Social media is what happened to it. It's not "social" at all and is eroding what's left of common courtesy, politeness, and the social graces usually accorded to another human during actual face to face interaction.
I agree 100% It sounded like some people alluded to posters setting up new accounts just to pump you guys for information. Isn't there a way to cross reference IP addresses with accounts? So people can not set up multiple accounts. I'm not a tech guy, but I thought that was possible.
Just to be clear, I think you guys are hilarious, not mean. My wife doesn't know you the way I do. Also, I thought I remembered my first post here - this was not the first vintage watch site I found, and I had no idea how much of my time was going to be spent on here (orders of magnitude more than anywhere I've ever been online) and I thought I did think of the site as a search engine. I looked up my first post and was surprised to find it was an intro with pictures of my then only vintage. Guess I'm politer than I thought. This site is a resource, but its the people that make the site. I could use so many examples of specialists with skills in areas that just can't be found anywhere else...
Bluntly, The old world courtesy and class, the diversity of countries and of cultures means just as much to me as the horological expertise. Screw it, I don't mean the "old world", I mean the correct, proper world !! I'm tired of the new age being an excuse for people not to show respect and courtesy, the new age can just be an excuse to be a selfish user.
As a new member and someone who works in technology (as a manager of developers, BAs and PMs for enterprise software), I have been thinking of ideas that may smooth out some of the noise experienced on this site. My apologies for the long post. In no particular order.... Issue 1 Poor first posts from new members that seem to disappear Recommendation Allow new members to join, read all they want, but prevent them from posting for say two weeks. The core of this site consists of people who are passionate about watches and willing to help each other. Someone who matches that description I suspect will be willing to wait. People using this site for a quick answer I suspect won't. Issue 2 Dealer posts in the For Sale section Recommendation I saw a reference to this issue in another post which I had been thinking about. What if we re-organized the For Sale section to look somewhat similar to the members section? You can see all the members who are selling and click on them to see their listings. We could add details such as if they're a dealer or private seller, how many items they're selling, their feedback from buyers, etc. We could even possibly tie in a "watch" feature (no pun intended) where members can be alerted when someone has listed a new item for sale. There are some members here who when selling I'm sure people would be interested in being notified. Issue 3 Searching for / finding information on the site Recommendation There's a good search feature on the site, and there is a lot of good information on the site, however it's not always easily found. One issue I've run into personally is not knowing what information is actually here. A simple example I recently saw was someone who saw a strap in a photograph they liked and then asked for recommendations regarding where to shop for straps. This topic has been covered on more than one occasion I'm sure. If there was a "Library" section and the ability to tag threads with say a pre-defined list of topics, the members of the site could mark threads appropriately for the Library. Not all threads would or should be marked, but if there's a thread regarding straps, mark it as such. Users could then go to the Library, see the pre-defined topics, click on straps and see all the threads marked as straps and hopefully find what they're looking for. There are doubtless other ways to accomplish this, but the end goal should be an easy way for members to tag threads along certain themes and then make it easy to find and read through those themes. I imagine these aren't new ideas for those that maintain the site, but as someone who's expertise is system design (and not watches (for now at least, I'm trying to learn)) I felt compelled to join the conversation and say that I'm interested in helping. If someone would like to speak to me further, please send me a PM. Cheers, Michael
All good points. Now, if the mods could create a badge (like the FS and WTB badges) to flag threads that are exceptionally funny, where one member is really giving the business to another member, which digress completely away from the original topic, and photos of cats, squirrels or other creatures are posted. That's the joy of this forum, that n00bs like me discover only if they stick around.
Very good observations. Does it seem to anyone else that we don't see a good thread-jack these days as often as we used to? It's a call for us to recommit ourselves.