+1 on that.  The pictures just seem to make the jokes come easier.

I like the new icon that identifies picture threads.  Having the picture threads all in one place may be "neater" than having them in the regular forums, but I think they'd be harder to police that way.  And the only way threads "clutter up" the first page is when there are new replies to them, which helps both mods and users see "new stuff."  If you just click on the button that takes you to where you left off in a thread, it should be pretty easy to see if any thread has really new, useful stuff, or if it's just a bunch of added jokes.

Picture threads just jam everything up. Move them

I like some picture threads (SOCOM, I'm looking at you) but realistically I think they should have their own forum.

I like them mixed in with the discussion.  If you take that out all we have left is trannys and Obama.

Please keep this a gun forum first.

It would be a good place to kill time, knowing exactly where all the photo threads are located.


I motion to second or vote to approve, or whatever.  


 

In addition to pic threads taking up a lot of room in tech threads, having to click on the pic thread link in the "link thread" can't take me to the last post I visited.  And that makes me sad.

I agree, leave it alone. The reason they take up half the forum as you say is because they are popular.



 

Change the title to AR general discussions. Don't look for a hole the peg will fit in shape the hole to it the peg.
Quit looking at it as a technical section.
Move the looking for cheap parts to the building section.

Having pics in their own subsection would be fine.

Now, for the no comments - hard to pull off. We sometimes see things in a pic we've never seen before. The poster gets questioned and the thread balloons with back and forth, sometimes for pages as it drifts off topic.

Two suggestions - require a pic regardless or no post. Second, no "copy all" of the entire post just to ask a simple question. That clogs the thread with a lot of dead weight and slows uploading. Do we really need to see the same pic four or five times repeatedly over pages of the thread? Goes to either post a pic or send a PM.

Not going to happen, tho, because posters aren't that disciplined and think the rules are always for someone else. So, other than shoving all the pic threads into one hopper, things won't really change. Net result, Pic threads will start up in tech anyway and it won't' be any better. It has to be moderated 24/7 which would tick off some of the posters driving down the hit rates.

That will impact sponsors.

There's no win, it's a free for all, same as a party at the house. You can't open the doors and just invite anyone because you will get just anyone.

Therefore pic forums should be paid membership only.

They're going to get moved into the abyss where people don't frequent. This forum gets a ton of foot traffic.

Move them please. It is virtually impossible to read through this forum with all the pic threads cluttering things up.

Don't get me wrong, I love the picture threads, they just need their own section.

I am for the idea as long as having a dedicated photo forum doesn't mean we can't still occasionally post photos in other threads in the tech forums.  In other words, if having a dedicated photo forum means an outright ban of posting any photos in the tech thread, I am against it.

I think a dedicated forum would make it much easier to navigate.

YES!

I don't see what would be left for the AR Discussion at that point... Unless its a new guy asking "which rifle is best."
A lot of topics get moved to the "Rifles, Uppers,  Lowers, Barrels and more."  After they get moved there, they die because they don't get much visibility.
Maybe get rid of the "Rifles, Upper, Lowers" section because those are all AR Discussion topics anyway.

I've been asking about this for a while, I think it would be highly beneficial to the tech forum. Half the time pic threads cover 75% of the first page. I do enjoy some of the pic threads but I think they should definitely have their own subforum.

This is true. Lots of things get moved to that section and they pretty much always die.

As an admin on another board (not firearms related), I do know what you're talking about.  But the amount of traffic on this board is so huge, I think having a separate set of forums just for picture threads would be way harder to even dig into user reported problems than the regular text threads full of normal BS.  My other board depends on the diligence of a number of loyal, long-time users to both monitor for spam and report when posters start getting their shorts in a wad over this or that.  As with ARFCOM, volunteers run the whole show.  I can't imagine the amount of time it takes to moderate these forums, and the amount of stress it can cause when Jerkface starts calling Craphead names and the usual gang of idiots dogpiles on it.  You guys have my utmost respect for keeping this place from being a free for all or spam paradise.

Do it

Is it done yet? JUST DO IT.  That's catchy! I should copyright that.

On the other hand, I find that section more useful as it doesn't get "what's better for SHTF - Del Ton or Bushmaster?" threads.

I definitely understand where your coming from and agree that we don't need a forum for every possible sub-category imaginably, but, a dedicated picture forum would (in my humble opinion) help organize things.

I also agree that the AR discussions section sees a large amount of traffic while most of the others see a comparatively minute amount of exposure. A possible solution to that issue could be to post a sticky that would replace the current "Links to AR15 picture threads" with a single link to the new picture forum, thereby offering a place to consolidate all of the current picture threads while still generating a significant amount of traffic.  

YES

Bird is correct.  I think some folks care more about the aesthetic than anything else and leafing through picture threads are exactly what they need.  I generally speaking like some of the picture threads and when I get the itch to start throwing together I take a look through some of them for ideas one what people are doing.  

I think moving them is a good call.  I think it will become a high traffic area for the site far more so than the basics section...which is pretty sad.

I think moving the pic threads to their own forum would leave room in the General to combine some in to it such as Uppers Lowers or Build it Yourself or even Slings and accessories. I sometimes get confused as to which to post in to as there gets to be so many sub forums. I think alot of people ,mainly new ones hit the General and don't venture beyond. I know it keeps it categorized but alot of it starts in General anyways then gets moved.

