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Underground > Policy & Help >

"Sensible Topics In Conversation" Problem (or not)

09:28 / 13.05.03

I was considering posting this in Conversation so people would notice it, but that kind of shoots my argument in the foot.

Anyhow: over the past week or two I've been noticing lots of really good, really interesting topics in Conversation that don't strike me as Convo topics; indeed, even if the titles might, the discussion within tends to stay so on topic it doesn't smack of Conversation. And whilst it's up to people to choose where their threads go... I'm getting a bit worried that there might be too many threads automatically going into Conversation rather than elsewhere either a) because people are on autopilot or b) because people aren't sure where it should go. Or worst of all, c) because people think that that's where they'll get most responses.

The other thing is I still believe that the right to move threads is down to the people involved, so nothing can be forced on people... but I just feel the rest of the board's being a bit neglected, and not for lack of decent thought. Certainly stuff like the Music/Essay writing thread, Sexual Armour, Separatism - all really interesting, relatively ontopic threads (bar Separatism, but I can't help but feel it'd stay more ontopic in Head Shop).

Is it just me? I'm just finding Conversation increasingly serious and the other fora, especially the Revolution, a bit lacking. Repeat after me: Revolution is not a ghetto.

Am I being a bit high church here or do I have a point? Even if it's perhaps a reminder of what Conversation is for - namely, Conversation and ephemera you don't want deleted; not stuff you can't decide where it belongs. Also: perhaps a question of deeming a thread "interesting" or "worth holding onto" and moving it out? Some ideas.

09:58 / 13.05.03

There used to be a - something between a policy and a trend - of trialling the sort of threads you mention in the Convo and then moving them to the Head Shop when and if they got going - I'm actually planning to start a new Separatism thread in the Head Shop later today (have been planning for a while but I'm too precious and sensitive a flower to get involved in the one currently crackling merrily away in the Conversation).

I think there is a perception that 'personal experience' has to be kept out of the Head Shop, in an attempt to limit the kind of argument that goes 'No! You're wrong! Because I was in a S/M relationship once and it was totally abusive! So all this stuff about safe and consensual is wrong!' But a thread like Ganesh's Sex and Armour seems to me to be perfect Head Shop material, and my favourite threads tend to be the ones whose atmosphere or protocols are a little like consciousness-raising groups; both intellectually rigorous and able to accommodate personal experience while still providing genuine encounters between people's thinking/experience, rather than just being anecdote-swapping in the conversational styleee...

Ahem. But to stick more closely to your topic abstract, yes, if threads are interesting, we should move them, I think; but we also shouldn't insist on the rigorous exclusion of anything that smacks of the personal from the Revolution. The personal is political, after all...

10:20 / 13.05.03

Yeah. In Days of Yore, I'd have started 'Sex and Armour' in the Head Shop but, having had more than one thread moved out of the Head Shop, I now tend to err on the side of placing the more 'anecdotal' ones elsewhere from the off.

11:45 / 13.05.03

I think you hit my nail on the head, there: the exclusion-of-the-personal thing. You're right, there's nothing wrong with it, because surely debate begins in the personal and moves to the theoretical, etc.

Hmn. I think the trialling idea is bang on, but at the same time, I think there's something to be said for moving threads for archive purposes as well, so they don't disappear into the conversatorial mire. And I think perhaps, with threads like this, there should be more flux; it's all too think the forum of a thread is fixed. One of the interesting things on Barbelith is that stuff can be moved if necessary.

Basically, you're saying what I thought... though I'm still going to play the sceptic and say that people post in Conversation because they know they'll get a response, as well as the trialling/unsure-about-personal thing. This is not necessarily a fault with the threadposters, but perhaps the readers.

pointless and uncalled for

11:49 / 13.05.03

Is there a major problem with some lighter topics appearing in the Headshop. If there were then people may feel more inclined to come in rather than leave it to the Barbe-royalty and the debating elite.

Ganesh - do you feel some kind of stigma about having your threads moved. Just ebcause it gets moved, doesn't mean that it should have been or is any less of a thread.

