I think your historical description is very perceptive. But IMO your conclusion is wrong.
We didn’t build this city on Rock’n’Roll. We built it on Silly’n’Snark. The world is in a more sensitive less snarky phase just now and so are we. Which is good.
Nobody really knows how newbies find this place or decide to start posting. And everybody agrees that we need more & younger if the place is to last another decade, much less two.
I hardly think changing the M&P in MPSIMS constitutes a fatal brick in that wall. “Stuff I must share” is already irreverent. The actual category description reads:
(MPSIMS) For general discussion: from frivolous chatter to deep thoughts; from harmless diversions to life-changing announcements.
Frivolous chatter? Check. Harmless diversions? Check. I really cannot see somebody deciding to go to the trouble of poking into the category descriptions enough to discover this nugget and deciding their intended OP about [whatever] doesn’t fit any category so they disappear back into the murk of the rest of the internet forever, never to be seen again.
You can articulate that theoretical threat. I just don’t see it as an actual threat
I’m just being silly, but I wanted to point this out:
From the PREVIOUS “we should rename this category” thread.
Admittedly, I went with ‘or’ rather than ‘and’.
And I seriously doubt I was the first to suggest it, one of you old timers probably did further back, but I wanted to point out that great minds think alike, and so does mine!
(the quoted source by Irishman appears to be March 2023, and my quote was May 2022 if anyone is confused)
Different strokes, I’m sure. It’s been a LONG time since I was a newbie, but my Midwestern sensibilities cringe at the idea of proactively engaging with a place that highlights “Personal” stories. I got off Facebook for a reason. Yeah, “mundane and pointless” can read as inane and boring depending on your mindset, but I think the powers that be originally decided that MPSIMSs was a more attractive title than “General Discussion” for a reason. It was irreverent and tongue-in-cheek and it fit the tone of the place.
I think we’re just older and more persnickety. In the age of TikTok and viral memes, this place is like a Motorola brick phone. We only recently enabled embedded pictures. People fretting over the idea of posting a serious topic in a forum titled “mundane and pointless” isn’t a sign of the times, it’s the sign of a stick-in-the-mud population of posters from a different time.
Is it the kiss of death? Of course not. But I think it’s a symptom. Things have changed around here, and this is another symbolic one. If we want some new blood, we need to change in a less conservative (small c) direction, this isn’t that.
Information is hierarchal. There’s the title and the subtitle. The subtitle has long included room for both the inane and the profound. That part’s not new. We added the “life-changing” thing about a decade ago to allow for this, now a decade later the “personal” stuff is promoted higher. If you now want to argue that the “mundane and pointless” is still fully captured in the charter of the forum, you will also have to concede that the old forum name fully incorporated room for those tragic posts. When the bold-face title replaces “mundane and pointless” with “personal” it is a material difference in how people will understand a thing. Names do have power, and top billing is top billing.
Not necessarily or, at least not so historically. I came in thanks to a friend specifically for MPSIMS. I would take occasional dips into the other forums but for me, MPSIMS has always been the heart of the boards. It’s where I’ve grieved over loss, both personal and in our community. It’s where I celebrated all the positive things people shared. I participated in silly games, back when they were still a part of MPSIMS. I flirted and taught others to flirt. I shared my experiences at various DopeFests and live vicariously through those at Fests I couldn’t attend. MPSIMS opened It’s arms to me letting me take my time getting to know people before exposing my vulnerability in posting somewhere more serious.
I suspect that, while I’m not in the majority, I’m also not alone.
You are not alone. Many Dopers share personal stories or their reactions to IRL events in MPSIMS. I shared once about a long-time friend whose wife was initially diagnosed with ALS. Within a few short months she was gone.
Upthread I said that many posters have started threads with ‘this is neither mundane nor pointless’, or words to that effect. IIRC, I said that in that ALS OP. Whether explicitly stated or not, that has effectively been included in the predominance of thoughts shared in MPSIMS.
Miscellaneous and Personal is much more accurate than Mundane and Pointless has been, and it will continue to be.
“Mundane and pointless” appears to exclude everything that isn’t mundane and pointless. I know it hasn’t been the practice among those used to the boards; but that’s what it says. I’m not the only one here bothered by major discrepancies between the title and the actual use.
“Miscellaneous and personal” clearly includes both the mundane and pointless, and the serious. It makes no judgement about importance, levity, or seriousness.
If people weren’t hung up on the initials, we could just call it “miscellaneous.” But enough people are hung up on the initials to make that not a good solution.
I joined these boards relatively recently. I was looking for a combination of serious discussion and community. Community includes levity; but it’s not possible to have a community with only levity.
And the advantage message boards have over other forms of social media – the only thing, I think, which stands a chance of keeping them alive – is exactly that combination of serious discussion (including the capability of continuing one discussion in coherent form over months or even years if it’s applicable to the topic) and a sense of community that’s far broader than any specific topic.
There is some overlap for sure. Biggest difference is MPSIMS has the laxest rules and IMHO is like a small notch up and not for completely pointless, breaking news or death.
MPSIMS: musing, stuff you care about
IMHO: advice, friendly debates and discussions
GD: unfriendly debates (that don’t belong in P&E)
FQ: extremely narrowly defined factual questions
IMHO: should I do this?
MPSIMS: this is what I did
FQ: how do I do this / why did it do this?
GD: I think this and the rest of you are wrong
GR: if I do this and you do that, who wins?
Pit: fuck you for doing this
Marketplace: who wants to buy this?
