View Full Version : Photography and General chit-chat
I keep thinking that the above forum shoud be split into two. I think its very messy having general chat mixed in with photography chat.
I'm not advocating that we should have hundreds of sub forums, but just that the above should be split into two.
What does anyone else think?
You could have a good point there Joe. What does everyone else think?
I would normally disagree.
I am a member of a non-photography related forum that is poorly moderated and the general chit-chat area is like a wild west town with no sheriff. It also happens to be the most heavily posted area of the site.
Here is a different ballgame...the Team are on the ball and there are a good bunch of people here, but as the numbers grow, as with any forum the members appear to take over and it can be a bit of a handful to moderate.
My vote for this forum would be to split it as there is a target photography orientated audience and we already know that most photographers are clinically insane anyway :nut: so there's nothing to lose.
I agree with Joe T.
Yet, I also agree with Bachs - its a good idea if it will be 'policed' properly.
Hmmm some good points. Car boards do tend to get inundatd with post whores, who usually invade the General Chat Forums. You'd think that with such a widely diversified common interest such as we have here that we wouldn't get the problem to that extent, but I wouldn't bet on it.
The reasons for it being as it is currently are leftover from our beginnings. We didn't want a massive amount of forums with only a few members and the place being a vast empty space looking like a ghost town. Our membership has grown and thankfully all of you are very well behaved and extremely helpful so the place runs itself very nicely on the whole. The staff here do a lot of work behind the scenes but very little of it is keeping members in line.
As we grow more, so will the problem members but idiots don't like to stay on a forum where nobody will play with them.
If the general feeling among the staff and members is that we are now busy enough to warrant the forums to be split and a general chat forum to be formed, I personally have no issues with that.
Continue the discussion :)
You need to watch that certain topics don't get turned into world war 3. Typically, such topics would include:
* Politics (most notably UK/US/Middle East)
* War
* Religion
People generally have very strong opinions on the above and will not change their point of view no matter what, yet, they will be hellbent on trying to change the minds of others (and will get a bit 'shirty' when the come upon people as bigoted as themselves).
Some topics are better off just not talked about on internet forums.
You need to watch that certain topics don't get turned into world war 3. Typically, such topics would include:
* Politics (most notably UK/US/Middle East)
* War
* Religion
People generally have very strong opinions on the above and will not change their point of view no matter what, yet, they will be hellbent on trying to change the minds of others (and will get a bit 'shirty' when the come upon people as bigoted as themselves).
Some topics are better off just not talked about on internet forums.
You arent wrong !
Bigots exist and you also get trolls on forums at some point, which is why i like the way we are going here, slow steady growth, no major influxes (except for CT introductions and all those guys seem level headed and not :censored:) :) which keeps the signal to noise ratio down at a comfortable level !
I think splitting the chat forums is a good idea, but a close reign needs to be held over it to stop the attitudes GFK mentions above ! Otherwise its usually no problem !
We could turn this into a poll?
im happy to split the forum, General Photography Chat and an Off topic?(or whatever we decide to call it)
if we get some people say nO! leave it as it is then i will do a poll, dont look like we have any nahsayers yet though!
Pink Fairy
04-09-2005, 10:53
im happy to split the forum, General Photography Chat and an Off topic?(or whatever we decide to call it)
if we get some people say nO! leave it as it is then i will do a poll, dont look like we have any nahsayers yet though!
The bane of my life as admin is the off topic forum that we have, but they do create activity and keep people on the site. If you heavily moderate it, then you're condemned, if you let it loose you get complaints over the slightest thing.
What we do is have it as a seperate subscription forum (free of course) where the posts do not show in the 'latest posts' section. We make it clear that members enter at their own risk... we still ban the usual swear words, politics and religion.
It's still a pain in the rear, members always pushing the boundaries... maybe there are just more anarchists in the birding world than photography ;)
Pink Fairy
04-09-2005, 11:00
Oh, and give it a silly name 'over-exposed' or something ;)
Oh, and give it a silly name 'over-exposed' or something ;)
Lol! aye..hehe
I know your pain Pink Fairy, i moderated on a car forum for a couple of years :icon_eek:
i think the whole mod/admin team here have had great experience of moderating various forums, so hopefully if the Nova drivers turn up we will be ok!!
ive seen bird watchers out on the beer....:D
Pink Fairy
04-09-2005, 12:04
Lol! aye..hehe
I know your pain Pink Fairy, i moderated on a car forum for a couple of years :icon_eek:
i think the whole mod/admin team here have had great experience of moderating various forums, so hopefully if the Nova drivers turn up we will be ok!!
ive seen bird watchers out on the beer....:D
We've got 30,000 anarchists, but I suppose we're doing a service by keeping them in one place and not causing mayhem elsewhere... and why are the worst culprits school teachers?
Anyway, Nova drivers will take a very long time to get here ...always clogging up the slow lane with a pile of hgv's behind them, the nova is that sort of car to me, my automotive nemesis.
30,000 is a lot of people!
After much though and discussion by the staff we have decided that for the moment it is in the site's best interest to leave things as they are currently.
We will be monitoring the situation though and we may consider this option for the future.
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