Wordsmith.org: the magic of words

Wordsmith Talk

About Us | What's New | Search | Site Map | Contact Us  

Previous Thread
Next Thread
Print Thread
Page 1 of 8 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
#9676 11/01/00 05:27 PM
Joined: Sep 2000
Posts: 4,757
M
Carpal Tunnel
OP Offline
Carpal Tunnel
M
Joined: Sep 2000
Posts: 4,757
I am bringing back a discussion about What We Do, despite the danger of excessive mussitation, because I think there is a cause for concern.

In another fred, Bingley wrote with a wistful note that
“An hour or so a day just about keeps me up to date with the postings but I have a horrible suspicion I might have to give up soon.”

http://wordsmith.org/board/showflat.pl?Cat=&Board=miscellany&Number=7062&page=0&view=collapsed&sb=5

I suggest this should sound a warning note to us all – so as one of the class clowns I feel suitably empowered to make the following comments and suggestions.

My concern is that I would greatly regret the loss of the voice of someone like Mr B in this forum, particularly if he felt bound to withdraw by being overwhelmed with sheer quantity of posts. Despite my relative newcomer status, and my obvious love of sharing fun and serious games with all of the rest of you, I must admit to having considered this possible outcome myself over the course of the last week or so.

Yet the obvious key attraction for many, as evidenced by the responses to the fred started by Jo, is the very nature of the free-ranging and discursive interchange that takes place here. And this anarchical ‘conversation’, weaving from fred to fred with a stream of in-jokes and punning, is the antithesis of concise!

May I therefore suggest the following self-guidance ideals, in order to try to reconcile these poles? It may make the board more manageable for those who don’t want to get eventually excluded by sheer weight of chaff, whilst allowing the chattering classes to continue what they do best.


1. Protect the Q&A arena
Keep this area of the board strictly focussed, with minimal backchat and fooling – by all means posts could be chatty, but remain subject-orientated – and any jokey continuations could be posted to a more relevant section, with a pointer in the original fred if worthwhile.

2. Augment the Q&A’s value
Conversely, remove questions that crop up in other discussions as questions for posting to this section of the forum. This would allow participation by all, even if they don’t want to trawl thro’ all of the verbiage and badinage in all freds.

3. Keep the magic in Wordplay
This section seems ideally suited to our current brand of mayhem. Knowing this, it could be skipped if it’s too voluminous for someone’s tastes, or otherwise from time to time when RealLife intrudes.

4. Reconsider the value of Miscellaneous
Perhaps this section could be more differentiated from the other two? For example, I am considering trying a thread briefed to write a composite story, to which some/all could contribute, based on simple ground rules… Other ideas will doubtless abound. Is it going to make the arena better value for the time and effort if we manage to differentiate in this kind of way?

5. Respect the balance of other voices
If any of us went into a room full of people, our social inhibitions would probably prevent (most of) us from dancing on the table and singing a song at the top of our voices (or at least until the party warmed up!). Since echat is the closest thing yet encountered to an apparently cost-free environment, we may be more prone to hog the airwaves; I would simply suggest that we all need to help ensure our individual voice does not become so loud or so prevalent that it risks overwhelming the balance and variety that makes this forum such great fun.



Perhaps some of you may initially feel this is over-reaction to one comment, or attempted over-management of a successful forum. It does seem entirely possible to me, however, that the invigorating life of this board could wilt from a surfeit of plenty, and its obvious success paradoxically cause problems.
I therefore believe it’s worth thinking about and discussing, before participants have to take all-or-nothing choices.


PS
I’ve mulled this over for a day or two after initially drafting, taking account of the obvious pleasure many of us are still getting from an ever-expanding volume of postings. It now seems a bit like over-kill, but still feels worth voicing to test everyone’s feelings.

All comments welcomed of course.


#9677 11/01/00 07:45 PM
Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 11,613
Carpal Tunnel
Offline
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 11,613
Aunt maverick, I love you! (Except for that "orientated", darn you! I know you did that on purpose!)

