I would like to suggest a new forum, one possibly titled “Ask me about…”, where dopers with expertise in an area could make themselves available for discussion of their jobs, hobbies and knowledge. Baker had an excellent, well run thread titled “Ask a Cop…”, and that is what I am thinking of. Note that I don’t want to see it as a place to ask for advice. Unless very general advice is asked for, there are too many legal issues preventing specific advice being given. However, a lot could be gained from asking “What about X? And why do I have to do Y to get Z?”
I remember this idea being proposed before; I just am too lazy to do more than a half-assed search for the thread. Legal issues aside, I think ultimately it was decided that we just don’t have enough of those threads to justify a forum for them.
But forums tend to fill as they’re made; just look at Cafe Society. Which leads to one of my thoughts on the subject: If we make a forum for “Ask the…” threads, I’m sure some people will step up to the plate and start some interesting threads. But we’ve also had some stupid ones: ask the lazy student, ask the pervert, etc. There wasn’t anything useful or interesting in those. So as periodic as the worthwhile “ask the…” threads tend to be, I don’t think it’d be worthwhile to make a forum for them. More often than not, we’ll be stuck with the stinkers.
Not having a forum for such threads doesn’t stop you from asking questions to members of a profession, though.
slaps forehead No wonder I couldn’t find the cite. Thanks for the correction.
I see your point about not enough legitimate posts to justify the category, but it could also be a case of “build it, and they will come.” I’ve seen a few new “ask the…” posts recently, making me think that it might be a trend, hence the request.
I had an Idea a while back for an “Amnesia” Thread… where we ask “What was that…”
IIRC, the response was along the lines of, it would reinvent the wheel, and we dont need any more traffic to this site.
How about a Dopefest forum? MPSIMS is such a busy place that some of the threads for the smaller Dopefests don’t stay on the front page for long. And since not everyone checks into MPSIMS on a regular basis (moi being one), the smaller market Dopefests get less publicity. (And we won’t even go into free agent Dopers.)
This would be the place, of course, for the threads requesting a Dopefest, and the threads that show the aftermath of such momentus meetings.
I will say that I also haven’t done the research to show how much traffic those threads create; or if this is even a semi-issue with other Dopers.
I think that there’s another issue at play with a Dopefest forum. The staff of the Straight Dope and the Chicago Reader prefers to remain officially unaffiliated with any RL gathering of the members. Moderators do often come to Dopefests, but they’re there as individuals, not in any sort of official capacity. Creating a forum specifically for Dopefests, though, might be construed as a closer official relationship than the Powers that Be want.
The thought of a forum devoted to “Ask the psychiatrist” or “Ask the pharmacist” or “Ask the lawyer” or “Ask the doctor” … ?
Sorry, that would imply that the Board (and hence the READER) sanctions such advice. We are constantly reminding people that they should NOT be accepting medical or legal advice online, no matter how credible the source. What kind of doctor would diagnose based on an online description?
Then we add the level of how do we know that someone really IS a pharamcist, just because they say so?
Me ol’ pappy tole me once, he said, “A basic rule of life is that you get what you pay for, and thus free advice is usually worthless, at best.”
So, I don’t think this idea is gonna get anywhere. We’re always glad to hear creative ideas and thinking outside the box kind of ideas, but I gotta tell you that this one sends shudders up and down my spine.
I thought of that, I really did. Especially considering Cajun Man’s sticky in MPSIMS. Heck, when I was constructing the post the first time, I even used the “Powers that Be” when trying to think of a way to refer to the legal eagles.
Anyway, I’m not surprised at all. Lawsuits are too easy to put on these days.