Interestingly enough, none of the stickies in the Suggestions forums describe how to properly bump a topic to the first page. It is generally agreed upon that you should only bump a topic once every 24 hours, OR if the topic is no longer on the first page. My suggestion is to change the OR to an AND.

I, and some other Scratchers I've seen, are getting a little annoyed at users who bump topics many times within a 24-hour period. The reason these topics are getting bumped this often is because they keep moving off the first page, even when 24 hours haven't passed. This causes some users to get frustrated that certain topics are trying to get attention, even when no one appears to be interested in discussing the suggestion.

This is especially troublesome with the recent rise in forum activity due to the recent quarantine. In essence, I think forum topics should only be bumped after 24 hours — one bump per day should be enough. But of course there's no reason to bump a forum topic that's on the first page, so we should make sure the forum post is not on the first page as well, before bumping it.

To summarize, my suggestion is:

Only bump forum topics when 24 hours have passed since the last reply, AND the topic is no longer on the first page of the forum. In addition, this rule should be added to a sticky in the Suggestions forum, for clarification.

Anyone else feel similarly about this idea?

first post yay

Yeah, i get kinda annoyed when i see the same topic over and over again because it gets bumped so many times.
although it is not likely for a topic to stay on the front page for 24 hours anyway

Yes! I agree! Let's do that!

That does seem like an interesting idea.

However, I don't think that it should be exactly limited to once per day.

As of recent, I have gotten on the suggestions forum more and usually only look at the first page. Eventually, I look through everything and forget to go to the second page, even though I want to read more suggestions.

Plus, sometimes I want to bump my topics two or three times a day.

Personally, I don't think it should also have to be on the second page either. If I see a thread bumped a few times and no one has responded it would tell me that I should comment on it, and so I would.

However, I do also get annoyed with constant bumping and when half a page is “bump”, so I do agree that there should be a limit.

Edit: I am not sure how much the “You can bump every 24 hours even if it is on the front page” rule applies anyway, because everything gets pushed to the second page within a couple of hours

I agree with this.

Though, would this only apply to specific forums? Because the show and tell forums are mainly just people bumping.

ThatOneWeirdDude wrote:

I agree with this.

Though, would this only apply to specific forums? Because the show and tell forums are mainly just people bumping.

Hmm, the show and tell is another interesting thing about it.

I wouldn't be opposed to it being added to that section, but maybe every 12 hours? People want their projects seen

I definitely agree with this. I feel like most suggestions at least get a few responses, and if they get enough support, then an ST member will notice it. I especially dislike it when multiple people explain why a suggestion is not a good idea, and the creator of the suggestion still bumps it. At least, that's how I feel about bumping topics in the suggestion forums, I'm not really sure about the other ones.

Hmm, I find this interesting, the only problem I see, (agreeing with @PizzaAddict4Life here) is that the increased forum activity will make it so that even after bumping, a topic is on the front page for maybe 30 minutes, and it doesn't take long before scratchers won't look far back enough to see their topic. I think a bump every 6-12 hours would be a good limit, especially because by then, the topic is buried under who knows how many topics, and a good section of topics are being rotated through.

I think that after the COVID-19 crisis is over, a limit of 12 hours between bumping seems fair, I'm going to keep tabs on this suggestion and see what I can do to help this idea be implemented.

I'd wish bumping would become less frequent.
Perhaps if you bump three times in a row, you can only bump 48 hours after the last until someone says something.

fdreerf wrote:

I'd wish bumping would become less frequent.
Perhaps if you bump three times in a row, you can only bump 48 hours after the last until someone says something.

As do I, though I can understand that people want their topic to get seen, this is a great solution

However, I have never made an actual topic, so I wouldn't know the desperate urge to have replies on your topic, or on a suggestion you think is a good idea

KittyFireSt0rm wrote:

fdreerf wrote:

I'd wish bumping would become less frequent.
Perhaps if you bump three times in a row, you can only bump 48 hours after the last until someone says something.

As do I, though I can understand that people want their topic to get seen, this is a great solution

However, I have never made an actual topic, so I wouldn't know the desperate urge to have replies on your topic, or on a suggestion you think is a good idea

Generally, more people will reply to your topic based on the title, not how many times you bump.

fdreerf wrote:

KittyFireSt0rm wrote:

fdreerf wrote:

I'd wish bumping would become less frequent.
Perhaps if you bump three times in a row, you can only bump 48 hours after the last until someone says something.

