Hi folks.
This may or may not be my place to say this (being only a new member), however I have been following Camelot since day one, and keeping an eye on Avalon since day one. I have also been researching this whole scene for a substantial amount of time before Camelot was even around, so please be assured I'm not posting this simply to rustle up negativity.
I was somewhat surprised to see this thread, as literally the previous evening I was discussing this very issue with someone, perhaps allot of people are feeling the same way or this was some personal bizzar coincidence that this thread happened start after the discussion.
Anyway, all that put aside, I do feel there is some merit to what TRANCOSO is fundamentally saying. I personally feel there is no point whatsoever in starting a new thread anymore because as soon as its posted its literally pushed back so far in the recent posts list, a very small amount of people (if any) will see it. Now I do relies a busy form is a busy forum, and if anything this is usually a good thing, however a significant number of this activity is somewhat irrelevant to what Avalon, I think, is all about. More specifically a person may post something one minute refresh their page then relies its been swallowed by new threads with questionable subject matter and content and thread bumping for no other good reason but to bump a thread.
I have also observed there seems to be an increasing culture amongst some people to get their "number of posts" as high as they can. I liken this somewhat to a social networking site like perhaps facebook, where allot of people add contacts for no other reason but to have a bigger contact list then the next person. A race pursues to keep up with other people so often folks resort to posting arbitrary things to get their post counter high. Couple this with the "ranking" system on Avalon, you can see how "some" folks might slip into a culture of what I am saying above.
So those are my own observations.
A small suggestion perhaps may be to have two "recent activity" links.. The first being a Todays Posts link, which will do what its doing now, tho a second link could be Todays new threads or Recent threads... this will be a link something similar to "todays posts" but not be effected by replies within threads, and yes perhaps it might be a thought to restrict the number of new threads someone can start in a 24/48 hour period, if anything may help people think a little more and post stuff a little more relevant and less arbitrary.
I see allot of reference to eXchanger here, and although she dose post allot, what she dose post is usually of good interest and is generally in context to events so I assure you eXchanger its not you or any other individual I'm talking about but rather a general culture, and everyone including me is susceptible to that culture. I admit I have started what seems in hindsight irrelevant to events threads.
In general Avalon is doing a great job, and I commend the admin,mods and users for making it what it is. One of the hardest if not impossible jobs in the world is keeping everyone happy in any given situation, this includes busy Internet forums, all one can hope to achieve is a balance so to the admin/mods in particular your doing a great job. And to the other members senior, regular or whatever thank you for being on the front line in keeping the forum vibrant and active.. you guys ARE the forum after all.
But all said and done, lets not get intoxicated by this whole thing
Anyway that's it really, sorry if I have spoken out of place.
Best regards
Pan