Survival of the Coffee Break Forum

[energy]

Topics of Interest....Discussion

Personally, I would like to see:
Hunting and Fishing Thread remain-that thread remained stable with no problems and lots of interest.
Sports (any kind) rivalries between member's cities and towns.
Other hobbies of common interest-(guns (no political comments regarding regulations), motorcycles, raising children, working parents issues)

Any others?

I believe all News worthy/unworthy events can all turn political if the thread runs long enough and causes emotional posts. They should remain taboo, unless they deal with the interests we decide upon.

As important as Quality/Business issues are, we know because most of us have or are working in those arenas. But, we also have to take a break once in awhile to prevent becoming the traditional egghead and/or cracking up. That's why they have things called "Breaks". We can do this, amongst ourselves, without the need for any culling out of objectionable material by a Moderator and/or Marc.
Fire away and please, try not to make this thread controversial. I believe the announcement bared all, told all and we have a short time to decide the fate of the Coffee Break Threads. Makes no difference to me, and I live here.

 

[energy]

Not being controversial, but.......

Perhaps the coffee break steal too much interest from the serious stuff? (Not to mention bandwidth and storage space). The Cove is a great place with or without the coffe break. I'm happy either way.

/Claes

Claes,

The band width/storage issues aside, are you really stealing interest from the "serious" stuff. Is interest something we can steal? Isn't interest something we all have, not misappropriated, to exercise when we see fit? We can make the argument to go elsewhere for a break from the sometimes mundane/trite world of QA/Business issues, but to catagorize it as "stealing" because some other topics of interest to some may not be as interesting to others? With strict rules and enforcement, other interests can be offered in a professional manner and serve as an alternative to the sometimes ho hum posts offered in other threads. You say that you have enjoyed it, periodically. That was what it was for. It just got way out of hand. IMHO, we have to be careful of book burning all subjects that differ from ours. If the intent is to make the Cove as serious as some may want, with text book responses only on subjects that are deemed "professional" by you or others, then I'm out of line. If the intent is to make the Cove an enjoyable place to visit to obtain excellent information and to allow an occasional trip to threads which are not political, vulgar or otherwise offensive, then it's worth this post. These threads offer insights to other members personalities that you will not find in those threads that deal with, very often, repeat questions and repeat answers we all see every day. Again, MHO. I don't consider this post to be controversial because we have the option to discuss it in a responsible way.

 

[Claes Gefvenberg]

I don't consider this post to be controversial because we have the option to discuss it in a responsible way.

Nor do I, and maybe that was a bad choice of words on my part:truce: , even though I did put a question mark behind it. Anyway, don't get me wrong. I certainly wouldn't mind having a coffee break every now and then in the future as well, but it's not a major issue as far as I'm concerned.

/Claes

 

[Atul Khandekar]

I know those that contributed their thoughts to political forums will have a different opinion, but frankly, I am happy to see political forums go. In any case, the discussions there held no relevance or enjoyment for me, personally.

As for Coffee Break - the major issue for Marc here IS bandwidth & disk space. So I believe we have to find a way to keep these threads in check - something like periodically deleting old posts esp. the humor and roadkill threads.

If the intent is to make the Cove as serious as some may want, with text book responses only on subjects that are deemed "professional" by you or others, then I'm out of line. If the intent is to make the Cove an enjoyable place to visit to obtain excellent information and to allow an occasional trip to threads which are not political, vulgar or otherwise offensive, then it's worth this post. These threads offer insights to other members personalities that you will not find in those threads that deal with, very often, repeat questions and repeat answers we all see every day.

I agree with this. With the 'light' topics, Coffee Break threads can really serve as water cooler threads. There have been some good discussions here on cancer, hurricane, virus attacks, leaving Quality, Vintage thread, even the poster of the year. But questions have been raised of some offending contents in some of the threads. The deal of course was/is that if you don't like it, don't read. That's what I have been doing and I can't think of imposing any 'Posting Guidelines' for coffee break.

 

[Randy]

I'm for scaling down the political and religious stuff myself, other Threads however do have great shards of wisdom contained within them that I like to refer to. The Humor and Road Kill Threads are 2 places where we have all had a chuckle ot two. I understand the bandwith issues, I just hate losing some of this great work. Look deep, you'll find wisdom that will be lost.

 

[Marc]

You can use this thread to discuss some threads you folks want 'kept' and I will consider them.

None the less, this will depend upon you folks starting a thread where you set the 'standards' for posts and threads. NO OTHER DISCUSSION. Standards for posting. If you folks don't come up with a list of guidelines by Friday end of day I am seriously considering dropping the forum entirely.

I don't visit many of the threads and I let a lot go by for quite a while. I did this in part because I have no personal objections to many of the things posted. Even with the 'Hillary' attachment which was recently pointed out to me, I see worse in advertising on TV. As a liberal, I figure there are a lot of different 'tastes'.

But - we're 'on the air' here world wide. I want to focus on the point of the site. Atul is correct in that I would like to save bandwidth - it costs me over US$1200 a year just for this forum's bandwidth alone (actually quite a bit more - checking the site statistics), but it goes beyond that. The site has been 'loose' from the beginning. Over the last couple of years I see it has somewhat lost it's focus and purpose.

I realize the Coffee Break forum is enjoyed by many people. If you want to keep it, then make up a reasonable set of posting rules.

As a last 'requirement', the forum must be self policing. I do NOT intend to get moderators involved in making judgement decisions which will come back at them as censorship complaints and I do not intend to police the forums myself.

