Guidance Needed

Owd Bert · 03-12-2003, 08:39

Please clarify for me the rules regarding keeping to thread.

Jo in reply #20 re-Hyndburn Youth Council has reported me for being guilty of the above.
Although others apologised as they added to my comment I didn`t because I was totally unaware that I had breached protocol.

Have I done the same this morning when I replied to Atarah ?

I realise I wasn`t actually referring to the issue of the Horse Chestnut Tree, so should I have started a new Topic, and if so, where ?

Perhaps this Topic is in the wrong place.

Help -- Help -- Help.

Jo · 03-12-2003, 09:24

Hello there Owd Bert, don't know what the rules are or who sets them. In some ways this is Roy's site, so he can influence where things go and whether to move or delete them - rightly so.

On the other hand, it's a public forum, so it's hard to say what the rules are and harder still to get people to stick to them.

According to some on the site there should be no humour, no themes that are not in line with those people's way of thinking and certainly no jam.

I have no problem with people writing out of thread, I think it encourages creativity, open-mindedness and generally a positive forum culture of interchangable ideas. Others go mad if you even mention one word that is not what they expected.

So, you see the rules, if there are, or indeed ever really could be any, are unclear.

Sorry for reporting you, hope you're not offended. It was a matter of principle. A few of you used a totally irrelevant thread to complain that people keep writing humorously and out of thread and that those people should stick to Anything goes. In the same respect, if those of you that wrote such things really believe so and are consequent, then you should also not do it either, otherwise it's not fair.

I think the easiest rule is a basic Christian value - do as you would like to be done to. If you wouldn't like people invading your serious thread, don't invade others, if you don't like people going off thread in your topic, don't do it to others. Obviously though, some of us are easier-going than others, so no rules are perfect rules for some, while some need a dictatorship like ruling and need to be led in life. That's society for you.
In any case, we could try to keep people to different sections. Anythjing Goes for the humorous, Everyone Moans for the moaners!!! But society doesn't work that way.
Being on a forum is like being in a pub. Of course you could talk to your mate at his house or at yours, but it's more fun to sit with him in the pub and talk, that way you also hear a few other interesting conversations going on and see a few other people, that's what a forum is about too, otherwise we could just write each other private messages.
But in a pub there are also people we might not like so much. the girls hate that woman over there that flirts with their husbands all the time - the men hate the drunkard at the bar that always ends the evening trying to pick a fight. but you still go to the pub, cos you like it. Like the forum. A pub is a public place, a forum is a public place. If you don't like it, don't go. If you do like it, adapt to its culture.
A pub's environment is made up by the people who go there, the landlord can only slightly influence the clientele and set only basic rules. A forum is the same.

Sorry to be so long-winded but hope you see what I'm getting at. And sorry again for reporting you, but it really was a matter of principle, nothing personal, I assure you.