For the past decade, off-topic threads have been a huge problem. 4 AM threads, deep sea threads, /v/ mansion, celeb drama, and so on. These apparently make up a good 50-90% of reports on /pol/, /tv/, /v/ and so on. We spend a lot of effort dealing with these every day, and that's great.

But one thing bothers me: Shouldn't these guys have a way to make these threads? Obviously, people really want them. Yes we have /b/, [s4s], /bant/, and so on, but because their userbases are different, that need is not met. "Well, they should just get over it" - Maybe, but that doesn't solve the problem of the endless reports. Their problem becomes our problem. "Every time we've tried in the past, it failed" - Maybe we've been going about it wrong.

I want to propose an idea called community tags. This sort of content-filter tag is ubiquitous on Reddit, but the example I have in mind now is GameFAQs: Every board on GameFAQs has the option to mark a thread with the "Community" tag. This tag essentially means "Off-topic": It's not about the game or console; you just want to chat with people of that community. An off-topic thread without the "Community" tag gets deleted. Naturally, you can filter out all "Community" threads with a single click on the board page. This would honestly transfer perfectly to 4chan - I can't imagine a single reason why not - and it would solve the off-topic problem overnight.

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