I think we just have a problem of too many people being assholes which might just discourage conversation.

http://www.ohiochatter.com/forum/showthread.php?39614-The-use-of-the-words-quot-hater-quot-quot-enemy-quot-and-quot-evil-quot

O-Traps thread, someone questioning why this is it's own thread.

http://www.ohiochatter.com/forum/showthread.php?39619-quot-Draft-Day-quot-movie-to-be-filmed-in-Cleveland

My thread, someone questioning why it's a thread when the topic was buried in the Cleveland Browns thread (Also, I also think "Mega-Threads" are bad for new topics and conversation as information just gets lost and they are cumbersome to follow as opposed to individual threads which are easier to catch up on)

http://www.ohiochatter.com/forum/showthread.php?39618-Did-Black-Masters-Own-Slaves

A thread that was meant only to instigate in the first place.

http://www.ohiochatter.com/forum/showthread.php?39620-%93Word-that-Song%94

Belly's thread. I tried to respond to get some flow to it, but Sonofanump doing similar to what he did to my thread earlier and just posting something that doesn't further discussion but just shutting it down.

http://www.ohiochatter.com/forum/showthread.php?39615-Champaign-Ill

A thread that is just "Trolling" by it's very nature as it's only purpose is to make fun of legitimate discussion in other threads.

And then

http://www.ohiochatter.com/forum/showthread.php?39598-Acts-of-Kindness

Not same topic as this one actually generated discussion. But there were a couple posts (Like_That) and SportandLady in there that clearly were just trying to instigate and not actually add to the discussion.

I would say that there are some people that do enjoy just being assholes and dicking around with other assholes all the time.

Another example is RDI's initial post towards Manhattan BUckeye in:

http://www.ohiochatter.com/forum/showthread.php?39599-Words-that-need-to-die/page2

I edited out bukkake, but the whole thing was pretty uncalled for.

The way people act here can stifle conversation (I'm not talking about the basement, but the general behavior in other forums). If you can't say something without getting smarmy, smart-aleck, assholes type responses, then why post?

I kind of ended up rambling on and the past few threads weren't towards what was my original intent. But basically I think two things limit the creation and flow of new conversation.

1) The attitude of a certain subgroup of posters that generally just chime in to not add anything useful and toe the line on breaking the rules.'

2) Mega threads tend to limit the creation of new threads as information just keeps getting lumped into them and not analyzed in depth. Yes, sometimes information doesn't have enough behind it to merit a discussion on it's own. But there is a lot tha can get lost or passed over in those threads pretty quickly. The only example I have of that here is the Kevin Costner movie news.


These are just my thoughts after just looking over the new threads in Serious Business. An I only bring this up since Justin has been advocating for us to create new threads to spur on discussion.