My discussion of the horrible deaths in Essex is in GQ as I had a GQ. The thread has turned from the original purpose and the discussion is interesting and important. But it is not clear that it belongs in any of our present forums.
I propose we (and I mean you moderator guys) create an “in the news” forum. Perhaps as an experiment until the end of the year.
I am going to post a poll, just because I noticed the option.
Don’t people generally post news to either MPSIMS or IMHO?
General discussions about breaking news events belong in MPSIMS. Since these can often be hot button issues, please pay attention to the sticky at the top of the forum with respect to breaking news threads.
If you want to discuss something specific about a breaking news event, your post might be more appropriate for a different forum. For example, the OP notes that he had a factual question about a news event, so that factual question should be posted to GQ. If the issue is a hot button topic and it really makes you angry, then perhaps a Pit rant is in order. If there is some aspect of the event that you would like to debate, then the post belongs in Great Debates.
Ideally, if a post about a news event is in another forum (like GQ, per the OP), all posts to that thread should be appropriate for the forum where the thread is located, i.e. in GQ just stick to the facts. If you don’t want to stick to the factual question in GQ and want to discuss the broader news event as a whole, then the post should go in MPSIMS.
Threads drift. We all get that. If the thread drifts too far out of its forum, report the thread and we will either try to steer it back into its appropriate forum or move the thread or take whatever other actions we think are appropriate.
I haven’t had a chance to look at the thread yet, but if the thread has turned into a more generic discussion of the news event then MPSIMS is most likely where it belongs.
I voted no. I don’t think that we don’t get enough of these threads to justify a new forum. Also, there are often various aspects of a news thread that are better discussed in other forums. I don’t think we should have Pit style rants in any forum other than the Pit, for example, and if there is a factual question about something that happened in the news, I think you should discuss the factual question in GQ. If you try to mish-mash this all into one forum, it’s going to be a mess.
There are too many forums as it is. MPSIMS/IMHO should be one and the same because there’s not really a difference between them. Splitting off the game forum was a mistake. Ditto the election one.
We need fewer ones, not more.
We already have 12 forums, I wouldn’t want us to be cluttered with more. In fact I would to see us delete Thread Games and Marketplace.
I expect this has been raised before, but having a thread about the horrific deaths of 39 people in a forum for Mundane Pointless Stuff is tasteless, to put it mildly. I understand there’s a reason for the name of the forum based on the history of the board, but I think there could be a better solution.
We could combine IMHO, Great Debates, Elections and MPSIMS into one big omnibus forum, really. (the only problem being that it might get too cluttered very rapidly)
The reason why Thread Games needed to be created was that anything not a Thread Game was immediately buried by 10 variations of “Lets count to a million.”
It would also be hard to prevent a News thread from being derailed (any thread about breaking news of a mass shooting, for instance, invariably turns into a gun-control debate.)
The mods have shown recemtly that they are quite capable of shutting down what they percieve as hijacks, so if they are willing to prevent it they could.
Splitting off Thread Games into its own forum was a fantastic decision. I am forever grateful to the mods for making that happen.
This is a solution in search of a problem.
As Johnny Bravo and enalzi said, splitting off Thread Games solved a real problem, that sports and gaming threads were buried. We don’t have that problem in MPSIMS; there aren’t enough current news thread to swamp the rest of the posts, and news threads aren’t swamped by everything else because they naturally stay near the top as long as they are actual news.
Complaining about the “mundane pointless” part of the name bears a resemblance to “a driveway should be for driving and a parkway should be for parking” discussions. It’s just a name, the description makes clear it’s for more than that.
I hope we never get rid of Thread Games. They seriously made the Game Room unreadable.
The Game Room was split off from the café for a good reason. Video game and sports threads, especially back around 2008 when the split happened, generate a lot of discussion.
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Move all MSPIMS stuff except news to IMHO. The distinction between the the two is lost anyway.
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Re-name MSPMIS to Current Affairs. That way, it’s not just headline or breaking news, but also other things that are topical. Auto-close threads one (1) week after the OP, to keep stuff actually current. If anything needs to be said after that, it should be a new thread in the proper forum. This doesn’t prevent parallel threads for hot button topics in the Pit or factual question in GQ,
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This will never happen, since change here moves at glacial speed at best.
One way to prevent, or limit, news threads from going off the tracks is to close them after one or two days. It is a system I have seen work on other, lesser, parts of the Internet.
Nah, you’ll end up with thirty threads on the same story if it stays in the news cycle for two months.
I would rather see old threads resurrected when a new development hits. Plus, that way people who are subscribed to the old thread are notified of the new development. Win-win.
~Max
A more likely reason is because we don’t want to?
MPSIMS seems disrespectful to at least topics concerning the deaths of so many people.
Rename it “Sharings” or “News And Announcements”.