New forum section that's not the lounge

[RickyMaveety]

Originally Posted by Marysart

I like this suggestion. And I don't care what either of the forums is called. But for now :In the silliness forum anything would be allowed and people could have private conversations, meet up with friends, slow chatting etc.

I don't know if it's technically possible, but the possibility of filtering out the fora which I don't visit would also be nice, just for ease of navigating.

And lastly, I don't think any amount of moderating can replace basic respect for others and their opinions, you either have it or you don't, but from the way I've seen this thread going since it was reopened, this shouldn't be a problem .

OK .... here's a good example of where the problems would lie:

Meet ups only allowed in the "Silliness" Forum? What exactly is silly about a MR Meet-up?

Private conversations? Nothing private about a conversation in any public forum. That's what private messages are for.

And, yes .... filtering out fora is totally possible. I wouldn't have recommended it as an option if I wasn't doing exactly that at several other places.

All I am suggesting, people, is that if you want to have any number of strictly censored fora, then at least give those of us who don't want to participate in them an opt out.

There is always ease of navigation to consider, absolutely true .... why should I be faced with Sony and Hanlin and Bebook posts, when in point of fact, except for correcting some of the idiotic things that are posted about the Kindle in those fora, I have pretty much nothing to contribute?

I happen to think that the best of the discussions at MR are those that wander off topic ... it's intellectual free association, and I find it very stimulating ... whether or not it lapses into silliness from time to time.

[Marysart]

Originally Posted by Dr. Drib

I want to put on my moderator's hat and say "thank you" for speaking up, and for speaking up in a way that is important to you, no matter what opinion you hold. It is this idea that you CAN express your opinion that is so important.

Freedom of expression, I feel, is important on any Board where members are courteous and respectful of one another, and who write in tones that show both thoughtfulness, courtesy, and concern - as your post does.

I think the worst feeling that any member can have is to feel marginalized or to feel he/she has no voice within that community in which that person is a member.

Your thoughts are very much appreciated, and I'm glad you're enjoying MobileRead.

Don
(moderator)

Your welcome

[JSWolf]

I know that threads can and do wander away from the original topic sometimes. What is being asked for is a separation (not censored) of the threads that have started off as silly on purpose. I don't see this as a problem.

[RickyMaveety]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

I know that threads can and do wander away from the original topic sometimes. What is being asked for is a separation (not censored) of the threads that have started off as silly on purpose. I don't see this as a problem.

Those already are separated. They have a big ol' blue label on them.

What you seem to be asking for is a separate forum where only serious posts will be allowed at all.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by RickyMaveety

Those already are separated. They have a big ol' blue label on them.

What you seem to be asking for is a separate forum where only serious posts will be allowed at all.

I'm not asking for completely serious posts. Just a place where the pots do not start out as silly.

The labels don't help at all. If we want to not have the silly posts in the new message list, we also will have to lose the rest of the post from the new list. Threads that are meant to be silly from the start would still have a place to be. Threads that are not meant to be silly would be someplace else. That's all. I said nothing about serious. You are reading into it more then I said.

[Marysart]

Originally Posted by RickyMaveety

OK .... here's a good example of where the problems would lie:

Meet ups only allowed in the "Silliness" Forum? What exactly is silly about a MR Meet-up?

What's in a name.... Personally, I really don't care what it's called as long as it's purpose is clear.

Private conversations? Nothing private about a conversation in any public forum. That's what private messages are for.

Well, you see, that's what I would have thought, I just considered it as an alternative to the chat as I figured maybe the time differences where making it difficult for people to meet up there?
Plus of course, there is a limit to the pm boxes.

And, yes .... filtering out fora is totally possible. I wouldn't have recommended it as an option if I wasn't doing exactly that at several other places.

Great, that's good to hear

[Lady Blue]

I don't see the creation of a new category as censorship in any way, and I DID say it was just a way to address the desire to keep a topic’s tone sincere and sensible. It would just be a street sign so to speak, much as the silliness tag is; just an easy way to see at a glance which way the wind is blowing.

