Staffing Do you clean up?

[Huskerdust 625]

The only thing we archive is old want ads and only when requested. Honestly I hate archiving for pretty much every reason Morrigan already stated. I like me some nice full forums. I won’t even open a site to the public until every forum has content. 

[Morrigan 1,826]

6 hours ago, FriedKilamari said:

I mean, an archive is just that: an archive. It's a log of the site's history. If it's kept visible to the public, and has proper organization, it's not a detriment to anything, in my opinion. Plus the archive isn't an end all be all thing, people can always ask for threads to be made active again if they so choose. The same with archived character files. If someone comes back, their stuff is in the archive waiting for them.

 

I tend to think of archives as a library, or a big filing cabinet. Everything's there for safe keeping, not deleted and removed.

 

Plus, when I have one of my threads closed, or close it myself, I always link to either the sequel thread or to the previous thread when a start a new one. It takes all of two minutes, if even that.

 

 

 

See but archives aren't filing cabinets. They aren't meant for that. As many have stated already they are a place to move the old and allow for the new. A filing cabinet doesn't move "old documents from this file to another file" a file is held in tact across an archive. So to archive one part is literally to "expunge" that file from existence.

[Phear Lap 6]

Cleaning up inactive and dead threads, sure, but otherwise no. I like reading through completed logs if they're left in the board. It's jumbled when everything is lumped together in a archival area.

[Zahhy 130]

I guess I'm stuck here in a weird place. My opinion is NOT to archive. I LOVE seeing all of the past in one place. Current threads are what Pinning is for. I also love creeping on retired profiles. Those people still EXIST, why are their profiles archived? It confuses me.

 

However - I took over a site that had an active Archive, so as the current admin I keep this practice, though I've loosened the rules quite a bit.

 

What I mean is that when I took over there had previously been an Archivist in charge of managing the archives every month. The archives are not perfect, but they are very well organized and I like them a lot. We have forum trackers in profiles to help determine what threads a character has been part of that always links back to a post if it is active or archived and we also have a calendar that links back to old posts, active or archived and a sophisticated google doc that matches up with our character trackers and tells you where all the characters have been. It is nice, but 100% underutilized.

 

Rather than clean up every month and to avoid our site from looking inactive I only archive character profiles after 4+ months of inactivity and they go into an Inactive Archive. I also have "deleted" which isn't really deleted but RETIRED character archive for those people that have explicitly requested their characters be removed from the site when they leave. Inactive characters can come back any-time (unless they are of a ranked status and their role has been filled). The reason I archive them is to allow high-quality face-claims to fall back into the barrel for choosing.

 

I also only archive posts that are 4+ months old, unless there are 10+ posts from the last two months. I never, ever archive anything from the current month, nor the past month. And if it's a special event thread (which get their own forum topic anyhow) I always leave at least ONE example of the event up, even though we only do those every 4-6 months. It's not a perfect science, and I know that people tend to creep our archives. It is where a LOT of our guests look. Would it be easier for them if the archives hadn't existed? Probably, but it's the style of game I inherited, I'll keep it.

[FriedKilamari 46]

15 hours ago, Morrigan said:

 

See but archives aren't filing cabinets. They aren't meant for that. As many have stated already they are a place to move the old and allow for the new. A filing cabinet doesn't move "old documents from this file to another file" a file is held in tact across an archive. So to archive one part is literally to "expunge" that file from existence.

 

Maybe I file things weirdly, because back when my grandma was still alive and running the family business she'd have files for every year, and when the year was up all of those files would get moved into a larger filing cabinet so that she'd have the new year's files closer at hand?

 

But I'm firmly of the opinion that moving something into the archives isn't expunging or removing it from existence. If the archives is public, it's just been moved to another location for organization purposes? Different lines of thought, I guess!

[Icewolf 258]

On resource sites, I've seen rules where ads are archived after two weeks of them being posted, etc... I find archiving is fine, as long as the original poster asks for it, or if they've not been on the site for a year or more, but if it's done too soon, it's an annoyance for the poster and those resource sites that archive too soon don't help new sites become established. Instead, they make the owner feel bad because they don't have anyone on the site, or lazy because there aren't enough posts when behind the scenes they are busy working on lots of aspects of the site. (I've been on sites which have archived things without my asking them to, and when I asked for the threads to be reactivated because I didn't want to appear that I was spamming the board by creating threads with similar topics for the same site, I got the feeling that it was an inconvenience for the staff and they didn't want to do it, so archiving can just become another form of unnecessary member vs staff/admin conflict that you don't need on a site.)

 

I don't like deleting accounts unless they are spam accounts or accounts of people who've caused trouble, so I guess I would only 'clean up' things which I thought would put people off the joining the site. (I'd probably be more likely to clear out the c-box or equivalent) than the forum itself. You can never tell if people will come back or not and if I was coming back to a site after being away for a while, I wouldn't want my characters deleted and my threads moved, so I wouldn't do that to a member.

Edited October 31, 2017 by Icewolf

[CovertSphinx 710]

I usually delete accounts that have no posts associated with them at all after 3-6 months. If there have been posts made, a character established, etc, I'll usually leave the account for about a year minimum. I don't make a habit of purging accounts aside from bots/spam/ghosts. 

