new thread
Holy cow! In the past month or two it seems that every other message is off topic......and is acknowledged and labeled that by the poster. Please stop talking about computers, bands, video games, gods, wars and people who are sick.
What happens to boards when "off topic" posts are allowed to go unchecked is that it becomes a chat room for teens who could care less about the topic of the board since they found a place to talk about anything they like.
Mods please pay attention (haven't seen Victor for the past month).
Yes, this a sort of a community and folks like to talk with people they know, but if you read the FAQ at the top of the board you will see that staying on topic is required by the owner of the board. If you just can't understand why then think about it some more.
If you have to talk about other stuff then since you are talking to just one or a few people about some off topic thing then email them directly please because people come here for the topic of the board. (No, it's not just a matter of ignoring posts if you don't want to read them)
Look buddy, this isn't just about hair, I know your life is but this place is for PEOPLE who want or have long hair and come together, a community. It's not to be run like some Nazi orginisation where the slightest mistep is punished. We're people with a common interest who have come together. We don't dedicate our lives to hair like SOME people do.
Ok..that really wasn't needed ^
Now onto to HR's post- Perhaps Victor could set up an 'off topic' board if this is becoming so common. It would keep everyone happy.
I agree completely- in fact I'm surprised this has not already been done!
Actually, this board IS just about hair. How long have you been here now? Not all that long as I recall.
You are 100% right. The off topic discussions don't bother me personally, but this board IS specifically for long hair discussion.
I fail to see how this is relevant but I've been here since March if I'm not mistaken.
Well, then you've admitted that you have no excuse, for frequently posting OT, right?
I in no way said that and resent your tone.
Thank you Hair Religion! I do enjoy the occasional slightly off-topic post if it can somehow relate to having long hair, but I agree that it has gotten out of hand.
That "Ball" Guy
The Occasional Off Topic Post is perfectly harmless, its how the regulars on the board "get to know each other". But HairReligion is right the Off Topic threads are getting increasingly prevelent.
Even though most people are respecting the "OT" or "Off Topic:" prefix when posting something that is not hair related, the notion is appreciated as it makes it easier to choose what you read and reply to. But its seems like this little "get out" is been used as a license to sistematically stray from the rules of the board which clearly state that the topic of discussion should be restricted to "Men's Long Hair Issues."
Lets make an effort to keep things a little more on topic. But lets not persucute the odd slide.
Sorted
My thoughts exactly. There is a reason though why this place is called "The Men's Longhair site". But, much like Sorted said, the off-topic posts are completely harmless and wouldn't hurt to talk about something aside longhair, because it could reveal more about our personalities and opinions than on one thing the WHOLE time. If that were to happen, then eventually, we'd run out of things to say.
I think people post off topic because they often can't find another forum to discuss things without being attacked by spyware, requests for credit card information, demands for email registration, banner ads that slow down the display of pages, java and active X things that start on their own, unidentified things that run in the background, requests that you upgrade your software, etc.
I just wasted another hour trying to find a security/anti-virus site that provides a place like this where people can get together and solve problems instead of letting big business steal your time, money, privacy and quality of life.
If longhairs can share tips, they would be less likely to lose contact with the Internet, therefore be less likely to be degraded or exploited by commercial television.
Communities like this one just don't happen, of course. They come about because members of the group care enough about it to have volunteers step forward to host the site, write the software, and moderate activity. What you see here is the result of the efforts of about ten people in such roles, combined with the efforts of the hundred-plus regulars we have at any given time to make the community into the great resource that it is.
Those efforts are put out to make it a place for longhaired men, of course, and that is what the users expect, so we have to ask that it remain mostly on topic. I say "mostly" because that is the most one can expect from humans due to human nature. We have to meet the needs of humans because that is what posts here. :-) The moderators have talked about this.
It is human nature to talk off topic "to get to know each other", and if we're going to have a community here, we have to let people get to know each other. This is what happens at a workplace, even during the busiest of times. Chatter around the water cooler may be kept to a minimum, but it does go on. That is simply human nature.
There is no need for such chatter from strangers to the group, and if a stranger were to walk up to your crowd, breaking in with an off topic subject, you'd consider him rude. Similarly, here, if a stranger posts something off topic, it smells like spam. What the moderators thus do is accept a reasonable amount of off topic posting so long as it appears in line with the needs of the community to get to know one another. This means it must be from a regular, not a stranger, and also that it either helps others get to know the guy or helps to build our collective sense of longhair culture.
"A reasonable amount" of off topic posting is considered to be an amount that is still a very clear minority of all the posts here. And no single user should start an off topic venture more than very occasionally.
The whole idea is that we act like people working on an important project would act in real life - we work on our project but we enjoy each other's company too. If we didn't take the time to do that, it would make this a much colder place, and that would interfere with our mission!
If my not including an email in my posts makes me a stranger, then it seems that we simply can't agree that I and many people do not wish to tell everyone everything, but I still like reading your posts. I think being somewhat anonymous allows people to be more open and honest. There are many other reasons why people like to remain anonymous, too many to discuss.
I'm sorry if some of my posts seem like spam. My not-so-good posts could be explained by my having to work very fast online because of many unknowns contacting my computer and sometimes transferring as much as 40k per minute. Also a medical condition effects my ability to process language. All too off-topic to discuss.