I'm sure that even in the most serious of threads no one ever objects to a little frivolity, and everyone knows that the subject often steers off course to some degree. I just think that some members are asking for a tag that subtly suggests to the silly ones among us to refrain from throwing the thread off the cliff (without feeling censored) unnecessarily, much the same as the SILLINESS tag subtly invites one to be wild and crazy, and please refrain from being morbid and morose.

Opting in or out of a thread may work very well for some, but wouldn't you need to take a few additional steps to set up these preferences? Not meaning to infer that would be a problem, but wouldn't it just be easier to have an additional tag instead to see at-a-glance the difference between the "Please turn your cell phones off in the exam room" demeanor of a thread, and the "silly string ahead - all manner of madness flies within" type of thread.

But then again, I could be wrong. I usually am.

[tompe]

Originally Posted by RickyMaveety

I happen to think that the best of the discussions at MR are those that wander off topic ... it's intellectual free association, and I find it very stimulating ... whether or not it lapses into silliness from time to time.

Off topic is very different from chat mode.

[tompe]

Originally Posted by RickyMaveety

Those already are separated. They have a big ol' blue label on them.

As mentioned above. If you read using search having all the top threads having blue labels on them reduce the efficiency of reading the threads you want to read. Now I have added a filter for the lounge in my search and I noticed directly that this worked much better.

I like off topic threads but and off topic thread contains posts that are relevant when you read them days after they were written. It is those threads that are only interesting if you read them while they are current (slow chat was a good name for them) I want to avoid in the user interface and it is hard to mark them as read.

[Daithi]

Where do you start threads like the following?

College textbooks -- are current readers inadequate
An idea for book publishers
Illustrations in ebooks
A list of great ebook related sites
A proposal to modernize copyright laws
The case for digital piracy

The Lounge doesn't seem like the place to start the serious kinds of topics I listed above. To me, the Lounge is the place I would go to read about MR gatherings, or elect Zelda as Sovereign of Mobilita Republica, or discuss the weather where I live, or just go have fun with online friends.

However, sometimes (usually) I want to discuss or read the opinions of others in regards to ebook issues, like the sample topics I just provided. These kinds of threads quickly get lost in the Lounge and I'm sure that when new members want to create a topic, like the ones I just suggested, they too wouldn't know where to start the thread. We could easily solve this problem by adding a "General Discussions" forum.

I don't expect, or even want, a thread to remain serious with no deviation from its stated intent. I don't mind threads drifting, or people joking, or occassional inside jokes. In fact, I find these idiosyncrasies are part of Mobileread's charm. I just want a forum that I can start a thread that discusses a serious topic.

One last thing, please don't call it the Salon as that is where my girlfriend gets her hair styled and doesn't help people trying to figure out where to post general ebook related posts. I'm afraid that people seeing Salon will see it as another Lounge forum, or someone wanting to discuss Copyright/Intellectual Property Issues will look for a "General Discussions" or "Miscellaneous" forum and their thread will never get started when they can't find the place to start it.

I've made the best case I can for my position, so I'll shut up now and let you guys decide. Thanks JSWolf for getting this started -- I just gave you some karma.

[tompe]

Originally Posted by Daithi

Where do you start threads like the following?

College textbooks -- are current readers inadequate
An idea for book publishers
Illustrations in ebooks
A list of great ebook related sites
A proposal to modernize copyright laws
The case for digital piracy

I think "News and Commentary" is the right place since every topic is about ebooks or related things. Remember that the lounge is for topics not related to ebooks.

[RickyMaveety]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

We seriously need a forum section for posts that do not exactly fit anyplace else and the lounge is not it. The lounge has been taken over by too much sillyness to make people try to wade through it to find posts that are not silly. We need to seperate the silly from the not silly. Some people may not want to wade through the silly and the not silly posts will just get lost. So can we have a forum section that's not the lounge for posts that are not meant to be silly? Either that or we create a new forum section just for the silly and move all the posts there and then those that do not want them can easily ignore it.

