New main area forum
 

I guess the time has come for a new main area forum. Since the "top 10" of us is dominating each thread so thoroughly, it may be better to spread us a little more thinly.

The original Cellar mk 2 had a section called "Human Relations", or in other words, How we all get along with each other. It's general interest and there isn't anything more open-ended, which is the idea of the main sections.

If anyone has a better idea, or any other ideas, now's the time to post em. (Nic, I think your idea goes into something other than "main" now that I think about it)

Re: New main area forum
 

*confused* Would you mind explaining this a little more clearly? My brain appears to be foggy right now. :)

WOAH!

YOU PASSED TONY! YOU BASTARD!

Anyway. "Human Relations" sounds kinda like a department in my company. Well, it is. But anyway. I'm not sure about the name, but I think it's a good idea. It kinda of reminds me of my weblog, however - just one guy talking about how he interacts with the world. Maybe I'm a little less focused than that, but you get the idea I think. Still, I agree that it would be cool to add something there. I'm just not sure of exactly what. But this is the place to discuss it, so post your ideas, we'll all contribute, and we'll come out with something cool. :)

A much cooler and geekier name would be "Human Human Relations" (a variation of a well known quote).

Whatever comes of this, UT, I think it is a good idea to have a separate thread to suggest and discuss ideas for new forums.

So, to toss a couple of ideas out for feedback or attack, here's some thought's I've been having on the subject.

Conspiracy Theories

We got a taste of that recently, when Griff raised a bogus conspiracy about GWB and spousal abuse.

But there is some controversial stuff floating around out there, like Oliver Stone's thoughts on bin Laden conspiracies.

Then there's the whole Enron thing ramping up. Could be another Watergate.

Civil Liberties

Could include threads on Wrongful Convictions, Death Penalty, Racism.

Law & Order

Peace, order and legislation. Not the TV show.

(While I'm on that topic, someone should start a Thread about the Boob Tube in Entertainment to go alone with the music, gaming and movies threads. I'm surprised it isn't there already.)

The opportunities may be to add some broader threads to the existing Forums, as well.

And now I'd like to listen... :)

Media

?????

Hangin' Out

Obviously, its a big part of this community (as one finds buddies and "shared interest groups") to just drop into the Cellar for some mindless chat. It's socializing. It's good. But it can become too personal, and limit participation by others. And yet the "visit" sometimes happens in the middle of a thread which is advertised by its title to be for some other completely different discussion. I think it is the absence of a place to satisfy the need to socialize, that causes some threads to digress into some sort of IM thread between buddies, completely off topic. It's not enough to say to newbies, that the in crowd has been doing this for months now. That worked when the in crowd was the whole crowd. But that can break down the community into factions.

Every community needs a Drop In Center

Another idea, (stolen from Jack Cafferty on CNN) is:

What I don't get ...

Building on what you had in mind when you created Philadelphia you could have a Main Forum that encouraged separate Threads for specific cities. Everyone has local spirit ... not just the Philadelphians.

It's not that these threads would be restricted to the local inhabitants, but the discussion might be relevant to attract new groups to connect within the larger community.

Toronto the Good comes to my mind.

the City thread starter could get creative with the title based on local lore.

City of Angels

This is similar to the social motivation of Derek Powazek's City Stories Project websites (www.citystories.com).

I'm not suggesting a separate forum for each city, but separate city threads within a Cities Forum.

Tony you've given life to a monster on this issue i think.
Isn't home base for that kinda stuff?
You sure you don't mean human resources?

Instead of a drop in forum as such, how about chat?
THe amount of times you know that other people you'r posting with are on at the same itme as you, would be great ot chat to them directly sometimes outside the usual AIM/ICQ channels.

Outstanding idea Nic! We could share stories about various cities, offer travel tips, etc. Remember though, when this version of the Cellar was launched, many of us were from Philadelphia. God, there can't be more than 30 or so of us Philadelphians now.

Yeah, I know. When this started it was just three guys from Philly saying Whassup?! Nawthin. Watchin' the game. Havin' a Bud. But that's another thread.

There are bunches of guys on here from the same cities ... and they don't even know it!

God knows how many New Yorkers, the capital of the world, members are on here already. Don't get them started. :)

*thinks*

There are 2 people I know of on here from St. Louis: Dynamo, and someone else that I can't remember...a female.

