skier

daoust, from my impression of the chat log The reason you were "shushed" was because you did not contribute to the discussion but rather demanded clarification for the topics being discussed. While it was in a public chatroom, neither halx or supplecow felt you were contributing and both first ignored you and then eventually told you to shut up (done fairly politely, i think). When you became irate because of it you were kicked.

While I have no idea what TRG means, I think that your goals of what the TFP should be are vastly different than what the forum goals were intended to be. When i first signed up the emphasis on the board was provoking thought and learning new things. While this was fun and entertaining at times at others it became heated or 'prickly' and some topics were difficult to discuss reasonably. When i first browsed the forums i wasn't just looking for a "lighthearted evening of fun". I have that at home, with my friends, or on other bulletin boards. What made TFP special to me was the ability to talk about touchy subjects with a modicum of reason and dignity. I think we've lost that ability, and that we've been losing it slowly for a long time.

__________________
"Asking a bomb squad if an old bomb is still "real" is not the best thing to do if you want to save it." - denim

Halx

I'll state the Daoust situation right now, but if it must be continued, lets do so in another form.

We had a conversation going and Daoust was resorting to his usual device of interjection for the sake of interjection. There was no need for him to ask for clarification because I was driving the conversation... which was just that - a conversation. Not a grilling. I told him to shush (mind you, not in capital letters) and he was quite indignant with his response. Rather than let it derail the conversation, I removed him from the situation so it could continue.

__________________
You have found this post informative.
-The Administrator
[Don't Feed The Animals]

Daoust

Understood. I appreciate this response. Halx you can delete my posts from this thread.

__________________
I have faith in a few things - divinity and grace
But even when I'm on my knees I know the devil preys

Halx

How have we come about this?

__________________
You have found this post informative.
-The Administrator
[Don't Feed The Animals]

Lasereth

BTW if you want to get TFP more lively I suggest linking the hell out of it and opening up all the porn to everyone. Porn is what brought many members to TFP. Just because they came for porn doesn't mean they don't end up being contributing, polite members. Break TFP wide open for new people while keeping threads flame-free at the same time.

__________________
"A Darwinian attacks his theory, seeking to find flaws. An ID believer defends his theory, seeking to conceal flaws." -Roger Ebert

World's King

I think the main problem is that I'm not on here as much.


You people always forget that I'm the King.

__________________
heavy is the head that wears the crown

JumpinJesus

I understand exactly what you're saying. I think the issue seems to involve shesus, myself, daoust, and ngdawg because we posted at C:A under our TFP names. This makes it easy to place us at the center of it because our names are recognizable.

I can't speak to why some members used different names at C:A. They may have been looking for anonymity there and for me to call them out would be unfair, which is why I refrain from using their names. It's not my place to reveal those identities. This could make the discussion a bit more difficult and lends to the perception that it's sour grapes on my part. Hell, maybe it is, and if it is, then I'll concede that and let it drop. But I think that what transpired over there is going to be the catalyst for change here and I don't think that would have happened if everyone involved had been using aliases. Oddly enough, in that regard, I have to admire ngdawg and daoust, despite what my words may suggest.

As SuppleCow stated, this problem has been brewing for a long time. To me, a large part of what makes TFP stand out from any other forum out there are the Creativity forums, including exhibition. You can have politics discussions, general discussions, gaming, computer, music, movie, automobile, etc. discussions on any generic forum on the internet. TFP stands out for me because of its Creativity forums. But the Creativity forums are dying a slow death and I believe the reasons for it have to do, in part, to what SuppleCow was mentioning.

I believe that if Creativity dies, then the essence of what TFP was and is dies. I don't want that to happen. If TFP is going to return to what it was, we need direction from its leader and we need to resolve these problems.

__________________
"I can normally tell how intelligent a man is by how stupid he thinks I am" - Cormac McCarthy, All The Pretty Horses

hagatha

Okay, so I've been here less than a year. When I first joined I felt completely invisible. If I posted on a thread, people would talk around my post and to one another but never respond to what I said. Being ever tenacious, I stuck it out.
It has only been in the last 2 months or so, and after starting what I consider some pretty lively thread discussions, that I've seen a thaw in the initial chill. I am not part of the "gang" here, but I like this place, its interesting. I don't know what the "old days" were like, but it really reminds me of middle age people going on about how great the 60's were. Can we live in the now?

For what its worth, that is my 2 cents.

__________________
Thats the last time I trust the strangest people I ever met....H. Simpson

skier

I think it was a shift in the values of this board away from a freedom of expression and towards increased safety.


To me, the clearest moment of that change was when I created a thread about the attractiveness of obesity. I had recognized it was a touchy subject for some people so I toned down my first post to what i thought would avoid offending some people who were sensitive about the topic. From that altered position i found i had to frantically backpedal due to accusations of being shallow, narcissistic, cruel, and just uncaring in general.

