Introspective discussion.

[xenic]

God, I hope not. We don't want the crazy spilling over to the boards that are still salvageable.

This post lead me to think about these boards. Obviously some people think some of the 5 boards are not worth reading, while others are. The new boards have been in place for a while now, perhaps it is time to reflect a bit on how things have been going... a State of the Community Bar discussion, perhaps.

• What do people think about the boards?
• Is it advantageous to have 5 separate boards for different themed discussions?
• What is the purpose of separating the topics?
• Is it to keep people from having to read topics they dislike/disagree with?
• Is it to allow for more organization?
• Is it to allow for different levels of moderation/allowable expression?
• How should we deal with threads that span board topics?
• How do you view the level of discourse on the boards?
• Do you think that the level has changed over the years?
• Do you think moderation helps or hurts the level of discourse?
• If you know that a post is inappropriate, are you more likely to post it if there is a moderator to clean up after you, or if it will stand for ever (ish)?
• What makes each board unique?
• What makes each board worthwhile? Better? Worse?

[feldspar]

I think the new boards are great. Much easier for surf-ability.

5 seperate boards? I dunno. I guess so, yeah. Although in my personal opinion, all the LAX stuff should be on the LAX board. If you're gonna seperate out a board for LAX stuff, make it be for EVERYTHING LAX related, that way there's no confusion or cross-over. But I think the boards as they stand now are fine. During the summer there is expected to be a lot of random chatter on the Main Board, but it always tends to die down once the season starts.

I think the boards are seperated because this started out as mainly a basketball board, then evolved into a forum where people got to know eachother and wanted to chat about stuff other than basketball, and the conversation got a bit cluttered, so an off-topic board was created. Then, people on the off-topic board wanted to talk about controversial, heated stuff like politics and religion, and so another board was created to deal with that. Yes, I think it's good to have seperate boards so that people who don't care about cars or where to live in L.A. or LOST can just focus on Duke basketball (or rather, Duke sports in general) and people that just want to talk about politics have their place to go and people are generally not in eachothers' ways.

I think the level of discourse on all the boards has been excellent. I don't see any significant drop off from the SBBS days. Kudos to the mods for this.

[Lord Ash]

I know people might not care, but I have felt that the clumping together of similar posts can sometimes be a bit much... some of the long, lengthy posts get to be too intimidating to tackle! Not a big problem, of course, as the boards are great!

[DevilAlumna]

I think the new boards are great. <snip/>

I pretty much agree with/echo everything feldspar said. (except I'd spell it "separate." )

[feldspar]

(except I'd spell it "separate." )

Arrrggghhh!!!

That has always been my personally most mis-spelled word. My brain just doesn't get it.

[hurleyfor3]

I know people might not care, but I have felt that the clumping together of similar posts can sometimes be a bit much... some of the long, lengthy posts get to be too intimidating to tackle! Not a big problem, of course, as the boards are great!

Yeah, I tend to ignore threads that are longer than a few pages. Not just on this board, but in general.

I like the way the boards are separated. I have no desire to discuss politics or lacrosse here, so they stay out of my field of view. If anything, I'd take the concept further, with a separate board for teevee shows. There's no college basketball on, and The Simpsons sucks nowadays, so there's nothing on teevee for me.

[Patrick Yates]

If you want to see a scary board, go google a fansite for a Sci-Fi show/movie.

One of my shows leaked that a major character is leaving the show at the end of the year.

One thread re: this has generated 20,000 messages. It is redonkulous.

Long threads here are nothing. Nothing.

Also, I enjoy the new format.

Patrick Yates

[_Gary]

If you want to see a scary board, go google a fansite for a Sci-Fi show/movie.

One of my shows leaked that a major character is leaving the show at the end of the year.

One thread re: this has generated 20,000 messages. It is redonkulous.

Long threads here are nothing. Nothing.

Also, I enjoy the new format.

Patrick Yates

Smallville. Right?

[-jk]

Arrrggghhh!!!

That has always been my personally most mis-spelled word. My brain just doesn't get it.

(off topic ramble: The best spelling hint I was ever given was to take that misspelled word and make it your password. Spelled correctly, of course! )

[jimsumner]

Well, sometimes we do tend to get a bit off-topic.

I spend a fair amount of time on message boards--keeps me off the streets--not all of them sports, fwiw. This board can be frustrating as all get out but that's the nature of the beast. Admittedly, the lacrosse board got a bit heated, even irrational at times, but given the inherent volatility of the subject, I hardly see how that could have been prevented.

