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[Sowelu]

Sure, everyone can ignore uninteresting threads, just like we can ignore the homeless begging for money on the side of the road. Ignoring it doesn't fix the problem. You're not proposing a solution, or at least you're not understanding the problem.

I do just wanna point out that silly people are not starving to death nor freezing at night, and that it's not exactly a humanitarian problem.  Ignoring a humanitarian problem is a big issue.  To me, this sometimes feels more like "ignoring what your neighbors do in their bedroom...even if they are occasionally rather loud about it".

[nenjin]

How did toady phrase that? "please amplify your relaxed sate" ?

Enhance your calm, John Spartan.

[The Merchant Of Menace]

hahaha. Movie references

[Realmfighter]

I like Realmfighter. He's pretty funny. But he destroys trains.

I AM THE END ALL ALL THINGS, ESPECIALLY TRA-

Oh wow.

I see it now.

[Chaoswizkid]

Sure, everyone can ignore uninteresting threads, just like we can ignore the homeless begging for money on the side of the road. Ignoring it doesn't fix the problem. You're not proposing a solution, or at least you're not understanding the problem.

I do just wanna point out that silly people are not starving to death nor freezing at night, and that it's not exactly a humanitarian problem.  Ignoring a humanitarian problem is a big issue.  To me, this sometimes feels more like "ignoring what your neighbors do in their bedroom...even if they are occasionally rather loud about it".

The only point I was making was that ignoring something doesn't fix it, not that they carried a similar weight as a problem.
As for ignoring your neighbors, yeah, it's similar to that, except what if it keeps you up at night, or is just constantly there and annoying when you don't want to think about it. Yes, that can't really apply to the situation we're talking about in the forums, but I'm just reinforcing that ignoring something isn't a solution.

[Strife26]

I'm old enough that I remember (and have access to the records of) Various Nonsense. I don't think that we've gotten to that level yet, but I remember my line of reasoning which said that having a serious discussion and casual discussion area segregated. 

[sonerohi]

Nobody seems to want that besides you and I. There are people that are sure we can police ourselves, but don't want the addition of any tools to do so, because we aren't able to police ourselves. Erm, what?

[iceball3]

Nobody seems to want that besides you and I. There are people that are sure we can police ourselves, but don't want the addition of any tools to do so, because we aren't able to police ourselves. Erm, what?

Maybe it's that the tools to police ourselves will severly eschew our ability to police ourselves.

[ein]

Okay, I didn't want to jump into this thread, but I'm going to throw in my support for the segregated serious/silly boards.
They could also be grouped with the most serious at the top and most silly at the bottom.
Which I suppose would make it easier for people who want to ignore silly stuff.
While we're at it, I also propose a tech support board, or maybe renaming Life Advice to Life Advice & Tech Support.

[ECrownofFire]

Okay, I didn't want to jump into this thread, but I'm going to throw in my support for the segregated serious/silly boards.
They could also be grouped with the most serious at the top and most silly at the bottom.
Which I suppose would make it easier for people who want to ignore silly stuff.
While we're at it, I also propose a tech support board, or maybe renaming Life Advice to Life Advice & Tech Support.

I agree with splitting serious/silly.

Also, Life Advice should probably just be renamed a nice generic "Help" board.

[ein]

Help is too vague, kinda like the current state of 'General Discussion.'
On one hand, it has General, which implies pretty much everything that the others don't (Happy and Sad threads), then it has Discussion, which implies actual discussion (this thread and such).
Maybe General Stuff for one and the other Serious Discussion.
The former doesn't have the 'LOLRANDUM' connotations that Various Nonsense had, and the latter satisfies those who want a dedicated place for constructive debates and other serious stuff.

Spoiler: Here, I made a quick mockup. (click to show/hide)

[Zrk2]

Help is too vague, kinda like the current state of 'General Discussion.'
On one hand, it has General, which implies pretty much everything that the others don't (Happy and Sad threads), then it has Discussion, which implies actual discussion (this thread and such).
Maybe General Stuff for one and the other Serious Discussion.
The former doesn't have the 'LOLRANDUM' connotations that Various Nonsense had, and the latter satisfies those who want a dedicated place for constructive debates and other serious stuff.

