While I'm not going to argue with you about A&H because you're clearly fed up with it, I beg of you please include a "threadmarks" feature in addition to the "highlights" feature so we can get a timeline of major events in a lolcow thread that someone new to a thread can use as a quick rundown method. Without these threadmarks, you have to go through page after page of "hey this hottake was upvoted a bunch of times, clearly it's a highlight" and it's not just annoying, it makes you believe that there's nothing to be gained from using the highlight feature at all. I know some people use it - I get enough upvotes from my own posts that got highlighted - but I'm dissatisfied with even this because it's clearly a self-licking ice cream cone. Posts highlighted early on get upvoted more, and seem as a result to remain highlighted. I won't claim to understand the full system, but that's how it appears to work from my point of view and I hate it. Have curated threadmarks that preserve information that needs to be preserved, and if someone wants to read commentary they can just read the thread.
I will keep coming to the site after the nuking of A&H if you make it easier to browse major past events in lolcow threads. But otherwise, I see no reason to stick around a site that doesn't have features that even dumb sites like Spacebattles have figured out. I'm not interested in hunting for information all the time or rudely asking questions that have answers 100 pages back. I personally stick to A&H for this reason. The threads are short, are usually about the events themselves, and guess what if I want to find out more information about the event it is a google search away. Lolcows require a certain amount of stalking and lurking, and the site doesn't make that easy. I'm sure people with lots of time to read through 100 pages think it's fine, but if I just want to get enough information to start participating in a thread, what am I to do other than go on a binge read of posts that don't help me? At some point most normal people will just throw up their hands and give up.
All we're talking about is a feature that's like highlights, but major events only, and you can browse through those major events via a drop down. If you're worried about the process of curating it, possibly give users that have been on the site a certain amount of time the ability to nominate a post to be threadmarked; and if it is nominated enough times then there you go. No memes or hottakes allowed, just events and important information. It might even take pressure off of editing the OP all the time, as instead of putting the timeline there - you just have it all the time in threadmarks.
Go on Spacebattle's creative writing section, pick a story, and you'll probably find this threadmarking feature. The site even uses three, one for the main story and two others for sidestory and informational shit. They have this because it's useful. You can skip all the bullshit and get straight to the content. Perfect for new readers. They even have "Staff Posts", so all your "cut that shit out" warnings will never be lost in the shuffle.
For all prospective writers out there. Post your stories and ideas for stories here for others to read and give constructive criticism on. Note: Constructive criticism only.
forums.spacebattles.com
And yes, I know you don't care if I leave the site or not, but I think you do care about making the site better. You can call people lazy, you can say "just read nigga", but the fact is that it's far easier to talk about politics than it is to talk about lolcows; so guess which one people do more often. Want to give the site a fresh new start, this is my suggestion as to how. Carrot rather than stick. I won't dismiss the effort for threadmarking longer older threads, but at the end of it you'll have better informed users and thus much better discussion, especially from those new to the thread.
