this is a serious deep discussion about what should fall under our serious discussion section. Physics, fashion, hobbies, gadgets, etc. Do they belong in the serious section or in my dear-beloved space junk?
Meee is right though. This is a perfect topic for that section which is usually so very, very lonely.
i put the thread here for the sake of irony. In the forum board we would be certain that the thread belonged. But in question is the validity of mundane topics in the lounge. That makes this a thread of which is not certain if it should belong in the lounge or not, making the location of this thread ironic. We would be certain that it fits in the forum board, yet placed in here, this thread demonstrates it's own relevance. Also, i had a feeling that if Kerwyn would post here it'd turn into a discussion on the definition of meaningful, which could get loungey to da maxxx.
I can fill in for LK's role, but I'd rather point out that the headnotes for each of the sub-forums is merely a creative and advisary description of what's to be discussed. It's not a definitive list of what qualifies and what doesn't qualify to be posted in that section of the forum. On top of that, there's really no difference between this thread being in the Lounge or Forum Information, Questions and Feedback. Believe it or not, but there are grey areas between the sub-forums, especially depending on the intent of the thread creator. There's really little difference between the two apart from the fact that the thread would get a lot more deserved attention in the Lounge. So unless there are some obsessive-compulsive members who find it impossible to get past the surprisingly controversial but highly irrelevant location of the thread, if jiffy's intent it to have a conversation about what qualifies for a serious discussion using the recent Lounge/Space Junk quarrels as an example or parallel, the thread is fine where it is.
That's kind of how I felt about my Avatar thread. I figured it would fit in either Arts or Lounge, as I wanted to have a discussion about it, and felt it would succeed better in the Lounge since most Art section threads rarely receive many posts(my thread is the first one to hit 20 replies in Art section since Sept '09, meanwhile most Lounge threads hit 20+ easily). One thing I don't like is when some semi-serious threads get tossed into SpaceJunk, since it's for spam games etc, and some stuff I see in there defiantly wasn't spam material.
I'm definitely with Eon on the semi-serious threads. And game threads obviously have their own sub-forum.
Here is my cirterion for what belongs in the lounge: 1. is there a better location for the thread (besides Space Junk)? 2. What kind responses is a thread going to get based on its opening post? (Are the responses going to be short, spammy or something more thought provoking?) 3. What kind of responses is the thread actually getting? (Do the response seem to fit the above criterion, assuming they don't why? Did someone derail the thread? Is the author trying to correct this? Can moderator intervention correct the problem?) Assuming the thread fails all 3 criterion, in my opinion it should be junked. Obviously, those are broad criterion which is why it isn't an absolute science. But, I have challenge for you guys to see if people "get it" more than they think, of the 5 most recent loung threads (at the time of this post and besides this one) there is one I would probably call solid space junk material and one I would hold up as a pretty good example of a lounge thread can you guys guess which ones? What made you think of those threads? P.S. I do find it strange that somehow my response was expeced to somehow kickstart this thread.
I think 2012 is the one which belongs to junk. Asking what are you going to do this or that day does not seem very inspiring. Also Cars! but you clearly disagree with me so I might as well stop since I made myself clear already. As there is an absence of any threads that belong to me I don't think there are any good examples. *boom boom tss* "how would things change?" seems to fulfill the criteria well so that might be 'the best one'. Although I have very little interest in taking part of it.
I'd say the going green thread deserves to be junked. If a thread about a forum fad that evidently gets spammed due to the lack of substance to respond to isn't space junk material, what is? Everything else I'd have stay.
Going Green hadn't been posted in recently when I made my post, but yeah I would say that's a pretty good example of something that could/should be junked (or precisely that should have been junked because of the responses it was getting the topic itself had potential to go somewhere). The ones I was thinking of were Cars almost definetly should have been junked (It essentially asks for 2 words and a name as a response which is a pretty good sign to begin with, paired with the fact that is all it was essentially getting, puts it in the solid junk zone in my book), and the thread that I thought was a pretty good example of Lounge material was "immortality: how would things change?" because it was getting pretty solid responses and there appeared to be actual disscussion going on. Obviously this is just my opinion, hence why Cars is still around I am not about to overrule 3 other mods who thought it was fine, and that should say something about this topic, everyone has their own opinion. So let me ask you this what do you guys think of mine?
I posted going green into junk since I knew the sort of reaction its going to get. Neon moved it here.
