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DISCUSSION: Read Only Forums for Non-Members

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What do you think would be the fairest way to resolve the question of which forums should be readable by non-members when we open?
A separate poll should be held in each forum other then the ToE, Outside, and Board Administration Forums, which would not be readable by non-members.
  
73% [ 16 ]
A single ballot should be be devised to determine exactly which forums, if any, should be readable by non-members.
  
14% [ 3 ]
Two concurrent polls should run, one to determine whether any forums should be readable by non-members, and the other to determine which was would be readable if any are allowed.
  
9% [ 2 ]
Some other method (please describe)
  
5% [ 1 ]
Total votes: 22
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Voronwë_the_Faithful
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Posted: Mon 30 May , 2005 4:09 pm
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I voted for separate polls.


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Angbasdil
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Posted: Mon 30 May , 2005 5:26 pm
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I also voted for separate polls.

On the bigger issue, my personal inclination is to go completely open and readable. Let's be who and what we are, and let everybody see that.
However, I do like the idea of a "Members' Lounge" area. Maybe for voting members only?
Then again, I thought we were trying to be a completely open board...[ img ]
I'll have to ponder that one a while...


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*Alandriel*
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Posted: Mon 30 May , 2005 8:31 pm
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I'm usually all for simplicity but since I can just not see how we can possibly make a single ballot without it getting way too complicated I'm also for seperate polls in seperate fora.
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Primula_Baggins
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Posted: Mon 30 May , 2005 8:54 pm
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Well, we aren't and can't be "100% open" anyway—ToE has to be out of sight, and I think Business and Outside are appropriately kept there, too. This would just be adding a small subforum to that list, something for member discussions and for bitching and moaning and (if needed) for a thread about TORC, if something happens there that we want to discuss here.

I agree with openness in principle, very strongly, and have worked hard to help make it happen. But if we are so open that we are restricting what our members can discuss for fear of offending lurkers or for fear of getting a personal matter archived on Google, then our members are not as free as they might be.

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Anthriel
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Posted: Mon 30 May , 2005 9:00 pm
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I absolutely love the idea of a Member's Lounge.

It won't be private... nothing here will be when we open, and, as we have painfully learned, nothing on even a closed board is really private anyway... but at least it will only be accessible to those who bother to register, and it will be safe from the bots.

We could decorate with big swishy armchairs, and get lava lamps, and... oops, off on a tangent, there... ;)

What a great compromise.

:clap:

Athrabeth, once again you have clearly stated something that I was thinking, but couldn't seem to organize in my own mind. You ARE all that and a bag of chips!

:D


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Sassafras
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Posted: Mon 30 May , 2005 9:30 pm
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Voted for seperate polls.

I'm hoping that all fora, with the obvious TOE and Business exceptions, be made available to non-members.

I can only speak for myself but had I not been able to lurk on TORC for an extended period I would never have joined. I was drawn to the serious threads in m00bies and Books, usually skipped the light bantering threads because the posters were not yet solidified into distinct personalities for me. Not until I began posting and could actually participate, and was invited (by Prim! :) ) did I feel sufficiently comfortable to join in the silliness that was the monthly theme thread. I doubt that we will recruit new, non-Torc, members from Turf alone. It will be perceived as both insular and cliquish and of not much interest to an outsider.


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Athrabeth
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Posted: Mon 30 May , 2005 10:33 pm
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I voted for separate polls in each forum.

I also think that a Members' Lounge sounds cozy and safe for more private discussions that should remain, well,........more private.
Anthy wrote:
Athrabeth, once again you have clearly stated something that I was thinking, but couldn't seem to organize in my own mind. You ARE all that and a bag of chips!
Well, I've been called a bag before, but never a bag of chips. :suspicious:
But as long as they're kettle chips with sea salt and malt vinegar, it's okay by me!!!! :love:

Last edited by Athrabeth on Tue 31 May , 2005 12:22 am, edited 1 time in total.

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Anthriel
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Posted: Mon 30 May , 2005 10:52 pm
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Athrabeth... :oops:

It's a weird term of acclaim which has taken over- infected?- the micro lab in which I work.

