevant post, but alot of the development comes from past post--where I can see what user did what, what was the reaction to this code and so on.. Its quite useful but its certainly not mandatory...I do advise to have one though

[Jackaroo]

On all forums I've been part of which consist of role plays, they tend to have an archive. Not only does it make the forum look neater, in my opinion, but it also assist you with role playing; for example, say character one, which we will name Joe here, began dating with character B in one thread, and something happened, but you forgot, you can go to the archive and read through for the bit which you're looking for.
My argument against having archives, however, would be sometimes they can take forever to find the thread you're looking for.

[Bavarius]

I have an archives board so I can store old threads from role play. Members have to sift through the threads to find active ones if you leave them around, and that makes everything feel cluttered in my opinion. It's also easy to keep a "spam" archives sub-board so you can store everything that isn't an old role play thread.

[Snappers]

I have an archives board on my RP forum. I have it broken down into catergories, old OOC topics, old sorting ceremonies and old RP threads. Its nice if an old member rejoins and wants to remember some of the things they did. Its also fun for myself to go back and read some of the old threads that happened.

It also helps if you want to find something that happened a while ago for cross reference

[Comrade Corporal Dota <V>^_^]

For my archive section, i broke it down into two parts: RP archive and others. I put all the old RP missions into a separate category. I put the archives as a subboard and move the old OOC chat, old news and other stuff like that into the archive of their appropriate board.

[Force Spirit Jedi Slayer]

I maintain 2 separate Archives one in the staff board where I archive staff items. I keep them around so if we need to revisit past decisions, review any rulings, or bring back things we tabled. With 10 staff members it can get lengthy. The 2nd is for General public and it is all things old. Since it is an RP site I find that there is time to go back and dig something up.

[avanna]

I don't really have an archive board yet, simply because of the fact that my site is not that old, and the current announcements and news are important for everyone to read. I will not create an archive board yet, I don't see any use for it. Moreover, what if I just assume a roleplay thead is dead, and the members still wish to role-play in it? I don't really think it is fair.

I also think that if I move some threads out of thir boards, those boards will be left with zeros, an we all know zeros are a potential turn off for new members.

[HoudiniDerek]

Feb 15, 2009 12:26:17 GMT -8 avanna said:

I don't really have an archive board yet, simply because of the fact that my site is not that old, and the current announcements and news are important for everyone to read. I will not create an archive board yet, I don't see any use for it. Moreover, what if I just assume a roleplay thead is dead, and the members still wish to role-play in it? I don't really think it is fair.

Agreed. I leave them open for the most part. If a member has deleted themselves or been banned, I PM the rest of the members to see what they want to do. If they don't want to continue, I lock it and archive it if necessary.

I also think that if I move some threads out of thir boards, those boards will be left with zeros, an we all know zeros are a potential turn off for new members.

Agreed. Hopefully, admins leave threads in a board until there are other threads that will not deplete a board to nothing. Of course, if you run an RP and you have a zero board after a while, it might be better to delete it entirely if people aren't playing along with the concept.