Forum Changes Consultation - Now Closed

Re: Important: Forum Changes Consultation - Please Read

The ideas were all really good :3 looking forward to see what you guys go for!

 

Re: Important: Forum Changes Consultation - Please Read

It's done!! I'm looking forward to seeing how the forum evolves!!

(and I mean the survey is done.. Sorry if that confused anybody)

 

Re: Important: Forum Changes Consultation - Please Read

Yeah, I'm excited as well to see what ends up happening.

 

Re: Important: Forum Changes Consultation - Please Read

I said it in the survey but I’ll say it again here, I’d really advise against a current events forum, I think that it would just turn into a political forum and in my experience those don’t end up adding value and just lead to flame wars. I find that talking about politics on the internet is doesn’t add much value.

 

Re: Important: Forum Changes Consultation - Please Read

Speaking only for myself, I agree with you when it comes to politics in most places on the internet, but in my experience, the people here at EC tend to be admirably civil about it. Politics already works its way into the LGBT News, Rights, Issues and Equality forum, and I think our members are usually mature when it comes to discussing it (a few bad apples excepted). It certainly feels like we, the staff, don't need to intervene in the LGBT News etc. section as much as we used to have to, so there has definitely been improvement on that end.

 

Re: Important: Forum Changes Consultation - Please Read

Finished with the survey. Good ideas, can't wait to see what gets implemented

 

Re: Important: Forum Changes Consultation - Please Read

I filled it out, and gave some detailed feedback. I look forward to the changes, especially to the Support Area.

I like to spend a lot of time in the Support and Advice forum, but I simply can't keep up with the volume of threads. So, I have to focus on a handful that seem important / that I can personally relate to / give support on... and then ignore the rest, hoping someone else will jump in.

However, it absolutely drives me nuts when I see someone who needs support or advice not get any responses. If I see someone's thread about to slip off the main page, I do try and jump in and save it if I can. Thankfully, this isn't that common, which speaks volumes about the support and community here. Most threads get at least one response, though I'd certainly like for there to be much more.

I think dividing up Support and Advice is absolutely necessary.

 

Re: Important: Forum Changes Consultation - Please Read

I think the reason that the political discussions there aren’t as heated is because there is a significant amount of agreement on those issues. I think that having a forum that is dedicated to political issues will encourage political debates on issues where there is significant disagreement and that it will end up getting emotional. To use an example that’s going to be in the news in a few days, I can’t imagine a debate on healthcare being as civil it’s an issue that people get extremely emotional about and it shows in whenever it’s talked about. I don’t think any of the forums that I was on had a civil debate about healthcare when it was being debated 3 years ago. The other issue that happens when politics is discussed people end up accusing the moderators of being biased towards one side or the other.

 

Re: Important: Forum Changes Consultation - Please Read

I think this is a good idea. The Support Forums need to be divided up, and I especially like the idea of having anonymous in most of the Support Forums - it would make it less confusing, and make some people more open about their responses.

 

Re: Important: Forum Changes Consultation - Please Read

I think that we should have a current events forum. Not everything is related to politics. I think that it would be good to have a place where we could talk about current events that are not related specifically to LGBT issues.

I'm not saying that I want to have a flame war forum, I'm just saying that we should have a place to discuss current events.

 

Re: Important: Forum Changes Consultation - Please Read

The survey was a brilliant idea. Though I'm taking the opposite stance to some people here.

I think splitting the S&A forum might not be particularly helpful, though not necessarily bad either. The big thing that came to mind is that a lot of the subforums have topics that would overlap greatly with one another, despite being specific. Even now, I have issues some days debating whether my topic should go in Chit Chat or S&A, because it seems to apply to both, and that's a pretty clear-cut distinction. I mean, things like "Mental Health", especially on an LGBT-dedicated forum, is bound to have a lot of issues caused by things like being closeted. Not to mention (and I forgot to add this in my survey, if the staff is reading this) a lot of these topics evolve into deeper root causes as people post and discuss. Someone's depressed? Oh, well it usually comes around to the fact that they're not yet out, and how they can go about coming out, and about body image issues, and a whole slew of other things. I think when people are looking for help it's inappropriate to box it into one "category", similarly how when you go to the doctor's you don't tell them what condition you think you have, you describe what you're feeling/experiencing.

With the Older Coming Out forum, I thought that might be detrimental. While we do get some threads about the topic, there really aren't that many. If someone who isn't a member comes by looking for a place to seek refuge surrounding that topic and looks only to find a rather empty subforum well... it indicates that particular community isn't very large and could be pretty discouraging. Besides, coming out isn't an age-specific event; while not all of us can relate to everyone's individual stories, there's enough of us who come by to offer advice anyway.