I agree completely with this.

I think it makes sense to make a picture forum. One central place to locate them and frees up the tech forums.

I agree. Half the threads on the first page are pic threads, and they might as well all be stickies as often as they get bumped.

Moving the pic threads to their own forum would keep the actual technical threads from getting knocked off into page 2 oblivion.

Please do this !

I like it the way it is. The photo threads are usually identified, so if you don't want to see them don't click. I like to see how other people set up their guns, and sometimes I get a good idea for my own stuff.

Good idea as it would clean up the discussions forum AND make it easier to find pics.

I think it would be a good idea. I also agree that there seems to be no difference between AR Discussions and Rifles, Uppers, Lowers, Barrels, and More. It would problably be easier if the two were combined into one tech forum and then the AR-15/M16 Retro Forum was turned into a historic/USGI forum (including A2s, M16A4s, M4s, etc.).

Is it just me, or are we seeing a third (or fourth) wave of exactly the same proportion of yes/no posts that we've seen since this thread was started?

Aimless, are you collecting data, examining rationales, or doing something else?  It would help to know what you're looking for in feedback...

A quick glance through this thread shows mosst are in favor

But yeah, it would help to know what you are looking for

I think just adding a subforum in the AR15 section would work. Call it "GOTD", allow only pic threads and any discussions get deleted or moved. Move all current relevent picture threads over to it. Done.

 
Gat Of The Day?


All in favor, AYE!

Pic thread?



All for em

A sub forum for pic threads would be cool. It'll clean up some of the content in the different sections, and it'll make it easier for folks to find the pic threads if it was all in one place.

Wrong tab, bro.



 

Aimless, I'm still for it as long as we don't get sent to the bottom of the barrel in the boonies somewhere. (The sections that don't get seen)

I think an intro section might be good as well. As you know we get a ton of "hi I'm new here, and here's some pics of my first AR" threads. I think finding a easily found spot for an into section and an easily found section for the pic/clone threads would help keep AR Discussions more technical, assuming that's your motive here.

+1 from me on the idea of a dedicated pictures forum. I dig it. Easier to find the pic threads, and easier to navigate the tech forums. Win/win.

 
I'll play devils advocate here for a moment even though I'm in support of a GOTD forum....


While having a GOTD forum would be nice to send all of the picture threads to, I doubt it'll really result in a more technical oriented AR Discussions thread.  Even if you also create an "introduce yourself" thread, you'll still have people posting in the wrong forums and you'll still have threads getting derailed by valid/invalid discussions pertaining to the original post.  I've seen more technical threads devolve into "TL:DR don't care, XYZ fanboism comments, and pictures of their rifle" all not relating back to the original post/question.  


Also keep in mind that ar15.com is the largest online international gun forum now with almost half a million registered users (active users is likely a lot lower).  As such, the ratio of true "technical information" compared to the flavour of the month/fad of the year tends to favor more of the herd mentality than the technical information side.  With almost half a million registered users, probably less than 5% of those registered users actually have a background to claim technical expertise.  The information they contribute often times gets lost amidst the rests of the posters out there.   So on one hand it would clean up the discussions thread, on the other I don't expect it to drastically shift the forum from it's current trend.  Currently the AR section has:



That's 18 different forums!  I think 4 forums have been added since I joined in 2007.  We can all understand why they were created, to de-clutter the AR discussion forum and try to make more specific tailored places to find and locate exactly what it is you're looking for.  However the reality is most often times people just default to the AR Discussions forum and the 17 other forums don't get as much traffic (which is also why very few people post in them).  


The only solution I can see to really improve the forums is to do two things, (1) get more moderators and aggressively moderate the forum, and (2) merge the 18 forums down into a much more manageable swath.  As of me writing this post there are 6077 users on the forum right now and 22 of them are moderators.  That's approximately 273 users per moderator (and they're not all site wide moderators either).  I'm sure Aimless and all the other moderators will agree, being a moderator isn't an easy job and many who think they could be a mod really aren't cut out for it.  The time commitment is fairly substantial and you're not getting paid to do it.  I've been a moderator on other forums before, and sometimes it really really really sucks.  Those who are already mods can tell you that it is very difficult to find individuals who are really worthy of being mods and are also willing to put in the time commitment commensurate with that position.  Aimless, if you're reading this do you know how many mods there are total for the entire website?


As far as consolidating the forums...this is the best I can come up with kind of trying to model it after the AK side some



It's far from perfect, but it would consolidate things down so the mods are spread across 10 forums instead of 18.  The real issue are the sheer volume of threads being created, often virtually identical to threads that have already been created, so threads will either get BTT or will get buried.  I'd like to think people try to dig through, google, and do their own research before posting....but I know that I've also been guilty of saying, "Screw that noise, I'm not going through 12-25 pages of threads."  And just creating a new thread.  That's just the reality we all have to face and come to accept.

I like this indeed.  I do think the basics section is a good thing though.

 
Would re-flagging it as AR Technical perhaps tailor it mo-betta?




 

Get rid of "Rifles, Uppers, Lowers, Barrels"
These are all tec discussions.
Otherwise what is left for AR Discussion after the picture threads are gone?
It will just be full of newbies posting "which rifle" topics.