Tulsa Now Forum

[Hoss]

Speaking of new boards, I've always been a fan of vBulletin which appears to be what OKCTalk uses as well. Another board I'm on that uses vB has various forums that you can opt in, which sounds like it would resolve the complaints about the Nat'l Politics thread. Users would have to individually opt in to see that forum.

Last I looked, wasn't there a Gallery link at the top of this page?

http://www.tulsanow.org/forum/index.php?action=gallery

[TheArtist]

  I dont' like seeing the national political stuff on here either. I have watched this site get more angry, and more nasty and filthy to boot. Even when a topic starts out as something interesting, say about a local development, it quickly, in one page even,  gets hijacked with irrelevant crap... and then often stays there and turns everyone who would want to talk about the actual thread, off.  I don't want my posts and my name seen in most of the conversations on here anymore.  Some who used to have more insightful things to say, like recyclemichael, now seems to lean mostly on his quips that once would have been lightheared in a decent thread, when added to a bunch of anger and crap, Is now just another idiot piling on and being as annoying as the rest.  I have noticed Conan71 too becoming more sharp and knee jerk political.  And yes, I have started not posting as much and find myself more and more frustrated and wishing the old forum that got me interested in this site, was back.

I think we have gotten too afraid to censor things on here for fear of losing the few posters we have left.  But I have noticed that the other, far more popular forums, that I go to will pounce on even the slightest infraction.  This post of mine would get a stern warning and likely be deleted.  If you don't know why, you have been on this forum too long.

However, I also believe, that if you dont like the way something is, try to change it yourself.  So I will try to start some threads on some topics I would like to talk about and start asking the moderators to do their duty.

 

[godboko71]

There is no need to switch forum software, if this site was upgraded to 2.0.0 RC3 users could ignore boards (there may be a modification to do this in 1.1.x but it would most likely not transfer once the upgrade to 2.0.0 would go through.)

Now I do wish some of the users would learn to not call names and be more respectful to one another. Either way I will do my best to be a bit more active. I will admit I have not been doing my partt of late.

[custosnox]

Speaking of new boards, I've always been a fan of vBulletin which appears to be what OKCTalk uses as well. Another board I'm on that uses vB has various forums that you can opt in, which sounds like it would resolve the complaints about the Nat'l Politics thread. Users would have to individually opt in to see that forum.

I've been a mod on a vbulletin and from that side of it I really liked it.  It also gives a lot of room for customizing

[godboko71]

I've been a mod on a vbulletin and from that side of it I really liked it.  It also gives a lot of room for customizing

Not that I have anything against vB, but SMF is very expandable/customizable as well, though again for the most flexibility the site admins would need to upgrade to 2.0.0 RC3 or wait how ever long for 2 final.

[nathanm]

I feel that the National & International Politics section is inappropriate on this forum. I rarely see much in that section which directly applies to a Tulsa-based forum. I personally know at least two posters who stopped visiting this forum as soon as the National & International Politics threads became the primary focus for this forum

They aren't the primary focus, though. If you want other areas to be more active make posts in them, please.

Some of us like to blow off steam about those subjects with our neighbors. I like to think most of the partisan stuff is contained in that particular subforum and that nobody takes it personally. Either way, it's not as if anyone is clicking your mouse on that subforum. (and if you're using the unread posts feature, the containing forum is clearly labeled)

If other forums are getting contaminated with the political crap, user flagging of off topic posts and slightly increased moderation (so as to monitor what is getting flagged) would solve the issue.

[OpenYourEyesTulsa]

I quit making comments about national or political issues here.  I too felt like it was hurting this forum more than helping.  I go to other sites to gripe about politics or national issues.  I come here to read about and comment about Tulsa.

[Hoss]

Not that I have anything against vB, but SMF is very expandable/customizable as well, though again for the most flexibility the site admins would need to upgrade to 2.0.0 RC3 or wait how ever long for 2 final.

And the fact that SMF is gratis.  vBulletin...not so much.

[Breadburner]

When you ban someone make sure they stay banned.....

[Admin]

SMF would be better than the current format.  One thing that bugs me, and this can easily be fixed by increased moderation, is that Development & New Business should remain just that while anything else should be in either Other Discussion (non-development or political issues) or Chat & Advice (need services, information, etc.).  Also, creating a section for photos like what you see on City Data would be nice.  Streamlining the forum would be a major improvement.