As do I, though I can understand that people want their topic to get seen, this is a great solution

However, I have never made an actual topic, so I wouldn't know the desperate urge to have replies on your topic, or on a suggestion you think is a good idea

Generally, more people will reply to your topic based on the title, not how many times you bump.

That is also true, I just check every topic I haven't read yet, I understand most don't though

Bump.

In all seriousness, though, I agree with this suggestion. I, too have been noticing users bumping their topics way too many times (not just in the Suggestions forum). I'm curious, though, how would this be enforced in a way that would be time-effective for the forum moderators? (Assuming that it would mean that users can now report posts for excessive bumping - which I think would lead to a lot more reports.) From what I've noticed in the past, a lot of users unfortunately don't seem to read the stickies.

Maybe there could be some feature implemented that limits the number of times a user can post “bump” on any given topic, based on how long its been since the last bump, and what page the topic is currently in? And if they bump it too many times, there could be something like the 60 second rule that says something along the lines of “Sorry, you have to wait 24 hours before this topic can be bumped again.”

joshuaho wrote:

Maybe there could be some feature implemented that limits the number of times a user can post “bump” on any given topic, based on how long its been since the last bump, and what page the topic is currently in? And if they bump it too many times, there could be something like the 60 second rule that says something along the lines of “Sorry, you have to wait 24 hours before this topic can be bumped again.”

I was envisioning this suggestion as less of a “law” and more as a “social norm.” That is, the “forum helpers” and/or “mini-mods” could enforce this by educating others on good bumping practice, within or outside of the forums.

(I imagine that actually implementing this somehow would be quite troublesome since there's many ways to go around a bump…)

Indeed, lots of users already seem to be aware of the idea that you should “bump a topic once every 24 hours or if the topic is no longer on the first page.” If we can collectively agree to change this idea (which is what a notice in the stickies would enforce), it would only be a matter of time before forum users start getting this new idea in their minds.

Za-Chary wrote:

(I imagine that actually implementing this somehow would be quite troublesome since there's many ways to go around a bump…)

It might detect that if the OP (or, in general, the same user) has been posting messages frequently within 24 hours, the message would display.
also you seem to hint at that minimods and forum helpers are different

fdreerf wrote:

Za-Chary wrote:

(I imagine that actually implementing this somehow would be quite troublesome since there's many ways to go around a bump…)

It might detect that if the OP (or, in general, the same user) has been posting messages frequently within 24 hours, the message would display.
also you seem to hint at that minimods and forum helpers are different

I like that idea, it's a great idea!!

Za-Chary wrote:

I was envisioning this suggestion as less of a “law” and more as a “social norm.” That is, the “forum helpers” and/or “mini-mods” could enforce this by educating others on good bumping practice, within or outside of the forums.

Ah - I see. Actually, that does sound like a great idea!

What would it look like if there was also a topic about this posted in the Announcements forum (if this was implemented)? (Because I'm seeing this in other places such as Show and Tell - maybe this norm could apply to all of the forums?)

What's stopping people from bumping normally, even if this suggestion gets implemented?

Also, I don't agree for this rule to be in the Suggestions forum. A really good suggestion might not get seen until an entire day has passed, because they can't bump until 24 hours have passed (though I don't think a lot of people would really wait 24 hours to bump again)
honestly if i got harassed by mini-mods every time i bumped, i would actually wait the 24 hours

Although this would be good for the Requests forum, so all the shops stop flooding it and people can see the real requests.

I am kind of on the fence for this one. You see, I absolutely agree for Suggestions since I feel that I tend to see the same suggestions on the first page all the time. But, on the Requests forum it's rather different because if I didn't bump for 24 hours in the current environment, my shop would be on the 3rd or 4th page by the time I woke up the next morning, leading to a significant drop in orders. In the Requests forum, and presumably the Collaboration forum as well, it is very difficult to keep your shop / collaboration running if you're constantly falling down the pages, and no-one's joining because they aren't aware your shop / collaboration even exists. I know from experience that most shops that reaches the 5th page is generally closed by the time the week is out. I would suggest to keep the old rules for Requests and Collaboration, but I imagine that would end up rather confusing and with complaints about it being unfair. So really, I can't support the old rules or the proposed ones.

Sorry but no support. Due to the recent pandemic there has been SO much activity on scratch that if we all waited 24 hours to bump our topic it could be on the 5th page already, even more for foumrs like Requests and Collaborations.