...I can't do it!Yeah, sorry folks - this ain't going to work. I have to do a piscine enantiodroma and go back on myself (very easy in a goldfish bowl).
The problem is that if we are "policing" ourselves - which as I've said before is the only way any guidelines are going to work - we have to evaluate all potential postings before submission. Fine to some extent, but because we are intelligent, sensitive people (or in my case, aspire to be
), and because we
care about this Board, the tendency is to be too critical. This is an inhibiting influence, which shouldn't really have a home amongst a bunch of
free-thinking individualists (
replace with label of your choice).
If
Questions and Answers were to be committed to 'fact, fact, fact' (exaggeration for effect), I for one wouldn't visit it very often. I may thus miss out on something very interesting, and someone else may miss out on something useful I had to say. You never know.
On a more positive note, here's what I think we
could do:
1. Before starting a new thread we could try to do a quick search to check that the subject hasn't - as far as we can tell - been discussed at length before, and if we still feel like we have something to add, we resurrect that thread by posting to it.
2. We could pick reasonably meaningful titles for threads that we start.
3. At the point that a given thread has clearly diverged from its original tack, it's hardly any effort at all to change the Subject of a new posting to something more appropriate and meaningful. Or just something
different, as that marks out a 'sub-thread' and potential spin-off.
4. If a given thread takes an eternity to load up (I suppose when viewed in threaded mode), it can be checked for active sub-threads. If one of these has generated a bit of interest, but (hopefully) hasn't run out of steam, we can start up a dedicated new thread, possibly with an internal link from the old. The link is rarely essential, mind.
BUT..all of the above can only be recommendations. To that extent, there's going to be a lot that slips through the net, and that we just have to live with.
I'm sure we can cope.
Fisk
P.S. "RealWorld" commitments are going to slow me down considerably for the next couple of weeks, and I've dropped a gear anyway. So Bingley, Marty - you won't be alone in needing to catch up with what gems have been unearthed in your absence. We're obliged to skim-read, so we're bound to miss some stuff. But never mind.
P.P.S. Sorry JazzO... mega-long post.
