I don't remember where I saw the post today, but I definitely like the idea of Fun & Games becoming just "GAMES" (or Games And Playing, or whatever), AND Hot Topics being split into "on topic" or "serious" (including those threads where the gloves come off) and "casual talk." These are only crude names, but I think it gives the idea.
I know that Rational Lunacy is one of (yes) a number of reasons that I habituate JUB. Various threads in Hot Topics have surprised me, made me angry, elated me, made me pray, made me cry, inspired me, made me laugh, made me realize something, made me feel "Ewwwww!" - and, yes, on rare occasions even scared me. Who knows, there may even be a day when I can say that a full relationship came to me from somewhere within JUB? I always thought that humor was a VERY important component in all this, and it's an unalterable fact that almost every humorous bit will offend
somebody. Because humor may offend somebody, should it be banned or exiled? Absolutely not! Furthermore, RL's type of humor just
happens to fit in with the type of humor I most appreciate. That doesn't mean that everybody is supposed to appreciate it, and part of our own individual sovereignty is that we are free to choose what we like or don't like, and, if need be, we have the right to ignore that which we prefer to.
If somebody doesn't like RL, there's always the Ignore option.
What I would like to know from you guys is what is with the stigma attached to Fun & Games? Why is it seen as insulting when a thread is moved there? Why is F&G considered the badlands or the pariah of the board?
The Fun & Games forum is NOT an "inferior" or deficient forum, in any way. Hell, I've started a number of threads there myself, and I'm there (at some point) pretty much every day. It's there for a purpose, and people are there to have fun. It's all part of human nature. However, since that forum has evolved overwhelmingly into PLAYING GAMES (word play, personal factoids, short personal lists, continuing stories, etc.) - or was it basically a GAMES place from the beginning? - AND because the posts in that section are generally exceedingly short and quick, the "churn" is intense. Somebody there can make a full 60 posts per hour EASILY - try to do THAT in CE & P, for example! I've studied its front page a number of times, and I've noticed that the front page (where I see 50 threads at a time) can completely turn over in less than two hours. I think once that I saw the oldest post on the front page (the 50th thread down) was a mere 1 hour 14 minutes earlier.
In F&G some of the posts are so short that people often have to use ...... or **** in their posts, to fulfill the
ten-character posting minimum. The counting thread and the antonym thread are good examples of this.
The RL threads are invariably much more than just asking people to come up with a couple of words here and there; they are almost always discussions. I don't feel that a DISCUSSION thread should
ever be put in F & G - not even a thread about video games or TV quiz shows. (I once posted a thread about Jeopardy! there, only to realize later it probably belonged in HT.) Discussions are meant not to get buried and overwhelmed amid other threads, and if something can fall to Page 2 after only 1 & 1/4 hours, that's not where a discussion belongs.
Springboksfan mentioned, somewhere (oh, here it is, at 2:08 this morning - above) the concept of "flooding" - multiple threads on the same topic. I have sometimes seen mods merge threads, and it's always seemed appropriate when it was done. Well, if one can consider "GAME PLAYING" to be a topic, and it can certainly be argued that way, and if F&G got merged into the HT forum, wouldn't that be the same thing as flooding? I think that merging the two forums would cause members to flee the forum
en masse. If a HT thread isn't active enough to get at least 20 or 30 posts per day - and only a few are that active - it will rapidly sink to Page 2 or even Page 3. That is basically a death knell for that thread.
Moving RL threads to F&G, and the talk of merging F&G into HT, are flip sides of the very same coin. The two issues are exact corollaries of each other. As much as I disagree with RL being moved to F&G (where discussion threads don't belong), moving F&G to HT would affect *ALL* discussion threads, not just RL's.
I've let it be known that I disagree
intensely with the newfangled placement of RL threads, but I have to ADD VERY QUICKLY that I have in general been very highly satisfied with
virtually all of the moderation decisions on this site, and I realize that some of the calls aren't easy ones. Actually, this being my first dispute over moderation in
about 18 months, I think that speaks pretty well of the job that's being done, and it's entirely volunteer.
So many threads can be seen as hybrid threads, not entirely at home in one place. For example, though the Pegasus69 "cancer update" thread resides in its
proper place (Hot Topics), it could easily be argued that it would be very much at home in the "Health & Well Being" forum.
And there used to be an active thread on which we were asked to say what our favorite threads were. Where does THAT belong? It was in HT, where it got the most exposure, but it could be argued that it belonged in Site Help and Feedback, which would have made it visible to almost nobody.
Ironically, having moved the two RL threads to F&G recently has probably given them new life (which is an anomaly when moved to a place where they can so easily get flooded out, and where a fewer number of people venture), because "the poll one" was soon to become passe (he DID come back
ON SCHEDULE, after all), and the other recent one WOULDN'T HAVE EVEN EXISTED if "the poll one" had remained in HT. However, the original issue, and the reason for RL's hiatus to begin with, is that **PREVIOUS** threads had been moved to F&G.
Which ones? How many threads were moved? You see, I don't know...because they most likely sank to Page 2 or 3 immediately, and I didn't see them.
That's entirely the point. Our point is not to disparage F & G in any way, but merely the realization that "discussion threads" sink into the quicksand VERY quickly if they're moved there.
I love seeing the RL threads in the mix, seriously - and I hope that future RL threads can remain in their intended places. I feel a need for the humor, and I repeat, it's been an important component in my enjoyment of this huge site. I don't want to see something done which threatens the integrity or continuation of the forums, which makes JUB one of the most special places on the www. These various forums are very special and even what I believe to be the largest gay site on the internet (you know, the one with one of the Web's shortest URL's) has nothing at all like what we have here.
RL, please stay with us. And I hope that your threads can stay in HT where they belong.
RL is intelligent enough to realize when something truly belongs in F&G, and I don't think he'll hesitate to start a thread there if that's where it belongs. It's my understanding that he's been a moderator himself, somewhere else.
I did notice that the "place-saving" function is being used currently (there's two of them on the front page) - I couldn't remember seeing it used in quite a few weeks, and the most recent example I could find a day ago was its usage in early May. Can't the moved RL threads at least have a "Moved:" notice in HT, if they otherwise stay in F&G?
An unanswered question, though, is what would happen if the JUB membership grew large enough to out-populate Oklahoma City or Detroit. One can assume that the number of threads and the number of postings would increase similarly. Wouldn't that mean, then, that even in HT (even without any threads that, in any way, even resemble games OR fun), the front page would be completely turning over every hour or so? Ironically there would possibly be LESS turnover and churn in F&G, because there's only so many variations of gaming via text. (I'm thinking of starting a new thread in a few minutes, there...) The obvious answer would be to break HT into more subforums, which would strongly increase the numbers of threads which seem to belong to multiple categories, and where to look for something would become all the more perplexing.
In other words, damned if you do, damned if you don't...
Please, don't even THINK of asking me to be a moderator...!!!!!!
