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." :D)

[feldspar]

(except I'd spell it "separate." :D)
Arrrggghhh!!!

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

[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. :eek:

(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 :D ).

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.:D

[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.

[JasonEvans]

I probably should visit the off-topic board more often, though.

Yes, yes you should. The opinions on that board are dominated far too much by one nameless individual and it could use a good dose of additional people.

I very much like the new format and the division of the boards. I do not read the Lax board very often at all-- no more than a half-dozen times since it was created. I check out the Public Policy board a lot more often than that, but I do not endeavour to keep up with that board completely. I have never even been to the Ticket Exchange board.

But, I think I have read every single post on the Off-Topic Board and I make an effort to keep up with the overwhelming majority of what happens on this board too (easier to do in the off-season, for sure).

The only beef I have with this place is I wish there was an easier way to get to new posts. I sometimes find myself scrolling through threads willy-nilly trying to figure out where I left off the last time I was reading it. There is probably some easy way to do this on this system, but I am sometimes an idiot when it comes to internet stuff.

Oh, and I gave up on Smallville after season 5 (when they just 100% ripped offf the plot of Superman 2 complete with the "phantom zone"). I realized while watching several episodes that season that the writers had no idea where they were taking this thing and that all plot twists were subject to random turns that made no sense. Buh-bye!

-Jason "Smallville, X-Files, and 24 are the only shows I have ever 100% given up on after seasons of never missing an episode" Evans

[feldspar]

The only beef I have with this place is I wish there was an easier way to get to new posts. I sometimes find myself scrolling through threads willy-nilly trying to figure out where I left off the last time I was reading it. There is probably some easy way to do this on this system, but I am sometimes an idiot when it comes to internet stuff.



Jason,

There should be a little ?blue? square with an arrow pointing down to the left of the thread title on threads which have new posts that you haven't read. If you click on that box, it will take you to the newest unread post in that thread.

When I discovered this little handy tool, it changed my life. It was like TiVo, I'm telling you.

[JasonEvans]

Jason,

There should be a little ?blue? square with an arrow pointing down to the left of the thread title on threads which have new posts that you haven't read. If you click on that box, it will take you to the newest unread post in that thread.

When I discovered this little handy tool, it changed my life. It was like TiVo, I'm telling you.

Holy !#^@&@#&

I owe you... big time!!

[JasonEvans]

Holy !#^@&@#&

I owe you... big time!!

The blue arrow has officially changed my life. Feldspar is right, it is like the DBR version of TIVO.

-Jason "now, if only I could get a button that filters out FDA ;) " Evans

[throatybeard]

The reason we've had a lot of long threads is that people remain interested in the same topics over and over again. I agree that having a 600-post thread on some kid from West Virginia isn't an ideal situation, but people were starting new threads on the same subject constantly. One long thread (in which you can easily skip to your first unread post, apparently) creates way less board clutter than 30 different 20-post threads on the same freaking thing.

People can be interested in whatever they want to be and talk about those things and that's fine. But given a useful mechanism in the software, we'll try to consolidate endless discussion of next year's starting five to one or two spots. I suppose we could say "if you don't like long threads, don't talk about the same things over and over," but that wouldn't be realistic, so in the meantime, expect a long thread if you want to participate in another discussion about depth, zone, the top recruit, or the starting 5. People will stay interested in those topics, apparently.

On TDD they lock a lot of redundant threads, so I think merging is more of a soft-moderation move.

Also, with all due respect to James, I think long threads are a lot more manageable on this software than they were on SBBS, especially given those sub-threads SBBS had. You can fit up to 40 posts on one scrollable page with this vBulletin.

[mapei]

I agree, throaty. Long threads don't bother me, since I can read the posts I have time to read, and it's more convenient to have them in one place. If I don't have time read them all, I don't worry about it.

[Exiled_Devil]

Yes, yes you should. The opinions on that board are dominated far too much by one nameless individual and it could use a good dose of additional people.



Would that be one nameless "sometimes self-deprecating in his posts and with a unique signature" individual?

I dig the format. It is more user friendly than the old SBBS, and much more civil than the interim board.

I'll add too that I think the moderators were well chosen and are doing a good job. I have to say when I saw who has a moderator, everyone made sense from an historical point of view and also from a personality point of view.

My experience is the way that moderators go, so goes a discussion board. With the well chosen mods here, I think things are likely to continue going well.

exiled

[mgtr]

I second (or, perhaps, twentieth) the sense of the above posters. Keep the main forum as Duke Basketball, put all other stuff elsewhere. By the way, compared to other fora, the posters and mods do a pretty good job of staying on topic. Congrats to all.

[jimsumner]

"By the way, compared to other fora"

"Other fora?" Sounds like a Latin tutorial might be heading our way. :)

[throatybeard]

-um 2nd declension nouns are neuter, so their nominative and accusative plurals are indeed -a.* But the English adoption of Latin lexicon has been a fairly variable process.




* - Don't have a Latin dictionary in front of me, so I'm working on somewhat faded knowledge.

[billybreen]

Arrrggghhh!!!

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

As a kid, I learned it as "there's 'a rat' in 'separate'." That's a great mnemonic.

Also, Firefox has built-in spell check for text fields, so why not join the cool kids with a proper browser?

[mgtr]

Sorry for the "fora," but I thought this was Duke, not UNC!!!!!!

[ojaidave]

(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! ;))

Great idea for learning to spell a word, really bad idea for computer security (though I know you already know this).

As for the boards, I like that I can post here now. There was a long standing glitch with the old software that prevented me from posting (some would call that a feature).

Dave