This is somewhat frustrating. We haven't even finalized the guidelines yet, and people already march ahead hoping they can force the changes they want to go into effect.

On a personal level, such actions actually put me on the opposing side regardless of the issue. I try not to let my personal feelings get in the way of administration duties, but it's hard when people seem to be pushing it with every opportunity they get.

hmmm, i do see what you mean. I didnt think guidelines were made yet, but i misunderstood. I didnt start any threads myself the last few days in chitchat, for that reason, until i know what is best. And those that did, i didnt post on their threads, even though i did enjoy seeing their threads. The two threads that i did post on, were Henry and Shadow's, because they both needed a kind word, and because i was sure that neither of them knew about the upcoming changes. So i'm sure Henry and Shadow did not do that to upset you, and i havent checke3d to see who the others were. Perhaps they werent aware of changes being made either? Or maybe they did, i dont know, but its possible they didnt know.

YES! If you feel that a topic you are about to post can potentially cause a "domino effect" then please post it in your PDA.

Sadly it will cause more similar posts. There is no need to imagine hypothetical situations. We've already seen this exact thing happening a year ago or so.

That time, it was in conjunction with prayer requests. But life is life, and posts like that would flood the section if we don't limit them.

And I don't feel comfortable deleting only some of the posts just to keep the total number under control. So the only fair solution to me seems to be not to allow any of them in GCC at all.

The only exception I'm still considering is when a member gets ill (or something else happens), and she can't post herself. In this case, some other member who has other means of communication and learns about what happened might choose to post a notice about it to let others know.

PDA won't work for that. So that leaves either GCC or nothing at all.

In this particular case, I think posting in GCC is a reasonable exception.

There are still two sections for personal stuff. I think that if more members start posting in their personal diary thread and update the title accordingly (if that is the solution), then more of us will go there to check out what's going on with everyone.

Those of us who want to post in the general chit chat section will continue to do so as long as the topics are not downers and content is family-friendly.

This should alleviate some of the bulk in the chit chat section and make it easier to edit for HBH (handsome black hairy aka admin).

It's a change from the recent status quo and we can adapt.

Very true! And, I didn't know about the 'bump' in threads either due to the 'don't' thread being what I call dumb-y proof...:)This dumb-dumb didn't read it or know about that:)Do now..>Skeat

gaigai, I applaud your approach to calculate the stats. Normally, it's the most logical and unbiased way to understand the situation.

But some time ago (not that long ago), Patrice did a major clean up job on the GCC section going all the way back to the very beginning. I don't remember the exact numbers as I cross-referenced the database, but it was well into thousands of posts. So your stats are off. You are now looking at the sanitized GCC, not at the natural state of it.

I want to get rid of stickies, but for a different reason.
We need to limit them so that when an announcement needs to be made, it doesn't get lost among 5-6 other stickies floating at the top.

for statistics:

Some Rules for the General Chit-Chat section (updated June 30, 2009) - this topic had 497 views as of a minute ago

The Recent Changes . . . this topic had 4,278 views

Perhaps a few members overlooked the posting at the very top of the page?

That's not going to be a fair poll. That's why I haven't done it yet.

As I mentioned above, there is one more group of people we need to consider: people who are about to become users.

They are the least vocal group (for obvious reasons), but if we turn this place into something that turns off outsiders, the community will stagnate.

I get most feedback from people using the suggestion box in the newsletter, not the PMs here. So I get a glimpse of what they are thinking.

As I mentioned above, I'm looking for a compromise that lets the existing members "have some fun" and/or a "kleenex moment", while the new (or potential) members don't get turned away by a mass of "irrelevant" content.

A good system should allow both groups to enjoy the board and help transition new members into established ones, who also consider this community to be their extended family.

This is aside from the issue of existing members having different thresholds for fun/sad tolerance. But it also needs to be kept in mind.

There is not much we can do about that, aside from starting a banner campaign "advertising" the new rules. And even then, some people won't read them.

I'm going to update the "rules" sticky topic in GCC once I have the new guidelines finalized. The title will reflect the date of the last change.

At that point, I consider it to be the responsibility of the users to spend a few minutes and familiarize themselves with the updated guidelines.

Most probably won't do it. And they will get their posts deleted eventually, which will "force" them to actually read the rules.

This is how I think it's going to happen.