First of all, I know you fancy yourself as a person of elevated importance, but this thread was already made. You don't get to remake it just because you're you. It's the same exact complaint.
Second, the "thread about nothing" has been around for months. Why is it only now becoming a "cancer?"
Personally, I suspect this is really just a complaint about the number of threads per page. We used to have 20 threads per page. Now there are 50. So, within the top 100 posts, threads that would get cycled from pages 2-3 to page one now just move from the bottom half of page 1 to the top and it simply appears as though the forum is more stagnant than it was before.
I am pushing for the option to configure the number of threads per page, but I honestly thought people would be happy to have more per page load. We could've gone the Complex "top one billion list" route and tried to force people to click through hundreds of pages just to keep up. The only point of that is to manufacture more page/ad views. We gave people more than twice as much content per forum page on the old site.
I think it's an improvement, but I know that many people fear change and the General forum "looks" different now, even though we have the same people posting as we did before and, statistically speaking, post activity is every bit what it was before. I mean, it's not like we left a lot of people behind on "SneakerTalk."
If you ask me, this is much ado about nothing - no pun intended. The activity hasn't dropped off. The configuration of the front page just appears to be more static because we more than doubled the number of threads per page. If you actually tracked post movement per reload, you'd find that the top 20 threads are changing up fairly often. If you go into the "thread about nothing," you're also not going to find more than 1-3 "thread-worthy" themes per day at best, and many of those would've been disposable 1-3 page topics. It's not a big loss.
If it's having an impact, that's probably due to the amount of TIME people are spending in there, as you can't be in two places at once. However, if they simply enjoy the persistent companionship the thread offers and would rather do that than devise wacky topics for your amusement, then, really, who are you to force them to do otherwise? If anything, we have too many people desperately grasping for attention on Internet forums like ours as it is. Is it really a negative to have a low key thread as a change of pace?
That's not to say the thread is without its problems. Every now and then, users attempt to skirt the rules in that thread, thinking, perhaps, that it moves too quickly for the staff to keep up. It's almost been locked a couple of times, actually. Users need to take more responsibility and better care of it rather than just "go with the flow." It's no different than a PYP thread in that respect. If people are going to treat it like Hamsterdam, it's getting shut down whether users complain about its presence or not.
I'm open to the idea of locking it for one week to resolve all of this - as it will benefit those who enjoy the "thread about nothing" as much as those who don't, provided that it puts all of this to rest. However, it's better to light a candle than curse the darkness. NikeTalk doesn't need more negativity. You don't have to start 20 amazing threads, but you can certainly find threads that you DO like and be supportive of them, and your fellow members. That keeps quality content on page one and encourages those who create it.
Let the TAN be great 
