Yeah, I remember when my roommate showed me this place. There was some very not mundane topic in MPSIMS (I think someone passed on, not sure) and I was like, how is that mundane or pointless? But you get used to it.
CK, I “reported” two posts about gardening and cooking in CS, to which you said [paraphrase] nod They really do go there, I swear! [/p]
Still can’t figure that one out. :dubious: But eh, maybe it’s the “entertainment” part…
/Shadez
When I raised the issue about “Mundane and Pointless”, one of the mods noted that “Cafe Society” is no longer really an appropriate title, either.
To which the reply was:
Does apathetic mean “no, leave the forum names alone” or “sure, we’ll change it if somebody comes up with something better”?
If it’s the latter, may I propose that MPSIMS be renamed Current Events? This avoids the “mundane and pointless” label but can be applied to everything from the gravity of 9/11 to the silliness of “ooh, look at this huge booger I just pulled out!”
In my mind, Cafe Society has always had a rather ill-defined purpose. It seemed (and I’m guessing here, since I’m a mere member) that it was originally created to contain arts and entertainment-related topics, but somewhere along the line, food and cooking topics got squeezed in – and fitting rather uncomfortably with the forum title, IMO. Perhaps something such as Lifestyle, Leisure, and Entertainment would work better.
Please don’t. As it is, everytime something happens in East Oshkosh (or gets posted to Fark.com), someone just * has * to post a thread. If I wanted news, or to read about how someone is outraged that someone did something horrible to someone else, I’d go read the front page or editorial pages of the Globe.
My bolding
So what do you do when you visit a cafe? 
Drink, smoke, chase women, and just generally engage in a dissipative lifestyle – which doesn’t describe me at all, btw, but when I hear the words “cafe society,” I think of artists like Amedeo Modigliani, for whom food is only of secondary importance.
How about simply revising the descriptions? This would be less disruptive than renaming the forums. This is akin to what was done when the words “factual question” was bolded in the GQ forum.
What if the main page was changed from…
To…
This is just a suggestion. I have no strong feelings about it one way or another. Once one is here awhile it becomes pretty clear where things should go, whether it matches the forum description or not. Clarifying the description might make it easier for Guests and Newbies though.
It does seem to me that the forum headings currently say “art or entertainment” for Cafe Society, and both chatter and “great thoughts” for MPSIMS.
Hence, moderator apathy (meaning, no one cared enough to make a reasoned argument one way or t’other, but we did get some laughs out of the process, or lack thereof)
I like that. Any takers ?
Um, me.
Then again, I doubt my opinion is the one you’re looking for. But I hope other mods and admins jump on board. 
Good idea. We need to put this into action. Let’s form an army. You go left, I’ll sit right here 
CK told ya we wuz apathetic
[Shameless self promotion]
I wonder whose idea that was?
[/Shameless self promotion]
I think Algernon’s idea – forum description tweaks, or something like it – is a good idea, too.
BTW, I always thought the “…deep thoughts…” description of MPSIMS didn’t refer to deep thoughts as might be expressed in GD, but more of the kind of deep thoughts as composed by Jack Handy. Otherwise, you are mixing the serious with the not.
[drive-by]
The other night, my annoying neighbor was practicing for a performance of Philip Glass’ newest piano concerto, entitled “Hawking Radiation #1”. He was going until 3 in the morning, so I hardly got any sleep!
How’s that?
[/drive-by]
Me too. It’s better, IMHO, than changing the forum names. What are the people who debate the pronunciation of “MPSIMS” gonna do with their lives?!
As for the OP, as Dex said, news threads, depending on the formats, will probably find a home easily enough in the current structure. Cooking, I would think would go in MPSIMS, but most of what I cook is pretty mundane, and since it is quite the art form to some, CS makes sense. General sports threads don’t fit too well, but there’s not nearly enough of them to create a forum for, so we might as well arbitrarily assign them to CS or MPSIMS. Again, I’d guess 'PSIMS, but what do I know.
Of course, I think “Should baseball ban steriods” and “Fuck Tommy Lasorda,” would go in GD and the Pit, respectively. Sounds good?
Come in Lt. SNenc, come in, I have just intercepted a radio broadcast from the enemy. The size of our army has overwhelmed them and our target has been achieved. Return by dawn. Bring back that stick. We need to preserve all our ammunition. Over.
Not yet, sir*! I can see the main menu page from my post and it remains unchanged! The fight must go on!
*or madam
Algernon, thanks for the suggestions and congrats! The title and description of MPSIMS have now been changed, as you suggested.
For Cafe Society, the decision was pretty much that we liked it as it stands, and didn’t see need for change. We specifically didn’t want to specify a sports forum, since (as noted above, by… by… oh, by me) there are different types of sports questions that might go in different forums. OK, so the same is true of movies, music, etc. But we’re willing to make a special case for “entertainment” and we’re not willing to specifically focus sports in one forum.
Whoa… so I sort of, indirectly, affected a change on this board? Huzzah!!
Algernon, thank you for the suggestion that led to a rather brilliant compromise on the whole matter. Maybe someone should get you flowers groaning at myself.
xash, Dex, thanks for whatever work you did behind the scenes to get the change made. I likes it!
I really like the changes. I didn’t notice them right off but I thought something seemed a little different on the front page.
I hope this isn’t off topic but, while we are renaming stuff I was wondering if we could consider consolidating some of the stickies and possibly some title revisions?
For example, in GQ I think Xash’s latest one is perfect. It’s direct and hits the mark. The others though, such as " Moderator’s Notes: On General Questions - reference sites", seem a little long winded. I think people would be more apt to read that one specifically if it had a title that hinted at what was inside such as, “User-contributed reference sites”, or even “Handy list of reference sites”. We all know that because it’s a sticky it’s going to be a moderator note and that because its in GQ it’s going to be about GQ That’s just one example…
Some of the stickies in this forum could definitely be consolidated as well. It’s a jungle in here!