What kind of message board should VV aspire to become?

[Moll Flanders]

I vote for an exclusive community with strict entrance requirements, brutal initiation rites and a secret handshake.

And I want it to be friendly.

 

[Pickle Juice]

Something else: it would be nice to see it also as a resource for people. A place for useful and accurate information, not just discussion. I think the business listings, product reviews, and recipe section are good resources. The Wiki would be good too, with more stuff in it.

 

[thefadedone]

I vote for an exclusive community with strict entrance requirements, brutal initiation rites and a secret handshake.

And I want it to be friendly.

I think we should get special symbolic rings also. Like a silver band ring with the initials VV on the front of it. Or something like this :

Spoiler

with images of plants and animals

 

[KLS52]

I would totally wear that! Now I want one!

 

[Blobbenstein]

Could be the start of something.

 

[IamJen]

<<votes for a general discussion board. I mean, you can only talk about vegan cheese and why circuses suck for so long.

kazyq, regarding the newbie thing, maybe we could have a newbies forum. I think the Wiki was supposed to help with this sort of thing as well, but a forum would be easy-peasy for newbies to the board and would funnel many of the questions away from the eyes of folks like yourself.

 

[Second Summer]

<<votes for a general discussion board. I mean, you can only talk about vegan cheese and why circuses suck for so long.

kazyq, regarding the newbie thing, maybe we could have a newbies forum. I think the Wiki was supposed to help with this sort of thing as well, but a forum would be easy-peasy for newbies to the board and would funnel many of the questions away from the eyes of folks like yourself.

Already have one - the New Vegetarians' Help Desk. We've also made some efforts to expand and improve the wiki recently.

 

[Second Summer]

So these are interesting results, I think: Most of us agreed that general discussion was an aspect we should aspire towards. Second most votes, more or less tied, are veg*n issues and social chit-chat. AR issue were ranked slightly lower.

 

[Ansciess]

This is a discussion we've had before, but I actually think that de-emphasizing the "social chit chat" aspect of the board would be good.

I think there's a certain kind of infighting here, and unwelcoming atmosphere, because of it. I've noticed that the board is fairly clique-ish, and that spills over into the general/political issues, and sometimes discussions turn into some kind of personal, emotional fight with "teams" rather than just discussing issues based on what's presented. I thought VB did a better job of containing it.

 

[beancounter]

I disagree. VB was an out of control wild west atmosphere, that had plenty of clique and teams, and was unwelcoming to anyone who didn't follow the party line or wasn't PC. And of course if you drew the attention of the trolls, one troll in particular, it was significantly more unpleasant than it has ever gotten here...and that's why some of us at VV have zero tolerance for that troll's protege/lap dog.

 

[Second Summer]

Not sure we're more cliqueish than in the VB era. In any case, it doesn't seem to me like the chit chatters are a particularly hostile or fighty segment of the membership.

 

[Freesia]

I think we are nice. But perhaps we need to set up a kind of Chatter Police? Someone who can come along with a baton and say "Ok, enough talking about ramen and pot noodles, move along everyone, nothing to see here." or "There is a restriction on Harry Potter Discussion to less than one page per thread and you are infringing. Please take this yellow card, this is your first warning."

 

[ledboots]

.

 

[Muggle]

I think we are nice. But perhaps we need to set up a kind of Chatter Police? Someone who can come along with a baton and say "Ok, enough talking about ramen and pot noodles, move along everyone, nothing to see here." or "There is a restriction on Harry Potter Discussion to less than one page per thread and you are infringing. Please take this yellow card, this is your first warning."

I think we already do that. There's been quite a few threads which started as offshoots from the chat thread.

 

[FortyTwo]

Definitely keeping on-topic is important - I would know as someone who consistently fails to do so.

 

[SummerRain]

This is a discussion we've had before, but I actually think that de-emphasizing the "social chit chat" aspect of the board would be good.

I think there's a certain kind of infighting here, and unwelcoming atmosphere, because of it. I've noticed that the board is fairly clique-ish, and that spills over into the general/political issues, and sometimes discussions turn into some kind of personal, emotional fight with "teams" rather than just discussing issues based on what's presented. I thought VB did a better job of containing it.

I agree with the bolded part, I've got the feeling that this happens too. I'm not sure about VB because I was never really involved enough to notice. But then, I think it's impossible for a small board with few new people and a shared history of being a kind of "spin off" from another board not to be clique-y.

I think it would also be nice if we encouraged "newbie" questions rather than discouraged them, both to be welcoming, and also because I think it's a good way to getting new members - these are the things people search for online and wind up joining forums because of.

 

[das_nut]

In regards to threads becoming (or being perceived to become) off-topic, it should be easy enough for mods to create a new thread and move all the relevant posts into that thread.

 

[Spang]

It should be acceptable for a thread to go off-topic, if that's the direction the discussion goes.

 

[mlp]

It should be acceptable for a thread to go off-topic, if that's the direction the discussion goes.

I agree that conversations should be allowed to evolve naturally, at least to some extent.

I think that the chitchat threads naturally enough give the impression that it's a bunch of people who've known each other for a while, with all of the associated inside references and jokes. That, I think, makes those threads more difficult for newcomers to join in on; it's like being a stranger walking into a party where everyone else knows each other well. I mean, I've been around a long time, I'm not shy, but even I feel like an outsider when I glance into those threads.

That's a natural outcome of the chitchat threads, but the tendency to that kind of conversational meandering should probably be curbed in other threads, which without it, may be easier for newcomers to join in on.

I think that this board will only grow if it offers something of interest to newcomers, and I don't think that the general threads do that - after all, general chat is available lots and lots of places.

 

[Moll Flanders]

I think generally people do a good job of welcoming new people on the introduction thread but I'm not sure why new people don't seem to stay or post that much. I did think maybe the "like" function might make it seem unfriendly as it might be that new people feel excluded if their posts don't get liked enough?