Current Events Forum
Posted: 17 Aug 2007 11:08
Hi all.
As many of you know, the Current Events forum is sort of the unwanted stepchild of this message board.
I've discouraged posts about current events in the industry almost from the beginning. There is one very specific reason for this: the message board exists as a forum for the discussion of supermarket history. Period. Allowing unlimited dicussion of current events would, in my opinion, jeopardize the primary function of the board.
Why is this?
Frankly, most people in the world would rather discuss current supermarket operations than history. And that's fine. It's just not what this particular board is all about, and I'm afraid that the sheer volume of discussion about current issues would completely overwhelm the board if it were allowed without limits. The current events discussion would draw more traffic from new users who have no interest whatsoever in history, and the board would soon be overtaken by them.
The focus of my site is narrow by design, and the message board in particular is not aimed at those who are interested in supermarkets in general, but at those who are interested in supermarket history. I don't want to run a general-interest supermarket site, and I'm not going to do so, even though I am a follower of current trends myself.
Thus, I've allowed a very limited range of current events discussions in one specific forum, which has been very tightly moderated and has a very quick expiration time. I've done this in consideration of the people who are interested in both history and current operations. My assumption has always been that heavy-duty discussions of current issues and trends would be carried out in any number of other message boards available online.
Clearly, though, this is not the most satisfactory option. It's confusing, it's probably too tightly moderated, and it's just a generally half-baked approach. However, expanding the current events section of this particular board is not an option, for the reasons stated above.
So what to do? I have three options and I'm going to initiate a poll here.
Option 1 would be to leave things as they are, with a very minimal and tightly-moderated forum on current events, which will never be expanded.
Option 2 would be to remove the current events forum entirely and not permit discussion of current events at all unless there is a specific historical tie-in.
Option 3 would be for me to reactivate the old Boardhost forum, where the entire message board used to live, and open it up to relatively unmoderated discussions of current events and issues. Discussions of current events would no longer be permitted on the "main" board unless there were a specific historical tie-in. This would allow me to "segregate" the current events content and keep the main board focused on its primary purpose.
Let me know what you think. For now, I'll leave replies turned on as well.
As many of you know, the Current Events forum is sort of the unwanted stepchild of this message board.
I've discouraged posts about current events in the industry almost from the beginning. There is one very specific reason for this: the message board exists as a forum for the discussion of supermarket history. Period. Allowing unlimited dicussion of current events would, in my opinion, jeopardize the primary function of the board.
Why is this?
Frankly, most people in the world would rather discuss current supermarket operations than history. And that's fine. It's just not what this particular board is all about, and I'm afraid that the sheer volume of discussion about current issues would completely overwhelm the board if it were allowed without limits. The current events discussion would draw more traffic from new users who have no interest whatsoever in history, and the board would soon be overtaken by them.
The focus of my site is narrow by design, and the message board in particular is not aimed at those who are interested in supermarkets in general, but at those who are interested in supermarket history. I don't want to run a general-interest supermarket site, and I'm not going to do so, even though I am a follower of current trends myself.
Thus, I've allowed a very limited range of current events discussions in one specific forum, which has been very tightly moderated and has a very quick expiration time. I've done this in consideration of the people who are interested in both history and current operations. My assumption has always been that heavy-duty discussions of current issues and trends would be carried out in any number of other message boards available online.
Clearly, though, this is not the most satisfactory option. It's confusing, it's probably too tightly moderated, and it's just a generally half-baked approach. However, expanding the current events section of this particular board is not an option, for the reasons stated above.
So what to do? I have three options and I'm going to initiate a poll here.
Option 1 would be to leave things as they are, with a very minimal and tightly-moderated forum on current events, which will never be expanded.
Option 2 would be to remove the current events forum entirely and not permit discussion of current events at all unless there is a specific historical tie-in.
Option 3 would be for me to reactivate the old Boardhost forum, where the entire message board used to live, and open it up to relatively unmoderated discussions of current events and issues. Discussions of current events would no longer be permitted on the "main" board unless there were a specific historical tie-in. This would allow me to "segregate" the current events content and keep the main board focused on its primary purpose.
Let me know what you think. For now, I'll leave replies turned on as well.