ONLY NICE THINGS

12:44 / 13.05.03

I've been neglecting the Head Shop a bit because head has been messy and I'm getting no sleep, but in general I think threads tend to find their own level; the Separatism thread would probably either have degraded in the Head Shop as well, because it was sketchily imagined and had no abstract, or have been pulled up by subsequent contributions.

That doesn't mean that it was not a good topic for the Head Shop, but it did mean there was never any pressure under the topic, which I think is probably the difference between Conversation and Revolution - that you shouldn't be aiming to wander off the topic, change the subject, make a bunch of funnies, or just describe what happened ot them last week.

I think that's what I would say about my understanding of the role of personal information and history in the Head Shop - there ought to be a point to it. Autobiogrpahy is useful and interesting as long as it is doing something useful and interesting within the overall developmnet of the thread. Within those bounds, I see nothing wrong with recounting personal experience - after all, book-larnin' is a combination of one's experience of reading a book and one's experience of thinking baou ti, among other things.

Deva's:

both intellectually rigorous and able to accommodate personal experience while still providing genuine encounters between people's thinking/experience, rather than just being anecdote-swapping in the conversational styleee...

Sounds like a very good rubric. The other thing is that a vague thread beginning (summary and first post) will usually lead to a weak thread, which will probably either die or get moved to the Convo. I'd certainly see "sexual armour" as a very good and interesting Head Shop thread, although G. may be looking for a more Conversational response, whereas "Camera Syndrome" was never likely to get that far, for the same reasons that the Separatism thread currently in the Conversation woudl have struggled.

So, is therer a case for "boosting" interesting threads to the Revolution *from* the conversation, with, say, the thread starter's consent? We can always move them back later...

13:13 / 13.05.03

I have to say that I trust you guys almost implicitly to make the right decisions in situations like this. I think it's really important that the rest of the site doesn't die because of the Conversation though - and also that threads don't die when they've been moved to other fora FROM the conversation. I should probably talk to Cal about ways in which we could increase the linkage between the sections...

15:33 / 13.05.03

Or worst of all, c) because people think that that's where they'll get most responses.

One of the deciding factors in my retirement from moderator was because of this. I didn't see any point in busting my ass trying to raise a forum out of the ghetto when people who should know better would take the easy route and post in the Conversation to get more responses.

ONLY NICE THINGS

17:23 / 13.05.03

OK - Ganesh: I'd like to move "sexual armour" to go the Head Shop; it seems to have played out in the Convo, so nothing much to lose, and it might get some interesting contributions there. Is that OK?

18:33 / 13.05.03

Yeah, fine by me.

Potus: Not stigma, exactly, but I guess I start threads where I start them because I'm aiming for a certain type of response; when a thread of mine's moved to the Conversation, I tend to assume it's not 'theory-bitchy' enough and, by (quite possible incorrect) extension, overly anecdotal...

pointless and uncalled for

18:56 / 13.05.03

I think that a drop in theory-bitch rating and subanecdotal debaten would actually be a distinct improvement to the Headshop.

Then again maybe it's better that there is a form of eletism to the Headshop and heaven forbid that anyone argue from experience.

ONLY NICE THINGS

21:54 / 13.05.03

OK, Potus, I know it's a very long post, but why not *read* what I said?

'Nesh - can you think of any threads? I might remember how they threw down. Usually, in my experience, it isn't too much anecdote but persistent and repetitive threadrot that usaully gets things kicked...

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

00:31 / 14.05.03

Taking a slightly different aspect of this...

I think new posters tend to post first in the Conversation, as it's somehow less intimidating (I know I did), and then threads get moved if it's deemed appropriate. Maybe people have fallen into that habit?

I think the message is- post stuff wherever you feel it's appropriate. If it isn't, it'll get moved. Unless you're just being a dick, it'll find a home. (I know when I first came here, I was terrified of posting anywhere other than the Convo, because I had some irrational fear that people would think "That's just wank!" and delete the fucker.

I was gonna say a couple of days ago that we could do with more new stuff in Switchboard... but it seems to have picked up again.

I do think, though, that the Moved Topics thread was a bloody good idea, and us mods should keep at it when necessary.

pointless and uncalled for

07:07 / 14.05.03

OK, Haus, thanks for pointing back to your post again. It was as interesting a read a it was the first time and still appears to mean exactly the same as it did the first time round.

