Game boards

Rose's suggestion has brought me back to my thought of game boards while I was setting up the site last week (or was it last last?).

For those of you who aren't entirely sure what game boards are, they are generally threads dedicated to forum games, for example: "Guess a song", "say something about the poster above you", "fill in the next 5 words of the story," etc.

We will still need to consult Ms Kay before we actually set anything up, but for now I just want to see how many people actually want such boards or a chat board where we basically chat as if it were a huge online chat room.
If any of these boards are to be created, they will be in a separate, stand-alone category, as I want the discussions board to be for the discussions on the material (hopefully, NON ASSIGNED discussions).

Vote guys.

I'm against game threads here because of my general distaste for them (no real substance whatsoever, just mind-numbing time-waster) and the "IMA-GET-MY-POST-COUNT-UP-REEAAALLL-HIGH!!!!" mentality they tend to invite. That would make it difficult distinguish between who's a real contributor and who's trying to inflate their post count.

A section for more casual threads would be nice, although I am against a "chat thread", for the same reasons as I am against game threads. We could have a section where we discuss more casual, everyday topics such as movies, current events, music, and other similar stuff. It'd be less of a brain drain than debating over Transcendentalism, quantum physics, and whatnot but still have a degree of substance to it. It'd provide a nice way to exchange ideas and opinions outside of school and normal social life, which I think is needed. How much do we know our classmates really? A more casual discussion section could help us provide a more satisfactory answer to that question. If the chat sections filled with becomes frivulous chatroom trash, then we could just scrap it though. Better to just give it a shot, since creating and maintaining such a section is much more easier than it would be with more serious sections.

EDIT: Woops. Wasn't supposed to quote this.

I'm against game threads here because of my general distaste for them (no real substance whatsoever, just mind-numbing time-waster) and the "IMA-GET-MY-POST-COUNT-UP-REEAAALLL-HIGH!!!!" mentality they tend to invite. That would make it difficult distinguish between who's a real contributor and who's post-count whoring.

I was wondering about that last comment too; remember what happened in Fermi's forum? XD; That just got insanely messed up and longwinded [/contributer].

HOW about enable the.. CHAT... as in.. the messege flood thing =] so it wont count as posts .. since lee over there doesnt like it.. but it still serves as a purpose of ... RANDOMNESS

@Fermi
Don't forget our last chat board. Even if it wasn't doing a whole lot, the conversations on it became an eyesore, and i ended up having to delete those as well.
Though with this site, the situation may be a bit more controlled. I'll think about it.

Fermi Fang wrote:HOW about enable the.. CHAT... as in.. the messege flood thing =] so it wont count as posts .. since lee over there doesnt like it.. but it still serves as a purpose of ... RANDOMNESS

Over here we call it spontaneity.

Seriously though, what purpose do we have for a chat thread beyond a place to spew random crap (pardon the language)? How awkward would it be going on a Transcendentalist forum and seeing a chat box filled with 4chan memes (just hinting at a possiblity here). I still stand behind putting up a section for non-curriculur topics that are more casual, but still have some intellectual merit to them.

hey there,
ok, so i've updated on what you are discussing and i like the idea of having an extra room removed from the more "formal" forum, or more "substantial" topics.

I like the idea of you all making this more of what you want, and having space to exchange on non-academics.

However, Vincent's points are well-made and well-taken, and no I don't want that kind of mentality here; we have facebook for that and all the stupid time wasting mind-numbingly stupid things that we/you can poke each other with, invite each other to think about various crap within pop culture that actually goes completely and entirely against the intial message from the Annie Leonared vide that we viewed that began this whole unit.

So, my question is, is there a way to set up a separate room for lighter chatting, but without any kind of the stuff that Vincent and Fermie and Henning are saying happened in Fermie's forum? This overwhelming blurbage on useless stuff is ok if that's what folks want it's their choice, but not within this forum.

Suggestions now?
And what about Rose's friends threads suggestion. We need to add each other as friends, ok, cuz it'll make the forum look less closed. But then she went on to mention her having sent out threads (?) to a few friends, or my guess is just told a few friends about the forum so they'll come and check it out, and then she/we can add them as friends so that we'll/the forum will look more inviting and welcoming and larger to outsiders?