Folks, while I like the idea of a 'watering hole', so to speak, there are many places on the internet for jokes and such. I myself have enjoyed many of the jokes posted and hate to 'erase' the history (if you will). I will not be deleting threads per se. I will archive them until the v 3.0 release version of the vBulletin software comes out so that anyhone who buys the software can import the threads. At that point I will back up the database and then delete the threads from my working database. If anyone is interested I will be able to transfer the threads to someone if they would like to buy the software, set up a server and maintain it. I will even put a direct link in these forums to the site. E-mail me if interested.

Over the next week, think it over. I'll monitor this thread, as well as the Posting Rules thread (or whatever the thread starter titles it) when it is started.

If the intent is to make the Cove as serious as some may want, with text book responses only on subjects that are deemed "professional" by you or others, then I'm out of line.

You are not out of line and that is not the entire intent. I do particularly take exception with your reference to 'text book responses'. That has NEVER been the case here - quite the contrary. The forums have been one of, if not the only, sites on the internet (my humble opinion) where people can freely discuss the REALITIES of the topics. Where else can one find the frank opinions and real life experiences related in threads in these forums?

 

[Marc]

I'm for scaling down the political and religious stuff myself, other Threads however do have great shards of wisdom contained within them that I like to refer to. The Humor and Road Kill Threads are 2 places where we have all had a chuckle ot two. I understand the bandwith issues, I just hate losing some of this great work. Look deep, you'll find wisdom that will be lost.

I agree with you and I understand. Even though there was a lot of what I would not describe as humour, there was (is) a lot of 'reality' in the threads and posts here.

That's why I am not deleting the threads, rather I will be archiving them. And I want to again say, this goes beyond bandwidth issues. On a personal level I enjoy the site and keeping it up, all said. Like a pet, there are some good times and some bad times.

Part of what brought this about was complaints about a number of posts and some attachments. The Hillary Clinton attachment was one cited complaint. Another had to do with: "....the speedy carrot pic aimed at a bent over female." Then was a recent attachment with a cigarette in someone's butt:

"While we have some pretty raw stuff in the humor threads, does anybody but me find this attachment a little too much? This kind of stuff is often exchanged in Private e-mails, myself included, but where do we draw the line here in the Cove? Is it adorned genitalia next?"

Another:

"Personally I couldn't care less. I saw the picture and my only reaction was that it wasn't my kind of humour. Where do we draw the line? , I suppose we have to anticipate what will come next, and there is the risk of "escalation" to consider. It's a bit like when Jim/Nosmo posted the nudie pic."

To me the nudie pic was not an issue, but as I said - If I turn my TV on for a couple of hours the advertisements are far and beyond a silly nudie pic. Not to mention movies and so many idiotic TV 'programs' like Survivor. National Enquirer material.

When Jim Wade pulled his Nosmo 'prank', I followed my liberal leanings - so what's the big deal? I see more than this in TV ads not to mention that it has long been a known that the word 'sex' is the most searched for word in every major search engine. One person wrote:

"I was stunned when Nosmo posted the seaside pic, but I was also less concerned because I thought it was a female posting and knocked off guard."

As an aside, since I'm (we're?) discussing our good buddy Jim Wade, he did e-mail me asking to be allowed back in the forums. I told him that he could come back if he registered under his real name, that he start a thread in the Coffee break forum, that he describe therein his 'transgressions' and that he apologise. He declined. No balls. No honour. My opinion is Jim Wade has a somewhat serious personality problem he should seek professional help with to overcome.

It's a shame as Jim did have some good points in many of his posts. I will even admit I regret deleting all his posts. This makes me even more dismayed because the software beta 'upgrade' after my having deleted his posts allows for posts to be 'hidden' as opposed to literally deleted from the database. None the less, to me Jim's having used so many of us - I guess in his personal 'game' - does not speak well for him. One should not expect others to 'like' one when one plays one 'friend' off against another 'friend' for some perverse personal (power?) satisfaction.

Had Jim Wade come back and admitted what he did would have, in my opinion, lended some honour and creditability to his reputation. Unfortunately, Jim, after being exposed, will not so much as apologise. It is MY hope that every search engine in the world picks up this thread and associates it with Jim Wade when someone does a search so that he cannot as easily take advantage of others. Jim Wade deserves to be 'exposed'.

It has been and is (up until now) my bad judgement to let the stupid stuff continue on. My only excuse is that from April 2002 through may 2003 I was working at Stolle and I was largely ignoring the forums and taking a liberal stance - not much offends me personally politically, religiously or sexually - these are all personal interpretations.

The point, however, is that most of this stuff has no place here. Period. It's October 2003 and the evolution of the site continues...

 

[Randy]

I know it's a tough decision as to where the line should be drawn. I think part of the problem is that many times the "excess" is being contributed by some who really don't contribute much in the "business" side of the forum. When do you (we) say enough....I dunno. I'm probably as bad as many when I go off on my tangents and blister someones backside as I tend to do.

It's your dime. I'd never "tell" you how to spend it.

 

[Marc]

It's your dime. I'd never "tell" you how to spend it.

You're a 'regular'. You have a responsibility to be more specific.

 

[Marc]

What's the hurry? Why the deadline? The sense of urgency?

I want to get it over and done - not talked about for weeks.

By the end of the day, if nobody starts a thread regarding rules, I'll start one.

There is at least 1 post in this thread with specifics you can split off to start it.