Matters beyond the Forum: an appeal

[julie_m]

It's a fact of life that a discussion can segue naturally from matters concerning vintage electronic equipment (which are welcome here) to matters such as mechanical clocks, cars, modern electronics, steam engines or politics (which are not). So sometimes, threads veer off-topic and get closed.

Nowadays it is trivially easy, and free, to start a personal blog, where you can -- within certain limits -- set your own rules as to what may or may not be discussed.

So how would the moderation team feel about being asked to reopen a closed thread just to post a single link to an off-site blog post, where discussion could be continued in the comments section?

Is it a good thing, because it keeps the forum strictly on topic and avoids fomenting ill feelings by providing a graceful way out? Or is it a bad thing, because it diverts traffic away and reduces this Forum to a proliferation of links outside the control of Forum staff?

How would other users feel, about adjourning somewhere else to continue a discussion? Presumably at least one of the people involved in the discussion as it strayed would be sufficiently motivated to set up another discussion somewhere else, if they knew they could be followed there by the other interested parties.

As long as it were not abused, I think a system of allowing graceful withdrawal to private blogs to continue a conversation that would be verboten here would be a good compromise. And once a group of people sharing a common interest beyond the remit of this Forum became regular followers of each other's blogs, they would (a) feel less need to spam this forum with advertisements for themselves, and (b) learn to spot the approaching padlock icon before it descended.

[fetteler]

Don't see a problem with that myself, in fact I think it could be a good thing, still possibly open to certain abuse but hey, we're all decent folk here aren't we??

Steve.#

[Paul Stenning]

If the discussion is continuing elsewhere, whether it is another forum or a personal blog or whatever, then I see no problem is us adding a link to the end of a closed thread about that. It would be useful for those interested in the subject at the time and in the future.

Just send a PM to one of the mods or use the Report Post option to send us the information.

[vidjoman]

A thought - who is to check that the links work after say 2 years has passed. Might be a dead link, could have been taken over by unsavory hosts etc. I've looked it an American site via Yahoo groups which is supposed to be about a particular brand of jukebox. Most of it is unintelligible rubbish, even though it started with the best of intentions. I don't think it works to link to other sites or blogs over which there is no ongoing monitoring.
Much prefer to stay withing boundaries of a closely monitored set of rules, even if we do slightly stray at times. A short reprimand 'to stay on topic' is all that's required.

[Paul Stenning]

Dead links and changed links over time are inevitable and it isn't practical to check every external link on the site - there will be loads of them. If someone reports a dead or changed link we will fix or remove it but that's all we can realistically do.

[Skywave]

Originally Posted by julie_m

How would the moderation team feel about being asked to reopen a closed thread just to post a single link to an off-site blog post, where discussion could be continued in the comments section?
How would other users feel, about adjourning somewhere else to continue a discussion?

Since you have asked, my concern is this. To protect the good name of the forum, its reputation and its protection against possible legal issues, (thinking of what happened to the 'e-bay section' in the past, for example) that 'single link' needs to clearly state that any comments appearing in said off-site blog are not under the control of the owner and moderators of this forum.
Although I'm confident that such a requirement is obvious to those who are responsible for maintaining the existence of this forum and its moderation, I thought I'd mention it just to be on the safe side: I value my membership of this forum and its existence.

Al.

[Refugee]

I find it useful to look at threads that have been locked down to read only in order to find out why they have been locked. This gives me a live view of how the formal rules are interpreted in the real world.
I have recently asked about posting a link to another site and got the answer "no" and my doubt at to it being allowed was confirmed without dispute or other issues.
Forums with a smaller amount of posts can allow more topics due to there being more time to moderate them. It is down to how much time anyone has to offer in order to moderate a website. Moderators need time to earn money to pay for food at least. A line must be drawn and that has been achieved here.

An example of an optional but nice policy would be when a thread is tidied up and off topic posts have been deleted would be for the moderator to state the direction the thread had begun to drift in so helping us to avoid it happening again. This is not always practical as the moderator may be due to go and do something else in his or her life and will in this case simply not have time to add anything.

It is just a compromise that is life and all we can do is our best.

[paulsherwin]

We do try to post an explanation when closing threads. In the vast majority of cases threads are closed because mods think they have run their course and are starting to ramble, or are becoming problematic. We will always consider reopening a thread if there is a good reason to do so.

When individual posts are edited or deleted it is usually because they are OT, confrontational, incomprehensible or violate rules such as posting ebay links.

The mods will sometimes make a 'stay on topic' post when we are concerned about a thread (we call these SOTs). Members shouldn't ignore SOTs as this may result in deletions or closure.

[Paul Stenning]

As this has been answered and is starting to retread the same ground as the previous thread here, it is now being closed.