Suggestions for improving the site and forum | Page 11 | Fab Forum | The Beatles Bible

Joe said

Smileys – I can replace the emoticon characters with Beatles smileys, but it looks like it might not be an overwhelmingly popular move. I think the only one that automatically converts is the winking face – if you type ; ) without the space in between you’ll get

The wink and the heart are the only ones I’m aware of.

; )
(this one saves me lots of time)

< 3

And although I never use the yellow ones, I like the variety.

As for an app, I don’t think it’s necessary, and I use my phone most of the time. The mobile version is very user friendly and an app seems too difficult to create.

And if you really want a shortcut, you can add websites to your home screen on iOS devices in Safari. I don’t know about Androids, but they’re more versatile so there should be a way on them too.

Nice.

In what context would it be used?

Asked and answered.

I realise the chances of this idea being adopted are somewhere between nil and zero, @Joe, but thought I would float it anyway.

Thinking about some recent events, what about having a thread for posts that are judged to badly derail another thread. I’m only suggesting this for proper Beatles discussion threads, not for All Together Now  threads (though wouldn’t exclude them if the post proved too out of keeping), and I’m not talking about daft asides or side comments/questions that are sparked by a conversation.

I’m talking about those posts that throw a conversation completely, the most obvious recent example being the Song structure analysis and terminology thread, which it seems is still being disrupted by the same individual. If somebody is not prepared to play nicely, rather than have a conversation disrupted, a mod could simply move it to a thread set up for disruptive posts, saying where it came from. Avoids locking a thread, avoids deleting posts (which I’d agree should only happen rarely), but prevents a good thread being spoiled by disruption, while allowing someone to argue why their post was appropriate to the thread it had been posted in, and were you to decide that they were right, it would slot right back in from where it was moved.

By creating such a thread, you could keep Beatles discussion threads clean of the worst derails, that currently stay for posterity, without censoring anybody unless what they post is in some way offensive. Someone might also learn, if they kept having posts shifted, what is appropriate to a thread and what they should put elsewhere if they’re determined to say it.

Seems to me, so long as badly off-topic posts are left where they are, there is no discouragement for people not to make them. Whereas, if they knew they’d be moved to a thread of posts considered to be derailing, they might come up with a thread where – however wild – their opinions could be rightly discussed.

Crazy idea, I know!!!

Basically, @Starr Shine?, yes! I would describe it more as a tributary off the main river of discussion though, somewhere to siphon off the sewage that sometimes dirties up good constructive conversations.

Nor would I lock it. If people are going to get responses should it be left where it is, there should the opportunity for responses where it is moved to (even if it’s only, “No wonder this was moved here! What were you thinking!”). If an individual thread could be locked for editing (apart from by mods) I’d think that was a good idea.

Having been one, and looked at recent examples, I just wondered if it might give the mods a different way to handle certain disruptive posts, preserving the dignity of the forum and individual threads.

By the way, now I know where my posts are on the backup forum!