I'm not super familiar with how things typically work on an internet forum, but the only other one I ever used had certain rules regarding starting threads, namely that a user had to be registered for a certain period of time, the text in the thread had to be a certain length (discouraging posting a link and boogying off), and a certain number of threads were available to the author over a certain period (one a day, I think). A fourth parameter, which wasn't used at the site, but could have been, was that a certain amount of rep was needed.
Obviously all four points can be rather easily beaten by determined spambots (that mass register at once, post once or twice somewhere and mutually rep the shit out of each other, then wait to spam with lorem ipsum threads featuring a link at the top), but I don't think spambots are a problem here.
Instead, we're having a certain amount of topic duplication I don't recall before (save having about six anti-Harry threads going on at once) that's related to either people's trying to get their voices "heard above the din" (by starting a thread instead of making comments in a thread that's many pages deep) or by starting a thread simply without making the effort of getting to know the community at all (or hoping that the new thread garners some kind of ancillary revenue for the original poster).
Of course as long as people are responding higgledy-piggledy to nearly any thread out there, I reckon it's not a problem, but I'm throwing the idea out there that maybe starting a thread should be a privilege that's earned.
Obviously all four points can be rather easily beaten by determined spambots (that mass register at once, post once or twice somewhere and mutually rep the shit out of each other, then wait to spam with lorem ipsum threads featuring a link at the top), but I don't think spambots are a problem here.
Instead, we're having a certain amount of topic duplication I don't recall before (save having about six anti-Harry threads going on at once) that's related to either people's trying to get their voices "heard above the din" (by starting a thread instead of making comments in a thread that's many pages deep) or by starting a thread simply without making the effort of getting to know the community at all (or hoping that the new thread garners some kind of ancillary revenue for the original poster).
Of course as long as people are responding higgledy-piggledy to nearly any thread out there, I reckon it's not a problem, but I'm throwing the idea out there that maybe starting a thread should be a privilege that's earned.