Could someone tell me how this community has existed for a whole friggin' year without a Forum on Sports ... and some of you guys are from Philly? :)

They didn't discuss sports on /. and K5. ;)

I'm not really into sports, but I've noticed the odd fight break out over the subject.

Just a thought for some of the jocks in the community.

Truth be told, I don't know of a lot of sports fans on here...maybe a handful to a dozen that I've seen. Hence why I usually throw sports stuff in Sycamoreland.

Jag, open chat is a good concept for what we're talkin' about.

IM works too, one on one, or in an invited group. Folks in the Cellar want to have their conversations, even with one another, in front of the whole gang. Looking for support. appreciation. acknowledgement.

Here in the Cellar, open chat would be like where anyone could drop himself right into the middle of a conversation. Or several conversations might overlap in the thread. Like at a party!

There's a concept. Party Line

The old timers here ... and the guy in Australia ... will understand the concept when telephones weren't private and people in a small community shared a few "party lines" and one never knew who was lurking.

*sticking tongue out at Jag*

Urgh, least it would be contained to one area i could avoid.


Lurk? Me? I think i lurked here for about two days before ranting *laughz, nothings changed since. There have bene i think 3 people from australia (including me) over time, some are still here, some are not, few from other countries, i'd like to see a larger international community myself.

And in the Sports department, we've got that whole Winter Olympics thing coming up in a couple of weeks...

If there isn't a proper place to dicsuss this, IotD will be filled with pics of the events, and every thread will be lost in the clutter of discussion about the day's Olympic Events.

Olympic Spirit, or Winter Olympics could be a thread in Sports. It only lasts a few weeks in February, but it will be intense. And the international audience here will be wanting to weigh in on their country's achievements etc.

Sports shmorts. We really don't have a big sporting community here. And if we added that forum, I'd never have anything to say, so I couldn't have a clean sweep of "last post" on all the forums. :)

Jag - you're right. Human Resources. Human Relations still sounds kinda funny to me. Maybe it should. I dunno. Anyway...

Oh yeah. This is my 911th post (I'm editing this in now). So yeah. That's what really started my posting flurry on the Cellar. Just paying respects to those that perished. Every time I see a 9 and 2 1's, I think of it. I suspect I'm not alone.

dhamsaic, i'm afraid it's a bit of a non sequitur to suggest that we don't need a Sports forum because we don't have many people in the Cellar interested in sports.

What's cause and what's effect?

Now, if you don't want people who might have any interest in sports in the Cellar at all, then that's a good reason not to have such a forum.

I'm not a jock, either, but I am interested in what's going on in sports ... and wouldn't discount your opinion in, say, Politics if you happened to be a big Phillys or Fliers fan, and happened to have joined the Cellar because you just had to weigh in on the Eric Lindros discussion going on in a Sports forum.

I'm not sure the objective is to have only forums that everyone is interested in. Maybe, if the forums reflected a broader range of interests the discussion in areas that you are interested in would represent a broader spectrum of opinions.

Now it's a matter of opinion whether that's a good objective, or not.

There's certainly every indication that there's interest in Cooking or Eating here in the Cellar. :)

Personally, I wouldn't read a Sports forum regularly, although I might find that an appropriate place to post something of interest to me in the upcoming Winter Games. And maybe there, I'd learn something from people more interested in sports than myself.

Heres my 2 cents:


Open chat? how about an IRC channel (or other medium) for registered users only?




And, no offense, but I dont think we need any new channels. Sports maybe, I think everything else is fine.

We personally, i don't want jocks, so buggar off =p
joke.
Mabye a poll? Make cellar a democratic institution.

I still think in-browser chat or second best, an IRC channel would be a fantastic idea. I'm not sure what Ut thinks, after all we are all using his bandwidth and hardware, at his cost, but even an IRC server for members only, make our own channels and stuffif we want to talk.

And just as a general thing, what baout some kind of kitty we could put money in one way or another ot help lighten the financial burden that running this site must be to UT? If only i could get a credit card....

I been pinging him forever about helping out but he tells me to bugger off. :)

One day though, he'll fold and go "alright! I need a new hard drive!" and we'll all jump to the rescue. It's all good.