From that point, i felt that my freedom to express an opinion was stifled and I lost the expectation that i would receive a logical rebuttal to my arguments. I believe Supplecow was very correct that members here no longer wish to "rock the boat" in order to avoid being ostracized by the group.

__________________
"Asking a bomb squad if an old bomb is still "real" is not the best thing to do if you want to save it." - denim

jorgelito

Yeah. Exactly. Like how some people freak out when others post comments about their exhibition pics. We've all become a bit wound up on these boards.

This is very true. There is definitely some cliquism going on these boards here. It turns off newbs.

Halx

Thanks skier

__________________
You have found this post informative.
-The Administrator
[Don't Feed The Animals]

highthief

Yup, that's a big part of it. Politics is a joke at the moment; generally just two extremes yelling at each other and not listening.

I agree with others that new members are either A) ignored, or B) told in no uncertain terms that they aren't contributing enough/breaking the rules/being too simplistic/all of the above.

Personally, I concur that forum specific moderation is a good way to go, with moderators that are concerned about their specific forms and who will work to drive traffic up rather than down. Some of the current mods would do well in such a role; others will fail because they are, sorry to say, part of the problem.

If you want the board to be a place for provocative, reasoned, and well behaved discussion, then those are the kinds of people who should moderate.

Bigger, friendlier welcomes for new people are de rigeur - more emphasis on really welcoming new players and getting them involved.

__________________
Si vis pacem parabellum.

World's King

We've become bored housewives. And some of us already were.



TFP has been changing along with the rest of the internet. Fast cheap internet has given way to people like my grandmother having an email address. She still listens to tapes.


Sorry y'all but this place will never be like it was. Once everyone knows about something it stops being cool.

__________________
heavy is the head that wears the crown

Redjake

The main reason, in my opinion, that TFP has "degenerated" or whatever you'd call it, is because of the moderation. I see countless times, over and over, someone's post being "moderated for great justice" - while other people with 1000+ posts get to say what they want, when they want, and no one mentions that their post is just as offensive as another's. It's hard to point out specific examples, but the recent thread about wedding and engagement rings comes to mind. Man, people slaughtered that fella that made that thread - saying that he should stop concentrating on the "little stuff" and questioning why he "creates threads about hating stuff" and all that. The thread got a little out of control, and some people were called out for being rude - but it didn't work both ways. A lot of people stated their opinion, and got flamed, and others stated their opinion while shitting on other's opinions at the same time, and were set free without punishment.

The TFP just isn't as balanced as it used to be. People didn't flame others for their opinion, no matter how annoying/psycho/strange/politically incorrect it was - the only time you got flamed was when you were RUDE to other people. The mods were swift with justice to the rude folk - but no matter what your opinion or thoughts or "pessemistic state of mind" were, you had a freedom of speech for your thoughts, as long as they weren't rude or offensive.

Now, it's very subjective to who can voice extreme opinions or not without repercussion. I think that's what's made TFP go down in the past years.

You used to be able to admit you enjoyed your wife taking a shit in your mouth without being flamed for it. Now, if you have an opinion that isn't in line with the "big posters," you get flamed for it, and flamed worse if you react to the initial flaming.

__________________
Off the record, on the q.t., and very hush-hush.

World's King

That's funny... I enjoy my wife shitting in my mouth too...

__________________
heavy is the head that wears the crown

shakran

Hehe. Halx. The TFP has a rep People know what's here. Plus as NG pointed out you kinda mention it in the guidelines.

I don't think you can pull the mention of it either and only reveal the porn once the user gets "promoted" - - then you'll get people coming here for a pure discussion board, and being shocked/pissed when the porn is revealed. I think you have two choices here - -either open the porn up to the newbies again, or kick it over to the new forum.

I'd vote for kicking it. One reason is because of the workload on you and the other mods. You'll have to go back to the old system of badgering all the porn leechers to post again. The other is because I think that, especially now that you have a core userbase of people who like what you've built here and want to see that continue, you can attract more people if the stigma of porn isn't here. As diverse as the forum is, we're much narrower than we could be without the porn - that porn is gonna keep away anyone who doesn't like it, or who believes their religion forbids them to be near it.

While the initial reaction to that from some will no doubt be "fuck 'em, we don't need that close mindedness around here anyway" we have to realize that that's a very good way to form an exclusive and obscure club. One of the underlying themes of this board that, despite indications to the contrary from others in this thread, still exists is it's overall philosophy of acceptance. Gay? So what, doesn't bother us. Transsexual? That's OK too. Hell we even let Republicans on here But if we keep the "acceptance club" open to only those who already accept everything, it's very hard to show the closed minded ones the right path. Appeal to a broader base and not only will you increase your user count, but I think you'll have the opportunity to do some real educating.

Just my thoughts.

Bossnass

A little while back, I can't remember how long, the same poster, JinnKai, had started a thread about depression. And he was attacked on all fronts by many core members. He was attacked, instead of the ideas he presented being attacked. Eventually, some good discussion came out of the thread. However, I think that marked the point where TFP had lost its magic for me. Largely from that thread, I've formed (probably inaccurate) opinions that make me discount the posts made by certain other members.

