Should they just go ahead and open the General Forum back up?

Frankly, I don't think you get a "mood" of the population by anything other than a self-selected subset of people no matter what happens. Only a fraction of SL users visit this forum in the first place, even fewer actually post.

Back in the day, there used to be a counter at the bottom of the forum that told you how many users were on the forums. On a big day (say, when SL had gone down) that number would top 1,000 people -- and that was back when we only had 100k accounts and maybe 12k actual users.

I would bet there are easily 10k SL users who visit this forum regularly. How many actually post? Let's say fewer than 500. How many answered this poll? Just over a 100. There are over 400 members in the Forum Cartel group, but still only a 1/4 voted in this poll. So, while it looks like there is overwhelming approval for a GD forum what you really got was votes from a small self-selected high usage group that is really into forum posting. Hardly a "real mood of the population."

What you have is a mood barometer of a small self-selected group who are comfortable and very vocal about posting on forums -- which is not indicator for the general population by any stretch of the imagination.

Kinda like voting in the real world.

I love it when you talk statistics. And you are completely right. We are talking to ourselves. At least we have gone back to being civil. So far...

http://forums.secondlife.com/online.php
http://forums.secondlife.com/online.php?

Quick Links > Who's Online

274 at the moment. But I don't know whether it shows you as being logged in when you close your browser, so the actual figure may be lower.

Except here we don't have CNN telling us the election is over before half the country has even voted.

297 now
Most users ever online was 3632, 07-19-2006

I do worry that if they do open up the general forum, I will have nothing to whinge about. I am restless at this thought

I voted "Yes". I don't understand why they would do away with it in the first place.

FWIW I spotted Dan *OURHOST* yesterday.

Don't worry. I'm sure there will always be something......

I did post the poll after most US work hours on a friday.

So its quite possible there will be more votes come monday/tuesday.

Not that this means your other comments are invalid, just that I think it will have cut the voting down a fair amount.

Well, yah

We are talking to ourselves but people around here shouldn't be allowed to decide what to talk about?

How does that work?

As much as many of us appreciate lurkers .. I definitely do. IN most of the forums I follow, I lurk only ..

-BUT-

Letting Lurkers be a reason why we should or shouldn't discuss things seems a bit confused to me.

Since they, by definition, aren't discussing anything.

I wonder if those who want no general discussion forum, and a strict Resident Answers --

would prefer if the GD type posters "conformed" , or prefer they left.



Just something I have been thinking on.

Colette, it doesn't matter. What you are doing is basically asking a room full of smokers whether or not smoking should be outlawed. The voting is going to be skewed by the simple fact of the nature of the audience.

I admit that I sort of contributed to the whole drama that unfolded yesterday with my silly little poll. Actually in hindsight I probably wouldn't do it again.

My feeling is that yes, a GD or "Off Topic" forum is a good idea over all, because it gives people more freedom to chat and enjoy the social aspect of the boards.

I do feel though that with a little appreciation for other people, we can all play nice in one forum.. answer questions and have a laugh at the same time.

I wasn't sure what was going on with the whole "Pie" thing, but there were about 4 related threads all on the front page and also a bit of spamming going on in non-related threads too.

That's not really a conflict between fun and purpose, that was.. hell I don't even want to know what was going on there.

4 threads in the top 10 threads .. all about any single topic.. all posted by the same small group.. even if it was a genuine RA... would be too much.

Going forward, can't we just all live together, show appreciation for and empathise with the different reasons people are here.. I hesitate to say it.. but maybe just show some manners?

Anyway, I voted yes.. because if we can't do the above, then the next best thing is to separate to a degree, and let people pick their particular poison when and if the mood takes them.

I was commenting as to the "number" of respondents which would have voted. Which you mentioned.

The fact that the voting would be skewed by the nature of the audience is a given,

Since that audience is also those who participate in the discussions around here - that isn't necessarily all bad.