Originally Posted by JSWolf

I'm not asking for completely serious posts. Just a place where the pots do not start out as silly.

The labels don't help at all. If we want to not have the silly posts in the new message list, we also will have to lose the rest of the post from the new list. Threads that are meant to be silly from the start would still have a place to be. Threads that are not meant to be silly would be someplace else. That's all. I said nothing about serious. You are reading into it more then I said.

You said nothing about serious?? OK .... what did you mean by "not silly"? Who is the arbiter of what is or is not silly? And, honestly, when did the original poster .... of anything .... have their "intent" control what eventually happened to the post?

Do you have any idea how much serious content is contained in some of those threads which bear a big blue label?? No, probably not, since I'm sure you avoid them like the plague. However, it is not possible, and I do not think it is particularly desirable, to have someone trying to determine what is "silly" .... "not silly" .... "extremely silly" ..... "not silly, but still funny" .... "not silly, but witty" .... ooooo, and then try to maintain whatever they can discerne is the intent of the original poster.

What fun.

And, while I don't necessarily disagree with your suggestion, I happen to think that the best way to make it work is to fix it so that you personally never have to wade through anything that is even remotely silly .... and the best way to do that is to allow you to opt out of the Lounge once your not-silly posts only forum is created.

Think about it .... even if you made the horrific mistake of hitting the "All New Posts" button .... your preferences would be set so that nothing the least bit silly would appear. Problem solved.

I, in turn, would be able to completely filter out the entire forum of "not silly and (as suggested by others) no silliness of any kind allowed ... stick with the topic and do not deviate" so that I wouldn't even be tempted to say anything that could hint at silliness.

[Daithi]

Originally Posted by tompe

I think "News and Commentary" is the right place since every topic is about ebooks or related things. Remember that the lounge is for topics not related to ebooks.

Thanks Tompe. All I'm looking for is a place to post some non-banter types of topics and if "News and Commentary" is where this should be done then I'm fine with that.

A few questions for JSWolfe and others that want a new forum

• What kind of topics are you talking about posting?
• Are they topics similar to the ones I provided, or do you have other types of "serious" topics you are wanting to post?
• Is posting in the "News and Commentary" adequate, or do you still think there should be a seperate forum?

[RickyMaveety]

Originally Posted by Daithi

Thanks Tompe. All I'm looking for is a place to post some non-banter types of topics and if "News and Commentary" is where this should be done then I'm fine with that.

A few questions for JSWolfe and others that want a new forum

• What kind of topics are you talking about posting?
• Are they topics similar to the ones I provided, or do you have other types of "serious" topics you are wanting to post?
• Is posting in the "News and Commentary" adequate, or do you still think there should be a seperate forum?

Keep in mind that, as he says, he is not talking about "serious" posts .... he is talking about not silly posts. What those are, I haven't a freaking clue.

He says they are only the posts that the original poster intended to be silly. So, this would not include posts that were not intentionally silly to start with even if they became unbearably silly by the end of the thread.

So, he's not talking about any particular topics or even serious topics generally ... he just has a "thing" about seeing too many blue silliness labels showing up in the Lounge. It seems to upset him. I don't know why, it just does.

[ProfJulie]

I don't have much of an opinion about starting up a separate forum for serious discussion. What I would like to see is the possibility of carrying on open, honest, even light hearted discussion without the hijacking into complete silliness that happens far too often to threads.

I generally think that the person who posted the thread, beginning the dialogue, in some way "owns" the thread. If that person starts bantering with other members and interjects the silliness into their own thread, that's fine. It is when other people who do not have such a vested interest in the thread's original topic start interjecting irrelevant humor into the thread that I start to get concerned (and tune out). It is disrespectful to the original poster and to the other people who are carrying on the dialogue. This seems to be a common trend these days. I think it could easily be curtailed if the people who are doing this refrained from posting their blather.

BTW Thanks to Nate for reopening this thread. I was quite disappointed and angry when it was closed so abruptly.