However, I feel I should point out at this time that my post was in no way related to yours. I was responding to Ganesh's response to my previous post and was termed to imply that his theory-bitch deficient threads still had their place in the Headshop.

Now I realise that there is yet again a certain alliteration of a point that "you" have made but hopefully this instance is more relevant due to it's clarificational direction.

As a query, because I think that this is a point of comprehensional differentiation that doesn't just affect me, is split flow a major breach of thread ettiquette outside of the soft threads?

07:10 / 14.05.03

Yes, I definitely think a "moved topics" thread is necessary - a map of where stuff's going, etc. And I do agree with Maominstoat - people falling into the habit of new posters, perhaps. At the same time... there's good reason why the Conversation doesn't list its topics like the other fora do. I'm not sure what the goal for the conversation was... it's described as " General discussion, off-topic comments, introductions, games and fun", and it's pretty much doing that - though I think there's a little too much general discussion that could be better served and serviced elsewhere.

Am I being awkward and snotty or do I have a point here?

pointless and uncalled for

07:40 / 14.05.03

There's no doubt that you have a point.

Opposing the moved topics "thread", I would think that a list of topics moved within the last two weeks would suffice. A little semi-clever scripting should be able to cope with this and create links as well and the list could sit at the top of the fora as suitable.

09:19 / 14.05.03

Potus - though a list of moved threads at the top of the fora sounds cool, I suspect that the semi-clever scripting might not be Tom or Cal's priority for a while; at least with a 'moved threads' thread people will get to know where to look if they awake burning with desire to post on, eg, Sex & Armour, and can't find it.

pointless and uncalled for

09:24 / 14.05.03

Fair enough.

One critical flaw with the thread, esp in the Conversation, is that it will drop out of view a bit quick unless someone bumps it very regularly.

Thus my suggestion, which was as a permanent feature more than an interim measure.

ONLY NICE THINGS

10:15 / 14.05.03

Why not stick it in the Policy? Low churn rate, after all... One mod posts "I have suggested that thread x has been moved to the 'y'", then the first person to vote on it adds something to that effect - it only takes 2 votes to move a thread, yes? Or just the first person to vote on it, with the mod who proposes it mentioning it in the thread itself?

15:04 / 14.05.03

I think Maominstoat is right-
Most topics i do dont sound as serious or focussed as the other ones, eg the headshop. So unless im sure it should be in that bit, it gets chucked in convo.

07:28 / 15.05.03

Perfect example here.

That's a music thread, through and through - and it's got good long answers, a good long firstpost. I was going to PM el Zilcho and suggest he requested a move but I think I'm getting too dictatorial in my ideas and anti-Conversationness. But I really don't see why that isn't in Music. This is my beef, and it's ending one minute at a time.

Matthew Fluxington

23:37 / 15.05.03

That thread really ought to be moved to music. Would one of the Conversation moderators please send it there?

One of my recent frustrations has been that I find the Music forum too narrow - I wish it could be about all sound recordings without visuals, so that we can discuss comedy records, radio programs, and all manner of recorded media that doesn't fit the music category. We have a Audio Oddities thread in there now, which I started in conversation and had moved, but I still feel it is an awkward fit given the stated subject matter of the forum.

Perhaps we should change the name of the forum from Music to Sound? Or Music & Sound?

11:03 / 16.05.03

Or maybe Music and Sound and my Level 42 Bard with a +7 Mace of Weeping

If I want to talk about my Batman radio show CDs I know where to go, I just don't really think they need a thread of their own. Most people aren't that interested in that sort of stuff, hence the lack of threads.

Hmm, I do like Music & Sound though.

19:57 / 18.05.03

FYI, as I had commented to Paleface via PM, when I first wrote started that thread I was feeling "chatty" about it--hence situating it in the Conversation. However, it doesn't matter so much to me if it was to be moved to Music, as it is specific to that forum. I did put in a request to have it moved if the mods felt so inclined. That was a couple days ago now, and nothing has become of it!

eZ

ONLY NICE THINGS

21:40 / 18.05.03

No problem - if you are up for it, I will suggest the move now.