Redjake

Another good example. I even disagreed with his points, but the guy was attacked personally - when I joined in 2003 (I think it was), that never happened......

__________________
Off the record, on the q.t., and very hush-hush.

Halx

I remember that thread. I'm sure we all felt justified, but what you're saying is, we should have discussed the topic, and not brought it down on JinnKai. This is an interesting viewpoint and something I think I can admire. Judging JinnKai based on this thread is something any other forum would have done, but we could have talked about whether his points, not him in general, were worthwhile.

Thank you for bringing this up.

__________________
You have found this post informative.
-The Administrator
[Don't Feed The Animals]

Grasshopper Green

I agree completely. When I joined a little over two years ago, my first posts and threads were met with enthusiasm, warm welcomes, and genuine interest. When my husband joined about a year later, after seeing me spend most of my internet time here and thinking there must be something special about this TFP place, he asked me what was so great about the community because most of his posts received little response. He quickly abandoned posting and to my knowledge, does not come here anymore.

I am just as guilty as anyone about not welcoming new members; I rarely visit Newbies and don't remember the last time I posted in the Welcome to the Board area. New blood is essential for continued growth, and if new members aren't feeling welcome, why should they stick around?

__________________
"They say that patriotism is the last refuge to which a scoundrel clings; steal a little and they throw you in jail, steal a lot and they make you king"

Formerly Medusa

pig

Halx,

Would it be possible to give the thread starter certain mod privelidges over their own threads, after they were a full member? I'm thinking in terms of setting the tone for the type of language allowed in the thread and so forth. It seems that some of what is being talked about in this thread is that people have different preferred modes of conversation. If the forum is to be truly diverse, perhaps we could have a way to allow certain types in certain threads, while disallowing it in others. For instance, I have a feeling that jj would have a far different preference than would shanni.

in regards to the thread(s) with jinn, i haven't reviewed the threads in a while to get the exact details, but in particular the thread about depression - what i recall is a lot of people telling jinn that he had no fucking idea what he was talking about, and that he might want to do some reading on depression. as i recall, jinn's basic premise was the people who didn't overcome their depression and who allowed it to substantially interfere with their daily lives were losers, and apparently some members felt that was an incredibly stupid thing to say. i agree - that was an incredibly stupid thing to say. i'm not sure i'm really against allowing members to express that viewpoint. jinn has also received his share of love on the boards as well. how do you tell someone they have no idea what they're talking about, without it coming off as being personal - particulary if they make the op of a personal/opinion-based tone?

Re: Newbies thing: I personally don't get it. I don't think I went there once when I joined. I read the rules, and I started posting in Nonsense. I guess I don't understand why people want to "introduce" themselves on an internet forum, and why people would want to go "welcome" them? Is this farily common on forums? It seems to me that all of that will be handled naturally enough in the threads....

/perhaps a minor point, but i never thought any of that was really that big of a deal - yet a lot of people are mentioning the Newbies section it seems.

__________________
You don't love me, you just love my piggy style

Slims

I think you have too many forums.

TFP is becoming too...compartmented. I am sure it is not the only issue, but I think you are giving people too many choices, and too many opportunities to miss out on a good discussion.

Personally, I notice that I tend to spend a lot of time in my favorite forums and neglect others. I tend to do this even when nothing is happening in my main forums.

The only reason I found this thread was because I noticed it on the main page. I almost never go into general discussions anymore (though I should) because I just click on members playground.

Your forums are so specialized that many of them move very, very slowly.

It is hard to just drift into a discussion about something. In order for me to end up in a debate about politics I have to go to the politics forum...which will probably only happen if I am looking more for an argument than for a spontaneous debate.

I think Shakran is onto something about the porn, though I remember some nonsense a while back with some adult sites that prompted the change.


Rather than two seperate forums, you could perhaps let members choose what content they want to be exposed to when they sign up...Maybe a question in their personal settings: "Do you want access to adult content on this forum?" Something you have to opt into rather than get automatically after a particular post count.

That way the site would by default be SFW while pornhounds would be able to get what they came for also.



Of course, part of the problem is that the topics never change. Sexuality is always going to have some 19 year old guy wondering if he should ask some girl out or how to give oral sex. I think the older members of this board become less likely to take the time they used to to answer such questions.

I used to live on the TFP, but nowadays I am just not as captivated as I once was. Of course, I am now out of college and have drastically altered my lifestyle, but I think I have (mostly) exhausted the few sub-forums I frequent (sexuality, tilted weaponry, etc.).

