Yuku free message boards

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And so long as things don't turn violent or nasty, and people start slagging off others on this board (which I've noticed several threads coming very close to in recent months)

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only very close to? obviously we've been visiting different forums lately!

in case anyone's wondering, i'm talking about forums other than this one -- mostly things tend to be fine here, and i think we're all happy to work towards making things even finer.

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To my way of thinking there needs to be less BTR posting, to allow non-BTR stuff to come through a bit more.

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personally, i don't see it makes that much of a difference. mind you, i'm struggling to recall any of the "wow, that was good" variety of posts you describe, or indeed to what they refer, so perhaps i'm missing something here. that said, if they consist of btr members expressing positive opinions of btr productions, then that's often because they're from members who had little or no direct contribution to the production, or who are commenting on areas they had little or nothing to do with, and so are as fresh and informative (and therefore useful) as anyone else's opinions. some of us do also express negative views on some of the work we both do and don't take part in, so it's not entirely unbalanced either.

i can certainly see the relevance in transferring such content as production reports and the like over to a more permanent form, the reason for not being that it's much easier to simply post your report on the forum than have to send it through the webmaster, wait for when he actually has time to format it, upload it, etc. it all becomes a bit too time-consuming, whereas putting it on the forum is much more instantaneous.

there's also the issue of people probably being used to seeing such commentary on the forum, though of course that sort of trend could just as easily change if we shifted everything.

but at the end of the day, this is very definitely a discussion forum, as opposed to simply an opinion forum, which i think is what makes a significant difference. its purpose is more than to offer a forum for listeners/viewers to express their opinions or write reviews or what have you; it's also a place where we post our news and occasional behind the scenes info, again largely because it's easier to constantly update a forum than it is a web site. (especially when your webmaster has little free time!)

perhaps it might then be worth splitting the forum into two distinct sections: news/behind the scenes and general opinions/discussion. this might cut down on the swamping trevor has detected. of course, separating the news from the opinions is hardly going to cut down on our own opinions (or our desire to express them), but it strikes me that the separation of news/behind the scenes from opinions by keeping them all in separate, clearly labelled threads probably does the trick sufficiently. as elsewhere, i again note that i for one have faith in people's information searching skills. (and if not, i'll be a qualified teacher-librarian by the end of the year, so i can happily compile some online tutorials. )

i'd like to know what anyone else thinks on the matter, to be honest. i'm not denying you see a problem, trevor, but it'd be good to get some broader perspective on this issue, and see if anyone else has any problems with the current forum design and usage. can't hurt, at any rate.