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Nic Name · 01-20-2002, 02:25 PM

If we do go ahead and move Philadelphia into Cities in the Main Forums ...

it might be good to create a Cellar Community Center in Cellar-related.

This would be a good place to just hang out online in the Cellar. Or to post personally oriented questions to other cellarites.

Like the post above, where dham wants to start a conversation with me about where I live in Toronto ... and I replied. This "conversation" ought to have taken place in the Cellar Communty Center, rather than in a thread about "new main area forums" where it is off-topic. Where things get really out of control, is where others start to jump into this "conversation topic" and the thread becomes all about where someone lives or what they love to eat. The biggest problem with "off-topic" digressions is that they present to the membership at large, and to guests, a false promise of new discussion on the topic of the thread. And when the fresh posts are off-topic, this can be a disappointment to the user.

The proposal for a Forum to facilitate random visits or conversational threads on no particular topic, just to visit and get to know each other, is different from IRC, and is more consistent with the messageboard metaphor of the Cellar. First, it is an open dialogue that is open for all members and guests to overhear (over-read) or participate in the conversational thread. Second, it facilitates a conversational thread to develop, even when the participants are not online at the same time, which is often the case with time zone differences worldwide.

01-20-2002, 02:25 PM	#48
Nic Name retired Join Date: Dec 2001 Location: Toronto, Canada Posts: 1,930	If we do go ahead and move Philadelphia into Cities in the Main Forums ... it might be good to create a Cellar Community Center in Cellar-related. This would be a good place to just hang out online in the Cellar. Or to post personally oriented questions to other cellarites. Like the post above, where dham wants to start a conversation with me about where I live in Toronto ... and I replied. This "conversation" ought to have taken place in the Cellar Communty Center, rather than in a thread about "new main area forums" where it is off-topic. Where things get really out of control, is where others start to jump into this "conversation topic" and the thread becomes all about where someone lives or what they love to eat. The biggest problem with "off-topic" digressions is that they present to the membership at large, and to guests, a false promise of new discussion on the topic of the thread. And when the fresh posts are off-topic, this can be a disappointment to the user. The proposal for a Forum to facilitate random visits or conversational threads on no particular topic, just to visit and get to know each other, is different from IRC, and is more consistent with the messageboard metaphor of the Cellar. First, it is an open dialogue that is open for all members and guests to overhear (over-read) or participate in the conversational thread. Second, it facilitates a conversational thread to develop, even when the participants are not online at the same time, which is often the case with time zone differences worldwide.