I would condense the entire tilted creativity into 2 forums: Exhibition and Art. Condense the academy back to Sexuality and Living (for everything else). Condense Tilted Chatter back to two or three forums. I like the idea of a nonsense forum for all the 'what do you think of the previous poster' threads but drop everything else except members and general discussion. Recombine all of Tilted Interests. Definately ditch any forum that has a thread count under a thousand (or isn't new). To mix things up maybe periodically add a forum for a few months, but then before it gets stagnant replace it with something else. Sort of a topic of the week deal.


I know this is an extreme suggestion and I don't expect you to take my extreme stance, but I sincerely think overspecialization is killing this forum since people will get stuck in their one little subgroup and won't contribute to the broader Tilted Forum Project (and I am as guilty as anybody).

Edited to add: I also found this forum off of a FARK link years ago (2000 or 2001). FARK was, I believe, a major membership source for this site but TFP is no longer on FARK.

__________________
"Socialism is a philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and the gospel of envy, its inherent virtue is the equal sharing of misery." - Winston Churchill

"All men dream: but not equally. Those who dream by night in the dusty recesses of their minds wake in the day to find that it was vanity: but the dreamers of the day are dangerous men, for they may act out their dream with open eyes, to make it possible." Seven Pillars of Wisdom, T.E. Lawrence

Bossnass

pigglet, Halx,

I don't propose that that thread should have been better moderated. It is critical that you should be able to call a spade a spade, etc. That said, I think that there is a strong presence of 'Old Guard' that I've never felt comfortable 'calling out'.

I brought it up because at the time I noticed 3 SuperModerators coming down on the poster, not the idea. The entire response was off, and I recall it was a turning point for my opinion of the TFP. I also think it is a highpoint in internet discussion; someone actually changed their opinion- Jinnkai uses (used?) a suitably modified statement of his original thesis in his signature.

There is a quote, paraphrased and non-attributed, that great minds discuss ideas, normal minds discuss events, but small minds talk about people. I probably talk the most about people and events, and only occasionally about ideas. At one point, I think that TFP was a great medium and one of the only places online that you could talk about ideas like an adult. I came to TFP through a Fark porn link, and I quite literally stayed because of mature internet discussion. I'm young enough to have always had a computer, but I'm old enough to hate l33t5p34k. I'm proud that we haven't degenerated to allowing in large scale. I also want to make the distinction between "mature" and "elevated" discussion. I don't claim to be a great thinker or that most my posts are elevated, but I very much appreciate the lack of "STFU Noob"

Also, I think the presence of the nonsense board, the erogenous zone, and creativity are a critical balance to the potentially too 'elevated' discussion.

Borla

I've been a regular on several message boards for 5-6 years. I have been on the staff of several of them, and have been Admin on three boards. I'm current an Admin on one of the largest/busiest commercial sites online (top 100 on BigBoards), and I own my own board that I consider extremely successful. I state the above because I doubt I'm very well known here, but wanted to explain that I feel my opinion comes with a background of experience and success with message boards in general.




That being said, I've noticed a gradual downhill trend in posting habits (not just volume, but quality of posts and members) for the last two years or so. I don't think it is just a TFP problem. Just like the networks are losing market share and ratings, message boards are doing the same. Part of it has to do with choices. There are so many boards out there, and so many options, that boards that have been around a long time are seeing less posts and quality threads than was common in years past.

As far as TFP specifically, I think there are a few things that could be tweaked. In general it is a great board. The politeness and respect shown by the members exceed that shown on the vast majority of boards out there.

The fact that threads get locked for previous threads being on the same subject could/should be adjusted IMO. When I first started posting more often here, I had a thread or two locked because there was supposedly conversation on the same subjects previously. The previous conversations were many, many months buried in the forums. I scanned the first couple of pages before posting, but they were located even deeper than that. To me, if conversation has not been continued or active for long enough that it is beyond the first couple of pages, maybe it isn't so bad to get a new one started.

Also, I am a proponent of fewer, but more active, sub-forums. I think the forums here are well organized, but some of them are extremely slow. Maybe some of them were made without the volume of posts to support them? Or maybe the interest was once there, but isn't now?

Neither of those are huge problems really, just minor issues. I think the main "problem" isn't TFP-driven, but internet driven. Message boards everywhere are seeing similiar issues. The best resolution is high activity by staff, a continuation of most of the policies already in place, and a willingness to listen to and pay attention to the members' thoughts and opinions.

Though I've probably never been a "regular" here, I've always admired the spirit and attitude of this place.

__________________
Coimhéad fearg fhear na foighde!!!!

Charlatan

Greg, it's funny, I don't notice the size of the board because I browse by way of "new posts". It brings up all of the latest threads from all areas of the board that are linked to it (which is all but Nonsense and the Erogenous Zone).

But it's an interesting point.

__________________
"My hands are on fire. Hands are on fire. Ain't got no more time for all you charlatans and liars."
- Old Man Luedecke

analog

Well, we have scaled back the number of forums due to this before. I think that the number of forums has been pretty constant from what we refer to as "before", until now, so I'm not sure if that's something that put us where we are. I think a larger part of it is how we all interact with each other on those forums. It's a good observation, though, and worth looking into even if it's not the reason why we're "here".

