What Is Off Topic?

[Felix]

Because post counts are turned on in there. That's what some people are crying foul over.

 

Maybe turn the post count off in the regional forums then..... I notice there is hardly any activity there.

Edited March 10, 2009 by Felix

[towe001]

Off topic IS:

• A place for topics that don't fit elsewhere
  
• A place for topics that are not related to cars
  
• A place for fun threads
  
• A side act to the main show (the rest of the forums)

I'll agree with that

But i'm tending to haunt the off-topic areas more and more cause there's really nothing moving in the auto sections that i haunt.

• Off topic IS NOT
  
  • A place where you can ignore the rules and abuse other members, etc

Yes, thats bugging the crap out of me. PM or phone or whatever. Just doesn't look good to your image, their image and the forums image.

• A place where can just chat to your mates in a thread with another purpose (I could be persueded to have a chat thread with some conditions if things improve)

I'm voting no, can see it getting ugly after a very short time. Or like Felix said "use the Regional subforums" and turn the post count off

• A place that should take up 80% of moderators time and attention

Some of the other forums that i tend to troll have moderators that look after sections of the forums. That is "God" overlooks the whole lot but cause he has "Son of God" looking after the boys area and "Daughter of God" looking after the girls area, "God" isn't getting all crabby etc having to look after the whole flock. Think its a great idea, bit like a workplace - supervisors taking care of their sections and only taking it up the ladder if there's some thing they themselves can't handle. Leaving the manager to get on with what they have to do.

 

 

And as a note I don't do msn the girlfriend does but i get bored and fed-up really quick with it

[Raven]

If you want to chat to people in your area, why not use the Regional subforums more?

What if people want to chat to other people interstate and not just people in their area? Isnt this what Rollaclub is about, forming a national community?

 

Also, how often do you spend time looking in other regional sub-forums other than you're home state's sub-forum?

 

The only other regional sub-forum I look at is Victoria when The GORC is in effect and planning has taken place for the event.

 

As I see it and a few others will tend to agree with me, its a bit hard to have an open community when you're locking yourself away in your own cities sub-forum, henceforth the OMG and WGMG threads are a neutral place for people to interact.

 

Unfortunately, thats how it is and by stopping people from some form of fun interaction on the board isnt going to do the board any wonders in a social sense and people will tend to stick to their "groups" and not venture out and associate with members of other states if there isnt a neutral place to interact to begin with.

[JiP]

I'm not liking where this is heading. Its turning into Qld vs. S.A.

We don't have many cruises up here and we don't all live close to each other. As Trev said i see him every couple of weeks only cause i make the effort to drive the 30 or so k's to his place.

Personally i haven't organised any cruises since November as i've been busy.

I agree the forum is off topic but there should be some boundaries. Yes continue the topic if it is related to the omg. No if its general talk that could be said over msn, a pm or a text message that no one wants to read about.

The real issue is that the mods don't want to sit here and read 3 pages of todays ramblings. They're not getting paid for it and aren't interested in most of it.

Edited March 10, 2009 by JiP

[Lexxi[ke35]]

I agree with the above....I'm pretty upset about the locking of the OMG thread.. but I didn't know whether to send a PM or whether to make my feelings known to everyone, then this thread popped up, so I thought I'd put in my 2 cents worth....

 

As a relatively "new" member, with only 1000+ posts (crap I missed out which one was my 1000th!), although I've been here for 3 years, I dare say that 95% of my posts have been "off topic", down here in south australia generally, we, as a club, don't have too many get-togethers and the only time we see each other, or talk to each other is through rollaclub. You guys up in QLD quite obviously get together on a regular basis or see each other in your day to day lives.

 

Each day, I come home from work and log onto rollaclub, to see what everyone else has been up to, and to post up what I've been doing, whether to the car, or WGMG or OMG!, it makes me feel like a part of the club, even though I can't really contribute any "real" mechanical know how, I love my car, and I work on my car, but I don't feel as though I can, with authority direct anyone how to do anything complex.

 

BY removing the OMG, I feel restricted in the contact I have with rollaclub members, I don't think it's fair that you are limiting the topics of discussion, just to cars, the OMG thread was a rambling, funny, weird and interactive thread not specifically car related, but alot of fun never-the-less, and brought together the members from australia wide ..... or did you want us to just post what happened to the day and not respond to anybody elses post?

 

Remember, people meet each other for the first time on these forums and if we're restricted in what we can say/post, we have nothing to talk about, no openers... I go to cruises and meets by myself, as a woman, it's pretty hard to be taken seriously at the big cruises, the guys always think you're someones girlfriend/wife. Quite often, I don't know anyone there, but if my car and my name are recognised, people come up to me and introduce themselves as members of rollaclub and I know at some point I've spoken to them in the past and they're "safe". The flip side, is that if I see a car, I can approach them (like Ryan when he broke his diff) and say "sorry to hear about the diff, what's happening with it now?"

 

Basically what I'm trying to say is that when we're shooting shit in the OMG and WGMG threads we're developing a history with each other, which is essentially the basis for any Club.

 

Why else would I put a rollaclub sticker on my car? Why else would I enter my car in car shows under the rollaclub banner? Why else would I associate with other rollaclub members? Basically, I want to feel as though I belong to rollaclub...

