General Chat Forum?

[soritan]

Seeing as how sharing interests does tend to breed a sense of comradery, of friendship and ease, why not create a forum where people can actually chat, generally? The '-hobbies' forum was a definate, big step in that direction, and I appreciate it, but I personally sense that people don't want to chat there for two reasons: it's too specific for a casual remark, and it seems too slow for a lack of replies.

I often come here and see weird thread titles in the "Board Announcements & Suggestions." forum, like, "how old are you?" and I find myself wondering, "How is this an announcement or suggestion?"

Perhaps a new, general chat forum would sate the Mod's desire to sort threads by topic?

 

[Tempestuousfury]

Not sure when general was destroyed, but it seems like you're suggesting exactly what was causing the problem before: a place where people had heated debates about religion,etc. and a breeding ground for a myriad of posts that can't be moderated due to sheer volume.

Perhaps something more along the lines of a "helpline" or something for personaly problems and say homework problems or soemthing would be a better solution?

 

[soritan]

*shrug*

It was only a suggestion.

Maybe a locked, "Post Only" sort of forum?

If the mods were so dead against general talk, they should delete threads that were actually general talk, rather than put them in what is supposed to be the most important area.

Why put a "Petrol Price" thread in an "Announcements and News (and suggestion)" area? Is it something that I, as a user, must read?

 

[vancouver]

I don't know. I guess live chat is a good place to go when you just feel like talking about everything and nothing.

 

[soritan]

*(except when no one is on, which is often for a silly America-jin such as myself).

 

[vancouver]

Well 90% of the time people are in there, they're not talking about fish.. so maybe if you stay in and keep an eye on new joiners, you might catch someone!..

Even when I go in there to talk about fish.. either nobody is on, or nobody is interested in talking fish.

 

[Torrean]

I used to wonder why the general chat forum got canned. Then I started to think about it. If you get in an argument with someone in general it will slant your view of them in general. Basically what I'm getting at is that problems in general would spill over into the rest of the forum. I believe it's happened with live chat too. I'd love to have a general chat, but I agree with what was said to me when I made a thread exactly like this one..."that's what the rest of the internet is for...this is a FISH forum."

 

[soritan]

So we're sacrificing a sense of community for a sense of topic.

I ammend my suggestion to the forum then: erase that which is not fishy, so as to preserve that which is.

 

[Torrean]

Well the hobbies thing isn't too bad...it keeps it light. But heavy religious discusions and the like would too often devolve into flaming matches.

 

[soritan]

But a forum is a place for people to match wits, to speak to others, and that isn't often a polite, witty thing.

 

[Torrean]

I believe the key issue here is moderation. General chat would be so busy it would take up too much of the moderator's time, to keep it semi friendly. If the mods started devoting that much time to general it would cause problems in the other forums. We would have more trolls and more flames. Questions posted in the wrong forums... Not to mention cranky ban-happy mods all over the place.

 

[soritan]

This is a problem with hosting a large forum, all over the place, however. *shrug*

I suppose the Mods themselves felt they answered the need for communication when they created the "chatroom", which is only active when the Europas are awake. I, being a person awake during Pacific Standard Time, tend to be jilted. I shall grin and bear it, from thence forth.

 

[fozzy_wozzy_woo]

I was on this forum around two years ago when the general discussion forum was still on. things really did get nasty.

And this was one of the reasons why i left as people were then just out hunting for posts you did and hijacked the posts.

I do belive we should have a general chat area but i have suggested team speak so this means that any thing that is said is said with your voice and not in words which then lingers on for weeks.
With in team speak you can type but it is mostly a voice chat system. i am in three of these systems and they work perfect. also i have just built two ssytems for our work for help desk functions and group meetings.

And the best thing about it, its free and doesnt run Java i will never install java aplets as most of them have backdoors, virus holes, or they just screw up your computer programs.

 

[Torrean]

just thought of something else...if members spent a lot of time in general they would spend less time talking about fish...answering those cycling threads... hey if you wanna chit chat for a bit I'll meet you in live chat. I'm always up for a debate. Just let me know.

 

[soritan]

But what if I just want to talk about Petrol Prices?