It seems to me the solution of keeping just a Resident Answers and having no General will result in excluding people.

-Either a lack of moderation will effectively exclude those who don't want RA to be the de-facto General Discussion forum.

*or*

-An uptake in Moderation will exclude those who do want General Discussions.


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I'd rather no one was excluded. I felt closing the gen discussion forums was a mistake back in 06, and still see it that way.

But I guess if someone has to be ..

I suppose it would be better if all the General Discussion people were the ones excluded since they are the ones intruding on the nature of the forum

Hi Colette,

I don't really think we need to exclude anyone.

As I say, there was something going on yesterday and the day before which was actually intentional spam.. for laughs maybe.. but still with an intent to disrupt.

However look at today... the boards are running nicely, there's a couple of off-topic threads and no-one is batting an eyelid.

Live and let live seems to work best...

Isablan, we are the people using the forums. How can our votes be skewed? If a person doesn't care enough to vote, why should their opinion be taken into account?

I don't think its a conscious thing. More a result of how Resident Answers is perceived and treated.

The simple fact that Resident Answers becomes more and more cluttered with General Discussion and Off-topic forums will lead to the exclusion of those who want a strict resident Answers forum. This is what has led to the grumbling about how the fourm has become.

A reverse back to a more strict take and a quelling of General Discussion (which was the Lindens original intent in shutting down General) will exclude the community that has sprung up around here that do enjoy General Discussions.


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Even the days when Strife actively moderated these forums, he allowed enough General Discussion to go on (eventually more and more) that it fostered the General Discussion group, and led to some annoyance among the stricter Resident Answers advocates.

Yes for crying out loud.

It's a fragile little ecosystem we've got here. Resident Answers works--to the extent that it does--because people with questions feel welcome to ask, and people with answers feel motivated to respond. If all general discussion were pulled to a separate forum (here or SLU or wherever) and RA were to become a pure "just the facts Ma'am" support forum, I'm really not as confident as others that *either* of those constituencies would benefit.

I'm worried that folks aren't asking as many questions as before; if this trend doesn't reverse, then it's pretty difficult to make a case for the continued existence of the forums at all. But is it really general discussion keeping folks from posting their questions? I'm not so convinced of that. If there really weren't many real questions getting answered on the front page, then yeah: there could be confusion as to what this whole thing is about. But during the worst bouts of GD-ness, RA's front page has always been *mostly* answers to residents' questions. So, maybe it's not as convenient to wade past all the silly threads, or to wade through the silliness on germane threads, but it's not like there's a real problem knowing that questions get answered here. And seeing that folks have fun answering wouldn't seem a big disincentive to posting a question.

As for respondents, I can only speak for myself: if Trout's lawyerly fantasies don't appear here, and a few other losses are incurred, I'm gone. I honestly don't know if others feel that way, but really, if there's no fun to be had here, just the burden of answering the same dry questions with the same dry facts over and over again for infinitely less compensation than a Mumbai customer call center--really, screw it, I'm outta here.

So from all that, one might conclude that I voted "no" but actually I'm not voting. Rather, I'm trying to point out here that it's not really the forums structure that's a problem, as I see it. Segregating General Discussion might help, or not, but it's not a panacea, and what's left in RA will still need some adjustment to make it work better.

If we don't treat each other with respect and civility--whether the topic is a technical question or an off-topic debate--the Forums won't be worth a browser load. And rearranging them can't fix that.

QFT ... I'm not entirely sure what that means, but I'm using it to mean that I agree completely with you Qie

It will help simply to refrain from berating inexperienced people asking newbie questions that have been asked before. Searching the archives, as they're frequently yelled at to do, is inefficient and often ineffective. And they're new, for chrissakes, so why wouldn't they come and ask their question in a forum called Resident Answers, and at the same time learn about this feature of SL we have here? Maybe we should make it our business that they not learn Resident Answers is populated by a bunch of condescending jerks.