Exophase
Nothing good will ever come of Exophase.
Making a post in off topic discussion, feels weird c_c
Most forums I've been to have rules along the lines of "stay on topic." Sometimes they're not really enforced, other times they're heavily so. Sometimes when it is deemed that a topic has outlived its purpose it gets locked. I can see how this makes sense if you view forums as a database of information to find answers to questions on.
The thing is, I don't go to forums to ask or answer questions, I go to partake in interesting discussions. In fact, I can barely stand to go to the forums on dcemu.co.uk or zodttd.com (no offense to those there) because almost all of the topics are people asking for help, usually without reading all the other threads. There's no real discussion or community, just people looking for their own individual answers so they can be off again. I'm vaguely afraid that gp32x might one day become like this, but that's another topic altogether.
For the time being at least, a lot of good discussion springs up here.. and that's probably why I come here more than any other forum. But good discussion is dynamic and drifts and branches. It always irritates me when people are talking about something interesting but the thread gets closed because it got "off topic." I don't personally understand what the preoccupation is with keeping things so on topic. Sure, if you want to talk about something else you can start another topic, except that completely breaks the fluidity and will most likely kill the conversation.
A lot of people like for things to stay on topic, but I wonder if they feel this way because they think it benefits the forum in a pragmatic fashion (which I can see arguments for, but they're not especially direct), or if it's more because that's just the established convention. Thoughts?
Most forums I've been to have rules along the lines of "stay on topic." Sometimes they're not really enforced, other times they're heavily so. Sometimes when it is deemed that a topic has outlived its purpose it gets locked. I can see how this makes sense if you view forums as a database of information to find answers to questions on.
The thing is, I don't go to forums to ask or answer questions, I go to partake in interesting discussions. In fact, I can barely stand to go to the forums on dcemu.co.uk or zodttd.com (no offense to those there) because almost all of the topics are people asking for help, usually without reading all the other threads. There's no real discussion or community, just people looking for their own individual answers so they can be off again. I'm vaguely afraid that gp32x might one day become like this, but that's another topic altogether.
For the time being at least, a lot of good discussion springs up here.. and that's probably why I come here more than any other forum. But good discussion is dynamic and drifts and branches. It always irritates me when people are talking about something interesting but the thread gets closed because it got "off topic." I don't personally understand what the preoccupation is with keeping things so on topic. Sure, if you want to talk about something else you can start another topic, except that completely breaks the fluidity and will most likely kill the conversation.
A lot of people like for things to stay on topic, but I wonder if they feel this way because they think it benefits the forum in a pragmatic fashion (which I can see arguments for, but they're not especially direct), or if it's more because that's just the established convention. Thoughts?
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