They might suggest a decent new forum or two.
Excuse the editing, I tried to copy an html page with cut and paste. See the page itself at:
**http://fff.fathom.org/cgi-bin/Ultimate.cgi **
Forum Topics
Intellectual Pursuits
The Grand Forum -Intellectuals unite! Discuss the meaning of life, debate stuff to your heart’s content!
Quest for Fire -Asking life’s great questions, seeking the truth, increasing knowledge, debunking myths, sucking up to the Illuminati - more info
Oh, the Humanities! -Books/literature, music, film, tv, the arts in general…discuss! recommend! critique! -
Entertainment and Social
SDMB Haven -A place for the SDMB folk to hang.
I.C.U. -Inane Chatter, Unlimited
Games and humor, polls and other stuff. Do it here! - Shameless Self Promotion
Cry it from the rooftops, folks. - the BMZ
The Bitch & Moan Zone. Use this forum for rants, complaints, and general whineyness.
Web Design - Web Design Think Tank
discussion of web design, html, javascript, web graphics, and other related stuff. Home of the WebChallenge!
Critique Boutique -Get opinions on your online creations
Administrative -
Front Desk -Questions/comments for the administration, test board features, etc
Moderator Corner -Secret fancy stuff
A lot of thought should go into adding more forums. At this point, I would cast my vote against any further fragmentation of the board.
Considering the nature of the column that spawned this board, it seems counterintuitive to attempt to break things down much further. Somebody recently suggested adding a computer questions forum, and I note that the site you mention above has separate forums devoted to website designs. And that architecture may work fine there.
But a big plus to the SDMB comes from an organization that tempts the born-again network administrator to cough up that hard to come by bit of info about submarine propulsion he happened to pick up from his uncle, even though he really just came here with a question about the War of Roses, the answer to which he receives along with some peripheral information that begets a spin-off Renaissance thread. The more you fragment the board, the less interaction you’ll see between all of the posters.
MPSIMS has already been cleaved with the addition of IMHO. I fail to see the utility of breaking GD into smaller divisions. There are already lots of specialized boards where you can go and concentrate on just history, computer parts, whatever.
This is one I’d vote for. Not splitting GD, but MPSIMS.
I’m not sure what the breakdown would be for a good split, but even random categories would help. I post and when it returns me to the forum list, my post is already down 5 or so steps. When I come back before logging off, it’s practically gone. And that’s with a few answers.
We’ve come a really long way. Back in the AOL days we had all of two – count 'em, 2 – forums. Ed was firmly convinced that the world was divided into two parts, Comments on Cecil’s Columns and General Questions.
Today’s full roster of fora offers something for all kinds of varied interests and we hope they serve you well.
I’m sorry but I still can’t see the argument here. It’s just as easy to flip from one page to the next as it is to go from one thread to the other, one post to the other.
If you think everything we offer to you should all be on one page, no offense meant but maybe you need to set your worldview just a little bigger.
I don’t think there is any great need to add forums (he says from his vast nearly three months experience posting), and I have no idea whether it’s at all difficult to do so (a few years back I was a complete idiot about computers and related stuff; now I’m merely ignorant). But I have one thought that I’ll share.
It’s been said before, but there are items that currently go into MPSIMS which are in no way mundane or pointless–Wally’s death, tatertot’s miscarriage, Coldfire’s tribute to the liberation of The Netherlands in World War Two, to name a few. I even have in mind the guy a couple months back who was almost killed by a runaway portable toilet–it sounds funny, but it was really a brush with death. Imthecowgodmoo’s current thread in MPSIMS about his mother isn’t mundane or pointless either. I guess I would classify these things as profound or life-changing events.
All these things belong in MPSIMS the way the board is set up–they are not debates or opinions, they are not questions, they are not related to columns. MPSIMS is essentially a catch-all for stuff that doesn’t fit elsewhere, and, as Tuba said, it’s not any real big deal to keep checking pages. But sometimes the name–“Mundane Pointless Stuff I Must Share”–bothers me a little in conjunction with these threads. I was wondering if a new forum for these more important items might be considered.
As for the name for such a forum…it occurs to me that nobody knows what a MPSIMS is without reading the blurb that explains it–it could just as well be named “Spot” for all the clue that “MPSIMS” gives you if you don’t already know. So…I suggest very humbly that there could be an opportunity here to both create a new forum and to bestow a permanent honor:
WallyM7 for important, profound, and life-changing events
(And then an explanation of who WallyM7 is for those who don’t know.)
(Note–I apologize if someone else has already had this idea and mentioned it where I haven’t seen it.)
MysterEcks, I thought about that very subject when I contemplated my response to this thread. I agree that the MPSIMS name doesn’t reflect all that goes in there, but I think the grouping as it has developed works. Segregating the topics dealing with life’s dilemmas, etc. from the party chatter would likely, I think, produce a pretty morose place that would not benefit from the thoughts of many posters. It could easily become the province of a few prone to advising and would seem subject to being bereft of humor.
In real life the stories and jokes that bubble up at wakes and in emergency waiting rooms are some of my fonder memories and are a part of what helps people get through the knotholes and face ugly facts. I think this medium could easily produce an environment where that aspect of dealing with it all gets shunted off to the party room.
