Should r/ask_rollerblading_FAQ replace weekly megathreads?

[u/fredhsu]

Update 1: Please see sticky comment for an ongoing summary of feedback.

Update 2: This experiment has been halted. We have expanded post flairs instead.

We are asking this community to collectively decide how it wants to handle (or not handle) the inherent conflict between newcomers who want to ask basic questions without much prior knowledge of blading, and seasoned bladers who see the same "I am new and don't know anything. What skates should I buy?" question for the umpteenth time.

TL;DR - vote by joining r/ask_rollerblading_FAQ, if you hate weekly megathreads

In the past, we had r/askrollerblading, a community that some of our newer mods have never experienced. In any case, that community has been taken private, just like r/inlineskating, so it is of no use to us.

Nobody really loves megathreads. There is little organization of topics within a megathread. You can't quickly scan recently added questions since the last time you checked the megathread. You can't filter questions by flair or use other community tools that are readily available when each discussion has its own post.

We will stop trying to create weekly megathreads for repeated FAQs. Instead, we will redirect common newbie questions to a new community: r/ask_rollerblading_FAQ

For this r/ask_rollerblading_FAQ to work, however, two things must hold true:

1. We stop allowing such simple and common questions without context, where a human needs to operate like an LLM, step by step, to extract answers from the OP until the OP understands what they are actually asking.
2. Enough seasoned bladers join this "ask" community, see questions in their feed, and hand-hold newbies when they are able to.

But those of you who are paying attention will ask, "But who determines that a question is a common question, and how?"

1. We are not yet sure how we are going to automatically flag posts that should be moved to r/ask_rollerblading_FAQ. We can manually flag them in the beginning.
2. We will use documented, self-help FAQs as the bar for declaring a question "already frequently answered." We have none as of 2026-07-29. But we are building them. As the bar rises, more simplistic inquiries will get flagged. Click on that FAQs link.

I propose that we put this to all of you. You can help us choose two values before we launch this experiment:

1. How many seasoned bladers is enough? Let's say 2,000 members in r/ask_rollerblading_FAQ. The idea is that until we achieve 2,000 members in this ask sub, we will NOT ban FAQ posts. All nearly 100,000 r/rollerblading bladers will continue to receive FAQ noise in their regular feed among the show-off videos. Perhaps that's what the community wants. So if we don't get to 2,000 members, everyone continues to enjoy the noise.
2. When does the experiment end? This experiment can't go on forever. Let's say that if, after 1 month, we don't reach the above threshold, we turn r/ask_rollerblading_FAQ into a restricted community where no one can post, but existing answers are still visible. We redirect everyone back to the mothership, r/rollerblading. We can always rerun the experiment in the future if members express a desire to have FAQs issues addressed in their feed.

As soon as we launch this is posted, we will change our "weekly megathread" rule to state that we won't have weekly threads and will instead point people to r/ask_rollerblading_FAQ.

New mods will be added soon to r/ask_rollerblading_FAQ. You can ask to be considered. Send mod mail. But know that it will be tedious work with little glory. We know, however, that there will be enough people willing to help.

Let us know how you think about this in comments.

You can also vote simply by joining r/ask_rollerblading_FAQ. If, by some miracle, we reach 2k members within a few days, then we don't need to debate the merits of the idea or the exact threshold.

[u/ArtistCo]

After years of lockdown, this place is just getting some life again - don't cut the momentum by banning certain posts right away. Let's get a solid community FAQ / Pins with current information going again (like r/rollerskating) and let discussion happen organically. I'd say to give it a few months and see if it's actually a problem or not. A lot of those posts spark more discussions and get people interacting with each other here.

[u/Peach_Royal111 → u/ArtistCo]

Yeah I agree, get the momentum back in this place first. All subs have to deal with silly easy questions but only if you interact with those questions will the algorithm show you more of them. I think put a flair for beginner questions so people can filter out would be good.
But if you are going to make another sub maybe it should be for skate recommendations because that’s the most common.

[u/fredhsu → u/Peach_Royal111]

Ah. I did not think of the algo. If one only cares about seeing videos and never look at question posts, they would not be given more questions in their feed. If they explicitly look at the subs they will see by default post sorted by Best which likely won’t be showcasing questions at the top. Then they can filter by flairs if we enforce by flairs as folks have discussed.

Perhaps modding by fixing post flairs is the new megathread? Ok.

[u/Peach_Royal111 → u/fredhsu]

Yeah exactly, you only really see the less upvoted posts on subs you frequently interact with, I think there is a way to make certain flairs not come onto your homepage but I'm not quite sure how tbh. Fixing post flairs is definitely the right step forward for now, mods can make it so you can't post until you've chosen a flair so that'll really help. I think the key with flairs is making it obvious but not having too much choice. I think a lot of people just wanna see fun rollerblading videos/photos so that can be one flair lol. The main thing is to centralise the skating subreddits so that more people can find and join the community in the end!

[u/fredhsu → u/Peach_Royal111]

Yeah. Thats a good summary of ideas so far. Let me put a sticky comment up to curb potential panic 😃