I thought it was ok to post about "disrupted Internet access" because so many other off-topic message threads remain undeleted, and many replies show interest in that topic. It's helpful to share tips about what works and what doesn't work in maintaining access to the Internet. But if this message board needs to reduce band width and administrative costs, then it would be perfectly ok for them to delete message threads or ask that messages remain on topic. They also can require special registration and special software and spyware, but I'd most likely go somewhere else.
It doesn't. In a VERY minor way that might CONTRIBUTE to that perception. The more you participate in on-topic discussions, the more you will get noticed. The more you post photos of your hair, the more you will get noticed. If you mention facts about yourself of any other nature, the more you will be remembered, and your e-mail address is just one fact about yourself.
All the moderators want to know if they see something a bit off topic is that the guy is a participant here. You certainly don't have to be in the top ten when it comes to activity. All you have to be is someone who'd posted enough the moderators feel he belongs. They get that feeling from having seen you participate and having remembered it.
There is no "list of regulars" they work off of. If they get a post that is off topic and their reaction is "who the heck is THAT!" it will get trashed.
The site has several moderators. They are all volunteers. To get people to volunteer you have to let them make decisions and have those decisions stood behind if they are reasonable. If a user flirts with shades of gray on here occasionally, he may see somewhat inconsistent moderator decisions for that reason, just like in court in gray areas different judges may decide differently. If a user flirts with shades of gray on here all the time, he'll be excluded for using more than his share of moderation resources. The moderators volunteer because they want to make a difference for longhairs, not because they want to play Judge Judy.
To sum this up, regulars are permitted to get off topic occasionally. This is not spelled out in the rules, but it allowed because that is the way that all real life social venues work.
The moderation crew doesn't chat much about rules because most of the users don't care to hear all that stuff. That is because the correct answers come intuitively about 98% of the time to most people. (People with ordinary socialization mostly pick up how to behave in social settings by mere observation.) Therefore, I'll go back into the woodwork now.
Bill
Thanks for the reply.
I also plan to view the FAQ at http://the-light.com/longhair/faq.html more often, because it helps me remember better posting habits.
I'm generally to the left of the topic police on any given forum. The LHH is lightly traficked, so it doesn't seem like a big deal at this point. Too much topic policing can kill the community spirit, too little and the board becomes dominated, like you say, by a culture that's insular to outsiders and does nothing to encourage new members who are interested in whatever the topic might be. I don't think we've reached that point.
Ultimately, it's a judgement call. IMHO, as long as the parent post was topical it should be allowed to evolve in any direction.
Obviously ads, trolls, and habitual OT posters should be bonked. You have to give weight to long time posters too. If you signed a record recording contract, wouldn't you want to tell us, and wouldn't a lot of us want to know?
Unfortunately the software on this board isn't as sophisticated as something like Slash or PHPNuke, so there's no real way to moderate or ban people, and no way to moderate consensus other than sounding off like I'm about to do... right... now.
Wanna bet? I've seen the software that runs this board, its hybrid! This is most sophisticated "Open" forum that I have ever seen, its a tribute to Victor and Bill (who coded most of it.)
Its unconventional, but it works well. I'm saying this as a professional web developer, I can only give it a ringing endorsement.
Sorted
Don't get me wrong, I like it too for its simplicity. The other aforementioned solutions probably chew up a lot more CPU cycles, and they certainly take a lot longer to download and render in the browser. AFAIK, this site is run using the WWWBoard Perl scr ipt. If Victor and/or Bill have made any significant improvements to the software, it would be nice if they released it back into the OSS community (and no, I'm not a Free Software zealot--if they don't feel like giving out source that's fine). I looked on Victor's page and didn't see any reference to a software repository.
In other words, it's great, don't change anything, except that it needs a better security model. A lot of us have dynamic or NATed IPs. An e-mail verified username/password login is probably all we need. It might be a little tricky to code at first, but once they have it in place it would probably save a lot more work than it costs. Before you ask, I'm not much of a Perl coder, and I've got my own professional ( C ) stuff that I have to do (and would be violating my contract if I did outside stuff).
While having a username/password function here would increase security, I feel it's really too much hassle. I like the design of the board where you don't have to long in, it's very simple and fun and easy to use. I think adding username and password would put many of us off coming here.
Actually an email verified username and password function does nothing for security, what with the availability of free email accounts like Yahoo & Hotmail, you can create various accounts and remain totally annoymous.
Where's the benefit? Beleive it or not this is one of the most "lurked" forums on the Internet, we have hundreds of regular readers and relatively few posters, for some reason people are very interested in what is said, but reluctant to post here even though they can do so completely annoymously, how many other people wouldn't post if they had to share their email addres first?
Anyway, we digress.
There is a way to ban people. Victor and the moderators have the power to ban a person's IP address, so they can never post again.
Leaving aside the holiness of cows, I agree wholeheartedly with HR about this. The FAQ clearly states: "This board is for posting about long hair on men."
While agreeing that people here may want to talk about other things, it might be better if they find other means to do so. There are plenty of boards on the web - use them.
On the other hand, if some people still feel that they need to be free to post off-topic, then the least they could do is to first contact Victor, clarify the rule, and maybe get him to modify it. However, while the rule is there, it should be obeyed.
I think Off topic posts now and again, very far in between are fine, but too many destroy the purpose of this board, to talk about long hair. I'm much more likely to reply to an off topic message if it's sort of realted to hair;.
