General > General Technical Chat
IMPORTANT POLL: Should there be an off-topic section?
joeqsmith:
--- Quote from: HighVoltage on September 07, 2022, 01:07:31 pm ---
--- Quote from: Halcyon on September 07, 2022, 01:01:31 pm ---
--- Quote from: tszaboo on September 07, 2022, 12:34:07 pm ---It happened to me several times that I typed a post, and then deleted it, because it was off topic, or political, and I didn't want to leave it to chance whether I get banned. So I ended up deleting it. It would be good to talk to people here (like minded people) about those topics without the fear of the ban hammer.
--- End quote ---
You wouldn't get banned. That is a decision that is not made lightly. We are all human, and sometimes we say things without thinking... or even it's well thought-out but controversial. To get banned, you basically have to be a shit human (or spammer).
--- End quote ---
From what I have seen over the years, good people have been banned here too fast for small things.
--- End quote ---
I tend to agree. When I've attempted to find out why someone was banned I can't. I suspect they typically get into off-topic threads and talk politics, religion ... and their comments are scrubbed. I don't follow these threads so what I see is their technical contributions. Personally, I only see these bans further diluting the resource pool. I suspect if you open the site up, these bans will become more common place.
If current members are less interested in electronics and the goal is to expand or maintain, I see no other way around it than to make it more like other sites. You may find this opens the doors for new sponsors as well.
Maybe name the site that better describes the target audience you are trying to attract? "GenBlog Generic Forum"
tggzzz:
--- Quote from: EEVblog on September 07, 2022, 01:06:38 pm ---
--- Quote from: nctnico on September 07, 2022, 12:57:03 pm ---
--- Quote from: tszaboo on September 07, 2022, 12:34:07 pm ---It happened to me several times that I typed a post, and then deleted it, because it was off topic, or political, and I didn't want to leave it to chance whether I get banned. So I ended up deleting it. It would be good to talk to people here (like minded people) about those topics without the fear of the ban hammer.
--- End quote ---
IMHO what you describe is a good thing. EEVBlog is right on the good side of the edge between technical and not-so-technical topics. My fear is that allowing more non-technical threads is going to lead to people really taking it out on each other due to difference of opinion and being 'on the spectrum'.
--- End quote ---
That's always been my fear, but as the years have rolled on I've been seeing that happen more and more anyway, it doesn't seem to take much if any off-topic to trigger a fued.
--- End quote ---
IMNSHO, this forum strikes a good balance, thus does not need to change. I see no benefits to such a change, and potentially significant downsides. The recent " TEA contretemps" hasn't changed that.
When I want general stuff, there are plenty of other forums, all the way down to Farcebook.
When I'm not interested in a topic or some of the posts in it, I simply skip them. Not exactly rocket science!
Navigation is trivial due to the combination of "Show unread posts since last visit", "Show new replies to your posts" and "Mark posts read". Without those the forum would be unusable.
HighVoltage:
Anything political or religious will always be the seed for problems.
Dave,
You have something very special here with a group people interested in electronics.
Why killing it with off-topic sections.
There are plenty of other places where people can discuss such topics.
I have been on many forums over the years and off-topic sections eventually killed the forum!
eevblog should stay clean and on focus with its center core, no need to change anything.
pcprogrammer:
As with everything in life there are pro's and con's to this.
A separate section to allow the more involved members to do water cooler talk could ease the off topic drifts in other threads, but that does depend on the will of the members to move it to the new section as soon as a drift starts, and I fear such a discipline might be a to big a stretch.
Making it completely free of rules like no politics, religion and guns, and only leave don't offend others, feels like opening the door to huge cesspool. Even though I would not mind a good discussion on some of these topics, there will never be winners so to speak, because everybody has his deep set ideas about them, and not offending others will become almost impossible.
A better set of rules of conduct, like discussed in the new section opened for TEA might be of help to move off topic drifts into a new "EEVBlog cafe" section, but don't make it everything is allowed.
PlainName:
--- Quote from: Halcyon ---However, if you do choose to venture into that area, users need to be prepared to be offended, insulted etc...
--- End quote ---
I'm not sure I follow why 'not electronics related' means 'free for all offensive' and/or complete non-moderation. Surely the participants should be as well behaved as they are in the electronics sections, it's just that whatever is discussed wouldn't have to included electronic stuff?
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