This is good, you guys, it's getting to exactly what we/I envisioned unfolding.

Yay!
Ms. Kay

a possible cause for all of the trash posts in Fermi's forum may have been the purpose for which his forum was created for. It was a casual thing to begin with, and people ended posting whatever they wanted, wherever. Moderating that forum had me spend hours on end deleting trash topics and posts.
Here however, the overall atmosphere should be a lot more formal, and this formality may be carried over to even the more casual threads. Basically the overall feeling that this board delivers would make anyone posting useless posts, even in casual boards, feel wrong. Supposedly.

The content of the casual boards still depends entirely on the contributors. The only form of filters are mods that can delete posts and lock topics, which is the intended job of forum moderators (our version of mods at the moment is really not much more than a given title).

To wrap it up, I say we can give a casual board a try, long as the following two things are established:
-Posting guidelines (to prevent over posting and multiple threads on the same topic, as well as establish what content is acceptable)
-Casual board moderators (who can delete trash posts, lock topics that need no further discussion, and delete threads of unacceptable content or already existing subjects)

As for friends, they are only visible to users who actively view the profiles of others. At a glance, no one will notice which users are friends of others.

ok, good info and feedback, henning, right to the point, esp. with the analysis of what possibly went wrong with the fermi forum.

so, my suggestion and direction that i want to go in is to open it up to the two classes in general live in class and see what everyone's feedback is. One concern that i have is that if there is a casual board, it will direct people away from the moderators' discussions chatting that happens a bit as a side release of chatter yet still within somewhat the topic's parameters, so that if we open up a more casual board, it will remove some of this added layer of light bantering and fluff to the moderator lead discussions, even if the student doesn't want to go into the chat board, the mere knowing of its existence and possibility could cause some removal of the light chattiness that does bleed into the moderators' discussions, and will cause them to become more formal. So actually, before I open it up to the class, let me think about it a bit more, ok?

In regards to Rose's suggestion with the friends sign up, I feel like Henning there's something possibly that you and I are both missing that she knows, otherwise why would she make a suggestion for a seemingly useless thing?

So Henning, I would like it to come from you, actually, please, this request of Rose to explain what exactly she means, maybe clarifying your understanding by offering what you already know about the friends requests that you've told me, and then ask her to clarify. Also, I've already requested a bit more info from her, so there you go.

You, my dear, yeah, I've said it so many times already, but i also want to make sure that my interpretation is accurate, while you're doing a fantastically responsible and impressive job as my co-administrator, you are also enjoying this role? Is that accurate?

cheers henning!
ms k

A new section headed Forum Community, with 2 or 3 categories like general off topic chat, post games, and whatever else members might be interested in and some rules of use might be all you need. And anyone who feels as strongly as Vincent_Lee could simply ignore that particular forum and it's categories.

It's not so much my personal distaste of game and chat threads, it's more of how it's incompatible with this forum and the mentality they invite. Game threads are intrinsically insubstantial so there's no real reason to have them beyond what I pointed earlier, boosting your post count. As for a chat thread, it's purpose is in this context is rather unnecessary, as save for you and the newcomers here, we all know each other in real life and can chat almost any time. And once we implement rules, there needs to be someone who can accept the responsibility of moderator, to make sure the rules are enforced. I'm willing to take that duty if we do create a more casual section. What I'm thinking right now is not a general chat thread but a general chat section where we can create new threads on more casual topics. Hopefully this will invite the TS to put some effort into creating his topic and force the other posters to respond with some degree of intelligence instead of just having one big thread where anyone can drop in and make random remarks.

What I'm thinking right now is not a general chat thread but a general chat section where we can create new threads on more casual topics.

I agree. And I think you might have misunderstood me because that is exactly what I meant. Just to clarify, We have a board and on that board there are forums with a header like General Discussion, and in that forum we have threads and these threads are started by individual members who post a general topic for others to reply to. More serious topics, like student’s essays could come under a more serious heading.

We have come to a final decision, and that is that non formal boards may be a bit more distracting than we'd like them to be.
Instead of a chat/game board, a new members' Q&A board has been added.

this thread is now closed.