Ideas & Blurts channel on the discord (slowmode)

[Cogs13]

Not 100% on the idea, but here goes.

Basically, on the discord alot of users have a tendency to blurt out (myself included sometimes) short ideas or half formed thoughts that seemed interesting.

The issue with these is that they are statements that can't really be engaged with in conversation.

To remedy this, a blurts channel could be added to the discord. This channel would have slow mode on set between 2 and 5 minutes(to further emphasize the purpose of the channel). Users could then put their short ideas and blurts into this channel instead, and save the main channels for more substantive discussion. 

Anyways just sticking it here.

[Rynn]

I'm interested to hear what others think on this.

Personally I would be against it. The random shower thoughts some people often throw out with no context, and no real care about anyone else engaging with them, are a problem. They diminish quality of conversation and just generally irritate people for the same reason it would be irritating to have anyone interrupt a conversation to blurt out something only they care about, without any thought to the person they're interrupting.

My concern would be that creating a separate channel would just be a repeat of the memechat issue. It wouldn't actually work to contain the problem and would attract a disproportionate amount of people who have no real interest in contributing or fostering a community. Just in having their own thoughts yelled at everyone else. Which, as with memechat, served to lower overall quality and drove away people who wanted to actually engage.

[Teris]

I don't believe that it would help things as most users never follow up on these ideas. If it's hard to interact with them and the authors never develop them then I do not see the need to record them.

[Drashner1]

From what I recall of the period when the meme channel was on the discord, there was still a fairly constant stream of people posting meme stuff to the other channels and either having to be reminded to use the meme channel or catching themselves after they'd done it and then posting something apologizing and stating they'd moved it. Or mods/admins having to move it for them. All of which is to say that even with the meme channel a fair bit of time on the other channels was taken up with trying to herd the cats into using/sticking to the meme channel.

I rather suspect that an 'ideas and blurts' channel would suffer from the same issue and possibly even be worse since it seems likely that the line between an actual thought out statement vs a 'blurt' could be fuzzy and open to interpretation/debate. I'm also not really a fan of excusing people from the standard rules and expectations of polite conversation just because they are online or young or whatever their excuse may be for feeling they should be exempt from such things.

All up I don't support this idea.

Todd

[Cogs13]

From what I recall of the period when the meme channel was on the discord, there was still a fairly constant stream of people posting meme stuff to the other channels and either having to be reminded to use the meme channel or catching themselves after they'd done it and then posting something apologizing and stating they'd moved it. Or mods/admins having to move it for them. All of which is to say that even with the meme channel a fair bit of time on the other channels was taken up with trying to herd the cats into using/sticking to the meme channel.

I rather suspect that an 'ideas and blurts' channel would suffer from the same issue and possibly even be worse since it seems likely that the line between an actual thought out statement vs a 'blurt' could be fuzzy and open to interpretation/debate. I'm also not really a fan of excusing people from the standard rules and expectations of polite conversation just because they are online or young or whatever their excuse may be for feeling they should be exempt from such things.

All up I don't support this idea.

Todd

Thanks for the response.

1) These points are definitely true, however I think that the idea-blurting would perhaps still have less spill-over than the meme related behavior. I can't really generate the data on this, but I feel that a one to two week test of the idea might not hurt. 


2)IMO the goal is not so much about exempting as it is streamlining a common user behavior. I think if it is about exempting, then there should perhaps be more of a crack down(or maybe just a statement) on the blurts as I think its overall pretty rampant at the moment

That is my two cents anyhow, not feeling too strongly about it.

[Cogs13]

I don't believe that it would help things as most users never follow up on these ideas. If it's hard to interact with them and the authors never develop them then I do not see the need to record them.

I think the short notions can be interesting in and of themselves, especially to scroll through like a weeks worth after they've accumulated. I think there is some benefit there.

And then secondly, even if they are not of interest, the benefit of a designated channel is that they don't post two to three of them per day in the middle of general chat, where other productive conversations might be happening.