Every so often we get the sad news about illness or death within the SD family.
In the scheme of things my request seems trivial compared to the pain being endured; but it bothers me to see such news listed under
MUNDANE POINTLESS STUFF I MUST SHARE.
Death and illness to me are neither mundane nor pointless, especially to those directly involved. Heck I’ve shed tears over many of those threads.
Mods/admins, could we do something about this?
Thanks.
There’s lots of stuff in MPSIMS that’s neither mundane nor pointless. The forum description reads:
I know it seems a bit odd to put death/sickness/birth announcements and other such important stuff, in a forum titled “Mundane Pointless Stuff I Must Share” but it’s really just the catch-all forum for putting things that don’t go anywhere else, and I think pretty much everyone understands that. Besides which, the idea of a “Sickness/Death” forum or area seems kind of morbid and depressing to me.
Maybe having a read-only forum where memorial threads could be moved by the mods after people had stopped posting to them, would be a good compromise solution, though.
Personally, I’d be inclined to add to the purpose of ATMB the function of “announcements of life transitions of members” (distinguish from guests). This board is not merely a business service of the Chicago Reader but also has come to be a true community. To have ATMB become the designated site for announcements (and the consequent congratulations) of marriages and births of its members, and of their (severe) illnesses and deaths, strikes me as in accord with its other function as the site for discussion of the SDMB as an internet message board. (As an expression of opinion about the proper use of the board, this post already belongs here.)
Gotta agree. If MPSIMS is a misnomer, then change the name. Or better yet, use some other forum. It’s just …bizarre… to juxtapose My Cat Puked with Longtime Member Has Cancer.
I agree with Polycarp. Simple solution requires no tweaking or added forums (fora?).
I see your point. I would not object to making such announcements in ATMB; after all, the experiences of our community are as About This Message Board as anything else, it’s about us.
Putting illness/death announcements in ATMB is a bad idea. It’s for the operation of the board and it should stay that way.
I see the point of with those who don’t want illness/death announcements in a “mundane” or “pointless” forum.
My own personal feeling is “What’s in a name?” But change the name of MPSIMS if you must.
MPSIMS is “Other.”
We don’t need to split it up into “Happy Other” and Sad Other," and we don’t need to change the name, either.
I could understand notices of death or serious illness of members here in ATMB, but not you’re brother-in-law’s friend.
I think having the announcements in ATMB, and limiting the announcements to Members themselves (not their kin or friends or cats*, and not birthdays or anniversaries or bat mitzvahs*) would be a good use.
Could just delete “Mundane and Pointless” and make it “Stuff I Must Share”.
MPSIMS is one of the truly unique things about the board.
“Stuff I Must Share” is just too mundane.
Thank you for sharing.
I thought a bat mitzvah celebrated the coming of age of a Jewish vampire. :o
How so? To me, it’s the one thing about the board that’s just like everything else out there. It’s Fark lite.
Seriously.
Tuba, is that honestly the reason you guys have always resisted changing the name? You really think it’s somehow unique to the Dope? I can see some nostalgia for the name but that’s a pretty poor reason to keep it when it really does cause problems for the posters.
I guess locked death announcements in ATMB isn’t a completely ridiculous idea* but I have a feeling that you wouldn’t want real discussion threads going here about people or their families battling cancer/addiction/what-have-you. So again it comes around to dropping the freaking words “Mundane” and “Pointless” so everyone doesn’t assume the BBQ Pit is the only place for those kind of discussions.
Agreed. Pretty much every message board out there has their own MPSIMS type area with the exact same types of games and such.
Yes, but it’s our MPSIMS. 
IMHO (oh, but that’s another forum, someone will cry!) part of the charm of MPSIMS is that it is the vast panorama of human experience from the most meaningless to the most important.
If the material is not easily classified, well, you know something? Sometimes life is messy. This is one of those times.
What the heck? “Stuff I must share” is LESS of a classification than having “Mundane and Pointless” tacked on, i.e MORE inclusive. Therefore the solution to this particular bit of life messiness is to drop the words.
I’m pretty sure I get it, you don’t want to change the name because ten years ago there was a thread on AOL titled with the same. I’ll just say one last time that I think you should really consider an upgrade on the name; it’s about time.
There are more things in heaven and earth, CarnalK, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.
Life’s better with a bit of whimsy in it. You might try it sometime.
For the record, I was just throwing my previous suggestions out there as possible ideas. My personal preference would be to simply leave things as they are. I actually really dislike message boards that overclassify, so that you have a forum for death/birth announcements, a forum for cooking, a forum for computer problems, a forum for electrical wiring questions, a forum for sharing youtube finds, etc. I much prefer the SDMB style of having a few broadly-defined forums, with one of them being a catch-all where you can post anything from “my cat barfed” to “My father died”. I don’t think that the grieving/mourning threads are diminished at all by being proximate to the cat picture threads, or whatever.
Just my $.02, as always.