Why is going off topic such a problem in a forum CALLED "Totally Off Topic"?

A forum is a conversation - if we stay on topic in a conversation we all end up talking about the weather, and getting bored with each other's company.

Please keep your replies irreligious, apolitical and immoral. Thank you.

I think it's silly cos a conversation will almost always naturally evolve into another topic, in life and in here!

As for irreverant content... poo, poo, poo, bugger, bollocks, crap, goddammit! :P

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<span style='color:purple'>My voices don't like you!</span>

Is it the over-rational mind-set of the moderators we should question? As scientists (amateur or professional), order is perceived when topics are filed by subject.

But if the site was viewed as history, or social science, maybe then the timeline becomes the category, rather than the content.

Q: Is relevance a social projection of the conversees? Digress.

People start new threads because they're interested in discussing a certain subject. Staying on topic respects the spirit of why the person started the topic in the first place. It's "Totally Off Topic" because it has nothing to do with space, but that doesn't mean the conversations here aren't just as valid as anywhere else in the forum.

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Fraser Cain
Publisher
Universe Today - Free space news delivered by email every weekday.

The categories help you find discussions that are interesting to you. Some people will be more interested in space flight, others in cosmology. And if you want entertaining and lively discussions, mixed with some downright weird ideas, then Alternative Theories is the place to start.

The divisions are arbitrary but, for this forum, they naturally fall into different areas of science and space exploration. MikeJ's right that in a different context, they might be based on historical periods, the people involved, belief systems. Basically whatever suits the underlying rationale of the forum.

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Spike
:)

Hmm. In some forums they have a spam thread or forum where people can go off topic if they want. I do not know if that would work here though.

I dunno what the big deal is about. We stray off topic, then come back again. That's OK surely. :blink:

I agree with ya Chook!

Interesting perspectives, folks! Thanks...

I'm being quite tongue-in-cheek here, of course, but it always strikes me any particular thread only gets REALLY interesting at about the point where it starts going off the rails.

SO - how does everyone feel about this idea: have a "Step outside" arena... just like a pub, where it's traditional to "Step outside to sort this out", then everyone else can continue supping or join in the scrap, however they choose?

That way the bar staff don't have to call the cops to break it up

Hell! That was the best part about bar work (well that and the free drinks).

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1·618033988749894848204586834365638117720309179805 76286213544862270526046281890244970720720418939113 74

Have you explored the difference between "immoral" and "amoral" lately?

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For those inclined to oppose human meddling with the structure of the universe or the composition and configuration of objects and groups of objects within the universe, consider:
Whether there is a limit to the magnitude of a modulation of chaos below which order remains invariant? Or, is order but a fiction invented by perspectives applied over finite, however large, time intervals?

Gourdhead - (Picky bugger!)

Quote MikeJ:
"SO - how does everyone feel about this idea: have a "Step outside" arena... just like a pub, where it's traditional to "Step outside to sort this out", then everyone else can continue supping or join in the scrap, however they choose?"

I think your suggestion is worthy of debate, and it has been suggested already in another thread, but Dipstick thinks that "it is better to leave sleeping dogs lie" - an opinion I respect.

Unfortunately, some Gentlemen don't stick by Queensbury Rules and, as Fraser has said on a number of occasions - "Things can get pretty ugly" - which is not what we want in this forum.

Personally I have PAM'd a couple of contributors, on several occasions, and we have continued sparring off-line in a congenial way - and this has worked for me. Maybe this is the way to go - fight in private (outside the pub).

As VanderL says - Cheers!

If a spam or "side bar" forum were presented, I would like to think that we would be respectful of each other's opinions and there would be rules NOT to get nasty.

Although I think the PMs are a great idea, it only leaves the debate open to two people. (I would LOVE to see some of those debates Chook).




However, this is not my forum and I will respect the rules made by the admin. Their rules seemed to have worked so far.

Hee, hee, heee ..... oh yes

Okay I'll try to keep it simple

could next help against sars in your opinion: keeping your head in a bundle of growing plants wherever you go? I start talking about this because last week I read in an encyclopaedia that Belgium is a region all city and town all over its surface, not too much extended prairies and a quite small wood about ten kilometers from here in Brussels. After that "cleaning up" of some trees in neighbourhood of a new railway station (Luxemburg) in glass I still feel terribly bad, but as everybody overhere behaves normal I suppose it is only very subjective from me.
they could for instance invent flower pots to carry on ones shoulders so that your head is between the green and when you come home you just water your plants and after that you put the pot (with adapted shape) back on your shoulders so that you can go back in town.

I apply and apply but they :angry: damned never give me a job where I can dig. I really like it, I swear you. h34r: h34r: h34r:

When it comes to forum rules and topics... the proof of the pudding is in the eating... and this forum thrives. Fraser, you've definately got a formula that works. It can just be frustrating when someone makes one single post that is still vaguely related and a moderator jumps down their throat (This is a rarity though).

Like Chook says, yeah we stray, but a gentle nudge and we're soon back on topic.

Hoore, I'm sorry, I'm not at all sure what your last post was about :huh:

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Quote Weaselbunny:
"Hoore, I'm sorry, I'm not at all sure what your last post was about."

Hoore500 was saying that - a push in the bush is worth two in the ... the ... (geez I've lost track now!) :blink:

Chook, you're incorrigible!

You ought to know better at your age

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<span style='color:purple'>My voices don't like you!</span>

"Young at heart" Weasel!

Personally, I agree that a conversation is always going to go off topic, given enough participation and enough time. In the other sections of the site, I'd allow a certain amount of leeway and most of the time someone has suggested getting back to the topic anyway, but in the Totally Off Topic section I'd probably allow more freedom.

I tend to see the Totally Off Topic section as being more the "social area" of the site... kinda like nipping down the pub after your astronomical society meeting has finished. That's just my view on things.

Look at it this way - if you were to start a topic about something you were keen to learn more about, say black holes, and then people ended up talking about the acting in a certain Walt Disney film, wouldn't you want to get things back on track?

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"The stars are my home"
"I've seen things you people wouldn't believe... Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion... I've watched c-beams glitter in the dark, near the Tanhauser Gate... all those moments will be lost, in time... like tears in the rain..."

Sure!

It IS more like the chat in the pub after the meeting, Dippy Hippy, that's exactly the sort of conversations that go on.... in the more focussed parts of the site I tend to just pay attention and keep quiet ... more like the meeting before the pub.....

Who's round is it?