Remember - this is a hobby to Tony. Less expensive than a dark room or flying (:)). He likes paying for it, just like I enjoy paying for my computers. Though I would never complain if someone offered me one at no cost, as sort of a thanks for providing an awesome service... :P

Now waitamin, I don't actually enjoy paying for it!

I'm just too lazy a bastard to go through the whole Paypal setup, really.

I sincerly believe that I'm just out here building up a ton of karma, which will come through any year now. In theory, it already has; I've met a lot of cool people, had a load of awesome discussions, become a much better writer, etc.

Well there ya go. It's been worth it, yeah?

Just let me know when to send you some cash and I will. :)

I like the Cities idea. I have to travel once in a rare while for work and wouldn't mind knowing great places to go or fellow Cellarites to possibly meet up with.

On the chat item - I've just investigated chat clients, and all I could find were pretty poor. But there's this one contender that's utterly, utterly simple, that I could just put up real quick.

It's so no-frills, this client, that I hesitate to do it, because... well, I think it functions, but it's just poor.

But I offer this, in case anyone is so dying to chat, that they would love to see it here in a matter of five minutes.

Well they can send it to *my* PalPal...no problem. :-)

UT, if you were feeling creative you could set up an irc server
then have an in-web browser-irc lcient
roundabout as it is, thereby giving both IRC users and just people browsing hte site easy access, just na idea.

I like the idea of IRC here. Availible anywhere, client or browser. But isnt there some Aol/Aim type server availible? I know its out there, but the name evades me right now.



Ahh! Thank you sourceforge, its Jabber. Doesnt look like its what I thought it was tho.


If you need any help, I will be glad to try. Community! Horray!

I guess if there was a Forum for Conspiracy Theories, we could discuss stuff like this.

I never did like the "official explanation" of this accident.

World Net Daily wrote over 200 stories on Y2K including a few that were really paranoid, saying the administration was going to use it as an excuse to declare martial law and stuff.

what's happening with that bais cchat client thingy?

Nobody said they wanted it so I let it drop. People want IRC so they can run their own clients, but I don't want to run a server here, so I dunno what goes next.

I might be willing to run a server. Maybe. :)

I'd give it 3, maybe 4 weeks before a swarm of 14 year-olds sets up hundreds of bots that watch it constantly and ruin it for everybody.

Hence setting access controls :) And being an Oper is a wonderful thing. Right along side of the magical K line :)

With the overwhelming popularity of Image of the Day, compared to other forums, perhaps there is an opportunity for Cartoon of the Day.

By their very nature, pictorial cartoons are thought provoking, topical, visual, and often controversial ... and just sooooo funny.

The value-add of the Cellar is the discussion of the cartoon amongst the community.

For example:
http://www.globecartoon.com/Images/week.gif

What about political cartoons? Those seem to fit that definition too...

The overwhelming thing with any X of the day is coming up with a new X every single day.

Mabye not every day, sporadic, if i get a scanner (which is likely) iull have plenty of classics to put up for a start. I like the idea nic. It woudl really hlep livin up currant affiars too.


LOL hubris boy i *love* the sig
http://www.non-sequitur.net/comics/2...nuary/0108.jpg
for example?
I love non-sequitor, i'm blessed to get it in the paper every day.

or my personal favorite

http://www.non-sequitur.net/comics/2...nuary/0106.jpg
sorry about the size but its sooo good, iv'e got a friend that write beautiful stories, occasionally interjected iwth really, really, really warped, dark, deeply distrubing ones just to fuck with the year-book writers heads.

this has nothing to do with political cartoonage and really, i didn't read the entire thread, but i'd have to say this is a pretty funny cartoon.

dilbert cracks me up.

hehehehehe :) dilbert isn't always great, but when it's on, it's ON.

X of the day, is only overwhelming if only one person is responsible for sourcing it.

I gather that your concept for IotD was originally that you would source, choose and post the IotD, and the members would discuss it. IotD was probably an original forum a year ago, when there were only a handful of members, and yet, it has worked well and grown into the most popular forum.

Obviously, it's even better if the whole community participates. And with over 300 members, growing daily now, I don't think there would be any problem with good content in any X of the Day that were a popular subject.

