[Simon]

I feel that lately the tech side of this board has received less attention while the "social areas" and topics seem to be gaining. I have also noted that certain technical forums have suffered from a spillover of bad manners and lack of etiquette which seem to be customary for certain Lounge denizens. I am strongly apposed to these tendencies. I believe there are IRC channels for personal conversations and chats, there are places like MySpace and Facebook for social exchange, and there are real life friends for well, friends. This board should not be a social gathering. This board should serve a technical purpose. It should host discussions on Mac and tech related discussions, it should be a repository of tips and advice, and it should be a place where facts come before opinions, personal preferences, or clique for that matter. Also, social forums are not required to attract members that can give technical advice. Experience shows that the most active "social posters" rarely offer useful technical advice. Participants on a tech board should see the technical discussions as the cookie, not the burden.

I believe one very efficient way to redirect this misguided focus is to terminate the social forums, reduce all forms of personalization, and put more emphasis on technical forums. In terms of specific measures I suggest the following, listed from most to least relevant.

• Remove post counts entirely. They encourage the wrong posting attitude.

• +1 style posts or derailing lead to a single final warning. Recurring offenders receive two week bans.

• Remove stars, ranks, and titles. Leave only proper designations like Mod or Admin.

• Remove all signatures. Names of people who are especially competent will stick out by themselves. Enjoy the reduced bandwidth bill.

• Close the PWL.

• Open a new Lounge solely for topics that do not really fit other forums, but restrict all discussions to purely technical matters. Politics, religion, personal matters, etc. are not tolerated. If they pop up in other threads or forums, they are deleted and the poster gets a two week ban.

• Ad-hominem attacks, spite, or groups of posters ganging up on others are no longer tolerated at all. All personal attacks immediately lead to a two week ban. Recurring offenders are permabanned.

• Chatting in threads leads to a warning. Recurring offenders get two week vacations.

• The rules make crystal clear that people are not to register more than one handle. All known secondary handles are permabanned w/o further warning. If the mods have good reason to believe somebody is hiding behind a secondary handle (including ban evasion) that handle plus the primary get permabanned without further warning.

These measures should reduce the incentives for post whoring, thread crapping, OT posting, and ganging up of certain member groups against others. The "social" elements that water down or interfere with technical issues will be minimized. I truly believe there should be only one way to get a reputation here: through solid tech advice or insightful posting. And there are several members who have already done that. If somebody repeatedly posts good advice, people will remember the name. If you want to find out about another member you can look at his previous posts (as easy as a right click on a user name) and make up your own mind. No stars or post count figures give a more accurate picture.

I am aware some of these issues might be controversial. Nevertheless, I believe they are worthy of an objective discussion.

[rickey939]

Sounds good!

[calverson]

The whole purpose of the lounge is not to be technical.

I think that if what Simon suggests was done, the amount of pageviews and ad revenue that MacNN receives would decline, and it would become a niche forum.

I don't think that anyone is going to do anything that will directly lower their web-based income.

[besson3c]

Simon: isn't being an avid Mac user, or an avid user of just about anything social in its nature? Isn't this why Mac user groups exist - so that people can meet amongst other like-minded individuals for social reasons? Are the "here is what my Desktop looks like" threads technical or social?

The Mac will always be an area of common ground, what binds us together, but it does not have to be central to every discussion. If it was, like calverson said, the interest and excitement of MacNN would diminish greatly. How many threads have been created posing the same questions about viruses, repairing your disk with Disk Warrior, etc.? Not only would activity be reduced a great deal, but the repetitive nature of some of the technical questions will drive away those of us that have answered/read/dealt with those threads before - there needs to be something in it for all kinds of Mac user, this place needs to remain flexible.

Take me, for instance... I'm a Mac user, have been for years, that's where I started, it's sort of part of my computing DNA... However, I'm far more interested in Linux/Unix servers these days. If, hypothetically speaking, there were no threads about these things (as it stands they are fairly rare), would I essentially be unwelcome here if I couldn't find something that interested me?

Our interests all grow, wander, and diverge. There may be several people in here that are well established members of MacNN whose lives and jobs have wandered away from the world of all things Mac. Are they of little use to a place like this if they can't contribute to technical discussion?

I think the solution is pretty simple: if you are interested in technical discussion, monitor the non-lounge areas. Maybe there are even vBulletin plugs that allow email subscriptions to particular sections of the forum, I don't know. For the rest of us that are also interested in community, we have the lounge.

[Cold Warrior]

Originally Posted by besson3c 

Maybe there are even vBulletin plugs that allow email subscriptions to particular sections of the forum, I don't know.

One can subscribe to specific forums and get daily emails or subscribe to specific threads for instant notifications. I wouldn't mind an option for instant emails on new threads in an entire forum, but I imagine that might be too server-intensive.

[Simon]

Just to make myself absolutely clear. Linux, Unix, Xbox, Segways, etc. is all technical. So are Mac desktop images. That would all still be here. It's politics, religion, and personal life that would be gone.

[besson3c]

Originally Posted by Cold Warrior 

One can subscribe to specific forums and get daily emails or subscribe to specific threads for instant notifications. I wouldn't mind an option for instant emails on new threads in an entire forum, but I imagine that might be too server-intensive.

Yeah, I hear you. The notion of putting a copy of a single message in everybody's mailbox always seems like a silly way of getting information out there in comparison to RSS. Users who are wanting to ignore the Lounge could simply subscribe to the areas they are interested in via RSS.

