What do you guys think of the new forums?

acheron.org % discussions: General Art Discussion: What do you guys think of the new forums?
By
Dngrmouse on Saturday, November 28, 1998 - 04:41 pm:

Welp, here's the new forums page for acheron.org, using the Discus program. Works well I think..

Tell me what you guys think of it..


By Warpus on Monday, November 30, 1998 - 01:57 am:

It's great, I love it. Almost as well organized (if not better) as message bases on a bulletin board system (remember those?).


By Warpus on Monday, November 30, 1998 - 02:49 am:

This is just an idea I had: How about creating forums for (interested) groups? Each of these forums would only be accessible to members of that group (I'm sure that's possible). Having been in charge of several groups in the past, I've come to realize how important communication is. Sure, every group has a channel on IRC. But how often do important issues get addressed/discussed in these channels? Rarely. Or should I say never? How about email? There are many problems with that too. I just miss boards, I guess. They were perfect for something like this. You post a message, check back a couple hours later, and *boom*, there's great discussion going, with lots of new ideas being exchanged, and other fun stuff too. Many groups die because of a lack of communication, maybe this is the answer for some of them. ?


By Dangermouse on Monday, November 30, 1998 - 01:26 pm:

In theory I support your idea. The main problem with this is that this is only the free version of Discus - meaning password protected forums are only available in the professional version (it costs money).

A private forum can be made, but anyone can still view them -- just not post to them.. If you would all like to chip in sometime, maybe we could get the professional version?


By Cthulu of Mistigris on Monday, November 30, 1998 - 03:57 pm:

Unlike IRC, this allows us access to a forum where we can articulate thoughts through from start to finish, not merely from line to line (with all the accompanying distractions.) On that basis alone these discussion groups are a good idea.

They further have the benefits of bulletin-board-style posts (for those misbegotten souls who have forsaken that extremely useful communication medium) in that the information is not transitory - what I say right now can be seen by everybody, not only the people who are online right now, and furthermore you can think about it before responding without being afraid of appearing out of context.

The tool is a good one. Whether or not it will prove to be useful is contingent on how we use it.

Additional 1: Forums for groups could be useful, but any group worth its beans should have its shit together enough to pull its own mailinglists together without having to rely on a free resource like this.

Additional 2, a question: what is the place of censorship on these discussion boards? If there is none, we take the risk of letting the posts degrade in quality to irc-level nonsense. Are we mature / articulate enough to use this properly?


By Dangermouse on Monday, November 30, 1998 - 04:57 pm:

On the note of censorship: Each board is moderated to some degree, so if a post of some ill nature or disgraceful content is put up, it will be removed.

Use these forums like in the BBS days, and it will be very rewarding..


By Cthulu of Mistigris on Monday, November 30, 1998 - 06:18 pm:

Can we have some guidelines for good messaging to avoid what could be percieved as unfair censorship?

Will my message get censored if I:

a) post an off-topic message? (furthermore, will it be moved to an appropriate area or just erased?)

b) 15 wr1773n 1n th15 3l173 5tyl3?

c) n'est pas en anglais?

d) propose something controversial?

e) tell you all to see MY WEB PAGE HERE AT: http://www.blah.crap.whatever

e) tell you about my amazing pyramid scheme

f) have this funny list of smilies I think all u cool guyz might want 2 see?

Is it possible for someone to lose all posting priviliges across the board? Should it be? Is dangermouse the top authority in regard to this? (Can we live with that? 8)

We only need a few rules, but you should let us know what they are going to be.


By Cthulu of Mistigris on Monday, November 30, 1998 - 06:21 pm:

Additionally, some suggestions for new forums to allow everybody to be included...

a foreign-language base with separate areas for french, swedish, deutsche, portugese, serbo-croatian, portugese...

a music base

and an area for group promotion, ie quoting of infofiles and promotional materials verbatim. If there is not made a place available for this, it will find its way into the other bases and the sheer mass of garbage (er.. propaganda) may result in people not reading the bases anymore. Instead, keep the garbage (er, propaganda) to a small restricted area where it is permitted and it won't spread. Doth that make sense?

That's all for now. (Wait for the next two hour thought-flash 8)


By God among Lice on Tuesday, December 1, 1998 - 12:58 am:

Just had to say that I think the discussions section is wonderful. Maybe now I can start to ween myself away from IRC.


By Warpus on Tuesday, December 1, 1998 - 12:17 pm:

Dangermouse: Start a fund or something. How much is it exactly? Cthulu said that "any group worth its beans should have its shit together enough to pull its own mailinglists together", but do you have any idea how lazy people are? (myslelf included:).


By Dangermouse on Tuesday, December 1, 1998 - 02:09 pm:

I dunno, I'll have to find out how much it costs to upgrade to the pro version. I'll keep you guys posted.


By God among Lice on Tuesday, December 1, 1998 - 11:10 pm:

hey.. I don't understand the dates that are by all the topic names and areas.. If they're supposed to indicate when they were last updated or posted to, then they're mostly innacurate. One had a recent date but hadn't been posted to for a couple days. Others have old dates but have recent posts inside. what's up with that?


By Dangermouse on Wednesday, December 2, 1998 - 01:29 pm:

Err. Looks fine to me :)


By God among lice on Thursday, December 3, 1998 - 06:35 pm:

For example, the "hirez discussions forum missing" topic says it was last updated the 29th, (as far as I see) but a message in there was posted

By RaD Man on Tuesday, December 1, 1998 - 09:32 pm:

Is it different for you? Maybe it has something to do with cached pages or something? (though I've reloaded multiple times and new posts by me in other topics usually update the time automatically for the topic..)

Whatever.. it just seems a little weird to me.


By Dangermouse on Thursday, December 3, 1998 - 07:20 pm:

Okay, point taken :) On some it doesn't, but on most of the others it does.. Go figure :)