I think the main issue we're having is that the porn is there at all, not whether or not some people can access it. Being able to choose to not see it won't change the opinion formed by a person on the whole of the place... the "oh, there's porn here" likely won't go away if we put an option to eliminate that area from your view. For example: you want to introduce a friend or coworker to the TFP... the issue is not that they can see the porn, it's that it's here at all. I think they don't want to link a friend to something that's a discussion board, only to find out later that it also contains porn. Good observation, though.

That's an interesting idea, to make the TFP more "NSFW"-friendly for those who surf at work. You can already do that, though, by "collapsing" the erogenous zone forum in the main forum page... you click the arrow on the right and it only shows "Erogenous Zone", not the names of the forums or the threads within. So that's probably a good enough start for most people.


We've actually started work on something to address the fairly recurring themes in the Sexuality forum... not necessarily to cut down on the "same old, same old", but so that other threads can really stand out by not being buried in things we see frequently. In this way, people will know that their questions/issues/etc will be heard loud and clear, and not lost in the shuffle.

I also liked some suggestions on further condensing certain forum groups, though I'm not sure all of them need to be combined. I think a lot of the major ones have lives of their own, and enough posting that it would overcrowd other forums if they were merged. All the interests forums are just so that people have places to go to talk as much as they want about specific things... easier to go to a forum when you want to talk about cars, than have to sift through who knows how many threads in a more generalized forum.

I see a great amount of thinking and ideas in here, and that's great. Keep it up, all.

I think that's a great observation, and part of where it seems that it got personal in that thread. If someone says, "that's the stupidest thing I've ever heard", that's not a truly personal comment, and yet it's not totally impersonal, either. If a person feels strongly enough in an opinion, they will feel personally attacked even if you go to extreme length to specify that you're only critiquing the opinion. I think that this is part of this issue- when you bare your heart and soul into a topic, we need to understand that someone disagreeing with our personal viewpoints doesn't mean they're going after you, personally. Once a few people had said how they felt about his opinion, it quickly escalated into him feeling personally attacked because he felt strongly about that opinion.

Part of our growth should be recognizing in ourselves when we're particularly invested in a subject, and making sure we separate out "truly personal" from what we feel is personal just because we're intimately attached to the opinion. Great point, pigglet.

hulk

Like a lot of folk, I came here because a buddy said it was a good place to find porn. These days I rarely frequent it. High-speed internet and p2p content has really reduced the impact of the TB, I guess.

I don't see TFP as a porn site. I come here for the discussion - and this thread is a pristine example of why. I don't know of anywhere else where this topic would be discussed with such maturity and insight. However, I'm hesitant to introduce my friends because of the prevailance of the porno. Even if I give them the link to a great topic they have to sign up to read it.

I'm thinking that the TB to draws the masses and we hope some of them stick, while at the same time it acts as a deterrance to many personal invites.

A quick solution? Keep it, link it to the same database as the TFP but have it under a different DNS

__________________
"'There's a tendency among the press to attribute the creation of a game to a single person,' says Warren Spector, creator of Thief and Deus Ex."
-- From an IGN game review.

Fire

The board now feels stagnant, and I feel that I know why

THE PORN IS NOT THERE FOR THE NEWBS

in any net community, people come and go, and some will be complete wankers, some will be worthwhile people- Free porn sucks in the masses- Once this place was filled with funny threads in nonesense, humor, etc, - there were more posts, period, in general- what it comes to is that to find the diamonds, you must deal with the coal, and porn will bring em in like nothing else- YES there will be trouble with idiots, but you will also get great things and better people along with it- I and a lot of others were recommended to this forum for the porn, and without it would not have found the place that I now love- so open the porn floodgates, and prepare to sort through the idiots with a lot of EVENHANDED and dedicated modding, and watch the place flourish again......... (an important footnote is that this cannot work without dedicated mods who are fair- I have no complaints at this time personally, but its gonna be a big task, and stressfull, as I am sure you all know.....)

__________________
Thought the harder, Heart the bolder,
Mood the more as our might lessens

ubertuber

Wow - this really exploded into something substantial.

1) My observation/guilty admission: I think we're way more alike than we want to admit. I think the board has a culture of tolerance and diversity, but over the years, there is a definite critical mass that drives what is "kinky", what types of posts are appreciated, and the like. Honestly I think it's less about the big posters as individuals than it is about the collective agreement you see here.

I first noticed this among the moderators... I don't know if this is giving away secrets about the back room, but many of the discussions in the staff-only forums are marked by tremendous amounts of agreement. Every once in a while there are outliers and of course there's always one or two people who rub each other the wrong way, but I rarely see people really hashing things out in a deep way anymore. This same thing is mostly true in the rest of the site. In fact, I really think it is the exceptions that prove the rule. Remember the cousins thread in sexuality? Perfect example of the inertia that had to be overcome before the thread took off, and how long did that take?

