The mods had discussed this issue previously and it was agreed that all invasion/meet-up threads would go in Fan Gatherings forum.

As you know, that's where I moved your thread Melissa

Agreed , especially since hardly anyone looks at 'the 'Fan Gathering' forum

Dewrede said:

Practically everybody who has no power to do anything about it agrees.

(And sosgemini, I don't see why anybody needs to get snappy. I am in the prince.org site discussion forum discussing a prince.org site issue, and my opinion happens to differ from yours. )


The fate of the world doesn't ride on any of this. I'm just telling you, as a been-here-freakin'-forever orger, that I think the current policy is the wrong call.

I'd rather that they be in the GD and not be sticky until a couple weeks prior than be in Fan Gatherings and be sticky forever.

I think Fan Gatherings should be for discussing Prince parties/meetups and that org meetups should be discussed in the general discussion forum. A lot of GD dwellers don't visit the Fan Gatherings forum because they aren't thinking, "gee, I wonder what the local fams are doing this weekend?" Inavsions are an entirely different thing, and a really SPECIAL thing that add a whole lot to this place as a community. As I say, I don't think they need to be sticky forever, but if they are, I have no problem with that. They are great threads that deserve the attention.

(And sosgemini, I don't see why anybody needs to get snappy. I am in the prince.org site discussion forum discussing a prince.org site issue, and my opinion happens to differ from yours. )


The fate of the world doesn't ride on any of this. I'm just telling you, as a been-here-freakin'-forever orger, that I think the current policy is the wrong call.


edit
[Edited 2/14/06 9:37am]

SeattleInvasion said:

umm..when and where was i getting snappy?

SeattleInvasion said:

I see what youre saying, but if we dont make the thread a sticky, and leave it in GD, we'll probabbly get complaints as well, because people will have trouble finding it if noone posts on it for a couple days.

Tom said:

Well, c'mon, we'll ALWAYS have things to complain about. It's just a matter of minimizing them.

Let me put it this way: I think the goal with moderation policies should be to do the best thing for the community, not to do the best job of putting threads in little logical piles. I can see why a person would shove Invasion threads into the FG forum, because it sort of seems like the closest fit on the face of it, but it just doesn't really make sense in the larger context of the org.

Maybe we should have an Invasion forum. That would keep all of those pesky followup/picture threads contained too.

SeattleInvasion said:

I mentioned it before that it would probabbly help to rename the forum from Fan Gatherings to something more neutral. You bring up another important point, after the invasions, everyone wants to share their pics and experiences, wouldn't it be easier if they were all in one forum, rather than having to sift through GD to find them all?

I'm behind Tom with this one, and agree with both of his points - the excuse often trotted out that 'nobody goes there' is because y'all too lazy to click into the right forum! Otherwise we may as well have a few political and religious thread in Prince: Music & More, and the Grammy sticky in The Marketplace. It's not as if you gotta walk across town, it's a click of a button. The sooner people get used to actually using it then the more people will frequent it.

I'm sure it wouldn't be a problem to rename the forum 'Org Invasions' or maybe those that create Invasion threads can vote on a suitable name that encompases what they're after - then you'll have your very own playground to get invaded in

My

The thing I don't like about having Invasion threads in GD is that--for months-- you first start seeing tons of the pre-Invasion planning threads, then come all of the "I can't wait, only a few weeks/days" threads, then there are the threads the Invaders make during the Invasion, and then finally are the post-Invasion threads with pics and "I miss you guys so much". And there are TONS of them.

I think it's great that Orgers get together, don't get me wrong, but GD gets way clogged up with those threads. And since only a handful of people actually go to the Invasions, it seems like you guys should just have your own forum to discuss your time together, and Fan Gatherings is exactly the place to do it. Maybe it should be renamed to Fan Gatherings/Invasions?

Plus, there's enough mention of the Invasions in other GD threads that anyone reading will know where to go to talk about them. I mean, unless someone is really new here, in which case, they're probably spending most of their time in the P music section, not knowing that the party is in GD.
[Edited 2/14/06 12:59pm]

AnotherLoverToo said:

A handful go to each one, but as time passes, more and more people have been to one, and I think it has an important (and positive) impact on this place. Lends a sort of cohesion; once you have IRL friends here, it is very hard to leave. I think it also helps create a sense of peope-behind-the-avatars, and elevates the level of. . . dunno. . . humanity? Even if that's not everybody, or even a majority, it affects the culture.

I know there can be a lot of them, though I think for the last couple the participants and mods have actually been pretty good about keeping the threads consolidated.

I think that renaming the forum and moving all Invasion-related threads to it would be an improvement over the current policy.

