Raise up, ye heroes!

[MissWalshy]

And if you think some of the topics are pointless then obviously the replies back will justify this by the topic sliding off the board in a matter of days.

[firehazard]

Just one more thing that I omitted from my comment earlier...
I really like the concept of A Thread For Things That Don't Deserve Threads. It's a brilliant catch-all. And a good place to post musings that, deep down, when you post them you know may be fun, or weird, but really belong in that thread. I don't object at all if any contribution of mine finds itself being moved into that thread. At times the whole thread is gloriously surreal in its randomness, especially if you've been away for a while and read a few consecutive pages of it.

And interestingly, within the "Misc" section, it has more views than any other thread, apart from "What Song..."

[MissWalshy]

Well obviously thats because nearly every thread that one starts up gets moved to it?

[firehazard]

Well obviously thats because nearly every thread that one starts up gets moved to it?

Well that ain't necessarily so. I'd guess, though I can't know for sure, that the majority of views on that thread are posted directly into that thread, rather than being moved into it. Anyhow, I like the concept. Maybe that's just me being weird.

[MissWalshy]

No, not weird.

It's good to have a thread where you write random things.

Just threads where people are looking for a bit of a discussion which gets moved into there.. annoys me. I can't see why DzM simply doesn't allow it to fall off the board if its worthless and uninteresting.

[Irish Rover]

I really like the concept of A Thread For Things That Don't Deserve Threads. It's a brilliant catch-all. And a good place to post musings that, deep down, when you post them you know may be fun, or weird, but really belong in that thread.

I agree. I love the fact that there is a thread for random things that people wish to share with others

[philipchevron]

Christine raised the point that there may be a technical issue about capacity. It does seem excessive to copy on most of a thread just to make a one sentence reply. as frequently happens. If there is a capacity issue, I realise that it might be tedious to keep reminding people about it but surely this is the sort of thing the Mods/Janitor could delete with impunity?

On the wider issue, I am thrilled that a website dedicated to the band of which I am a part is so exquisitely well run and attracts such diverse and entertaining people and even welcomes contributions from the band itself. I know ego-strokes are not being sought but that really is my view. Therefore, what's good enough for DZM and the Mods is certainly fine by me, though I also reserve the right to engage in some good-natured ribbing. Pogues fans, like the Pogues, are naturally anti-authoritarian and will always balk at apparent "censorship" or control. That just comes with the territory in a way which it might perhaps not with Level 42.

We all have threads we skip most or some of the time. They certainly don't interfere with my enjoyment of the Forums. Football, current affairs, movies, music - this is seeing the world in the round, a notion I am hugely in favour of.

[Eckhard]

Actually I like the way it works currently. Among all the fora I ever visited this is the one that seems to need the least amount of moderation. And if the mods are doing their job it is generally accomplished in a very elegant manner: Nearly invisibly.

While capacity may something to think about I like the fact that discussion does not necessarily have to be on-topic: I think the Misc-Subforum is a good place to get to know each other better. And even here the signal-to-noise-ratio is much, much better than in most other fora.

In fact this is the only forum or mailing list where I have never ever seen a real flamewar going on.

[Beisty]

I like the way it is, hell I didn't even realise ther ewas a problem until now.

[Heather]

Nothing wrong with keeping the site as it is in my opinion.

Please don't change it just because a few people object to posts being moved and deleted.

[Benno]

i must admit
the senseless deletion of the thread that started all of this
and then the blocking of the thread that followed (miss walshys)
seemed like a prick thing to do

[DzM]

Thank you, everyone, for your feedback so far.

MissWalshy raises some valid questions and points. I'll try to address her major themes (MissWalshy - please correct me if I incorrectly characterize them):

o Manipulation - The examples I provide are extremes for illustration. I hope that's understood. The question that I'm asking is "What do you, the community, want to see? How much is too much? How little is too little." I don't suspect that most of the Medusonariates are so easily manipulated by my examples of extremes.

o Remove the Misc forum, or let it be truly miscellaneous - That's part of the question being asked here. How much do you, the community of users, want us to police Misc? Right now we apply our best judgment. This means that some things that seem like clear candidates for removal survive, and sometimes people feel like their messages or threads are removed without cause. Hence the question - what do all of you want to see?

o Make Medusa bigger and better - For me the success or failure of Medusa has little to do with the size of the community that uses it. It has much more to do with the quality of the conversations (something that is, admittedly, difficult to define other than "I recognize it when I see it"), the mutual respect that the community members have and display for each other (including ribbing, jokes, politics, religion, sports, etc). Success for Medusa, to me, is not about the sum of the words posted or the number of people that posted them.

o I (DzM) will ignore you and do what I want anyway - In the end I'll do what I think is best for Medusa, meets the expectations of the community, and still brings me joy. I believe that it's a relatively simple matter to do all three, but I need to know what the community's expectations are before I can try to meet them. I am adult enough to recognize that my own goals and ideas may not match what the bulk of our users want and to compromise accordingly. That's why this thread exists - I see no better way to learn what people want than to ask them. You're right though - this is not a vote, this is a town hall meeting.

I think I've hit your major themes. Let me know if I've misrepresented them.


Benno - Thank you for your cogent argument.

[Eric V]

I think just letting the oldest stuff fall off is not a good idea. There is a lot of history to Medusa, those who have been here, and then went away. DzM and others have a lot to be proud of. I trust the Mods (funny I'm getting an entirely different picture in my head of them with that name) to weed out the less significant strands and preserve the more significant. I mean lets face it, there's a lot of "me too". And if someone wants to take a conversation way off topic in some band specific grouping, I see nothing wrong with moving it to Misc. Hell, half of us that would care tend to hang out there a lot anyway. I love Misc. I like being able to pop in to the Heather thread to say hi, specifically and publically, because I think its a nice thing to do.... and I like to see that Andy is doing the same because we like Heather. I like offering up to the whole group odd things that happen to me from time to time in the Thread for things That Don't Deserve Threads, and like that occasionally someone has something to say about it. I like mixing it up with some of you on the various political threads, despite my occasional leaving in a huff. I get a lot out of it, and its good to hear different views than I normally hear. Medusa is a really incredible little forum with many dedicated and interesting constituents who seem to like the Pogues and each other a whole lot. The only thing I can think of is that it might need more cowbell. Yes... definitely more cowbell!

[Caukill]

i'm very happy for the mods to act as er... mods & trim the occasional bit of overgrown fora . Hopefully we can also keep the Misc. section too, generally i think it works and it's occasionally good to talk about other stuff other than yer men the Pogues. It nice to share experiences with Medusa users other than 'Whats your favourite song' etc.
I've been a member here for just over a year and it's the only board i ever post on regularly and thats down to the other users and your good selves who provide us with it.
Thanks for the ride so far and i look forward to many more hours spent gazing at this 15" screen, love y'all......

[Alex]

I've been visiting this board right from the start and really enjoyed it. It's great to have reviews, articles etc. posted about our favorite band. Also the input of some band members makes this place worth checking out.

Lately I skipped more or less 80% of the new posts, otherwise i'd spend too much time here
The great thing is, that you don't have to read every bubble. You can decide on your own wether a thread is worth a look. The names of topics help a lot with the judgeing

Zuzanna, DzM and MacRua do a great job, moving threads together or answer almost every question that nobody else would be willing to answer