2) I totally agree that there are just too many forums here. Conversations are fragmented and people don't respond to things that are in scary areas. Like Charlatan, I browse through the new post button, but not everyone does. Ever notice how politically minded threads live much better lives (with more posters) when they're put in GD?

3) C:A - I guess I just don't get what the hullabaloo is on this. I'm confused as to why it is TFP people not at TFP. And why do people think that things that happen over there don't affect relationships here (or at least why was there surprise about this). I can't see how it could really hurt anything, but it is kind of a strange relationship between the two spaces. I say keep the porn here. It's part of the human experience. If there's really an issue with NSFW stuff, can we create a cookied option in the user cp that allows NSFW content to be hidden (sort of like you can do with avatars)?

4) Evolution is a great catchword, but do we really agree on anything about what it means? We throw it around so much, but it only seems to vaguely indicate tolerance (which we're mediocre at past a certain point) and diversity (which we actually don't have a lot of).

__________________
Cogito ergo spud -- I think, therefore I yam

dirtyrascal7

Holy crap, it took me forever to read through all this... I have so many things I want to respond to, but I already forget 3/4 of them and I'm not rereading this thread tonight, haha.

Anyway, my background is that I joined back in May '04... directed here by a link on Fark (yes, for the porn). I don't think that I even bothered looking at the porn the first day because I was distracted by everything else that was here. When I started reading through some of the forums, I was blown away at how members were treating each other... always with the utmost respect, and it seemed like no topic was too edgy or taboo. I loved how open everyone was and how tolerant people were of other peoples' openness. There was a great balance and synergy happening.

skier and redjake described exactly why I took a hiatus from TFP. I felt the change as well, although admittedly not as distinctly as skier. It seemed as if my posts/opinions weren't being considered or respected as much simply because I wasn't a more vocal member, so I resorted back to lurking, and eventually just quit visiting the site for a while. I just started lurking/posting again last month, and I will definitely stick around again if things change. I don't expect it to ever be like it was, but at the very least, this flaming/intimidation needs to stop... it's bad enough that it scares away new members, but even worse that it discourages older members into leaving.

This seems like a very interesting concept, but perhaps to idealistic. It would be great in theory because the thread starter obviously cares about the topic and wants to see their thread blossom, so they would be more likely to pay attention to it and put in the time to moderate it... lifting a lot of time demands from the actual moderators. However, it's certain some people would go overboard with this kind of power and not allow for a full spectrum of comments and viewpoints, which obviously hinders the evolution of the thread and therefore the forum.

I think the best way to get involved on an internet forum is to pick a few topics that interest you and just jump in. However, it can be very intimidating for some people to do that because they don't know how their posts will be taken. A person who just joined a well-established forum is much like a freshman on his first day of college... they typically don't know anyone and they feel just like "a number". Some people are outgoing enough that this doesn't bother them, but not all people are like that.

Halx -- as for my suggestions, I think the TFP is still a great place for intelligent discussion, but it's not for everyone. I think the worst thing you could do is try and appeal to the masses to get more members (whether that means booting the TB or opening it to newbies)... message boards by their very nature are niche products, so you need to make the product consistent with its goals. "The Evolution of Humanity, Sexuality, and Philosophy" is a great slogan and concept, but what exactly IS your goal for this place? I think that a lot of the problems we're facing right now are important, but in order to truly cure them, you need to start from the inside and work out. What we need is a mission statement... one that is slapped right on the main page like your search for a new host is, so that people are reminded of what this place is about... its ideals, principles, and values.

Whether you want to come up with this on your own is up to you, but I think it would be more impactful if you had input from others in the community... perhaps create a wiki for it somehow?

I'll let everyone else argue about the forum restructuring... to me that doesn't seem as important as restoring the balance and synergy we once had.

__________________
"Tie yourself to your limitless potential, rather than your limiting past."

"Every man I meet is my superior in some way. In that, I learn of him."

ubertuber

The thing about recruiting new members is that you kind of have to plan on the vast majority not panning out as contributers.

__________________
Cogito ergo spud -- I think, therefore I yam

Halx

I'm going to have the moderators focus on the points that are being posted and enforcing the open expression. That to me is what the latest posts have been expressing what needs to happen.

__________________
You have found this post informative.
-The Administrator
[Don't Feed The Animals]

Ourcrazymodern?

...there are no secrets. All the happily-entwined I know share the same secret!

