New Forum Maybe?

About This Message Board
1

This is something I’ve been thinking about, but Scotti’s “We Have Lost A Friend” thread brought it back to the front of my mind.

When the Mods and Admins are sitting around the water cooler, does the idea of splitting off a new forum from MPSIMS ever come up? Maybe like “Real Life Just Bit My Ass”.

Some of the threads that pop up in MPSIMS are full of real emotion and pain. Putting them between “Funny Stories About Carpet Cleaners” and “Hemarhoids (Maybe TMI)” seems to, in my opinion, detract from their dignity.

Just something I was thinking about.
-Rue.

2

That’s a pretty good idea. I know that Una has a similar type forum called Tea & Sympathy with certain ground rules about what’s allowed.

But it’s a nice place to post stuff like that.

Not that it’s imperative, but I think it could work.

3

It was especially jarring today seeing the thread about poopah chalupa next to the r.i.p. for collounsbury.

4

Bandwith maybe? With the membership this forum has, I think It sould be expanded. I don’t know about the techincal problems, any one else have any input?

5

While I appreciate the sentiment behind it, I’m not sure I agree.

Who’s to decide what real emotion and pain is? Isn’t it all relative? The passing of a friend isn’t the only source of emotion and pain-- there’s financial difficulties, getting laid off, divorce, major surgery, major illness, quitting smoking. Each is difficult for the people involved to bear. Would there be a disctinction made between these threads and threads like Scotti’s? If so, what would the basis be? How could you enforce the difference between such threads without hurting the OPs’ feelings?

My gut feeling is that if we create and restrict a new forum to strictly “serious” matters, the place will be too sad and uncomfortable for most people. Some people find it bad enough that we have a forum set aside for bitching and cursing; it doesn’t seem much better to have one dedicated to tragedies, loss, and heartbreak.

6

That’s how IMHO started. The result was not a decrease in MPSIMS posts, rather an increase in polls and not-so-great debates.

7

I would have thought that a “Real Life Just Bit My Arse” would be a perfect place for a thread about haemorrhoids.

  • Bubba.
8

Audry I figure all you points (financial difficulties, getting laid off, divorce, major surgery, major illness, quitting smoking) would belong too. It’s just Scotti’s thread made me think about it again.

Didn’t think about bandwidth Jake.

This would be a problem, wouldn’t it Mr. Winkelried? I wasn’t thinking about cutting down on MPSIMS, that never occurred to me. I was just thinking about all the incongruous threads that bump up against each other. Not that one thread could bleed into another, so really, it’s not a big deal. (As shown by the number of replies to views. Most people don’t care and the system we have works.)

Like Scout said, “not that it’s imperative”, I was just wondering.

Thanks.
-Rue.

9

I don’t know, Rue.

There’s times I agree with you and times I see MPSIMS as our ‘snapshot of life’ forum. Having joy and pain side by side strikes me as appropriate somehow.

And good god, if we just had a forum for bad things happening to people we’d have to have The Cure as a soundtrack and I can’t imagine anything more depressing than that.

Maybe The Smiths.