This posting is sort of a composite response to different points brought up throughout this discussion by different people:





What it boils down to is this forum is really nothing more than the catch-all place for stuff that just does not fit anywhere else. Personally speaking, I cannot see that it would really matter if anyone really uses this forum or not as it's here to stay (though it is nice to see a lot of activity).



Irrespective of the actual description outlined for this forum (really just a mishmash of descriptions from some oddball old forums that didn't work out on their own), I could say that the primary purpose of this forum was really to just move the disruptive political/war discussions off of the regular species forums. But, we all know it was really meant to keep the abusive sports freaks away from the anti-sports people. This forum also helps to allow people a safe place to let off some steam and to attempt to keep some personalities 'out of trouble'.



Essentially too many people were finding that many 'off-topic' discussions on the regular forums caused trouble and rancor between individuals and just upset a lot of people. Threads would easily get out of control and bury the legitimate discussions of those forums. However, at the same time people wanting to discuss such topics felt that they should have the right to discuss things other than herps and not be censored for it (I seem to remember waxing poetically in length many months ago on the old boa forum over a fight that erupted about this very problem).



Now, to accommodate everyone, this forum was cobbled together as a compromise. If someone wishes to discuss something off-topic (especially something that is likely to cause problems on a regular forum), they can simply post here, then they go to the forum they normally hang out on and post a message inviting those people to come here and comment/discuss. This gives them their freedom to discuss off topic stuff and alert others to the existance of whatever topic they have created and allow those that wish to contribute to do so but at the same time not disrupt/antagonize those that would rather ignore it all. The integrity of the regular species discussion forums basically remains intact, those folks that want to can come here to fight or whatever and everyone lives happily ever after (well mostly).



This forum is given some (but not total) leeway in the enforcement of certain aspects of the terms of service due to the volatile nature of some of these conversations (and I'm sure you can also see from them why other people didn't want those conversations on the regular forums!). While I do not mind the fighting so to speak, one thing I do insist on here is that people keep the language clean and appropriate and keep the name calling to the barest minimum.



Now, with over 200 forums across 4 of the 10 pethobbyist sites that I am responsible for, I don't always have the luxury of being able to keep up with this particular forum every single day. I try very hard to believe that most people on this forum are adults and can behave as such without needing much over-the-shoulder watching. Of course things still get out of control on occasion before I find out about it - such is life.



Of course now that this forum is becoming 'popular', there is apparently the same problem here that was being seen on the regular forums -- that is some topics getting 'buried' in the proverbial mud slide of other topics. There is really not much to be done to fix that I'm afraid, but there is a work around. At the top of the discussion forum index page, right above the page #s, there is a toggle-link called 'collapsed view' (or 'expanded view' depending on if you've toggled it or not). When you collapse the view, all reply posts on the forums are hidden from view showing only the main topics on the page and in red is listed how many replies exist within each of those topics. This is one way of being able to temporairly clear the clutter so to speak in order to find topics that you may wish to take part in.



I think I got most of what I needed to say said, but if not, please let me know what I missed and I can see what I can throw together.
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PHWyvern

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