FYI, this is SMF. It is highly customizable but all the mode developers ditched 1.x when 2.x was announced. However 2.x is going to be released around the time we have all jet cars in our driveway. Unfortunately I've run into problems trying to mod the board when the mods have been abandoned by their own authors. We purchased vbulletin but could not get our data ported over from the previous board (snitz) not to mention the roughly $200 annual fee for the pleasure of using their product that is really no better than SMF or PHPbb.

And as mentioned by another poster, there is a photo gallery but it doesn't get much use.

I'm trying to clean up the topics. Unfortunately the most important category, development, is the first postable category and it gets dumped in a lot.

As far as politics, we split them out and put them at the bottom of the board. For a time we also had it visible only to logged-in users. The categories we use are based on the conversations that were happening on the board. National politics was being discussed long before we had a politics category and our goal was to try to separate it from the more relevant discussions. Unfortunately the civility of the discussion in this area seems to be the problem more than the topics themselves.

Additional moderation and technical advice is welcome. Somewhat out of the blue we had two volunteers contact us today. If anyone is familiar with wordpress/smf integration that would be extremely helpful and could lead to an overall site refresh.

[fotd]

When you ban someone make sure they stay banned.....

Oh, now that would dumb TNF down furthur....Guido s/b banned 100 times over. So, how do you not discriminate?

[Admin]

When you ban someone make sure they stay banned.....

We have only banned five "real" people. Two were reinstated at some point but strangely enough, both of them deleted themselves at some point. We try to make and stick to strict guidelines but just like in life, being a buffoon is hard to outlaw.

[Admin]

Oh, now that would dumb TNF down furthur....Guido s/b banned 100 times over. So, how do you not discriminate?

You might want to recuse yourself from this particular topic...

[JeffM]

SMF would be better than the current format.  One thing that bugs me, and this can easily be fixed by increased moderation, is that Development & New Business should remain just that while anything else should be in either Other Discussion (non-development or political issues) or Chat & Advice (need services, information, etc.).  Also, creating a section for photos like what you see on City Data would be nice.  Streamlining the forum would be a major improvement.

Unfortunately, one thing that bugs me is that the once popular "General Discussion" section has now become the "Other Discussion" section.  The "Development & New Business" section and the "PlaniTulsa" sections are separated.  Why is this necessary?.....  Those sections can easily be combined, while leaving a General Discussion section open for somebody like me, who may post about an apt fire this morning or some mishap at one of Kitchell's clubs.....

I lurked on this site for months as a guest before posting for the first time a few years ago.  I was impressed by how Tulsa-centric it was; and it aided my decision whether to move back to Tulsa from Chicago; or move to Rochester or Indy or Grand Rapids or OKC..... if I were still in that situation today, I'd be more likely to tune out TulsaNow and go to Citydata for my info.

I am supportive of downtown development and would have been tempted to try to be active within the organization TulsaNow, but this forum descended into groupthink all too often and I felt there were hidden agendas being pursued by certain posters (TulsaNow members?) who could sign in as "Admin" at any time..... I remember having an argument with someone who accidentally signed in as "Admin" for their next 2 posts.  Which may explain why I currently take the moderating and censorship decisions on this site with a grain of salt....

TulsaNow needs to decide whether this forum is going to be a true Public Forum-- a worthy broad based and thoughtful alternative to citydata or the TW comments section; or whether it simply becomes an outlet for the TN organization to express its own narrowly focused views to a handful of like-minded congregants....

IMHO, anyone who can sign in as "Admin" or "Moderator" should have that title clearly listed on their forum profile.  This is one of the few sites where the Admin or Moderator titles are kept anonymous.... as long as that continues to be the case, I'll post every now and then about my soccer ideas, or engage in the occasional political pissing match.... but beyond that, no need to engage in detailed discussion the way the forum is currently organized.

My two cents.

[fotd]

You might want to recuse yourself from this particular topic...

OK, I'll vacate this thread. But just remember I am the devil's advocate and the devil's disciple here. Just wouldn't be the same without all my evil to counterbalance all the good.