My question may be so mundane and pointless that it should be in another category, however, it is a question about this message board.
Am I the only one who has trouble distinguishing between the purposes of MPSIMS and IMHO? In my case I could almost do a coin toss to determine which category I should use. This is more out of curiousity than anything else.
TubaDiva wrote of IMHO just before it opened:
You see, IMHO spun off from MPSIMS because TPTB decided the latter was getting too cluttered.
IMHO is for asking about opinions.
MPSIMS is for breaking news.
That doesn’t cover it all, but that’s how I tend to think of them.
I think of it as “asking people stuff” and “telling people stuff”.
I tend to think of IMHO as GD light. If something is unsuitable for GD it usually goes to either IMHO or The Pit. It is for asking questions and advice. I like the Not so Great Debates line.
MPSIMS is our lightest and fluffiest forum but also our place for breaking news and sad events in our own lives.
But moving stuff between IMHO, MPSIMS, The Café and The Game Room is mostly just filing. It isn’t actually important.
GD & PE are treated differently. Serious and some OPs will be closed or booted out.
FQ is meant to be factual and serious at least until the question is answered.
The Pit should have some rage or condemnation.
What I don’t understand is the posters, especially long-term ones, who don’t understand the difference between FQ and IMHO.
Any post that starts with “What is the Best way to” XYZ is not FQ. It’s seeking advice/opinion, i.e. IMHO.
My assumption is that someone wants advice, but, “I don’t just want someone’s opinions, I want solid facts.” When actually, what they want is an informed opinion, they just get confused about the terminology.
It’s funny but I have no problem with any of the other categories; just MPSIMS and IMHO.
+1
I’ve often wondered the same thing. Sometime around the software switchover, MPSIMS turned into one gal’s personal blog, so rather than trying to weed through all her threads I just started perusing IMHO instead. I think of the two as being basically interchangeable.
None of the lines are hard-and-fast, either. Given any pair of fora, you could probably come up with some OP or other that could reasonably fit in either. As a moderator, when I encounter such an ambiguous thread, I’ll generally default to leaving it wherever the OP put it.
(though of course there are also some less-ambiguous cases that do better with a move)