is off-topicness a good or bad thing?

[sambo]

as i hold the unofficial and open to debate, title of off-topic king.... im wondering whether being random all the time is a good, bad or neutral quality to have?

what do we all think... (my minions)?

[indysmith]

YOU HAVE NO IDEA HOW HARD I LAUGHED WEN I READ "yes its fantaxalent "

[willo]

It's my opinion that this forum' main strength was that it focused almost exclusively on technical issues; I used to look at this forum as a great place to learn things and now I find I have to sift through pages of:

'Yer...LOL, that guitar is fit.'
'Yer your gay'

etc... in order just to find something actually useful. It's nothing personal against any of you chaps but I would ask you to ask yourself 'Do I really need to post this?' when you're about to make a post. Otherwise the forum will/is just degenerating. There's nothing wrong with proper grammar and acting in a mature manner. :)

[sambo]

indy, i think maybe i do now have an idea of how hard you laughed.

And yes Willo, if i may, i would like to express my overwhelming sense of agreement i feel with you at this current moment in time. 'Indy' 'Smiths' last 'post' is a sumptuous example of how people have no self-control; that outburst of capital letters was simply unnecessary and in my honest opinion should result in an apology of the most sincere manner from the author. I share, and can relate with, your concerns over the degeneration of this delightful community, and every day i pray that God may watch over this collective group of persons that gathers on a daily basis to share their wisdom and experiences. I, personally, will also try to refrain from posting anything that could in any way deduct from the well-being and overall pleasantness of this forum and would like to offer a most humble apology.

Yours gratuitously,

Samuel Chadwick.


EDIT:

basically yer- we need to calm down a bit- sorry!

[Kilby]

As in fact I am a monkeys uncle (Martin the Monkey) I can infact choose this option.

Off topic can be a good thing but only if it deviates in to bizarre, slanderous or obcene directions.

Rob...

[sambo]

Why Robert, I think that its a crying shame your feel that way about the nature of comments on this 'forum'. Do you not see how people must be refined and polite at all times?

[Ol]

It's my opinion that this forum' main strength was that it focused almost exclusively on technical issues; I used to look at this forum as a great place to learn things and now I find I have to sift through pages of:

'Yer...LOL, that guitar is fit.'
'Yer your gay'

Which is why I renamed the test forum "Sambo's forum", err, i mean "The Dressing Room" for all the cr@p that I felt bad about deleting!

On the point of Useless posts which take up valuable space and bandwidth and require lots of effort to trawl through, I am going to nuke 'em!  Particularly one's which are one liners like +1 and hahahaha. As willo said it makes it damned hard work sifting through

So if you find your posts get deleted without warning, please don't get offended. We just want to keep the BKP forum's main strength: educational, informative and a great place for !everyone

In fact I might dedicate a separate thread for this... I'll drink on it.

The master has spoken.

rgds
ol.

PS> I am actually off to the pub now - and Sambo I did see your comment about drinking on the job...[/b]

[sambo]

haha lol Ol your a legend! yer i agree about keeping the forum 'tidy' as it were.... im gonna stop the one-liners now... its just weird cause if you leave out the one-liners its like having a conversation with someone then just looking at them without saying anything if you see what i mean. its like your ignoring em... but im gonna stop that now neways.

incidentally, i think 'sambo's forum' has a certain ring to it...    :D

[Searcher]

im gonna stop the one-liners now...

It's not the length of the line; it's the content.  :P  

[sambo]

oh yer poop....

[Muttley]

Mostly on-topic is the way to go I think.  Of course, you can still make jokes and have a laugh whilst staying mainly on topic.  ;)

Luckily this forum is small enough to keep on top of reasonably well from a readers point of view.  As it grows larger it'll get more and more important to keep things in check.

One of the forums I administer has almost 2150 users, and can become unwieldy at times.  Plus of course every time we let things slide a bit, people complain.  So we clamp down a bit tighter and then get called Nazis.  You can't win.  :)

This forum does have one benefit over the one I administer, in that it is linked to a commercial enterprise, and therefore what the administrators say goes.  The forum I administer is community funded, and therefore people feel they have more of a say over how things are run, which makes things hard at times.

Muttley

[sambo]

yer your definately right that this forum being linked to a business helps. it means people have more respect for the admins. of course most people have great respect for them anyway because they're all great guys- which helps loads too!