Seems to me that those things don’t necessarily have to be separated from the mundane and pointless, but a name for the forum that recognizes that some of the things going on in there aren’t frivolous would be in order.
I don’t know if this was ever suggested before, but I thought the “Dopeville” thread that was going a few weeks ago would be a great name for MPSIMS.
Every other forum has a purpose: to ask a question, to debate, to flame, etc. MPSIMS is where all the Dopers kind of come together, and you have all sorts of things going on. Planned get-togethers, advice, serious stuff, goofy stuff. Just like a community.
beatle: You may be right about that. On the other hand, maybe the threads would develop some of the humor within them–I would hope so. Being able to laugh, even in the face of tragedy, is vital.
It certainly wouldn’t be my wish to propose a generally morose forum–if that’s what it would really turn into, then it’s a bad idea. (Wouldn’t be my first one, and it probably won’t be my last.)
It’s just too much trouble to scan 8 lists to see what’s new.
I’d put Cecil and Mailbag, into one, and add permanent top-of-the-list links to the archives.
General Questions, Great Debates and this forum into a second serious Forum. And have a policy of simply removing jokes or hijacks or “gee I don’t know” filler answers.
Then In My Humble Opinion and MPSIMS back together.
And personally, I have no use for the BBQ. Seems as off-topic to this board as the web-page forum rejected above.
TubaDiva is right that it’s easy to jump between pages.
There is a red envelope to tell you when you’re starting to repeat, after all.
I dunno, with the possible exception of the MPSIMS/IMHO split, and possibly uniting the “comments” fora, I think that that what we’ve got here works just fine. I don’t particularly like the Pit, either, but it does serve a critical purpose: People are going to flame, regardless of what you do. If you don’t have a special place for it, as we do, then all of the flames are going to end up cluttering up all of the other fora. This way, they’re all together in one place, so those of us like Fanny May and myself, who would prefer to avoid them, can do so easily.
Similar logic can be applied to GD: Personally, I find that most Great Debates are kind of futile; folks hardly ever change their mind on the Big Issues. Occasionally, I’ll drop in, but for the most part, I’m quite content to skip right past countless pages of Evolution vs. Creation, Free Will vs. Determinism, etc. Also, to a large extent, GD isn’t fact-oriented like GQ is… You can’t objectively prove or disprove the existence of God, for instance.
MPSIMS if the name is to change I’d like something like “Happy Hour” wouldn’t that cover everything that said there? Happy news, sad as well, nonsense and whatever you’d talk about at a good old happy hour.
Maybe this hadn’t occurred to you, but I’ll try to put in in small words so you can understand it.
We are not Fathom.
We don’t try to be Fathom.
Fathom doesn’t try to be us.
Fathom is a nice place, but we are two different message boards with two different cultures and styles. We’re not going to change things here because Fathom does things differently.
I didn’t say a single one of the things you accuse me of.
Read the words again-
“It would be nice to have more forums. Some are too big.”
“Since I see we have a new forum, and a few suggestions for more, I thought I might boost this old thread of mine.”
"Here’s some forum titles from OpalCat’s site.
They might suggest a decent new forum or two. "
Does that clear up whatever problem you were imagining?
There’re too many forums now. The only value to having multiple forums is allowing users to skip ones they are not interested in. Is there really anyone who loves IMHO, but wouldn’t be caught in MPSIMS? or Vice-Versa? Same with the Cappacino forum.
I’ll make my usual plea to remove the Pit, though I’m sure it won’t be. I do understand the reason for it’s existence, but the argument that flaming will always exist is countered (in my mind at least) by the notion that mods can offer less tolerance to idiots. “Take it to the pit” is easily changed to “Go away”.
People enamored with the topics and organization of other boards should enjoy them quietly. and elsewhere.
It’s nice to hear all these varied opinions, this board truly is what our users make it.
We take all suggestions seriously and implement the ones we think are most useful.
One of the great things about The Straight Dope is all the places and things generated in Cecil’s wake; there’s something somewhere for most every taste. You can choose what you like and leave the rest and that’s cool too.
Most of all, we are what we are and pretty much we’re happy with that.
If you’re not happy with it, well, you’ve got other places to check out and happy trails to you.
I love the Pit. I’m mostly just a lurker, but the Pit is one of my favorite places to lurk.
The Pit isn’t just about infighting among board members, or revolts against the moderators. It’s a place to complain, bitterly, using whatever language you deem most inappropriate, about everything mean and rude and evil in the world.
The Pit is a containment chamber for anger and bile. It allows all of the venom to spill out in its own little forum, preventing it from contaminating the entire board. I often find myself wishing that other boards had a Pit, so that the nastiness could be banished, or so that someone (even though it probably wouldn’t be me) could tell the trolls and the morons exactly what their opinions were worth.
The Pit is a safety valve, and a very entertaining one. Where else could you hear such creative insults and spontaneously generated expletives? Where else could you find out how many other people share your rage at the small and large injustices of the world?
Sometimes fighting ignorance is as simple as telling the ignorant just exactly how wrong they are. That’s what Pitizens do best.
Whatever changes are made to the fora, I vote to keep the Pit.