BGonline.org Forums

An off topic post about off topic posts

Posted By: Stick
Date: Sunday, 2 January 2011, at 5:48 a.m.

There has been much discussion in the past couple of months about not only the amount of off topic posts here at BGO but also the content of them. More specifically what makes one off topic post acceptable and another unacceptable.

I've said it many times in the past, if you post something and I don't want it around, it will disappear. The only problem with this is the lag between me seeing the post and when it gets deleted. This usually isn't a big deal since I'm on here as much as possible thanks to my iphone, but if someone happens to catch me during my normal sleeping hours, a post I'd have otherwise deleted could be posted for a while.

To me that was enough until recently when I learned that it aggravated some of what I'd call our more prolific and high profile posters. (Neil & Nack for eg) If a post was off topic I could always ignore it, not a big deal. Due to how the forums are structured the existence of these posts still are a bit of a nuisance, pushing other on topic posts down the list or forcing people to scroll more than they'd like I guess. Watering down the bg experience.

Also, some have deemed political or religious posts as both off topic and a no-no while football posts may be off topic but not unacceptable. To me the reasoning seemed clear but some have asked so here's my answer. It's not solely because Chuck and Frank developed ZEUS, a program which tells us how big of donkeys professional coaches are but football can be discussed or even argued about without people being offended. Politics and religion don't have an area for discussion, they have an arena for argument. After a religious or political 'discussion' people often get a chip on their shoulder towards those who attacked their views. This then carries over throughout the existence of forums when both parties will continually poke and prod the other at every corner. This doesn't happen with sports.

I also view off topic posts about games in general not far off topic at all. When I post poker hands or we talk about what bg player is best at other games/sports and that erupts into a general discussion about chess, scrabble, or go, that's all good with me. I feel that many of the people on these forums would also be interested in such a discussion.

I'd prefer we cut down on the off topic posts ... finish off the college bowl games with ZEUS of course if something interesting arises but try to keep it in one thread. I don't want people being scared of posting off topic stuff, but try to use some common sense. Is it going to be something people are actually interested in or are you posting some spam joke or junk mail like post that many of us have probably already seen that adds nothing to the forums?

Stick