__________________
BE JUST AND FEAR NOT

smooth

HOLY FUCKING SHIT, what is UP MY NIZZLE!

in any case, I agree with the above...well, all of it really, but this part is particularly poignant.

in addition to Nizzle's points, keep in mind that this site doesn't really revolve around anything...it doesn't appear to have a 'center' to me. perhaps over time politics became a center to me, but that's neither here nor there. I totally disagree that this is the only place where deep/stimulating conversations happen...what a load of bullshit and smugness. I'm a regular member of a shitload of boards...why? because they offer me something I enjoy...whether it be a forum on the types of audio gear I want, how to build my htpc, or rebuild my car. unless you somehow create a sense of distinct community, you'll probably continue to feel this drift...because there is no center you're having trouble pinpointing where the drift is occurring from.

and by community, I don't think amorphous community does it. it does for a small class of people, perhaps the ones nizzle is referring to. you see a center...a point to the forums...that most members do not. that's not to say they don't see value or any point to it, just that there does not seem to be an overarching theme or core value that ALL of your members subscribe to.

he can't because he's been here longer than the current post history shows.

and more importantly, he shouldn't have to. he already expressed his feelings on it, it's not something that needs to be proven.

__________________
"The theory of a free press is that truth will emerge from free discussion, not that it will be presented perfectly and instantly in any one account." -- Walter Lippmann

"You measure democracy by the freedom it gives its dissidents, not the freedom it gives its assimilated conformists." -- Abbie Hoffman

ubertuber

Smooth - am I right in interpreting this to mean that you think we need a mission statement (or at least a mission)? I think you really might be on to something with that. That's the crux of my queasiness about our constant harping on "evolution".

Sorry, but I think that's ridiculous. Yeah, nizzle doesn't have to prove his feelings, but that's purely subjective. I hear that particular criticism about both sides (and in between) so much that it is hard to make heads or tales out of this anymore. At the very least, being able to cite threads and posts would help others see what happened. This isn't the thread for that conversation, but we wouldn't be taking nizzle's concerns seriously if we didn't try to go and read through/reconstruct the incidents in question.

__________________
Cogito ergo spud -- I think, therefore I yam

The_Jazz

Apparently I may be a minority of 1 because I don't see any huge problems with this board that don't already exist in spades in the real world. The Politics forum has been dieing a slow death ever since I started regularly reading it, and I expect that it's been dieing that death ever since it started. It's more a commentary of human nature that those who yell the loudest get the most attention than a failing of the mods or that forum in general. At some point new folks will come along that will be willing to take the bait that both dksuddeth and willravel offer up on a daily basis and run with it. In my opinion, all that's needed to inject more "life" (for lack of a better term) in to Politics is a few rookies willing to stand by their points of view - or a few of "those that have gone before", like Ustwo, to come back to at least inject a sense of humor into some of the topics. I told someone the other day that the Politics board has transformed from a circus into gladiator games, and I can only take so much of that. All that said, I think that presently we're in one of those 4-6 week periods where everyone backs off for a bit and then jumps back in. There was a lot of energy expended before and in the few weeks after the mid-terms, and I expect we'll see it start to ramp up again as soon as frontrunners start to emerge nationally.

Personally, I see the C:A board as a neutral, but I think that it should be a completely separate neutral. I really don't want to be a part of it, and I think that it's a waste of my time, but if you all want to have a never-ending beauty contest, have at it. I would just ask that we keep the posts about it here to an absolute minimum. Hal, perhaps a closed sticky thread somewhere to let folks know it's there? Otherwise, I'll just keep not reading threads that mention it, which I know is my responsibility anyway.

Otherwise, TFP isn't broken, with the possible exception of photos being stolen out of Exhibition and posted elsewhere. Exactly what are we trying to fix?

__________________
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." - B. Franklin
"There ought to be limits to freedom." - George W. Bush
"We have met the enemy and he is us." - Pogo

MexicanOnABike

i was thinking about this last night and i think the forum seemed more alive a few years back because it was fresh and new. I was there in the last version and i joined back in this one but the 2 or 3 previous versions didn't last 4years! they were only there 1-2years right? maybe thats why? too many older ppl get bored with the repetitive posts so they leave?
and the C:A does not interest me so plz keep the TFP seperate from it. keep the porn here. that's what brought me here(from fark)... i think removing it would kill what brought everyone here.

__________________

- Movie Reviews - Ratings-

ngdawg

A) The moods.
B) The member numbers
C) The restoration of its 'edge'
Not in any particular order, but they're all inter-related.

As far as a mission statement, that's really for singular subject-based forums more. But what TFP could have and, I think, already does is 'thought provoking adult discussion with civillty'-more or less in those words.
How many of us have rolled our eyes at the newbie 'is my gf pregnant' thread starters or, upon seeing another Bush-bash, just leave thinking, "Cripes, here they go again".
Something that might help: Instead of archiving non-thoughtful threads that haven't been touched for, say, 12 months, just do a sweep-kill. Allow 'starting fresh' with subjects; the only thing noteworthy of really old threads is seeing who's been banned. Make things like "is my gf pregnant'(or other oft-repeated threadstarts) a sticky of sorts so that newbies coming in here just for that can see advice and opinions and gather some information before posting their own story. Let's face it, the search function just isn't utilized because everyone thinks what they have to say has never been said before and they're not concerned with bandwidth usage.
So, when we who've seen the same thing 100 times say we have, we're treating the newcomer somewhat shabbily, even if it is unintentional.
Someone mentioned the Welcome Forum and is it something common-every forum I have bookmarked or checked out has one(personally, I don't ever go into a place and 'introduce' myself. I lurk, find things of interest to me and post), but agreed, we should be more welcoming as a community, not leave that job to mods or just ignore the posts.
Getting traffic: Who here does not go to any other forum? If a forum you visit allows siteplugs in your sig, use it. Not many do, but it's a way to get visitors if allowed.
Finally-an email server attachment, ie: ng(at)tfp.org Nothing says 'come on over' like an email addy It's getting pretty common with other forums.

