Chief Delphi - To chit chat or not to chit chat

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Chief Delphi (http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/index.php)

- CD Forum Support (http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=8)

- - To chit chat or not to chit chat (http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/showthread.php?t=30386)

Bharat Nain

20-09-2004 23:17

Re: To chit chat or not to chit chat

I didn't bother to read the whole thread, but I can say this much that the Chit Chat forum needs to be set with stricter rules. For a minute, I want everyone to think in terms that you own a forum with 5000+ members who talk just about anything. Personally, I have owned forums and they have been shut down by law because of such problems. This is FIRST, and I expect kids(and mentors sometimes) to act more mature and decent. I say we set some boundaries for the Chit-Chat forum and continue with it. Stuff like those Fantasy games etc, are good. The Chit-Chat forum also has some nice(funny, good time-pass etc)and informative threads so it would not be good to shut it down unless it goes out of hand. I can only urge all us FIRSTers to behave more adequately to preserve such a useful forum.
-Bharat

shyra1353

20-09-2004 23:20

Re: To chit chat or not to chit chat

I see both sides of the argument, but I think that we all have to remember, everyone here as a life outside of FIRST (some just don't want to admit it). Chit-Chat is the place where we get to know what kind of lives people have outside of FIRST and where we get to know each other as people, not as engineers, or future engineers, or robot builder, etc. (whatever your title may be). I like chit-chat because as it was said earlier, it is a recess from FIRST, and that's important.

That being said, I think that the Chit-Chat forum has gone down in quality, and there are A LOT of useless threads. So while I say we keep the forum, I agree with DJ that there should be stricter rules on the types of threads. Maybe a limit to how many threads a person can create a week (month) ?? Or something along those lines possibly ...

Ken Leung

20-09-2004 23:24

Re: To chit chat or not to chit chat

Quote:

Originally Posted by Matt Attallah

P.S. Ken - I'm not saying that you where questioning anyone in particular - but I am getting a 'vibe' off of the question you posted in the way you did. Am I probably thinking too much - but at this point from the past few weeks - I'd rather keep my guard up than let it down for now... :(

I can understand where you are coming from. The argument in your thread earlier about the portal page image IS one of the reasons I want to start this thread. But my intention is instead of yelling at each other in individual chit chat threads about what's appropriate or not, I thought we can have a constructive discussion and look at the problem seriously: Is chit chat causing a problem in these forums?

I am not convinced it is or it isn't so far. I am hopping to hear more view points about it before drawing up any conclusions. Better to take longer than draw the wrong conclusion.

Karthik

20-09-2004 23:25

Re: To chit chat or not to chit chat

Quote:

Originally Posted by Koko Ed

I disagree.
People don't come here because they don't participate in messge boards not because it has a frivilous time waster.

I'm sure that many people don't come here just because they don't use internet message boards, that's a given. But I've spoken with numerous people who don't read CD because of it's "childish" reputation. The don't believe that there can be information of value beneath the numerous chit-chat posts. Yes, I know that chit-chat isn't seen on the portal, but people still see it as the dominant use of this board. I still see plenty of room for threads such as the Fantasy FIRST games, the birthday announcements and others like those.

Quote:

Allright - we may gain SOME readers - but how many would we loose...?

I'd be willing to lose posters whose only interest is chit chat, to gain those who's sole interest is FIRST. I think those who participate in both chit-chat and the other forums, would still remain if chit-chat was toned down or eliminated. I could be wrong about this, but I think most of the hybrid posters are here mainly for the FIRST discussion.

JVN	20-09-2004 23:31

Re: To chit chat or not to chit chat

An idea...

What if the folks at CD simply took out the chitchat forum, and began STRONGLY enforcing a no chit chat policy. Then, the chatter wouldn't just slide into the other forums (or, if it did, it wouldn't last long.)

To take it's place, someone else starts www.firstsocialboard.com
which is a message board dedicated to chit/chat among FIRSTers.

This way, CD remains the communitty hub for team/FIRST/technical support and discussion. fsb.com turns into the "chatty" board.

