Thanks for the post Richard, I appreciate your observation and agree but there is always another point of view or more to the story.
What you did not address is the "login." What we have here is a user site that one can quickly goto a user by looking at the memberlist and check EVERYTHING that the user has posted. Let's say I enjoy a particular users post(s) and I want to see what they have to say. I can go look up what that person is posting. The focus is really on you & the topic. It can quickly bring about wether someone knows what they are talking about or ???
USENET groups and ncdsa are quite popular, but just like you have said, a pub like atmosphere or a party. Pubs and partys have their own set of positives and negatives. I've meet some really neat people at a pub and or party, but I have also meet some ???
At slalomskateboarder.com it is important to not have a majority rule and or have a group determine who or what gets posted online. I want to hear what an individual has to say in a specific area and not have a group of people downplay what this person says because he may say it in a way that is not familiar. The site is about a community but the focus is what you have to say within that community.
Tu sabe?
Anyway, this sort of forum works. It is in no way a comparison to what you present, nothing like it at all, slalom skateboarding is our FOCUS. Times change and so do attitudes. Our members can edit their posts to keep up with the time as well as keep track of their posts. This puts the focus on the member and less on the Moderator or editor.
If it is discussion that one wants, I would say a chat room is best, (we may add this feature in the future) it's real time and you get to talk with another person in real time. If it is a bulleten board that you want to discuss a topic, then a general forum works ok but has time limitations.
This forum was designed by an international software team through a "trial and error" method or process. Then the software was configured by a specific group of international slalom skateboarders to put it into action. We chose this method. It's based on a succesful international recipe, not a specific geographical location and the forum that it is being likened to.
I like the beformentioned (USENET and ncdsa) forums for the reasons that you point out, I also do not like it for the reasons that you point out.
Anyway, the forums are only a portion of the site. Included with these interactive forums will be a online Slalom! magazine. What you have here is simply the interactive portion of the web site.
Have fun and best regards, and most importantly, thanks for posting your idea.
On 2002-09-16 13:40, richard grant wrote:
Hi, Adam & all --
I'm glad to see another slalom forum, and I want to join everyone in thanking Adam for taking the time to create and manage this site.
I do have a modest reservation about the system architecture. In my opinion, one of the things that makes NCDSA "click" (and occasionally leads to that forum melting down) is that it uses a very simple, straightforward architecture -- so simple that it somewhat resembles "live" human interaction. When you wander into the Slalom forum on NCDSA, you might be wading into any number of threads, on numerous topics, some of which may veer wildly into unexpected territory -- for better or worse -- which is pretty much the way actual human conversation works. (It's also fairly close to the loose structure of Usenet, which has proven successful over the years.)
This structured approach is different. It seems to me that with this board architecture -- which reminds me somewhat of the B.A.D.A.S.S. forum in the UK -- you can't so easily stroll in off the street and grab a chair and see what's happening. There are many individual sub-forums, and each is fairly specific, and each in turn is broken down into separate threads. Moreover, while you're in any given area, you may only talk about that particular thing.
To draw a loose analogy, you might say that the freewheeling structure (or lack of structure) on NCDSA bears some resemblance to a neighborhood pub. Anyone can wander in, and offer any sort of comment that comes to mind, with the result that sometimes the conversation slides off-topic or gets a bit out of control. On the other hand, the place tends to stay lively, because everybody in the "room" is engaged in the same conversation, and may add to it anything they like -- or they may simply order a pint and sit there listening to everyone else "talk." No need to stand up and move from room to room or table to table to make sure you don't miss anything.
Structured forums, like this and B.A.D.A.S.S., might be likened to organized meetings of people who share some interest. Everything is mapped out, so if you want to talk about Topic A, you go to Room 101, then further choose between tables devoted to numerous sub-topics. It's a good way to keep the discussion focused. But I wonder if it's a good way to encourage discussion in the first place?
I don't say this to be critical or disparaging! This is a very thoughtfully designed and nice-looking site. I've found the question of how to design a lively forum to be quite interesting since back in the old BBS days, and for a while worked as a sysop on the old Genie network -- anyone remember that -- wrestling daily with some of the unfriendliest software ever created (programmed in Fortran, of course!).
Best wishes on making this a roaring success.