__________________
Don't blame me. I didn't vote for either of'em.

Toaster126

That's the one thing I really found ridiculous about all this other forum talk and making the TFP better/different talk. There is no excuse for treating other people like that (telling them to shush in the channel? wtf). If you wanted a public conversation, use a private message. If you want a public discussion, let people contribute what they may. If he had broken a rule, you should have reminded him of the rule or punished him, whatever the guidelines say you should do.

__________________
"The question isn't who is going to let me, it's who is going to stop me." (Ayn Rand)
"The truth is that our finest moments are most likely to occur when we are feeling deeply uncomfortable, unhappy, or unfulfilled. For it is only in such moments, propelled by our discomfort, that we are likely to step out of our ruts and start searching for different ways or truer answers." (M. Scott Peck)

smooth

I'm stopping just shy of saying that we need one only because the existence of a mission would funnel our behavior in particular ways--and that may be antithetical to Halx' vision. But you're right in interpreting what I wrote as claiming that the lack of a mission is at least partially responsible for this drift we are noticing. My suspicion is that you and I are on the same page.

Certainly. I'll clarify.
I wouldn't, as a general rule, make the claim that no one has an obligation to point out evidence to substantiate their claims, even in regards to things like feelings...I bet if you reflect on what you've come to "know" about me over the years, ubertuber, you'd agree with that statement.

But in this particular situation we have the dual pronged issue that a) due to past crashes of tfp, much of our collective history has been lost. now, when someone claims they feel a certain way over past behavior, and another person runs a search and only comes up with two instances of the member posting, it falls on the curious to either believe or disbelieve that the hurt member is actually telling the truth and that the reason no evidence is floating around is due to a malfunction of the board.

and b) while I would agree that it's important for people in a relationship to understand how things came to be how they are, for addressing a fixable problem or even for closure, in this particular case, nizzle has already decided not to be in a relationship with the board or its members. he essentially said, hey look, I feel like I was treated in a way that resulted in me not wanting much to do with the board. asking for a response that really only serves for the benefit of a community that he doesn't want any part of anymore isn't likely to elicit anything more from him.

I wasn't stating as a general rule that people shouldn't let others know where they went wrong, but rather if they decide not to do so that shouldn't result in writing off the concern.

I'm sure you're old enough to have experienced, or know someone who has, another person say there just anything more for us. and the response might be, but what did I do wrong? I can change...I'm willing to change...
the response might be, but these are problems I've been feeling for years. even if you changed, there's just too much for me to move past it.
and a legitimate response would be, why did you not bring this to me when it happened instead of letting it pile up to the point of no return?
but at that point, what obligation is the person leaving under to prove the legitimacy of why he or she left? none, is my opinion.
if that person chooses to stay in the relationship (community), then I would respond that hey, we need to address these issues so point out their occurences.

other than that, the person who left is liable to just think to him or herself, oh now you're going to addresss what I felt? or why point out what happened, so you can solidify in your mind that you were justified in how you acted toward me and feel better for my absence?

at this point, nizzle's beef is what it is.
if anyone wants to take it seriously, they'll have to watch themselves and make sure they don't run roughshod over someone else's opinion and make them feel unwelcome. there isn't much chance nizzle is going to come back and help with that process because if he cared he would still be here.

that's really all I was driving at, just because you don't see it and he doesn't point it out, doesn't mean things didn't happen to make him feel the way he does.



all that said, we should also keep in mind whether the so-called evolution of members can contribute to declinging membership. it's quite possible that the internet allows people to think and behave in ways they won't or can't in real life interactions. so much like people "evolved" out of titty board into general discussion or "evolved" from politics into the general community, perhaps a natural thing for the membership to do is to evolve out of the board into real life. and in that respect it can be understood as a net positive (in terms of the notion of growth for individuals as opposed to growth of the community). but if that thesis is correct, what one might expect to find is that the remainder are people less adept at handling social interactions in real life. and you might expect a certain brashness to their online interactions with other people, as well.

my sentiments on that interaction exactly

__________________
"The theory of a free press is that truth will emerge from free discussion, not that it will be presented perfectly and instantly in any one account." -- Walter Lippmann

"You measure democracy by the freedom it gives its dissidents, not the freedom it gives its assimilated conformists." -- Abbie Hoffman