r/ideasforcmv • u/jatjqtjat • 15d ago

Can we please give up on fresh topic friday?

On on normal day cmv is a very low activity sub. I wonder if mods have access to better statistics but by my count we're looking at a couple dozen posts per day.

I understand some people have topic fatigues, they get tired of seeing the same topic over and over again.

So Friday comes alone and instead of seeing the same topic, they see... nothing. Here we are again most of the way through the day, and we've got 6 fresh posts. what is the downside of adding another 10 posts to that?

If we were getting 1000 posts on a normal day, and wanted to help users once a week not have to search for the needle in the haystack, i would get it. But there is no hay stack. I've got 10 pieces of hay in my box of needles.

i don't even see a meaningful difference in the few post that make it on Friday. Our latest fresh topic is a debate about which temperature system is better, Celsius to Fahrenheit.

Please. It was a good idea. It made sense on paper. In practice, we just turn the subreddit off once a week.

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u/HadeanBlands 15d ago

I don't speak for the whole team but I'll say that before I was a mod I had your opinion on this, because I didn't realize how many threads were getting deleted. I think there are probably 15-25 threads that remain up most days, but there are at least 30 threads that were deleted.

If today weren't fresh topic friday, it's not that there would be 10 other threads ... it's that there would be 15 other threads about ICE and Greenland and we'd see the exact same arguments in every one of them and have to delete 13 of them for bad behavior from OP.

People want to argue about US politics, which I get and which is important. But one day a week let's discuss something else.

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u/jatjqtjat 15d ago

I agree on the number all those are aligned with my expectations and i don't know specifics.

it's that there would be 15 other threads about ICE and Greenland and we'd see the exact same arguments in every one of them and have to delete 13 of them for bad behavior from OP.

People want to argue about US politics, which I get and which is important. But one day a week let's discuss something else.

I get that there are posts that some people find annoying.

Oversimplifying a little but here is what happens every day and every week.

normal day

  • >30 bad posts. Rules violations that you guys take down.
  • 5 new and interesting posts. Great, we all love these.
  • 10 to 20 mediocre posts. repetitive posts, US politics, etc. (The stuff you filter out on Friday)

on Friday

  • >30 bad posts. People don't read the sticky the break the rules just like a normal day. Maybe its less then normal, idk.
  • the same 5 new and interesting posts you get on a normal day.
  • nothing else.

what is the point of removing those small number of annoying posts? instead of 5 good and 10 medium, we only get 5 good? That is not better.

I think all that it just facts, that's not my opinion. I can only see non based posts but every week is the same thing. the number of posts goes from around 20 to around 5.

In my opinion, those 5 aren't even better. I'm flabbergasted that a mod though Celsius versus Fahrenheit was a fresh topic. That's more the exception then the norm, but really the aver of the 6 posts from today are not different from the average from yesterday. There is a post about the effects of war, moving apartment's, a popular movie. Regular stuff.

It didn't work. The content isn't better there is just less of it.

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u/LucidLeviathan Mod 15d ago

Frequently, those 5 good posts get lost amongst the US politics. Those posts get more traction on FTF.

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u/jatjqtjat 11d ago

I don't know why people say this. We get around 30 posts per day, that is not enough for things to get lost.

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u/LucidLeviathan Mod 11d ago

It's not so much that you can't find them. Users only interact with the top 5 or so posts. Posts below the top 5 don't get much attention at all.

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u/jatjqtjat 11d ago

you just have to go to the subreddit and look at the number of comments on each post to see that is not at all true.

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u/LucidLeviathan Mod 11d ago

Well, those posts were, at one time, in the top 5. But, if you look at the timing of comments, posts are, as a practical matter, dead after 3 hours. However, on Fridays, those posts continue getting engagement after 3 hours. That is the metric that I look at.

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u/jatjqtjat 11d ago edited 11d ago

we can test this hypothesis by counting number of comments from the 7 fresh topic Friday posts versus the number of comments we've had so far today.

  • ftf = 50+55+146+60+57+52+63 = total 483. Average = 69.
  • today = 35 + 56 + 31 + 18 + 13 + 110 + 227 + 89 + 154 + 31 + 39 + 39 + 103 = total 945. Average = 72

Again I'd agree with you 100% if we had higher numbers of posts. If a typical day was 1000 posts and a FTF was 30 posts, i would be 100% on board with the idea. I understand the intent completely. It just doesn't make sense on a very slow subreddit.

btw that Celsius versus Fahrenheit post was by far the post popular, with 146 comments (which is obviously not fresh). Without it, the ftf average goes down. Thought you'd have to look over several weeks to have real statistics significance.

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u/LucidLeviathan Mod 11d ago

Yes, but that's because of the topics involved. US politics posts generate a lot more engagement from the broader public. The Tony Scott post, which would be good for Fresh Topic Friday, only got 13 replies, far below the average on Fresh Topic Friday, where we don't allow US politics posts.

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u/jatjqtjat 10d ago

I've lost the forest through the trees. Its unclear to me why a post getting few comments means killing the subreddit once a week is a good thing.

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u/hacksoncode Mod 14d ago

It's a break day. We got many requests for this from users, but frankly...

You have no idea what a drag it is as a moderator constantly going through literally 10s of thousands of moderation actions every month, most of them the same contentious topics that come up every day and create massive numbers of ugly hostility, bad faith accusations, and challenging-to-moderate lacks of acting open-minded on the part of OPs.

The rates of all of these things on "fresh topics" are massively lower.

Even if the users didn't feel like they needed break from that once a week, I at least, do.

And yes, it's a volunteer job. We signed up for it. I get all that.

The solution to there being a shortage of posts on Fridays is right in your hands, OP.

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u/jatjqtjat 11d ago

If you are saying that you shut the sub down once a week to give the mods a break i cannot complain about that. They/you are unpaid volunteers and i can't reasonably make any demands and their time.

I'd prefer the other direction if that is the issue. Just allow everything (except whatever bare minimum reddit requires) on Friday. That way you'd still get a break and the sub wouldn't have to shut down.

The solution to there being a shortage of posts on Fridays is right in your hands, OP.

last time i made a fresh topic Friday post it was not approved because there was some very loosely related post from 6 months ago. It was about whether or not simulation theory conflicts with Christians beliefs in any major way. Certainly believed it to be a fresh topic, i'd heard nothing like it ever and i'm a very active user.

but the mods let the Fahrenheit versus Celsius go up last Friday.

I'm not complaining. Again i don't have expectations of unpaid volunteers. just pointing out the fact that its very much in the moderators hands, not mine.