Spoiler: Here, I made a quick mockup. (click to show/hide)

I endorse this, This is how it should be. It will take care of our problems. We can be serious, the boards will be more accurately named, and we can lol at each other a la Realmfighter without derailing serious discussion.

[Aqizzar]

Eh... Okay, now I don't pretend I know what goes on in Toady's head better than anyone else, but let's think about the statements and actions he has made here.  He tried making more sections while keeping Various Nonsense open.  He tolerated the rapid fire posting in Happy and Sad as long as was willing to.  I don't think it's the interference alone of silliness that bothers him, in the sense that getting Reports and having to clean up threads is the problem.  It's that the silliness is itself the problem, because it never stays contained in any area set aside for it.

Look, we've been through this before.  Multiple times.  What solution worked every time before?  Tarn and Zach saying, "Knock it off guys, you're getting out of hand," and almost everybody pipes down for a good while, until it creeps back to silliness again.  I don't see where there's any problem with that arrangement.

Although I do endorse the "Life Advice and Tech Support" title, since it's true.  What an incredibly weird board, 50/50 "Why is my motherboard broken?" vs "How do I get girl?"

[ECrownofFire]

Eh... Okay, now I don't pretend I know what goes on in Toady's head better than anyone else, but let's think about the statements and actions he has made here.  He tried making more sections while keeping Various Nonsense open.  He tolerated the rapid fire posting in Happy and Sad as long as was willing to.  I don't think it's the interference alone of silliness that bothers him, in the sense that getting Reports and having to clean up threads is the problem.  It's that the silliness is itself the problem, because it never stays contained in any area set aside for it.

Look, we've been through this before.  Multiple times.  What solution worked every time before?  Tarn and Zach saying, "Knock it off guys, you're getting out of hand," and almost everybody pipes down for a good while, until it creeps back to silliness again.  I don't see where there's any problem with that arrangement.

Although I do endorse the "Life Advice and Tech Support" title, since it's true.  What an incredibly weird board, 50/50 "Why is my motherboard broken?" vs "How do I get girl?"

I think the main problem with the silliness is that there's no clear set boundaries for it. Right now, we have all of GD in one generic spot, which contains everything from politics to ponies.

I'd suggest renaming Life Advice to something more generic like "Help" though. Maybe even just a generic board for "what should I do?" and the like.

[Zai]

While we're at it, I also propose a tech support board, or maybe renaming Life Advice to Life Advice & Tech Support.

I've noticed some people wanting tech support posting in GD and others posting in LA. Just making LA applicable to all would probably help. As CoF said, renaming LA to "Help" or to "Life Advice and Tech Support" as ein said, or something else similar (and rewording its board description) would aid in that.

Spoiler: On Serious subforums (click to show/hide)

I also semi-support the addition of a "serious" subforum (whether to Finally as a whole, like GD and Creative Projects, or to GD/renamed GD as a Child Board, like Mafia and RTD are to Forum Games), but I fear that that would appear to be giving the all-clear to completely spam GD, even though it wouldn't really. Perhaps it could be a subforum to GD (like Mafia and RTD are for Forum Games, Play With Your Buddies is for Other Games, and DF Wiki Discussion became at some point for DF Gameplay Questions) entitled "Completely Serious Discussion" or just "Serious Discussion" as ein said or something else for intellectual debates or serious discussions.

There was an old forum I lurked at (with comparable member base size) that had a Serious/Debate subforum and GD-equivalent subforum and it seemed to work well for keeping the casually-discussing-stuff threads and posts out of the serious discussions; people who posted in the Serious forum did their research. The post amounts for each subforum weren't comparable to each other (obviously(?), the GD-equivalent had more posts than the one for which people were heavily discouraged from posting in without backing up their opinion with facts). Considering the forum's penchant for debates (which I haven't been seeing that much of lately, but I may just not be looking at the right threads), I think a new (sub-)section specifically for this would go over well.

I think a Serious subforum should only be made if topic creators (who really have the say as to what they let fly in their thread based on what they say in the OP) can not help keep silliness to a minimum in their serious threads by including a line (preferably as the first thing they say in the first post of the thread) saying that the thread is meant to be serious and that any out-of-place silliness will not be tolerated (as in, reported). I've noticed a general lack of topic creators setting guidelines for their threads.