Talk fast

do you mean all threads vanish 90 days after the thread starts, or that threads are locked after 90 days? I'm not sure I understand exactly what is proposed. I'd hate to see eveything vanish, unless you have storage issues.

Many conversations, such as the Lottery, Briar Chapel, school merger, Carrboro downtown transporation study, etc. are ongoing issues. Why block those threads? If someone new comes to OP or to the community, having the thread as ongoing will provide a historical perspective of the issues. I've always been upset when someone starts a new thread on an existing topic--distinguished from starting a new thread on a topic emerging out of a different thread. Conversations stop and start on a regular basis. That's one of the charms of this forum IMHO. I'm sorry to hear you are going to block that 'continuing conversation' option.

Could you explain what you see as the advantages to the new policy or the factors which caused you to propose this?

I disagree with the proposal. With the upcoming election I think there will be a need to get historical information on past topic threads. I agree with Dan, if a new thread is started on a former topic, the readers are only exposed to new posts and cannot make a fair assessment of what has transpired on the issue.

I agree with what others have said about issues lasting longer than 90 days. I use the school funding, school capital, and merger threads to let people know when new events occur on these topics. If you close these threads, and because I lack the ability to create a post (or even get a guest post approved), then this info will be stifled. Maybe that is the desired effect, but it is not clear from the description.

This gets to a larger topic of what the mission of this site is, and I have seen much dialog on this recently in several of the threads.

The media portrays this site as *the* place to discuss politics in Orange county. And I think there is value in having a central place to discuss politics and I would like to see this site serve in that role (and it has, to a large extent).

Other related questions are: Is OP for progressives only? (I consider myself to be progressive). Are non-progressives allowed or encouraged to join in the conversation? It seems to me that this site would be lacking without a variety of viewpoints. I am disappointed that people continue to berate posters rather than focus on the discussion itself.

Anyway, my $0.02.

M

Hi Ruby,

Keep in mind that you can always start threads with links to old posts or refer back to them in your comments.

Q: Who is "you" in this? Most of the commenters and the "90% who are lurkers" are excluded from starting new threads.

Do you really want to create a new post (and thus a new "headline") for a minor update on an old topic?

Please comment on my other comment. Is it an intended consequence that most participants cannot update info on continuing events? Will guest posts be approved more frequently as a result of this new policy?

Also, can you please cite some instances where this has been a problem? I saw that wordpress had these plugins, but I thought their primary goal was to minimize content spam.

Thanks for your patience. As a participant in this site, I just want to understand the rationale behind these changes.

M

I like the 90 day stop. Resurrected threads usually aren't very interesting to me. Maybe if something is important enough to be attached to a retired thread (but not important enough to warrant a new thread) the editor can make the decision to re-open.

I completely sympathize with Ruby and anyone else who feels bored with redundant commentary.

Also, I'm weary of the 'I'm not welcome here because I don't agree' complaint. Ruby has explained ad nauseum what OP is and what it isn't. If not feeling welcome here hurts, I would recommend that people use their personal boundaries and stay away.

This may help some. My experience on OP has been that I express my point of view and I receive no validation in return. No one invited me here. No one asks me to stay. No one asks me to leave. There is no ‘club'.

Considering what Ruby does for me (providing this multiblog) versus what I do for her (probably nothing) I find her worthy of more appreciation and fewer complaints.

Hi,
I'm newish here and still discovering threads of current interest from a year ago or longer. Presumably items of contemporary interest would resurface in current time?
How do people start threads and who does it?
But mainly, a direct quote from Mary R. "Considering what Ruby does for me (providing this multiblog)" and then from me/Diana: "here's massive appreciation and let it be what you make it, which is pretty fine."

I have no problem with whatever rules the editor makes, it is her blog, but I think 90 days is too short.

I would note that in her reply of 8:36 this morning, the Editor states:
"As for Diana and Mark's question, anyone can propose a new thread. You simply have to register here, draft the post, and then e-mail us for approval and/or editing. This was announced last month. Some authors such as myself, Dan Coleman and a few others can post directly. As usual, we make no promises about publishing guest entries, so if it's long I recommend you contact us first so as not to waste your time."
and the words "This was announced last month" are a hyperlink that goes to THIS thread, not to whatever thread told users how to submit a guest post. Can we please have a link to the post on how to submit a guest post, as I missed that when it was originally posted?

I'm against the idea as well, unless old threads are bogging down the system.

perhaps there's some third path. After 90 days the editor might deem a thread worthy of life or let it die. I wouldn't miss the passing of the coffee thread. I thought that Terri and Andrea had some good points about ongoing issues eg. school merger. One way to work around that would be to link to older threads. That way newer readers, or in my case senile readers, could see what has been said before. That might be hard though. I see at the top of the page that OP is up to 524 posts and 9964 comments. That's a lot of history to sort through. So basicly I think it's a good idea and after 86 more days we should stop debate on this subject. :-)

Ruby--is there anyway that comments from one thread can be moved to another if the discussion is ongoing? For example, we started the Walmart discussion under the Briar Chapel thread. If you search on Walmart, 13 threads show up, but only 2 are directly related to the Starpoint Walmart. If the comments from the Briar Chapel discussion had been moved to the Walmart is Coming thread, then all of the pertinent information is contained within one thread and won't be lost by all the other non-specific Walmart references. Plus, when a new thread was created after the old one expires, only one hyperlink would need to be remembered as reference.

So I see the new policy has been implemented. Ijust went to post an update on the lottery (Would Orange Play the Lottery?) and there was no Add Your Comment.

http://www.ncpolicywatch.com/cms/?p=474
FYI: Then there is the lottery. Reportedly, it is now a major topic of discussion in the private meetings between legislative leaders. The latest word is that the final budget agreement will not include the lottery itself, but will contain provisions that amend the lottery bill already passed by the House.

That would mean that the Senate would still have to vote on the lottery on its own and at last check there were still five Senate Democrats against the lottery. All 21 Senate Republicans will vote against it, meaning the bill would fail by a single vote unless someone was persuaded to change his or her mind. Easley said Thursday that every day the state doesn't have the lottery, the state loses a million dollars.

It is also true that every day the state doesn't have the lottery is another day that poor people are not targeted by their own government that's trying to convince them to waste their money on a one in tem million chance of striking it rich. Every day that the state doesn't have the lottery is another day to celebrate.

Let me add my two cents worth a full 12 days after the last comment. :)

Maybe we should do it like popcorn. When I microwave popcorn I know it's ready when more than two seconds elapse without a pop. Maybe we can keep a thread until two weeks elapse without a comment.

Speaking of new topics, whaddya have to do to enter the elite class of those who can post them?