[besson3c]

Originally Posted by Simon 

Just to make myself absolutely clear. Linux, Unix, Xbox, Segways, etc. is all technical. So are Mac desktop images. That would all still be here. It's politics, religion, and personal life that would be gone.

Do you think that people that go to a Macworld, for instance, and meet friends don't talk about these things?

[Laminar]

I'd like to see some examples of how the awful personal side of things has spilled into and seriously diminished the technical side of the forums. If you want something purely technical, go hang out at Apple's boards.

[scaught]

Originally Posted by Simon 

I am aware some of these issues might be controversial. Nevertheless, I believe they are worthy of an objective discussion.

Sounds like you got an idea for a messageboard, but it would be nigh-impossible to turn this ship around at this point.

[Railroader]

Why do you post in the lounge Simon. If you hate something so much, why do you spend time there?

[brassplayersrock²]

This place wouldn't be any fun if you're (the OP) ways are implemented.

[Simon]

Originally Posted by Railroader 

Why do you post in the lounge Simon. If you hate something so much, why do you spend time there?

Originally Posted by Simon

I have also noted that certain technical forums have suffered from a spillover of bad manners and lack of etiquette which seem to be customary for certain Lounge denizens.

[quote from the very first post]

Note also that none of this has to do with hate. These are suggestions to make this a better technical board.

[Simon]

Originally Posted by besson3c 

Do you think that people that go to a Macworld, for instance, and meet friends don't talk about these things?

I'm sure they do. But usually when you talk to friends you are polite. And even when you talk to strangers you usually treat them with a certain respect. On boards this is different. People chose a tone and say things they would otherwise never use face to face with the people they're talking to. Partly it is due to the fact that we are not all friends. We chose our friends. This board however is anonymous. And you have to deal with whoever is here. That's fundamentally different from a little chitchat you have with your friends. Another issue is maturity. Or rather a lack thereof. Users hiding behind their anonymity will act in a way they never would at your little Macworld gathering.

I'm not at all against these topics per se. But this isn't a voluntary gathering of frieds. It's an anonymous group of random persons on a board. Politics, religion, etc. usually end up in bickering or insults. There's more than enough proof in the Lounge. And that's why I want these issues banned. Not from our lives, but from this board.

[Maflynn]

I've been contemplating the OP's recommendations and it seems Simon if you don't like something don't do it. If the lounge activity doesn't lite your fuse, then don't frequent the forum.

I do think that the lounge as gotten a little out of hand with some a fair amount of nonesense threads, such as besson's abnormal obsession with feces, but I just skip by them or any other thread that may have a subject matter the doesn't matter to me.. Using Besson as an example, he and others seem to enjoy those threads so I just move on. To that end, I find myself posting less in the lounge - for the most part - because I've been enjoying the contributing to the technical forums. That doesn't mean I advocate we kill off the lounge, just because I'm in there less.

If you want a forum of purely technical merit, I suggest you head over to apple discussion forums, or another mac forum. You'll see those are small and the activity level is lower because there's less sense of a community. If you feel that strongly you could start your own Mac (or technical) forum and craft it in your own image.

As for post counts, it really doesn't bother me that there are any. There's certainly people who are posting whores and there numbers are inflated but there's also a bunch of people who have posted quality and quantity. To be honest, how cares how many starts you have in comparison to others.

I like the sig rules, and personally I think it would be a huge step back if 'NN abolished sigs completely.

The bottom line all that you are recommending have helped build up 'NN to what it is now, and removing them (lounge, post counts, sigs, etc) would actually decrease membership, and posting. Quality posting would also decrease just because there would be less members.

[besson3c]

Originally Posted by Simon 

I'm sure they do. But usually when you talk to friends you are polite. And even when you talk to strangers you usually treat them with a certain respect. On boards this is different. People chose a tone and say things they would otherwise never use face to face with the people they're talking to. Partly it is due to the fact that we are not all friends. We chose our friends. This board however is anonymous. And you have to deal with whoever is here. That's fundamentally different from a little chitchat you have with your friends. Another issue is maturity. Or rather a lack thereof. Users hiding behind their anonymity will act in a way they never would at your little Macworld gathering.

I'm not at all against these topics per se. But this isn't a voluntary gathering of frieds. It's an anonymous group of random persons on a board. Politics, religion, etc. usually end up in bickering or insults. There's more than enough proof in the Lounge. And that's why I want these issues banned. Not from our lives, but from this board.

Maybe our efforts would be best spent coming up with ways to ensure politeness and less bickering then, as this is a fundamental problem that may very well exist even if the board was purely technical. What you are proposing would likely only minimize this, but at great cost, and there are no guarantees that whatever motivates people to bicker, be hostile, whatever wouldn't trickle into the technical threads...

[Railroader]

Originally Posted by Simon 

This board should serve a technical purpose. It should host discussions on Mac and tech related discussions,

Actually, it should bring in ad revenue and an income stream for its owners. MacNN does not host the forums out of purely altruistic motivations. They want to make money.

[Railroader]

Originally Posted by Simon 

I'm not at all against these topics per se. But this isn't a voluntary gathering of frieds. It's an anonymous group of random persons on a board. Politics, religion, etc. usually end up in bickering or insults. There's more than enough proof in the Lounge. And that's why I want these issues banned. Not from our lives, but from this board.

Originally Posted by Simon

your little Macworld gathering

If you don't want to see insults, don't throw any out yourself.

[Simon]

Absolutely no insult intended. With "your little MW gathering" I meant literally that: Besson's example of a small group of people gathering while at Macworld. Apologies if any of that came across as an insult. There was certainly none intended.