In general, DBR is more civilized than the norm and the new format seems to make it a bit more user-friendly. I think you're on the right track.

[OZZIE4DUKE]

The new boards are OK, but I miss the SBBS. James, I miss you!

When threads get to be 40 to 1000 posts long, and I haven't read the first post, I tend to not read the thread at all. Maybe look at the first post and the last couple, but not much more than that. I would prefer that most of the new topics that get merged didn't get merged, just for distinguishing them. I find myself reading (and posting) more on the off topic board (so far I do like my new car, but I've had it for 2 days and only have 107 miles on it ).

The general policy of J&B has been that the main board is for Duke bball and Duke related sports in the news, and "Q". Having football, men's and women's lacrosse, golf, tennis and etc. on the main board are appropriate in my eyes, and obviously the majority of posts are on bball. The OT board is great, and keeping the public policy board separate is a must (I've looked at it once for about 2 minutes since the new format started.) The separate ticket exchange board is good too, although I am curious to know if folks have bought or sold tickets through it over the years?

[ACCBBallFan]

Though it might cut back on trollers, I do not miss having to cut and paste from Lotus Notes to post. That two step process (actually more than two since I had to replicate for new messages) was my pet peeve and now it has been eliminated.

[ohioguy2]

This is a well thought out format--good work.

[freedevil]

I like the boards. I concur that some of the longer threads are ones I do not travel normally simply because they're huge.

However, I have to disagree with Feldspar about Lax: if were talking about the team playing the game and who will be on that team in the future, the thread, like any Football thread, deserves to be on the mainboard. The minute a thread ventures into the hoax, send it over to the lacrosse board (but I don't think the NCAA waiver really ventures into the hoax because it's more about next year than anything else).

[Dukerati]

There are other boards? I mentally blocked everything past the "off-topic" board because in my mind, if it wasn't duke basketball it was off-topic. But now it has all become clear. I knew Duke kids and alumni were much too opinionated to not debate about how the world sucks and how they could change it for the better

[killerleft]

I agree that the separate boards are great. I would lean toward all lax news being on the lax board. Reason being, it is so easy for even non-hoax threads to morph into something more suited for the hoax board.

And, thanks again, to J&B (&J) for creating and maintaining my favorite site on the internet. I spend way too much time here. It does keep me out of trouble, though.

[Patrick Yates]

Smallville. Right?

I refer actually to Stargate: Atlantis (Nerd Alert!)

I stay away from Smallville boards. The pro/con lana and chloe groups are CRAZY. I mean, sometimes we have disagreements on this board. Those sci-fi boards wage jihad. Some of those Smallville shippers are taking out hits on each other, and posting mean spirited stuff on youtube. I don't need that mess in my life.

Patrick Yates

[Dukerati]

Haha, a fellow smallville fan! I didn't even know there were any of us left... I agree that the 'ville boards are crazy. What's worse is that they speak in their own little languages and start abbreviating random stuff and assume everyone knows what they are talking about. For example, Clark and Lana are referred to as "Clana" who I thought was a random character that I had somehow missed.

[_Gary]

I refer actually to Stargate: Atlantis (Nerd Alert!)

I stay away from Smallville boards. The pro/con lana and chloe groups are CRAZY. I mean, sometimes we have disagreements on this board. Those sci-fi boards wage jihad. Some of those Smallville shippers are taking out hits on each other, and posting mean spirited stuff on youtube. I don't need that mess in my life.

Patrick Yates

You're exactly right. That's why Smallville was the first thing that came to my mind when you wrote what you did (because the big rumor a few weeks ago was that Kristen Kreuk had asked out of her contract). I'm a Chloe fan myself, but I don't go near the flaming boards.

[mapei]

I like the current DBR boards very much. I like the format better than that of the old boards and much better than that of the interim boards. And I tend to "surf" topics rather than read every topic or every word of the topics I'm most interested in. This format works great for that.

And I totally agree that the tone and level of discourse here are much better than those elsewhere. Compared to the internet as a whole, I think we have a much higher than average signal-to-noise ratio. I learn a lot here and have fun. I can't ask much more than that.

I only very occasionally dabble in the non-basketball boards. I'm way too opinionated to go near political discussions; I do this sort of thing to lower my blood pressure, not raise it. I probably should visit the off-topic board more often, though.