Some feedback from Loungers please

[diebitter]

If you never posted in TQZ before, note I will not give it much countenance to your views - it is the views of established contributors that I seek here.

I was quite taken aback by Pryor's clear dislike of the changes I have brought about, and the support of his views from Katy, Madtown, and others. I wasn't expecting this inside The Lounge, but have been surprised. to this end, I would like some feedback to get a quantitative feel of mood on this change.

(Anyone commenting in Pryor's thread about the 'state of the forum' doesn't have to repeat it again, I'll take it as read - but feel free to if you wish)


Okay, opinions please. Do you:

1) Want it to go back to the quiet place it was before

2) Like it new and opened up (bear in mind the current shennanegins will die off in a while, as the participants get bored or banned)

3) Prefer a middle ground, where some polls/'best of' type threads are allowed (expand if you can please)

4) Something else


thanks
db


PS. I'll state my case - I do want this to be a high-quality forum with a significant element of discussion.

I will state I believe the old Zone seemed to cause posters aversion and tension about what was allowed or not, and put people off, and was also a little too dry...I believe the changes would be good in loosening the place up and actually help to ultimately build discussions.



If it turns out most of you wish it to be how it was, I will take this seriously and revert it back partially or completely...


BUT...

I will expect you to show me the money, and those that aren't doing it already, I expect some good content from you over the next few weeks to help build up some core mass.

thanks
db

[thatpfunk]

the way it was before. get the exiled the [censored] out of here.

[BarronVangorToth]

My issue is that I don't think it's intuitive as to what goes where -- a problem that I've mentioned a number of times regarding the poker forums (if I have a, say, $20-$40 hand, where does it go? why? because what I see as low limits might be high limits to someone else or vice versa, yadda yadda yadda).

While naturally there will be the occasional topic that could go in either X or Y location, I was troubled when I read El Diablo's post that said:

[ QUOTE ]

The charter of this forum is that anything acceptable in OOT is acceptable here with the exception of NSFW and dating/relationship posts.

[/ QUOTE ]


That doesn't make sense to me. IF this forum is supposed to be for that, OOT should be changed to the NSFW + dating/relationship forum. Something so nebulous as what it appears this is becoming serves no purpose that I can see.

If there is a thread anyone wants to start, it should be clear 99%+ of the time precisely where it belongs -- not that it's a coin-flip (barring NSFW/dating/relationship) as to whether it belongs here or OOT.

[Peter666]

I think no matter how many restrictions you would apply, this place was inevitably going to turn into the non X rated version of OOT. Essentially, that is what it is.

[Madtown]

BVT:

I feel that the "long-form/in-depth" charter made that line fairly clear. It's not about the topic, but about how deep into the topic you want to get. Thus, the responsibility lies on the OP. Most OOT threads could be made into a TLR thread, if the OP puts time and effort into making an in-depth analysis of the topic. If the OP doesn't want to put that effort in and just wants to hear what other people think quickly, it's an OOT thread.

diebitter already knows how I feel -- the original idea for the forum is my preferred way of operating it. While I would still post here a bit if it became OOT2, I wouldn't very often and I certainly wouldn't try making long-form threads like my LOST thread or my 1001 Albums/Movies threads.

[Andrew Karpinski]

I think people should stop complaining about the state of TQZ and get out there and start making posting interesting topics that fit their view of what TQZ should be.

[Phoenix1010]

Why do people dislike Karpinksi so much? I think this post is spot on. I like the idea of going back to the original plan, but there was almost no traffic here so it wasn't worth posting in.

[jester710]

DB-

I have lurked/been an infrequent poster in many forums here, including SMP, politics, and OOT. The Lounge or whatever the hell it's called has been the first one that I have taken a real interest in, and although I've only started a few posts here, I put a lot of thought into them and tried to craft them in a way that would generate the most discussion.

Whether I was successful in my attempts is debatable. However, in my most recent post about Johnny Depp, I had a basic premise: the fact that I think he's talented but overrated. It was my understanding that, to post here, I would have to explain exactly why I felt that way, and give reasons that could be agreed/argued with. If I simply wanted to say, "I think Johnny Depp is overrated," it'd go to OOT.

However, quite a few of the responses were simply "he's the best actor in Hollywood" or similar one-liners. No reasoning behind it, no debating of my points. Now, that may have been the fault of my post and not of the posters, but I was under the impression that the whole point of this forum was to provide in-depth expression of opinions, not simple one line replies or posts that merely quote what others had posted before. This is what triggered my interest in this forum in the first place.

I don't really care what the topics are or what form they take, so long as they provoke relatively in-depth and thoughtful conversations. I wouldn't mind even seeing political or religious posts in here, if they prompted civilized discussion rather than the flaming that occurs in politics and SMP. In my opinion, the biggest problem this forum has had lies with the responses, not the OPs. I don't think restrictions on the type or subject of posts are necessary.

Obviously, if posts get too simple, you can police that as you see fit, but I'd prefer to see you put more of an emphasis on the responses.

[diebitter]

jester

I remember that one, and thanks for contributing. Nice one.

The fact is, no one can write long or detailed stuff with every response. Sometimes we just say one sentence, and that all we wish to say. sometimes we write paragraphs. If I remember rightly, I wrote a reasonable amount, but not loads. On another day, I might expound a ton about Ed Wood or Sleepy Hollow or even Once Upon a Tim in Mexico, or a different day again just say 'No, he's not overrated'.

It depends on mood, how much you know, and so on. I can't expect every poster to put lots of content into every posting, but I did expect some reasonable content to start a thread, and I would expect SOME of the responses to be reasonable discussion.

Please post again soon. [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]

[WillMagic]

Absolutely it should go back to the quiet place it was before. I liked the fact it was more restrictive than OOT...if you didn't have substance to add to a conversation, then you damn well better not post.