Metropol

I have a controversial suggestion: maybe the forum hasn't as much as the 'regulars' have. It's natural and enticing to look back on the past as some kind of golden age and to propose rules but ultimately it's the members rather than the rules that make up a forum. Clearly a lot of members find TV Forum an enjoyable place to post and those members also tend to be younger.

Basically just arguing that there might be something in the fact that just as TVF is 10 years older, so are the ('founding') members. It's a lot easier to get interested in minutiae (and television presentation is inherently about minutiae!) such as whether a DOG has moved by a few pixels or, yes, rotas, when you don't have more pressing concerns / wider interests / friends, which most older people do have.

/my 2p

cdd wrote:Basically just arguing that there might be something in the fact that just as TVF is 10 years older, so are the ('founding') members. It's a lot easier to get interested in minutiae (and television presentation is inherently about minutiae!) such as whether a DOG has moved by a few pixels or, yes, rotas, when you don't have more pressing concerns / wider interests / friends, which most older people do have.

I think you're wrong, cdd. I still *am* interested in the minutiae of telly graphics, yet am unaware of when it occurs due to the deluge of rota drivel that has taken over the forum.

It's as if a forum for mini cooper enthusiasts has been taken over by a group of people who detail who is currently on duty at the BMW showroom. It may be related, but it isn't interesting / relevant / what the forum was about when it started.

Pete wrote:

cdd wrote:Basically just arguing that there might be something in the fact that just as TVF is 10 years older, so are the ('founding') members. It's a lot easier to get interested in minutiae (and television presentation is inherently about minutiae!) such as whether a DOG has moved by a few pixels or, yes, rotas, when you don't have more pressing concerns / wider interests / friends, which most older people do have.

I think you're wrong, cdd. I still *am* interested in the minutiae of telly graphics, yet am unaware of when it occurs due to the deluge of rota drivel that has taken over the forum.

It's as if a forum for mini cooper enthusiasts has been taken over by a group of people who detail who is currently on duty at the BMW showroom. It may be related, but it isn't interesting / relevant / what the forum was about when it started.

You cant see it, but I am nodding my head with gusto right now

Oh I agree in relation to the rota bores being utter bores - they bore me personally. The thing about fora though is that they are organicly growing/changing things (an even more extreme example of that being DigitalSpy or Diginews). The only resolution to that is draconian moderation and it is clear how well that turns out...

TV Forum is operated as a democracy and I'm not sure that being an old/long-standing member counts for much - nor should it. Being an old standing member myself that's a somewhat depressing realisation, but I don't think it's wrong.

Thinking aloud here, maybe a little bit of the problem is that after "The Lounge" got separated from TVF, those who are members of TVF but not MP have nowhere to post off-topic stuff, so it all gets squeezed in / justified within the existing fora. The solution there of course is to convince more people to join MP, but I recall there was a thread here to that effect with inconclusive results...

Pete wrote:I still *am* interested in the minutiae of telly graphics

AH - Really the minutae or just the broad changes / what you can actually notice from casual viewing? Because I think that's actually a huge part of the issue: i'm interested in the latter but not so much the former anymore. The minutiae thing carries over to presenters too really in the form of 'rota discussion'; I don't think anyone would argue that a permenant change of anchor for the 10' wouldn't be "big news" but a slight alteration in schedule is tedious and not noteworthy in the eyes of 'older' members. The fact is though that presenters are TV presentation: clue in the name and all that. Affection for certain presenters (e.g. Moira Stewart) has been around long before the current breed of rota bores.

What's really the difference between speculating why XYZ is brushing her hair a different way today, and speculating on why the shade of red is ever so slightly different on an aston?

cdd wrote:What's really the difference between speculating why XYZ is brushing her hair a different way today, and speculating on why the shade of red is ever so slightly different on an aston?

one is a bit boring, the other is creeptastic

Well gossipping about celebrities' private lives is hardly new...

...I agree that stuff about these people's lives isn't appropriate to TVF (ironically, MP would be the perfect place for it - not that it would last long here I imagine! - or perhaps DS if the celebrities were more mainstream) - but basically we're trying to say that certain types of presenter commentary are 'appropriate' and other types are not and anything where there's a line to be drawn is going to lead to people coming to differnet conclusions and hence resentment. It doesn't help that, as I mentioned, the people who are keen on this stuff tend to be younger - and are therefore less likely to be able to make that judgment...

cdd wrote: and are therefore less likely to be able to make that judgment...

which is why you say "no" to them. And if they continue to post in a "I'll say what I like" manner as displayed regarding The Brilliant Konnie Huq, you warn / suspend / ban them.

Even when they are a sizeable proportion of the board (approaching the majority?) and when those who acively object are (numerically) a small minority? It comes back to what I'm (admittedly rather tediously) saying about fora being defined by their members.

To reinterate I am PERSONALLY massively in favour of getting rid of anyone who discusses rotas. I'd be more interested in TVF if that were the case. But this kind of thing has to be argued on principles rather than preferences or the majority are alienated, seeing criticism as divisive and that criticism enforced by moderation as draconian.

Thinking about what can practically be done, a good start might be creating a separate forum (rather than just threads) for "presenter chat". That would at least put those who comment on presenters outside that forum unambigiously in the wrong, which is not presently the case.

Speaking of "fixing it", does anyone else have a problem with tvf not remembering viewed topics between different computers? I thought thats what cookies did?

Gavin Scott wrote:Speaking of "fixing it", does anyone else have a problem with tvf not remembering viewed topics between different computers? I thought thats what cookies did?

yes, it's a flippin nightmare. I end up on different pages depending on where I view a topic from.

Gavin Scott wrote:Speaking of "fixing it", does anyone else have a problem with tvf not remembering viewed topics between different computers? I thought thats what cookies did?

No, cookies are to allow your computer to remeber things between visits - hence when on a different computer your cookies are different. What TVF needs is for the server to remember viewed topics between visits. Just needs a simple table in the DB with user id, topic id and last viewed columns. When rendering the topic list, just check if the current user viewed the topic since the last post, if yes, mark it as read, otherwise unread.

Easy