General discussion

as I've just point out on another thread, hardly anyone here is really willing to give any constructive help anyway. That's been my experience for the last year and a half.

I think this is the perfect solution. I don't think Strife is nearly strict enough in RA, but understand why and am kind of glad. What you are proposing is the perfect balance. I do not think that opening a General Discussion forum would cause people to not post in RA. I believe Resident Answers are the primary reason most of us are here, otherwise there are plenty of other places to go.

I'm also tired of hearing that LL closed the old forums because their feelings got hurt. I've surfed through enough of the old threads to know that the problem is that it was completely out of hand. They may not have wanted to put the time and energy into keeping it together but the whining that they can't take criticism is absurd.

Find me a thread that has not had constructive help if asked for.. this has been said many times... almost always, there is help and then there is the random things from people being bored. It's always going to be that way unfortunately, and sometimes people go too far, or misinterpret things, or w/e...

But yeah... usually there is constructive help before the bashing and random things. Usually.

I've rarely seen a thread go unanswered in a constructive way. I don't know what you're reading.

I could not disagree more. Why do you keep coming back then? To post more snarky replies just to get a laugh?

While I find most of your posts to be unhelpful, the majority of the ones on this forum are and have always been. Especially if the OP is asking a legitimate question.

BTW, your current signature is rude and shows contempt for this community.

Okay my 2c.

I wasn't around for the old GD forum but I have read a fair bit of it, just to figure out what the fuss was about.
I would agree with Bradley that it seemed pretty much out of control and I can understand that LL would not or could not afford to invest the time to regulate it.

I honestly can't imagine there will be a new general discussion forum. But as I understand it there are other fora where there is plenty of room for that anyway.

On the other hotly debated issue:
Strife allows a certain amount of freedom here and I'm glad.

Let's not forget that a bit of friendly banter has in the recent past also convinced new residents that there are indeed fun and helpful people in SL.

In my experience, most of us do our best to asnwer every question that comes along. And for me the questions are the main reason to hang around here.

Just my 2c, IMHO and YMMV of course

Blog post from Linden on the opening of Resident Answers:

http://blog.secondlife.com/2006/09/20/resident-answers-and-linden-answers-continued

Blog post from Linden on why General, Offtopic & other subforums were closed:

http://blog.secondlife.com/2006/08/10/forums-take-a-new-turn/

Most importantly, to put some things in perspective:

And that surprises you? His posts do that already.

Funny that this comment was in that blog:

I know some of you are concerned RA will turn into “the next General”

DUH!

I must say sometimes being inworld and trying to communicate for me is personally hard.
The forum serves a lot of wonderful purposes but it does have its problems too.
Just imagine pages and pages of people debating and arguing like we have here over whatever for pages and pages.
This happens already here on regular basis.
I tried to check out the other forums its just not the same I guess.
Yet I voted yes but didn't think it would happen because some post even here get down right nasty.
I can just imagine it being a free for all if we had General forum.
Groups inworld as regular communication tool are also in my opinion bit annoying.
SL has improved since 2003 when I first joined but there still needs something more to create communities and improve how we connect with each other.
Voice is great for some but for me it isn't a option. It helps my friends who have pain problems and find typing difficult.
If there was away of improving SL to become more Stable and ways to improve the social, recreation and communication aspects I think SL would be even more popular.
Yet sometimes it does seem like up to now in order to do anything here its up to us to foot the bill, or means to be able to invest thousand of real dollars or more a year, have the know how, do the hard work and work around the bugs until they get around to it.

But he does get a laugh, doesn't he, and only only in threads that started out as absurd.

Insulting to this community? Oh, does RA stand for Resident Answers or Resident Advertising.

Some of you people need to start taking yourselves a little less seriously.

Yes, every time he types the word "Hitler", I have to keep from falling out of my chair.

I have not seen him limit his derailing comments to threads that "started out as absurd". Here is just one of many examples:

His sig was calling people's creations stupid. That's insulting.

Well bowled sir, a fine hit!

Ewww cricket. The world's most boring "sport."

I agree actually. Any sport that can measure a game in "days" has to be bad. Golf is a close second.

I thought crickets lived in shrubs and made funny noises?

Guess it's google time again huh

You can buy them at bait stores too. I used to use them to fish for bluegill.

Oh, come on Ray. From what I've seen you're a great guy, but Conan is too in his own way. It's just hardcore British humour. It's satire and I know that's not easy, even for some Brits. He wasn't calling their products stupid, but deriding fact that people use the forums for advertising so much. Why is that? Because it detracts from what this forum is about.

I for one find it incredibly irritating, especially when some people's adverts are bigger than their posts.

You've obviously never sat through back-to-back baseball matches, where the final aggregate score was something like 4-2.

Well, I am pretty sure about every question is getting it's Resident Answer here. At least every serious question. Never saw a serious question not being answered, or at least tried.

Equally sure I am about the fact, there is a lot of chit-chat going on here. Either after answering a Resident Question, or as replies on OP's that were not serious to begin with.

But about nothing I am as sure as about the fact, that some residents, no matter how many categories there are, will post their pieces of mind in RA instead of another part like Classifieds . However, when there would be a General Forum, that might be abused as well for advertising...

Have fun all, Marcel

I can see your point about adverts, which is part of why I stopped advertising my rental sim in my sig and devoted that space to something potentially more helpful for all who read it.

But I don't fault those who use their sig to advertise. As I just stated on another thread, it's within forum rules and it's one of the few ways people can get the word out, besides expensive classifieds.

This was the post that set me off. You can't have your hardcore humor all over this forum and attack the forum's helpfulness at the same time.

Not to mention that people who find them annoying can turn them off.

I like the sigs. Just as long as they arent obnoxiously sized.

Some sigs are fun, others are not.