 

If the real problem is bandwith, the thread being too long, then is there a resolution?, ie. making the threads smaller, ie. part 1 or 2 etc.,? Or if it's taking up too much of your time, could that one thread have it's own moderator? I'm sure there would be plenty of people willing to do it.

 

Lesley :D

 

I agree with this 100%

 

Yes continue the topic if it is related to the omg.

 

People were doing this when the thread got closed. Talking about stuff related to the omg. I think theres over-moderation being done here. Sure, There have been a lot of unrelated conversations in that thread but that was not one of them. My guess is whoever closed the thread [can't remember who it was] was having a bad day and took it out on the thread. Sure, he might have been sick of the off topic discussion in other threads or something, and it wouldn't have been so bad to close it had the people been off topic, but IMHO they weren't.

[irokin]

This is not a state vs. state issue nor a "just use msn" issue, stop trolling. Further state vs state arguments will be removed.

[Felix]

Personally I don't give a shit about all the offtopic crap. If I wanted to chat, I'd go join/create a chatroom somewhere, use msn or join a womens group.

 

This website is primarily for information sharing about corollas, not mindless spamming. If there wasn't so much crap floating around there would be a lot more technical posts. I know myself quite often I come for a look and just go elsewhere after seeing page upon page of useless crap. I'm not here to socialize, I've got a missus and 3 kids so I don't need to participate in mindless dribble to feel a warm fuzzy sense of belonging.

 

Check out this forum , it would have to be one of the best most complete model specific resources I've ever seen. The photo tutorials are awesome. The people get along great without whinging and bitching all the time.... I guess it has a lot to do with the mean age group and intelligence level of the participants.

[LukeAE71]

Chat in your own regional area seems to be forbidden, at least in SA and all topics are closed or deleted.

 

Maybe that is why we let loose in other areas of the forum

 

Or....

 

Maybe we have an overzealous/over-the-top Region Leader.

 

I know on another forum that I used to frequent (name withheld) they have a SA Off Topic thread in the SA Section that is just useless chat. It keeps the rest of the forum off-topic area tidy and all you need do is delete a whole heap of pages once in a while. There is no need to have 144 pages of any topic really, noone looks at the last 140 pages anyhow.

 

To me this forum seems a little over the top in terms of moderation but in saying that I respect what you are doing here providing a valuable resource of information etc.

 

My question is... why provide an off-topic area at all if you are going to continually have to waste too much time and effort on it and complain about the topics and chat that goes on in there?

[JiP]

I think the main problem here is the off topic is causing arguments. Or existing arguments are spilling out into these threads.

[MYSTIK[RL]]

Chat in your own regional area seems to be forbidden, at least in SA and all topics are closed or deleted.

 

Maybe that is why we let loose in other areas of the forum

 

Or....

 

Maybe we have an overzealous/over-the-top Region Leader.

 

I know on another forum that I used to frequent (name withheld) they have a SA Off Topic thread in the SA Section that is just useless chat. It keeps the rest of the forum off-topic area tidy and all you need do is delete a whole heap of pages once in a while. There is no need to have 144 pages of any topic really, noone looks at the last 140 pages anyhow.

 

To me this forum seems a little over the top in terms of moderation but in saying that I respect what you are doing here providing a valuable resource of information etc.

 

My question is... why provide an off-topic area at all if you are going to continually have to waste too much time and effort on it and complain about the topics and chat that goes on in there?

 

i was waiting for you to say something, yet you still havent taken up the offer of talking to me via pm about it :D

[andro0o]

IMO Lesley hit the nail on the head perfectly.

 

If it were me who was a moderator, I would let the threads continue whilst keeping a close watch. Maybe give someone the responsilibity to run this section. I'm sure anybody including me would love this priveledge.

[LukeAE71]

i was waiting for you to say something, yet you still havent taken up the offer of talking to me via pm about it :cool:

 

I had chosen to ignore the issue actually and play nice. I have since respected what you asked me to do and not mentioned it again :D

 

In my post above I actually said 'maybe' in my comment so you are jumping to conclusions.

[greenmac80]

man this is too much!

i can't beleive that some of you guys are getting so worked up over it.

It's the internet who cares about post counts? i wouldn't have a clue what mine is nor do i care?

at the end of the day we all share a passion for corollas and enjoy having a place to show off our cars or learn stuff.

 

does off topic and spam thread really affect your day to day lives?

i mean if someone in QLD says he doesn't like me or posts something silly i don't go around during the day feeling crap about myself.

 

this is supposed to be a community start acting like one!

[towe001]

I agree the forum is off topic but there should be some boundaries. Yes continue the topic if it is related to the omg. No if its general talk that could be said over msn, a pm or a text message that no one wants to read about.

The real issue is that the mods don't want to sit here and read 3 pages of todays ramblings. They're not getting paid for it and aren't interested in most of it.

I don't really think anybody in their right mind would want to read through 3 pages of crap just to get to something of interest

In total agreement with the OMG thread.

 

But in someways we're just acting like typical politicians and going around in circles and skirting the real question - "What is Off Topic?"

 

Off Topic to me is -

• - things not related to the automotive sections
  - and i've lost my train of thought cause of dealing with kids
  

[Trev]

This is not a state vs. state issue nor a "just use msn" issue, stop trolling. Further state vs state arguments will be removed.

 

Ben I was saying to have an off topic but if you wanna have a chat to your mate then go to MSN.