At Carrs Corner Forum a group of folks came to use that forum as their social hang out. New folks and questions may have been unknowingly seen as an interruption. These folks eventually found that the social sharing was much easier done on FaceBook, which is where they went, and the Carrs Corner Forum died.
I've been under the impression that on this forum anyone can post whatever they like - at the owners discretion. (I don't know if the owner has any morals or limitations on common human decency. Maybe we could start a thread to find out?) :o
When you log in and click on the "View the most recent posts on the forum" button, you get a list of all the posts from all the topics that you haven't read yet. When there are mostly off topic posts and social sharing posts and only one upholstery related post, then that takes a bit more than a few clicks to find out what you want to read and not read.
What I do is to look at the 3 folders and see if a reply is in bold fonts, and if it is, I go into that folder to check for postings. I find this saves me time from clicking the "View the most recent posts on the forum".
Keith asked about what happens if more and more folks begin to use this forum for social sharing. Wading through 30 or 40 or 50 posts about what people had for lunch just to find one post on upholstery does not seen like a good use of one's time.
Can we petition the owner to add a folder for all social sharing? Is there an owner? Are we alone and just don't know it?
gene
Steve said in another thread that when upholstery threads start being posted, folks will gravitate towards them and not the other. I kind of suspect that is true but don't know for sure.
Be that as it may, during my time as a moderator on a forum for people with back and spinal issues, we had multiple forums: necks, backs, fibro-myalgsia (sp?), chronic pain, surgery, spiritual, tobacco addiction, etc. We also had a forum that was described as a place to come and share a cup of coffee and talk about current events. The admin may not want to set it up. I don't know how difficult this software is to do such a thing.
I don't think it would be a bad thing to have such a forum added but then the problem becomes deciding what should and should not be moved to that forum. Someone may get their panties in a wad because their topic was moved and they feel that it was pertinent to upholstery.
I think that it has been purposely set up very simplistically because it doesn't take a lot of moderating. Moderating truly is a thankless job, take it from one who has worn those shoes.
Of the top current top 12 topics (not counting the two stickies, 7 are germain and 5 are not. This thread was already being discussed in the Tune Up thread, so it could easily be 8 to 4 (topic 13 is also germaine to upholstery). My take is that it's not as dire as being made out. Of course, that's just my opinion.
Virginia
Its funny of myself and also somewhat brainless, today for the first time since joining this great site I used the option mentioned "view most recent topics" this in tiny little script at the bottom.
The option I understand but don't use it at other places, I cannot say why maybe just not the days subject for me.
No matter I think myself as most people do tend to move toward the crowd for new information, though I try to get started on what I want first then move out for some comedy.
Its a great day
Floyd
I don't think this forum has enough active participation anymore to warrant breaking it up into different boards.
I always thought that forums with a dozen different topic boards were too confusing.
I think we already too many boards for such a small crowd. One General Discussion is enough. People can choose what to read, and what to ignore.
I tend to agree with the participation standpoint. When the spinal/back board starting adding forums, it was because membership had gone from 10-15 regulars to several hundred regulars perusing different forums daily and literally thousands of guests who read but never registered. New forums were added as user population requested. Each forum added another level of complexity and aftrer 2 or 3 new forums were added, another moderator was necessary to deal with reading threads and insurisng that they were on topic. Every time we moved a thread, as a courtesy, we would send a pm to the thread author and explain what forum their thread was moved and the rationale behind it.
Yes, adding forums does help with housekeeping but the housekeeping adds complexity to running the site. I guess my hope is that at some point, due to our bourgening membershhip, new forums and a mod or two will become necessary. For right now I would hope that we are all capable of backing out of threads that don't interest us or that we think are off topic. It's been my experience that oftentimes threads are kind of like the ebbing and wanning of the ocean tides. A thread can start out relevant or not relevant and as people post it will change. Or sometimes, it will just stay on topic or off topic as the case may be. Usually, I find some entertainment in those off topic threads, like the Friday funnies for example.
Virginia