At the risk of this going controversial, but with so many fake (personal impression!) threads.. And no: this is honestly because this crossed my mind. Suggestion: Change the rules on how players can close their own thread. Instead of just clicking 'report' and stating their wishes they are now to post a comment onto that thread, report that and done. Does this look like I don't trust the staff? I'm sure it does, but that's not the point. Who is controlling the controllers? My problem is that I have honestly seen some players talk about how their thread got "suddenly closed". Then again, in all fairness, said player also found himself getting banned a few days later and yeah, 1 + 1. So I can't help but wonder.. why not take this out of the equation. I always try to explain / share why I want a thread to be closed before reporting it, and I think it could be considered a community service. Threads are public, so this isn't only about you anymore. There is a risk that someone intended to respond and can no longer do so. "Because of that darn staff!". At first sight anyway. I suppose this could be a controversial topic but meh, figured I could still raise the question
In my opinion, I see this only frustrating users. When possible, we like to keep it simple and straightforward for users, rather than complicate things. How would a user know of this procedure? Where would this rule be listed to ensure that everyone saw it? (For example, I didn't even know that there was a specific rules section for the forums until after I joined staff.) From experience, I know that many players will just report the thread without the post you describe, which means staff would have to pm the player to have them post on the thread, after which we could close it. They will of course reply stating that they were not aware of the rule, and that they will post on the thread soon. Then they would have to wait for that original staff member to come back to the forums and close the thread, or report the thread again for another staff member to close it. While not a huge inconvenience, this process would frustrate a user who simply wants their thread closed. Also, it is common procedure that staff will post on a thread with a reason as to why they are closing it. In this scenario, the reason is of course "Thread closed by request of OP." Another post by the OP simply stating "I want this thread closed, please" would be redundant. Also, this would open up the opportunity for other users to reply to the request for closure until staff closed the thread, and if the thread was controversial it could spark some negative comments which the OP may want to avoid. The last point I wanted to cover was what the player's post should contain to close the thread. Right now, the only thing we require to close a thread is simply the OP stating "I want the thread closed." We then close the thread, no questions asked. (This obviously doesn't apply to auction threads and the like, which we leave open as long as the transaction is active.) My question then is, are you requesting that the player is required to not only give staff a reason for closure, but must make that reason public? I am leaving this last because your post wasn't clear on whether this is what you intended. I'll also reserve any opinions on that until you have responded, since I would like to see what you think first.
I see your point, but bumping useless threads imo is useless. Many times I say on my report to close my threads "there is no need to bump" to avoid spamming the recent thread with an essentially useless thread. (Usually staff say "closed by request of OP") -- And tbh, I don't think you should judge a thread/staff/OP by closing a thread spontaneously. Is just too much to stress about, if you know what I mean... If its close, the report was evaluated by a staff and then the thread was closed. I'm pretty sure staff are humans so, they can also make mistakes, so if they make a mistake, theyll just reopen thread and say something... So yeah -0.5 Good point though