Which is also to say: it would be enough to make me shut up about it.


cohesion-edit
[Edited 2/14/06 14:39pm]

See, but, Invasions are different than your P&R or Marketplace examples because the they are about the Org. But not the website. The community. The heart of the community is, in fact, the GD.

It's not laziness. That would be stupid. It's that invasions are a different thing from other fan gatherings, so it doesn't occur to people who might be interested in invasions to click into the FG forum. If FG were, in fact, the "right forum", we wouldn't be discussing this.

SeattleInvasion said:

Sorry, you're really grasping at straws there - the heart of this community is the main Prince forum - for this is Prince.org, not generaldiscussion.org!

As for 'it not occuring to people to click on the Fan Gatherings forum' - that's because as mentioned previously they're too lazy to use it, or are scared of not being noticed there. It is in fact, the correct forum, and this was discussed, in detail, both on the site and behind the scenes some time back. It was decided that with fair warning (of which there was) ALL future invasion threads after a cut off date would be placed in the Fan Gatherings forum where they belong. Nothing has changed since those discussions.

There's a whole forum dedicated to Invasions threads and the like, so go and use it - the more of you that do so, then the more popular it will become. Until then, call them what you like - they're still fan gatherings! Any problems and you can rely on your friendly neighbourhood mod to gladly relocate them to Fan Gatherings on your behalf

BananaCologne said:

I disagree about PM&M being the heart of the community. The impetus, sure, but while you could have a Prince discussion site without the GD, you could not have The Org (the community) without the GD.

Fan gatherings? Sorry, no. If you go to a home and garden show in Montana and it just so happens that all of the people there are middle-aged white women, does that make it a middle-aged white woman gathering? No, it's a home and garden show. The population atttending it just happened to be from Montana. Yeah, most (not all!) orgers first came here because they were Prince fans, so that's the population we're drawing from, but he isn't the point of the Invasions! The point is to meet up with other memebrs of this community.

Now, clarify for me. . . you say ALL invasion threads. . . so the mods were already supposed to be moving, say, the post-invasion picture threads into FG? I don't think I've ever seen that happen.

I disagree about PM&M being the heart of the community. The impetus, sure, but while you could have a Prince discussion site without the GD, you could not have The Org (the community) without the GD.

Fan gatherings? Sorry, no. If you go to a home and garden show in Montana and it just so happens that all of the people there are middle-aged white women, does that make it a middle-aged white woman gathering? No, it's a home and garden show. The population atttending it just happened to be from Montana. Yeah, most (not all!) orgers first came here because they were Prince fans, so that's the population we're drawing from, but he isn't the point of the Invasions! The point is to meet up with other memebrs of this community.

would a name change to prince/org invasion help matters?

I think that renaming the forum and moving all Invasion-related threads to it would be an improvement over the current policy.

Which is also to say: it would be enough to make me shut up about it.

SeattleInvasion said:

Yeah - that's called a fan gathering. Oh God, make it stop, my sides are hurting!



...I think she missed the fact that I had already mentioned that possibility in my first post.

SeattleInvasion said:

Judging by her last post I think she was too busy confusing herself to notice

BananaCologne said:

I think the point she is trying to make is that many folks think of the fan gathering forum as public events that have exclusively to do with Prince, such as Prince nights at clubs and such and go well beyond 'org' functions, while the invasions have little to do with Prince. They are about meeting the people we've already gotten to know and love on the org, in the community. Sure, Prince talk may happen at some point, but it's not the focus of the event. And while most invasions have a 'come one, come all' open attitude, it's not quite the same as, say, an event in a public place open to anyone who may purchase a ticket. It's not exclusionary, but it's like having an open house. Bring some friends, but you don't necessarily want the homeless guy wandering in off the street.

That said, I don't really care where the threads are. I know where to look for them. I think the concern is just that others don't. lol.

SeattleInvasion said:

Yeah - that's called a fan gathering. Oh God, make it stop, my sides are hurting!



...I think she missed the fact that I had already mentioned that possibility in my first post.

SeattleInvasion said:

Judging by her last post I think she was too busy confusing herself to notice

BananaCologne said:

I think the point she is trying to make is that many folks think of the fan gathering forum as public events that have exclusively to do with Prince, such as Prince nights at clubs and such and go well beyond 'org' functions, while the invasions have little to do with Prince. They are about meeting the people we've already gotten to know and love on the org, in the community.

CarrieMpls said:

So should they go in the site discussion then?




just trying to lighten up the discussion..

sosgemini said:

Let's just move them around on a weekly basis. It'll keep people guessing.