Just thinkin' aloud here.... I've noticed a couple of dust-ups recently where people have gotten upset because either a) a topic in the General Discussion area had nothing to do with the Prius, or b) they weren't thrilled with the tone of the opinions expressed there. I wonder how many people get a chance to read the small print describing this area. You know... the part about the First Amendment being your friend. It's a little bit out of the way, depending on how you access the messages. I know that when I read my posts, I don't do it by forum. I just click on "view posts since last visit". When I do that, I get a table listing the recent posts where one of the columns has the title of the forums, but not the associated small print. "General discussion" is a pretty vague term without the small print to accompany it. What do you think of changing the word "General Discussion" to one of the following (comments and questions in parentheses) Off-topic Anything goes Free-for-all (although I suppose this could be misconstrued, couldn't it?)) Speaker's corner (Does the US have this concept or is it a Canada/UK thing?) Oh gee, non of these seems quite right. Does anyone have any other ideas? Yeah, I know what some of you are going to say... Some people have that type of personality where, even though they're warned that a stove is hot, they touch it anyway and then complain about being burned. And yeah, some people wouldn't read the headings, no matter what the words are. Still and all, do you think a title more descriptive than "general discsussion" might help cut down on some hard feelings?
a neat idea, though it seems to me that the second part of that, if it is to have the desired effect you describe, would be NOT to have those discussions show on your list when one clicks on 'view posts since last visit'. otherwise the change would really have no effect, i fear. i too just click on the 'posts since last visit' link, and i pay little or no attention to what forum the posts are from, i just go by the titles. i have participated (sometimes just as an observer, sometimes actively) on some of those threads. as long as the thread still comes up in the 'unviewed posts' list, i think you would have the identical result, though i suppose that at least we/danny would be able to say 'hey, it was in the <insert selected name i.e. off topic > thread. i am by NO means advocating those posts not showing up in 'unviewed'. but i think that's what would have to happen for them to be truly segregated, something people would have to go out of their way to look for and participate in.
I think those are good suggestions, and could be implemented, but Stan and M_A_M got their panties in a wad and stomped off like spoiled children and they would have done that regardless of the title of the forum. I don't know if they're used to people always agreeing with them and not having to deal with direct confrontation of their own way of thinking or just don't believe in the first amendment or what, but there's no way the changes you guys are suggesting would completely eliminate those kinds of problems. BUT, Danny, are you listening? It would be interesting to experiment with the ability to selectively choose which forum threads show up with the "View Posts since last visit" click. What I'm thinking is a check list in the Profile/preferences. The default would include all the Prius specific topics and essentially everything but the General Discussion. Those of us enlightened enough to realize that it's an anything goes area and that someone might have the audacity to disagree with our opinions might, accidently, post a contrary view could select to include that in our list of 'viewed' threads. I realize that's probably a huge project and can't be implemented overnight, but it would certainly put a little crimp in the whining about OT stuff and it could, at least, be shown that those individuals actively chose to participate in those discussions and we're 'fooled' into reading them.
i suppose part of the problem (but also part of the beauty) is that the web allows people of all colors, creeds, and opinions to interact more than they might on a day-to-day basis. the world is getting smaller and smaller. some of these folks, though aware of the outside world, probably think of us liberals as "somewhere on the left and right coasts" and not folks they have to deal with on a day to day basis. in their everyday lives they can make their racist or other comments and have everybody around them agree heartily, or maybe at worst think less of the person but quietly. growing pains of instantaneous worldwide communication and interaction
"Off topic" may be a better title over Genral forum. However, politics is one of those issues that will set people off, and renaming the forum wouldn't have changed the outcome of that thread. Regardless, that does not excuse resorting to personal attacks. Had Danny not seen the thread first, and posted his comment, I would have locked it. People do seem to forget though, that their opinion is not the only opinion out there. Using Daniel as an example, I cannot find an issue one that he's posted here, that I can find even a remote level of agreement with. However, he does have the right to his views, and I do my level best to respect them as his views, even when I disagree with them.
Evan, I was also thinking of an instance somewhere in the middle of the gay marriage thread where a couple of folks asked what gay marriage had to to with the Prius. They weren't particularly grouchy, but it seemed like they forgot (or never knew) that they were in an area of the BBC where non-Prius chatter was ok. I agree that changing the forum title is unlikely to solve all problems. As you say, there will always be some people who get their knickers in a knot with little to no provocation.
I belong to another bb where they have a forum called RANTS and in your profile you can set up the "posts since your last visit" to ignore the rants section for that sort. You can still see the RANTS, but they don't sort to the top as recent and it makes it much easier for me to not "stumble" into some of the conversations I know I wouldn't want to be in. I'm certainly not advocating that we call the general forum rants - but merely give some folks the option of not having them come across as so high on the priority list of things to read from PriusChat.
danny had said that the new priuschat is based on a database, so it should not be too hard to choose which forums you would want to display and not display, i would think. since there are really only a few major categories...
Sorry I haven't responded earlier, been out and about all day (though I think I saw mikepaul on the road today - Mike, you out there?). This forum was originally called Off-Topic, but then it wasn't getting much traffic so I called it the General Discussion. Then traffic picked up. Not sure if the 2 are correlated, so draw your own conclusions. I really don't care what we call it - I try to read every thread and every post, so I'll be in here no matter what it's called. I don't have a problem changing it back to Off Topic. As far as the other request to chose the forums to show up on your Posts Since Last Visit page...well... I'll go around and see if I can find anyone that's able to do that for me. That's a little out of my realm of php programming, though I don't think it would be too difficult since that feature is run off the database now instead of cookies. So I'll look into it, and won't promise anything. And people will bitch and moan and complain about some peoples views, but it is my policy and I hope the policy of PC's Moderators that as long as everyone is playing nicely and not attacking one another personally, we can all have spirited and meaningful discussions - no matter which side of the fence we find ourselves on.
SOme other forums I am on have "off topic" and "politics" as seperate forums. Off topic tends to be friendly, and as one can imagine politics is anything but.
We did agree on something once. I can't remember what it was... Oops, I'm disagreeing with you again... :mrgreen: I did think that the title "Off Topic" expressed more clearly that it was non-Prius stuff. "General Discussion" seems to leave open the possibility of "general" discussion about the Prius.
Fine by me. However, don't say you weren't warned when members who were expecting to read posts on topics like "the best sugaring equipment for making maple syrup" complain that the closest thing they could find was the gay marriage thread. :mrgreen:
:lol: That is just too funny! I didn't think you'd actually do it! I can see all kinds of spinoffs with people getting flipped out and flipping the bird. Maybe I should go find a new avatar for flipper even!
Good Lord! :crazyeyes: I can't leave you people alone for a minute, can I? I must learn to use this power wisely....