The key may be to avoid being too specific in the thread topic, by being more inclusive in the title, where possible. That's why I suggested Cartoon of the Day, rather than Political Cartoon of the Day. The first includes content from the latter, but not vice versa.

I think the cartoons submitted in the reply posts above "illustrate" my point, that this is an excellent medium for sharing graphics, as well as community discussion of those graphics.

By the way, judging from the "conversations" in other threads, it might also be a good idea to start a forum called something like Pet Paradise, where members can share their love for particular animals, along with their pics and stories, etc. With the number of members who likely have pets of various kinds, this could be a huge interest group. (The subject of pets has a strong effect on community, because it discloses "personal" details that show the personality to the individual members.)

As well, I thought there was a pretty favorable response to the idea of Cities as a main forum topic with specific cities as sub-forum headings within which members could develop threads relevant to that city, as has happened with Philadelphia. (I think that thread ideas in one city would be food for thought, and would "spawn" similar threads in other cities.)

If you want to get that started soon, by creating a Cities forum and moving Philadelphia into that, and adding Toronto, I would help start some initial threads in Toronto, to show some of the potential. Other members may ask you to create forums for specific cities they are in, or you could seed the Cities forum at the initial setup with a few large cities to get it going faster. You may have a good idea from the members' profiles which cities may be of interest.

Where you at in Toronto? It's one of my favorite cities... was up there for 2 weeks 2 years ago... would like to go back...

TTA is still superior to Metro down here...

Living the urban lifestyle, right downtown, near the Provincial (State) Legislature buildings at Queen's Park, and the University of Toronto campus. It is a world class city. Too bad we missed out on the 2008 Olympic bid to Bejing. We'd love to have hosted y'all.

If we do go ahead and move Philadelphia into Cities in the Main Forums ...

it might be good to create a Cellar Community Center in Cellar-related.

This would be a good place to just hang out online in the Cellar. Or to post personally oriented questions to other cellarites.

Like the post above, where dham wants to start a conversation with me about where I live in Toronto ... and I replied. This "conversation" ought to have taken place in the Cellar Communty Center, rather than in a thread about "new main area forums" where it is off-topic. Where things get really out of control, is where others start to jump into this "conversation topic" and the thread becomes all about where someone lives or what they love to eat. The biggest problem with "off-topic" digressions is that they present to the membership at large, and to guests, a false promise of new discussion on the topic of the thread. And when the fresh posts are off-topic, this can be a disappointment to the user.

The proposal for a Forum to facilitate random visits or conversational threads on no particular topic, just to visit and get to know each other, is different from IRC, and is more consistent with the messageboard metaphor of the Cellar. First, it is an open dialogue that is open for all members and guests to overhear (over-read) or participate in the conversational thread. Second, it facilitates a conversational thread to develop, even when the participants are not online at the same time, which is often the case with time zone differences worldwide.

Now see here, this is a smart one. He insults me, yet he acknowledges New York's superiority. Thus, I merely break his leg, not his neck.

~mike

Finally the Cities forum. If the Philadelphia forum quiets to the point where there's only one thread in it, I'll just cut it off and then folks can post about Philly in the Cities forum.

Thanks Nic for the suggestion. I haven't dropped the rest of your ideas, it's just that there are so many!

Undertoad
Just Some Guy

Registered: Jan 2001
Posts: 1111



hehe. just thought id point that out.


ANYWAYS, no offense, but i dont think we have enough traffic/posters to fill up all these new catagories. Cause politics never seems to have any threads in it. Might be worth it to drop a mass email to all the users to see if anybody remembers that we are here.

Sports Fans
 

Well, it seems that there isn't enough of an interest among the members of Cellar to create a Sports forum ... and that's OK.

It would be impossible with such a small membership as Cellar to create a sports fan community that would have the breadth and depth of content in a vBulletin sports fan community, as already exists at www.fanhome.com.

*ponders if there are any pro wrestling fans lurking on the Cellar that would come out if there were a sports forum...

~mike

/me is going to pay $20 to split the cost of Wrestlemania this weekend to watch the Hulkster get the smack layed down on his candy ass!

OOO YEAH!

seriously, what about a link section (like MLP at K5)? Or, since so many articles are linked anyway, is that just redundant? maybe an add-on to the profiles? (I'm just throwing ideas out here, bash or clap at will)