It is a very good thing to have said about you.

.

.

.

.

Really.

.

.

.

:D


And teh kettle chips sound groovy!

:D


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Impenitent
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Posted: Tue 31 May , 2005 3:53 am
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Separate poll - that way people won't feel obliged to vote regarding a forum they don't frequent.

Members' Lounge sounds very seductive - but do you think there may be a temptation for it to become a home forum that is so cosy and safe that a very large chunk of discussion happens there? That it becomes the defacto place to chat, in fact?

Would require some definition, yes?

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Primula_Baggins
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Posted: Tue 31 May , 2005 4:00 am
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I don't know, Imp. Turf would surely remain the home for the major chat threads and thus the place where people would spontaneously start less serious threads. I think the Lounge could be described so that members would consider before starting a thread there—Turf would still be the default. Like Business, the Members' Lounge would be a special-purpose forum.

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Frelga
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Posted: Tue 31 May , 2005 4:07 am
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Voted for separate votes. Can't imagine a single poll that would be comprehensible, unless it's a write-in.

As for Member Lounge... it does sound cozy. I think it may backfire, though, because readers and lurkers will think that this is where the members are dishing the dirt on them. The fact that this seems to be the precise purpose behind the lounge doesn't help matters.

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Jnyusa
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Posted: Tue 31 May , 2005 4:15 am
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readers and lurkers will think that this is where the members are dishing the dirt on them

Hm ... maybe I misunderstand how this works ... wouldn't the only people excluded from non-readable forums be the ones who have not registered as members? Which means ... we wouldn't know of their existence, right? So we couldn't be dishing dirt on people we've never met. :) Once registered they could go anywhere, right? (given age restrictions)

Jn

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Voronwë_the_Faithful
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Posted: Tue 31 May , 2005 4:41 am
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Quote:
The fact that this seems to be the precise purpose behind the lounge doesn't help matters.
Frelga, I'm puzzled by what gave you this impression? :scratch My impression was that the purpose behind the lounge would be so that people could discuss sensitive topics liking asking for advice and such without not knowing who was reading it.


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Frelga
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Posted: Tue 31 May , 2005 4:50 am
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Perhaps I misunderstood. My impression was based on Prim's saying "something for member discussions and for bitching and moaning and (if needed) for a thread about TORC, if something happens there that we want to discuss here" and also on Angbasil's suggestion that this forum be for voting members only.

Whatever the intent, I feel that the impression it creates might be "well, they are saying that they are open, but actually there is this member-only area, and I bet I know what they are talking about in there." Of course, it's still might be worth it to people.

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Primula_Baggins
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Posted: Tue 31 May , 2005 4:52 am
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Yes, I think the only unregistered lurkers who might suspect any "dirt" is being dished would be from TORC. And they would be free at any time to register, under any name they chose, and read the "mystery forum" for themselves.

I have to say I set our own members' convenience and needs above those of a lurker who can't be bothered to sign up.

I proposed that a TORC thread would go here because so many of our members seem intensely sensitive to the idea of anyone from TORC reading anything negative about TORC. Putting a TORC thread in this slightly more private forum would at least indicate that our intention was to allow free discussion among our own members, not to aggressively and publicly bash TORC.

However, there may never be such a thread. As I see it the forum would really have a different purpose: slightly more private discussion, so that (say) a Net-savvy family member of one of our members, who knew the member's screen name, would not necessarily know s/he was being discussed in the context of asking for advice. The forum would be harmless, but also helpful.

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Holbytla
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Posted: Tue 31 May , 2005 5:25 am
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Woah wait a minute.
I made the suggestion that we have a forum so people could discuss sensitive subjects without being exposed to the entire planet.
It was never my intention to have a "secret forum", or a place to bitch about TORC. If there is going to be bitching about anything in there, then I am dead set against the idea. The purpose of the forum was so that people could feel they had a sort of safe haven to discuss personal matters. Not bitch about TORC or any other place for that matter.
It people still feel the need to rag about TORC, we already have one of those threads. In Turf. Right where it belongs.
Now if you want to archive that thread before we open, then fine. If you want to leave it where it is, then fine.
I want no part of any kind of back room chatter. Regardless whether people can just register and see it or not.