 

As for archiving threads, back in the days when the site I was on was big, we ended up with PAGES of dead/abandoned/finished threads in many of the boards. So we went around deleting anything was a basic "dead thread" (or the members associated with them had left the board) and locked the "good" threads before moving them to a single archive location. This was clean up all the old junk laying around as staff made some changes and the plot of the site went in a more...organized direction. 

 

 

With my new sites, I didn't set up an archive at all. I'm just locking the threads and leaving them where they are as "record". My opinion is that archives are really only useful/meaningful when you have a shitton of clutter laying around. 

[Rune 1,099]

Accounts - Every other month (or so) accounts that don't get claimed, get deleted. But we also have a lot of people show up, make an account and then never come back.

 

Posts - I only archive posts about once every six months or so and then its only ones full of deleted accounts. Unless asked, posts will stay put for the most part. Sometimes people request they be archived or deleted or what have you. I rarely, if ever, bother locking a thread that isn't staff-posted news or whatever.

 

Wanted ads - Claimed ones get moved to a separate 'claimed' board. But most of my members do a general collection board for all their wanteds and update it as needed.

 

WIP applications get moved to a separate abandoned WIP forum. About once a year I clean out the ones that didn't have any info in them.

 

[William 4]

In previous RP admin jobs, I did do clean up... because it got large and needed to sweep after lost and forsaken logs, etc. But since LRS is fairly new, I am just in cruise mode right now... with high hopes for it to change... like membership drives and increasing numbers of players.

 

 

Edited November 3, 2017 by William

[ChrisOwl 59]

I don't like archives... like to keep things right where they were left. It keeps the setting relevant. I don't see the point in having different boards for location if they are just going to get moved.

I'll probably put up an archive for thing like uncompleted character apps though in case someone comes back looking for them at some point.

[Sage 289]

On 10/29/2017 at 11:31 PM, Morrigan said:

So to archive one part is literally to "expunge" that file from existence.

 

That's not true! Here's what archivists.org has to say: "The word archive refers to permanently valuable records...they have continuing value to the creating agency and to other potential users. They are the documentary evidence of past events." And I agree with it! Archiving isn't "expunging that file from existence," it's moving it into a safe location for record-keeping purposes. The filing cabinet analogy is a perfect example. A company keeps current records of invoices in a set of drawers in a filing cabinet. Once Accounting has accounted for all of them and is ready to start the new year's set of invoices, the old ones are moved and labeled under the previous year. They can then go back to those files at any time for any reason - they're readily available as records. And they don't get confused with this years' or ongoing files.

 

I'm definitely a proponent of archiving threads that are finished or inactive. I don't agree with deleting them, as they are important records and part of the story, even if the were unfinished or abandoned. And I don't like leaving them in active forums when they're clearly not active anymore. It's not just about clutter, it's about the active storyline. When a thread is moved to an archive, it's a visual signal for me to put that thread behind me and move the story forward. Leaving it in the active forum forever keeps me from doing that. It leaves it with an unfinished feeling to me, like there's something I need to do with it. If you have an active community, it shouldn't make your forums feel empty. If that's the case, encourage more activity. 

[Samantha 64]

We archive just to keep the site clean. We're a pretty active site so some of our boards have 2 pages or even more of just active RP threads. We move the inactive and finished threads to the archives just to make sure the boards aren't cluttered. 

 

We do have separate boards in archiving so RP related things go in one board, while things like sign-ups, polls, and other things like that go into another one. We also make boards for our events and move the entire board to the archive instead of deleting the board so finding prizes and things like that is easy. 

 

JCINK also has a search function so you can look for threads that way if you want to find an old one without going through the archives and even if you can't remember the name of the thread you can search by just one word in the topic or by member. I don't think it makes us look inactive at all, if anything, I think it makes us look more active because all the threads that are in the IC boards are all active and the threads in the archives aren't super old so it's easy to see there's constant activity. 

[AlbinoFyre 3]

I will archive threads out but usually it's due to one of a few reasons : 

1) The thread in question was completed. A large portion of my players use a tracker system so if they want to go back and read a thread they have the links to access them.

2) The thread is dead because one or more people involved in said thread are gone

3) The thread is abandoned and hasn't had a post in over 40-60 days. I'll always put these back if I'm asked or made a mistake.

 

I try not to go overboard with it because I don't want things to look inactive but I can't resist the urge to tidy up every so often. The only time I've really cleaned out huge amounts was when taking a site through a plot shift that jumped everyone forward in time a year... and I'll never do that again. It was a mess.

[Raven 18]

TNI does activity checks about every 2-3 months (scheduled to avoid other large events, and well ahead of time). Accounts that don't post are made inactive and claims are removed. We also archive threads that haven't been posted to in more than a month. It's really easy to add an ooc note to the first post about where the events take place, and I usually do, along with the date and time of day ^^

[nyx 164]

I have OCD about it so I have to clean up but with threads, I normally do it every three months or so. Mostly if one, the members in question were deleted or retired (sorted inactive) or two after a site-wide event. If people haven't finished their threads by the end date of the event we move it to a neutral forum we have. 

 

However, you guys are really giving me something to think about when it comes to normal threads being completed and leaving them be. I'm going to bring this up with my co-admin tomorrow.