To chit chat or not to chit chat

[Jay H 237]

Originally Posted by Matt Attallah

OK.
I am totally lost here. What is going on in CD.com lately? What is with all the new objections and follow the rules more stricter type thing going on in here? Did I miss something huge.

I've noticed this too. Perhaps we should get the CD forum's water supply tested?

Originally Posted by Matt Attallah

The season has not started. There are some technical things floating around - but really most people right now are on CD.com just to kill some time and have a little fun.

Exactly! There are some usefull and interesting threads in Chit-Chat that don't have a real home elsewhere. This time of year the forums are slow in the technical areas as Matt said. I, for one, also enjoy the games in there. I will also admit, even though I have many posts in it, that the "1 to 1000" thread isn't the greatest but why do I keep playing it? Because I have learned many of the different team names from playing it, and also how many teams don't exist anymore. If Chit-Chat disappeared I guess Eddie would have to do all technical questions on Jeopardy from now on so he could run it from the technical section.

I vote to keep Chit-Chat.

[JohnBoucher]

Pro Chit Chat.

What I get most from CD is community. In any community, there needs to be a place where members can have off topic conversations. It's the water cooler of CD.
It serves a important function. It allows the other conversations to remain clean of the extra stuff.

Could the chit chat forum be made opt-in? If you don't want it then turn that option off.

[Greg Ross]

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]

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

[Elgin Clock]

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.

[Ken Leung]

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.

Originally Posted by JVN

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.

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.