Delphi doesn't have to deal with the liability.
The level of quality of cd.com will increase.
The chatters will have a new home.

fsb.com could have it's own set of moderators who enforce a (much relaxed) code of conduct from the *new* CD.com.

I see this as my ideal world.
If I want to talk robots in a serious manner, I hit up CD.com (obviously some jokes would remain, ala Dave Lavery type humor joking about FIRST)

If I want to socialize with other FIRSTers, voice my political views, talk about the newest movies, etc etc... I go to fsb.com

Any thoughts?

JVN

Karthik

20-09-2004 23:38

Re: To chit chat or not to chit chat

Quote:

Originally Posted by JVN

John,

This is exactly what I was getting at in my post. I think this is a prime idea, that suits the needs of all parties. Kudos.

Cory	20-09-2004 23:46

Re: To chit chat or not to chit chat

Quote:

Originally Posted by Karthik

This quote really sums up my feelings on the topic, but I'll elaborate.

I'm one of the few people who voted against the Chit-Chat forum.

CD over the years has become one of the best resources in all of FIRST. People can count on CD for the answers to all their FIRST related questions. There's a wealth of experienced engineers and professionals who can help you with all sorts of problems.

I firmly believe that eliminating the chit-chat forum will help keep this site as such a valuable resource.

There are plenty of other online forums on the web for people to kill time and have fun. Since when did ChiefDelphi become an entertainment vessel? The point the Ken is bringing up is that many people who come here for technical information get turned off by all the nonsense in chit-chat. Many mentors do not read CD, because they see it as being too juvenile. The chit-chat forum kills a large degree of professional that this site tries to maintain.

By eliminating the Chit-Chat forum, things would become a lot more serious around here, and we would gain many new readers and posters with various new insights and information, which would make CD a much better resource. Sure, we wouldn't be able to have a lot the fun little threads that we've all come to enjoy (and yes, despite me sounding like a grinch right now, I'd miss a lot of it too). But there's no reason that these discussions couldn't occur on another board not hosted by ChiefDelphi.

I'm not saying that everything here needs to 100% business-like, but I do believe there needs to be some sort of professionalism. My rule of thumb is that I don't post anything here that I wouldn't normally be saying in a FIRST team meeting. For example, I rarely in the middle of my team meetings say "Who would you rather vote for, Bush or Kerry?". I'm still willing to joke around, but it's important to stay on topic, and in my opinion the topic is FIRST.

I agree with some of what you say, but on the other hand, if people are coming looking for technical information, they should never see the chit chat forums.

Like myself and others said earlier, if chit chat goes away, the forums will just be swamped with off topic posts right and left. At least now they're mostly in one isolated place. The moderator's jobs would become a whole hell of a lot harder if they had to deal with cleaning up pointless threads in every sub forum.

Cory

Greg Ross

20-09-2004 23:48

Re: To chit chat or not to chit chat

I voted "Yes, I like the chit chat section" even though I would have worded the positive response something like "Yes, keep the Chit-Chat forum."

There's too much inanity* in there for my taste. But the forum has its place. As has already been stated, if Chit-Chat were no longer, then all that silliness would surface as off-topic threads and posts in other fora.

*That's just a two-bit word that means silliness. Please don't flame.

Bharat Nain

20-09-2004 23:58

Re: To chit chat or not to chit chat

JVN, I totally agree with your point that Chief Delphi does not have to deal with liability issues. They are providing us with a forum which is a major source of information, so even though the Chit-Chat forum is kinda fun to have, it might be wise to remove it.

Instead of the Chit-Chat maybe we could simply have something else that does not say "Chit Chat" in a broad sense. Maybe a sub forum to talk about other techy stuff not so related to FIRST. At any cost it is not fair to CD to deal with any liability issues, so its best we come up with alternatives or eliminate the chit chat entirely, i say. Thoughts?
-Bharat

Ken Leung

21-09-2004 00:11

Re: To chit chat or not to chit chat

Quote:

Originally Posted by Karthik

But I've spoken with numerous people who don't read CD because of it's "childish" reputation. The don't believe that there can be information of value beneath the numerous chit-chat posts.

I am with Karthik on this point. It's not as much as the chit chat threads covering up the portal page as the attitude of the forum seems to have shifted toward this "childlish" one. Not exactly childlish, but a lot of posts aren't as serious as they should be in the regular forums.