I can verify that several people, including myself, have expressed this exact concern: fascinating, but so TIME-consuming! Yikes!

Bless you for taking the time to think of these, and to post them. Sounds good to me. Folks?


#9678 11/01/00 09:01 PM
Joined: Apr 2000
Posts: 10,542
Carpal Tunnel
Offline
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Apr 2000
Posts: 10,542
mav, this is all excellent food for thought, which I will proceed to chew on -- but one more quibble: why, in such a serious piece, did you insist on referring to 'thread's with the f-word?

well, that really was just a quibble. the real challenge, of course, would be the institutionalizing* of your suggested standards.

*a term much in vogue in software process standarization circles


#9679 11/01/00 11:58 PM
Joined: Oct 2000
Posts: 1,346
F
veteran
Offline
veteran
F
Joined: Oct 2000
Posts: 1,346
I agree wholeheartedly, mav, and the principles are very sound. I think it's very important not to lose people like Bingley, and I don't think his case will be all that isolated if we keep doing exactly what we're doing at present.

(Yes, I know, mea maxima culpa again...)

Getting everybody to subscribe to the rules is the problem.
Has to be done voluntarily, all by itself, as otherwise we need some sort of policing.

Tell you what, I'll try to skip inserting fun & games stuff in Q&A for now. Sounds doable, and every little helps.

(I can do it, I can do it, I can do it...)

P.S. We can append stuff like this to a Top Tips/FAQ Fred in Info/announcements, along with "how to use markup", "links between Freds" etc. I may even do something like this myself at some point.


#9680 11/02/00 02:09 AM
Joined: Sep 2000
Posts: 347
M
enthusiast
Offline
enthusiast
M
Joined: Sep 2000
Posts: 347
I concur with many of the sentiments expressed by others before me, and I think something along the lines of your suggestions, mav, is in order. It would allow the less-regular visitors, of whom I may soon be one, to find and follow discussions more efficiently.

In line with my policy of being "part of the precipitate", let me contribute a jumble of disorganized musings.

[rant]
As I've mentioned elsewhere, I came across this board a few short months ago, and have celebrated just two lunimensaversaries of my first post. Not coincidentally, this has occurred during a period in my professional life in which I am employed but not occupied or fulfilled. I have no Internet connection at home, but my excess spare time at my work desk has allowed me the luxury of spending an hour or more a day at AWADtalk. I would have to say that at the board's current growth rate of 85 posts/day, I'm hard pressed to do more than just read the posts. Responding (especially in an intelligent fashion, which I hope to do one day!) and research take longer again. Given this post, today's been more like a 2-hour session. After tomorrow I'll be away for four days, and I have to say, I am simultaneously looking forward to and dreading the mountain of posts that will await me on my return. The same would apply, but to a greater extent, if I only logged in once a week, or, heaven forbid, once a month.

Much of life is about balance, and compromise, and I can see the time fast approaching where I too may have to 'do a Bingley' (says he, noting that Bingley hasn't yet done it). It may be precipitated by a pick-up in my work here, a change of employment, or just an acceptance that there are other things to do.

I am a bit sad as I type this, and I realize that it's starting to sound like an obituary, which is not my intention. I'll still be here next week, and the board will be here for a long time yet. I can say that, even if it proves to be a passing phase in my life, it has been highly educational, entertaining (often to the point of hilarity) and inspirational. And it's certainly filled a void.

To take a different tack, here are a few stats. The analytical side of me can't resist reducing it all to numbers.

