I love Sparky. He serves a purpose. But 4 threads at once seems off for some reason.
What about one every 2-3 hours? Around the clock? Can that be set up to see how it goes?
It's just that several at once seems to flood the forums and buries any threads that may have some legs.
Most users can only see 10 threads per page, and when 4 or 5 hit at once, other threads get pushed to the bottom or even to the 2nd page.
Just an observation to take into account.

I agree. One or two every few hours would be great. It's to long in between his post and when he does post there's to many threads. Also, not that i don't like the stories, poems, etc, but they aren't getting any action, they are taking up space. It seems when an adjustment is made to Sparky he does a complete 360....cause now we get no adult themed threads at all (or one a week) idk maybe it's just me. I try to participate, but some of the fetched threads are boring and not communication worthy.

Bump
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@MrWalkSoftly: Did you see the junk he just posted? Like wth are we suppose to do with that?

@Critter1211: Yep, that's why I bumped this lol

Unfortunately it's not possible to have Sparky just do 1 thread every 2-3 hours with the Forum software. I can change how often each feed is pulled, but when you guys mentioned they were flooding the forums and recommended added a few new feeds, I set all of them to the minimum of 1 every 12 hours. It's not possible to fetch less often than that, so the other solution is to kill the feeds that aren't getting traction so that they don't flood the forums.

These are the current subreddits whose feeds are being pulled once every 12 hours:

AskMen
AskReddit
AskWomen
Damnthatsinteresting
ELI5
nosleep
Relationships
Sex


Since we're a dating site, I'm thinking at a minimum we should keep:

AskMen
AskWomen
AskReddit
Relationships
Sex


Another subreddit I think would be fun for the Forums is one called WouldYouRather which asks fun questions such as "WYR Be the smartest person in the world or the stupidest person in the world? (In both scenarios you have the same level of intelligence you have now)". I think that has a better chance of generating engagement than ELI5, nosleep, etc. Sparky just added a few new such threads from that feed to give you guys an idea.

This way we cut back on the number of feeds we pull, but keep the ones more likely to generate engagement, so that we have relevant quality over irrelevant quantity. Note, however, that the feeds will still get pulled at the same time, so they will still flood the forums, but if there are less feeds being pulled, it won't be as bad. To keep Sparky from flooding, I would have to change how often each feed is pulled (one every 12 hours, another every 11 hours, another every 10 hours, etc.), but that means some feeds will get pulled more often than others, so it solves one problem, but potentially creates another. However, if we have some feeds that tend to gain more traction than others, then we can have those pulled more often, and then it won't be a problem if feeds are pulled at different frequencies so that they don't flood the forums all at once.

What do you guys think?

I agree to keeping the ones you mentioned, they seem the most interesting and i love the idea of wouldyourather, that sounds fun.

The issue I see is that the Today's Post page...the page I, and I assume most, go to to see what's happening....gets flooded with 4-5 new threads at once. Threads already going that have a. little traction may get pushed down. as the default setting is 10 threads per page.
A compromise may be to make the 1st page of Today's Posts 15 or even 20 (my premium setting) as the default if that's possible.

As to the subjects themselves, Andres, I think you are correct as to what the subjects should be. More "dating site" subjects seem to fit better right now.
The others, some I had asked for, may be better suited when the site and forums grow bigger.

Right now, I'd keep:

AskMen
AskWomen
Sex
Relationships
(Seemingly back where we started, I know lol)

Keeps those 4, and make the first page 15 or 20 threads if possible. If not possible, just use those 4 subjects.

Also, the sex threads, while weird sometimes, still get posts, whether positive or negative...chatter is chatter, I'd increase their frequency.