And personallly I disagree with the idea of having anonymous posting in the forums. I think giving even more anonymity on a rather anonymous forum to begin with opens doors to be more "blunt" and "honest". Add a place where controversial topics tend to arise (read: religion and politics) and things can get out of hand really quickly. To be honest, while I see the potential benefits of having some anonymous posts, I don't want some random anonymous poster coming by my thread where I'm asking for help calling me a "whiny bitch" or something. That's obviously an exaggeration, but I hope you get my point - it allows people to be less considerate than they otherwise would be when their "reputation" is on the line.

Just my two (or three?) cents.

 

Re: Important: Forum Changes Consultation - Please Read

That's a very valid point, but keeping it as one forum just isn't an option for us now. Threads are getting pushed off the first page--at which point they're unlikely to receive replies--in as little as 12 hours after the last post. Splitting it up is really our only option; we've gotten so popular that we've outgrown the single forum.

 

Re: Important: Forum Changes Consultation - Please Read

Agreed, definitely; I mentioned that in my survey too. I'm just well... playing Devil's advocate is all

I haven't given much thought to something that satisfies both this and my other concerns, but hey, if I think up a idea I'll give it a post.

 

Re: Important: Forum Changes Consultation - Please Read

I filled out the survey, but one thing I forgot to say (and wouldn't have known where to comment on it anyway) is that, since EC is trying to organise the forums, why not lock old threads? On a gaming forum I visit, if someone tries to bring a post back to life that has been dead for a few months, the moderators close it. That way a bunch of threads from 2010 won't be littering the front page, and staff/members can focus on replying to new posts, where their help is really needed. Popular topics that may be a few months old, like "What Are You Thinking?" could receive a sticky so people know it's okay to keep commenting in it. Locked threads can be re-created if someone thought it was a particularly interesting subject, or they're going through a similar situation.

I'm not sure if this would be plausible, as it would require a lot of work from the admins. Just putting it out there in case this topic's never been brought up though.

 

Re: Important: Forum Changes Consultation - Please Read

I think that this problem would be solved by just having anonymous postings in the support forums. That way, if somebody does post something political in one of those forums, it is clearly in the wrong spot. As for the religion topics, I think that people need to learn to be respectful. If people are going to post controversial stuff with their username attached, they will do it anonymously as well. I think that is just the nature of the internet. It's not as bad here though as it is in other places.

 

Re: Important: Forum Changes Consultation - Please Read

Finnished the survey! I'm looking forward to seeing what you decide on. All of the changes that were discussed sounded good to me. Progress!

 

Re: Important: Forum Changes Consultation - Please Read

Health and Wellbeing doesn't need to be split into mental and physical. It very rarely gets over 3 new threads a day as it is. The earliest thread on the second page is currently 9 days old - no problem with threads being pushed out of the spotlight prematurely.
Maybe it would be nice to split it solely for the joy of categorising it... but it works fine as it is now.

Coming Out doesn't need to be split into older members and younger members. This will just segregate the community, discourage young members from giving their (completely valid) advice to older members, and result in the mature subforum only getting maybe one thread every month or two, which will just put off those potential threadmakers when they see the board is inactive.
Admittedly I think I've looked at the current Coming Out forum like.. twice. But still, I don't think splitting the community like that is a good idea.

 

Re: Important: Forum Changes Consultation - Please Read

Oh yeah, it's really good here compared to a ton of other sites. I don't know, I'll speak for myself I guess, but when things/debates get heated I'd definitely have a tendency to come off as much more rude or blunt... and I think that's after I consciously read over what I'm saying for fear of being "too offensive". When someone's name is on the line (assuming they care about their rep) I think it makes them step back and look at how other people perceive what they're saying. Running under anonymous, given you aren't blatantly attacking other people for the sake of doing so, gives you free reign to be as blunt/harsh as you want without (likely) being up for ban eligibility. And of course, all it takes is one person to give a comment with that tone for the whole thread to escalate.

 

Re: Important: Forum Changes Consultation - Please Read

I have a tendency to come off as blunt as well... but I guess that it's just because I resort back to my media writing tendencies. This means that I usually get straight to the point. I know that I have accidentally made some people mad on here. When I find this out, I will try to apologize.

I see your concern with that, but that is not really a problem that we are having in the current anon forum. I have seen some religious postings in that forum and people were respectful about their beliefs. I mean, when I first came on this site I posted some threads about religion in anon discussion because I was scared to in the normal forum. I did not have any problems with people being disrespectful. Also, on the other side, I now consider myself agnostic. That does not mean that I go and post rude stuff on other members threads.

I also think that if people report obvious offensive posts (what I mean by this is something that could easily start a flame war) we could control the possible flame wars.

P.S. I'm not trying to start an argument. I'm just going for the friendly debate territory.