There are reputedly 1573 "Registered Users" on this board, yet only 30 people have posted in the last 7 days. Seven people have posted only once in that time, which means that 99% of the week's posts have come from just 23 regulars. What, I wonder, are the other 1540 users doing? Are they the silent majority, happy to read the postings of our small private-but-very-public club, or are they people who have come, taken the trouble to register, perhaps contributed briefly, then departed into the night? I suspect more of the latter, since the ratio of views to posts is usually roughly 10, rather than the (many, many, many, many?) orders of magnitude that would be generated by having 1500 regular viewers-only (far be it from me to call them voyeurs). In other words, most of the views are by the same regulars having a look but choosing not to post on that particular occasion. Mind you, I'm not saying that being a select group is bad - it's certainly very cosy and friendly. It does, though, point to a huge turnover of users in the eight months or so that the board has been going. Thoughts, anyone? [BIG invitation here for contributions from the "silent majority", if you're out there].
[/rant]

And I'm with tsuwm on this fred thing. Fish on bikes have proved to be an ongoing source of puns and other forms of humour. Fred, on the other hand, ran out of steam very quickly.


#9681 11/02/00 02:57 AM
Joined: Apr 2000
Posts: 10,542
Carpal Tunnel
Offline
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Apr 2000
Posts: 10,542
just a couple of other thoughts to add to what marty wrote: consider: if you log in daily and read a thread that is active for (say) a week (surely that is conservative), you will personally be adding 7 views to that thread -- now how does the ratio look, and how many voyeurs could there be? [my math tells me that the participation, even covert, is more geometric then additive.]

also, I made reference elsewhere to the "Word Fugitives" forum at the Atlantic Monthly website. there are many similarities between this board and the forum that Barbara Wallraff administered at Atlantic Unbound 1 to 2 years ago -- it never got quite as silly there (not saying that this is necessarily a bad thing), but there was a core of regulars who probably tended to dominate and the thing ultimately died from the lack of a fresh infusion of contributors. you can see the remnants of this in the Word Police and Word Court forum.



#9682 11/02/00 12:07 PM
Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 1,027
old hand
Offline
old hand
Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 1,027
Out of sheer passion, I have done a bit of statistics on my own:
Of the 58 individual most recent contributors, the six most assiduous ones have accumulated together more than half (52%) of all posts. An the most frequent poster's (who could that be?) frequency is more than twice that of the runner-up. And never mind the length of the dissertations...


#9683 11/02/00 01:07 PM
Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 1,004
old hand
Offline
old hand
Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 1,004
It isn't me is it?

(I am a bear of very little brain, and long words bother me....) Eeep.


#9684 11/02/00 03:59 PM
Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 6,511
Carpal Tunnel
Offline
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 6,511
Thanks, y'all,.for your research. I've "oh deared" in private messages.... I glorify the interest but lament the lack of space. (I guess we need more forums)


#9685 11/02/00 04:51 PM
Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 11,613
Carpal Tunnel
Offline
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 11,613
(I guess we need more forums)

Anna and mav, (and everybody)--I have noticed that lately, we seem to be getting a great many posts that are essentially long philosophical discourses. Do you-all think we should have a separate forum, maybe in Miscellany, for these? I realize it would be awkward in some cases, as when a particular post sparks off a sudden swing into philosophy. What think you?


Page 1 of 8 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

Moderated by  Jackie 

Link Copied to Clipboard
Forum Statistics
Forums16
Topics13,912
Posts229,271
Members9,179
Most Online3,341
Dec 9th, 2011
Newest Members
TRIALNERRA, befuddledmind, KILL_YOUR_SUV, Heather_Turey, Standy
9,179 Registered Users
Who's Online Now
1 members (A C Bowden), 285 guests, and 4 robots.
Key: Admin, Global Mod, Mod
Top Posters(30 Days)
Top Posters
wwh 13,858
Faldage 13,803
Jackie 11,613
tsuwm 10,542
wofahulicodoc 10,502
LukeJavan8 9,915
AnnaStrophic 6,511
Wordwind 6,296
of troy 5,400
Disclaimer: Wordsmith.org is not responsible for views expressed on this site. Use of this forum is at your own risk and liability - you agree to hold Wordsmith.org and its associates harmless as a condition of using it.

Home | Today's Word | Yesterday's Word | Subscribe | FAQ | Archives | Search | Feedback
Wordsmith Talk | Wordsmith Chat

© 1994-2024 Wordsmith

Powered by UBB.threads™ PHP Forum Software 7.7.5