Kill the Lounge!

[Frank Petronio]

Yeah keep the lounge. if you don't like it don't visit it. Who is it hurting?

If management decides to kill the topics and threads that get the most views and hits, isn't that going against the will of the majority? I mean base it on web stats. By that measure, maybe we should kill off the morbid alternative processes and other lower quantity topics?

To me, killing the lounge sounds like a troll or crank post!

[Dan Fromm]

Ole, I'm sort of with you. I'd be with you more strongly, though, if I ever looked at posts in the lounge. I just avoid it. As long as the lunacy is safely confined there ...

Cheers,

Dan

[Michael Daily]

While I agree the topics and threads in the lounge go off in unusual directions, I don't agree it should be removed. It may be misused and/or abused at times, but overall it's worthwhile to have it for subjects somewhat related, or not. All you have to do is decide not to view it or read the threads. It's not the lounge that's bad, only those who post or respond to off-topic threads. Don't shoot the piano player if people can't dance.

I agree.
Michael Daily

[Michael Mutmansky]

I agree.
Michael Daily

I strongly disagree. The Lounge is providing a forum for knowingly OT posts, and some of these posts become a platform for controversial opinions unassociated with LF photography.

Why waste the bandwidth on a bunch of losers and mental midgets who get off spouting on the internet? If the LF Forum wishes to be the roost for vultures then so be it, but it is not something I have an interest in contributing to. The Lounge taints the entire forum in this manner.

There was a time when this forum was a good place for on-topic discussions with relatively little controversy that anyone outside the LF world would notice. Some individuals have chipped away at that and are continuing to do so through the Lounge in particular.


---Michael

[Sal Santamaura]

If management decides to kill the topics and threads that get the most views and hits, isn't that going against the will of the majority?

This is no more a majority rule operation than government in the US is. Ole's suggestion, under the category of "Feedback," was simply input to site's owner. Tuan's decisions are final. It's not how many are speaking/watching that counts, it's who Tuan listens to.

[Patrick Quinn]

The Lounge taints the entire forum in this manner.

There was a time when this forum was a good place for on-topic discussions with relatively little controversy that anyone outside the LF world would notice. Some individuals have chipped away at that and are continuing to do so through the Lounge in particular.

---Michael

Does anyone have a tiny little violin to play a sad sad tune on?

But while we are at it, why not ban a certain person from posting in any threads on Pyro? That would raise the reputation of the list considerably

[Frank Petronio]

Hmm, I only see a few "controversial" threads there. It looks like a lot of the threads are actually pretty tame and good-spirited. Charities, helping people, happy events, Flickr links, etc.

Discussing life and death, war and politics, sex and religion amongst photographers is dangerous though. Innocent photons and electrons are involved, as well as entire molecules and energy waves -- Heaven help us if we corrupt them.

Maybe someone should start a new thread for sharing their Sphincter Relaxation Techniques? It sounds like some people here really need that information.

Or they need to get a life. Griping about the Lounge is even lamer than being one of the "losers" who are active in it.

[Oren Grad]

I don't find the current long-running hit production in the Lounge to be terribly enlightening, and I don't participate in it.

But I don't understand the guilt-by-association thing. On the contrary, I think it's quite admirable that (a) we are able to compartmentalize those discussions pretty cleanly, at least so far, and (b) many folks who appear on a superficial glance at their rhetoric to be at each others' throats in the Lounge are able to participate helpfully and in good humor in on-topic threads in the main body of the forum. If I insisted on applying so stringent a standard to the discussion threads that occur under the sponsorship of all sorts of other institutions I'm affiliated with - my alma mater, former employers, my clients, professional societies I've belonged to, and on and on - I'd have to live the life of a hermit.

And again, it's easy to ignore the stuff, for anyone who finds it truly offensive rather than just silly.

If there were a bandwidth issue I'd drop it in an instant, because then it would be impinging on the main purpose of the forum. But the moderators assure us there's not.

[tim atherton]

BTW - regarding the current "naughty" thread - Zarkawi - it was obviously a tongue in cheek take on a serious topic - the use of photography in government propoganda(which of course links back to our friends Walker Evans and Dorothea Lang etc among others)

[Wayne Crider]

Nah - keep the lounge. Get rid of the whiners - that's where all the bandwidth goes.. :-)

It may be that many here don't frequent Apug's lounge, so I think it nice to have an area here where all else goes that just can't seem to fit a category. I would tho restrict the conversation and not allow the personal crap, except birthdays or death's, and not anything related to politics and religion. Pissing about loosing a cable release for the upteenth time or forgetting to re-install the dark slide would be fine.