A lot of people think Chief Delphi Forum isn't useful anymore because of that. They get turned off by the chit chat attitude, and are no longer contributing as much as they used to or would have. You can see a lot of mentors no longer post as much as they used to.

However, this might be a seperate thing to work on, trying to change this attitude. Taking away the chit chat forum may or may not fix this. It will certainly make a statement that we want to be more serious in this forum, but maybe that statement does not need to be made by removing chit chat section. I am simply out of ideas on how to tell posters to treat their post more seriously and throughtfully other than posting about it.

Quote:

Originally Posted by JVN

This may be a very practical solution to the whole problem. We are not removing chit chat, instead we are giving it special focus and attention. Imagine, a website dedicated for chatting with other FIRSTers and socialize with the community. There can be many potentials for this website to be tons of fun. You certainly don't need Brandon to do things for you everytime you come up with an idea.

The only problem is the job of creating a website and maintaining it. Very hard to accomplish unless a certain individual/team is willing to put personal effort into making it happen.

Elgin Clock

21-09-2004 00:24

Re: To chit chat or not to chit chat

If webspace is an issue, then I say that Chit-Shat should be the first thing to be eliminated definately.

If webspace is not an issue, why get rid of it? It's only a portion of the whole community that FIRST is based on. Maybe you can have the option like stated before by someone to turn it off.

But, if you are like me, you hate missing something. I have the OCCRA threads available to me even though I don't participate in that. I vote to make it user selectable if that would be possible, or even a more extreme idea would be to shut off the Chit-Chat section during the period from January to maybe April?
(Idk.. a bit extreme way of handling it, but it could be done..??)

If liability is an issue and it becomes a liability to keep the CC section, then this is truely beyond our control and only Team 47 and/or Delphi will have the last say in that. But seriously, I have not seen anything that would prompt the immediate shutoff of the Chit-Chat section.

I am a big supporter of free speech, and while some things have been posted in Chit-Chat that do not have to do with FIRST and some stuff has even been controversial to a point, that's why we have these wonderful moderators.

If anything, get rid of the Rumor Mill if you can't take a joke or whatever your reason is behind eliminating the Chit-Chat section.

JVN	21-09-2004 01:42

Re: To chit chat or not to chit chat

Quote:

Originally Posted by JVN

An idea...

Any thoughts?

JVN

Just a clarification about my original post.

I meant NO disprespect to Chief Delphi the team, the administration, or to the administrators of this website. I feel the moderation and management of this site is TOP NOTCH.

My post was only an idea, stimulated by the concerns listed in Mike Aubry's post of this thread.

I have NO problem with how things are being run right now, and wouldn't be concerned if things stayed as is. However, I certainly feel we need to work together to improve things, it improvements are deemed necessary by the "powers that be". My post reflected only one such suggestion.

Thank You,
JVN

Ken Leung

21-09-2004 02:22

Re: To chit chat or not to chit chat

Quote:

Originally Posted by JVN

Agree. This website is and always will be runned by Team 47 Chief Delphi. Any discussions I start about this forum is only intended for discussions and opinions.

Pierson

21-09-2004 03:32

Re: To chit chat or not to chit chat

Having skimmed through all of the posts on this thread, here is my $0.02 I used to never come to CD during the summer or for that matter any time between my team's lat competition and the kickoff. However, due to the fact that the Chit Chat section is "busy" this summer, I am "staying around" in CD forum land.

Since I am not with a team anymore, I would have no need to come to CD anymore if a Social Site was implemented or the chit chat section was removed. Why is this? I partake in the "Word Association" Thread and each time I get the new post e-mail, I post on the thread and then I look at the portal to see if there are any interesting threads going.

JohnBoucher

21-09-2004 05:27

Re: To chit chat or not to chit chat

I went back and read the forum rules. They are fair, balanced and also broad enough to allow this community to sustain itself and to sustain chit chat.
There is a very fine line between passion and emotion, sometime it gets crossed. Let's not confuse the two.

We all need to play by the rules.

We are community... I hope we stay that way.

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