Mangetout, I only meant that you should not be able to link to the TMI forum based threads from other outside forums.
I’m woth Zenster on this. I can’t even visit the Straight Dope from work anymore, which is a shame, because there have been many threads that relate directly to what I do, I have learned a lot, and it is one of the very few message boards that havn’t been blocked. And while I agree with Scarlett67 that being more careful with the titles would help, there are some that I don’t see how you could change the title to make it work safe (ex “Has anyone here ever used a dental dam?” “Need advice on going down on my gf”)
Is that the longest interval between double posts in board history?!?!?
That’s what I meant too; I want to know how that could be implemented.
I guess any changes would only be successful if thread-starters respected the new rules.
I have only entered the TMI threads a couple of times - usually because I didn’t “get” the thread title (I admit I didn’t catch the meaning of subs/doms today until I entered - and beat a hasty retreat). I do read the board at work, and fear that someone will catch a glimpse of the screen with questionable titles.
I’m sure there’s a remedy, we just need to figure out the specifics and those awesome SDMB mods will make it happen, if possible.
I’d be willing to be that poor bastard, I usually wind up reading them anyway. I don’t know what it is, but I see TMI in a title, and I have to open the thing, even if I don’t want to. Like Pandora’s Thread.
Ahem…
NOBODY is more TMI than me, baby. Nobody.
Oh, go put toothpaste in your underpants.
While raising the tone of the boards in general is a noble goal, there’s a sentiment expressed here that, for want of a better word, irks me.
I sympathize with the idea that you don’t want to get yourself in trouble at work (or branded a deviant/pervert/communist amongst your coworkers, or somesuch other nonsense) but how is it the responsibility of the posters (so long as they’re abiding by the rules), the Chicago Reader, or the mods/admins, when you could avoid such risk by waiting until you get home to log on? Or at least do so when you’re on your lunch break, and not on company time, perhaps.
[sub]Or even just stay out of the “social forums” when you’re at work, and stick to GQ, CCC, CSR, if you have a work related use for the boards.[/sub]
Of course, some folks only have access from work, have scads of time to kill while waiting for something to do (IT support folks, for one example) and so on. So, yeah, in all fairness, it’d be a decent idea to keep thread titles clean in the future, with adequate warnings. And we are, in some sense, a community who should reasonably give a damn about one another; so aside from the unmentionable ones who smell like the underside of a bridge, I doubt you’ll find much objection to the idea of keeping future thread titles clean.
But a new forum, not linkable outside itself? The hamsters are already falling down all over themselves, and it’s only been how many months since the hardware upgrade? Asking (or telling) people to shape up a bit is a better idea, methinks.
Search for the keywords that happen in almost all TMI threads, and you can find almost any one of them that you want.
I think a TMI forum would be a useless idea, since that there aren’t enough TMI threads to sustain one. Plus, sometimes the TMI threads actually have a factual question that may not get answered in a TMI forum. A lot of poster that may know the answer would be frightened off by a forum fill of gross topics.
I nominate Coldfire.
Oh, and about the topic, from what I’ve seen adding new forums tends to encourage people to post more on such matters, and in the end diverts very little traffic. I saw this when the Cafe Society was created, the A&E threads multiplied like rabbits in their new forum.