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Primula_Baggins
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Posted: Tue 31 May , 2005 5:45 am
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Then are you saying we have to forbid people to discuss TORC, Holby?

Because that thread is going to be archived. So if in future something happens on TORC that we want to talk about, where are we going to do it? It's been made clear by a lot of our members that they want no TORC discussion at all if lurkers can see it. So we go against them, or we forbid all discussion of TORC, or we allow one thread in a semi-private place—where anyone from TORC can read it if they will go to the trouble of registering, but where it will be clear that the thread was not created as a public TORC-bashing.

I regret that I said "a place for bitching and moaning." I meant about things like family members and bosses, not about TORC.

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TheEllipticalDisillusion
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Posted: Tue 31 May , 2005 6:01 am
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I voted for another method. Instead of running a whole lot of polls at once, the ballot should be like the vote we had on the ToE charter thing. Have people email the admins answering a ballot question:

Should any forums be readable by non-members?

Yes
No

*Each voter picks a choice*

If so, which?

Welcome
Business
m77t
Turf
Symposium
There & Back
Dale
Invite
ToE
Tolkien
Books
Movies
Music
Bikeracks
Jury Room
Archives
Forum mgmt.

*People just take off the ones they don't want readable and leave what they do want*

This way admins can make the ones that get the most votes or get more than 20 votes or some number readable by non-members. Or it can be done by section rather than each forum.

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Holbytla
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Posted: Tue 31 May , 2005 6:08 am
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Quote:
It's been made clear by a lot of our members that they want no TORC discussion at all if lurkers can see it.


If there is going to be TORC talk here, then it should be done in the open or not at all.
Look we can't have our cake and eat it too. Either we are open or not.
I did suggest a forum for personal subject matter too delicate to be publicly displayed, but I never envisioned "hiding" threads there.
I can't get behind that.
I never said people shouldn't discuss TORC if they want to. I just said that if they felt the need to they should do it in the open.
I have more than a few posts in the POTD thread, and there isn't one there I wouldn't say to the face of anyone at TORC.
Either bitch about TORC in the open or via PM. Not in the backroom.
If we are going to do that, then we may as well stay closed.
When I first read Frelga's comments I was sure that she misunderstood something. Now I think I was the one that misunderstood something.
Two big thumbs down for this idea from me.

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Primula_Baggins
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Posted: Tue 31 May , 2005 6:26 am
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Well, I agree with you, Holby.

However, it has been made very clear to me that any discussion of TORC here is on sufferance; that many people wish we could all just move on; that in fact there would be a substantial minority at least who would vote to forbid discussing TORC at all.

I think they are wrong. I think freedom means freedom. But if we don't allow TORC discussion in open forums, and if there is no somewhat more private forum available, then we are setting up our first subject for censorship. What's next? I mean, if it's better for the board not to bring up one topic, why not lengthen the list to include anything sensitive or upsetting? To anyone?

I strongly disagree that it would be better to forbid discussion of TORC than to permit a thread in a non-public forum. And I don't think it will be possible to allow public discussion of TORC. It isn't supposed to be necessary at all—we've all gotten better and moved on, right? Or at least if we haven't, we ought to be able to keep it to ourselves. :neutral:

Edit: I'm sorry—this subject still upsets me. I have not moved on.

However, this forum I'm proposing is NOT private, Holby—it's not ToE. If somebody wants to see what we're on about in there, or in Business or BikeRacks for that matter, all they have to do is register as JoeSchmoe—no one need know who they are or were on TORC. It will take about two minutes, plus time to be activated.

But if JoeSchmoe finds that the latest absurdity on TORC is being discussed in a thread here, won't it be better if it's not a publicly readable thread? Won't it be harder for him to believe we're "bashing" TORC if we're clearly discussing it among ourselves?

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