General Discussion changes

[MMM]

Originally Posted by dogsbody70

only Japan or Asia connnected.?

I think you missed the "and/or" distinction.

[dogsbody70]

yes but JAPAN/ASIA still limits to those areas?


but elsewhere is not allowed? why?


There are many discussions about Japan oriented subjects

you truly wish to restrict this wonderful forum and the wealth of members from around the world.

Isn't it a tremendous opportunity to learn to understand one another?

Am I not allowed to write about anything but Japan affairs etc?


I often would really love to hear from native japanese to hear their views.

but I guess they have their own forums and can use their own language.

[CoolNard]

Originally Posted by dogsbody70

yes but JAPAN/ASIA still limits to those areas?


but elsewhere is not allowed? why?


There are many discussions about Japan oriented subjects

you truly wish to restrict this wonderful forum and the wealth of members from around the world.

Isn't it a tremendous opportunity to learn to understand one another?

I don't understand how MMM and MissMisa haven't answered you, dogsbody. You CAN talk about other things, other than Japan-oriented subjects, as long as they fulfill either of the first two criteria of thread-composition, as per stated in this thread.

What I said once: To be blunt, well, we're trying to keep things strictly Japanese here. If we have one thing, we're gonna lose the right to limit others, who want another thing. If we refuse them, we'll get accused of favoritism or being biased. If we let 'em, that beats the point of this being called "Japan Forum".

This is not a haphazard guess, but something that has happened before and turned JF upside down, apparently. No one wishes for a repeat.

Your other alternatives to the wealth of acquaintances are available via the Chat thread, PM'ing, the JF live chat system, Facer, Pics your life and show us your style threads, or other forums. They aren't limited to Japan/Asia topics.

[Nyororin]

A topic just has to fulfill ONE of the criteria - not all of them.

The general discussion area used to be so full of pointless topics and random posts like "Hey, my day sucked" and "OMG it started raining!" that it was entirely impossible for any decent discussion to hang around. Topics worth discussing were buried deep under hundreds of random outbursts.

So the rules were changed so that topics need to fulfill some very basic criteria - one or more of those listed by MMM.

[dogsbody70]

Originally Posted by MMM

After reading the discussions about JF opinions we changed the scope of the General Discussion area.

See new rules below:

4.5 General Discussion is for threads that don't fit into any of the other categories. HOWEVER that does not mean that any topic is appropriate for General Discussion. Along with following the above rules, General Discussion threads should be
1) Relevant and inclusive to a majority of JF users
and/or
2) Timely and current (i.e. related to upcoming holidays, news or events).
and/or
3) Japan/Asia related

How do I know what is relevant and inclusive?

[RobinMask]

Originally Posted by dogsbody70

How do I know what is relevant and inclusive?

I think it's a matter of 'common sense', so to speak. For example the topics about marraige and politics at the moment are relevant and inclusive, because these things affect nearly everyone, but I imagine the 'omg, my day sucked' example only affects that one person, so it's not relevant to the majority of users

[MMM]

Originally Posted by dogsbody70

How do I know what is relevant and inclusive?

It's like obscenity. I can't define it, but I know it when I see it.

"My mom doesn't understand my love for apple sauce," or "I love my boyfriend, but he smells like eggs," are the types of threads that have been started in the past that clutter up the boards. That is why we made The Chat Thread so that random musings and personal issues can be discussed without squeezing Japanese language and music discussions off the front page.

[TalnSG]

I think Keaton gave an excellent example of what is not fitting.
I remember when I would pull up "New Posts" and find more game threads (not Japanese made or related) than on web sites for just that purpose.

I see quite a lot of benefit to posts about countries other than Japan, but only as they relate to Japan. If I want a more in-depth discussion of another country (Korea and China, in my case), there are plenty of other sites on the net that are more appropriate.

What I see no point to are threads completely devoted to clearly non-Japanese topics cluttering up the main topics. They are fine off in Chat or somewhere that I can eliminate from my browsing, unless I am in the mood for them.

[Columbine]

Originally Posted by dogsbody70

yes but JAPAN/ASIA still limits to those areas?


but elsewhere is not allowed? why?


There are many discussions about Japan oriented subjects

you truly wish to restrict this wonderful forum and the wealth of members from around the world.

You have to also consider- the only people who would benefit from extraneous discussion posts about other countries would be the posters in those threads. I'm sure Russia is lovely and fascinating and all that; but it's not what I come -here- to read about. And it's not what drift-in-drift-out or new users are looking for either. You google 'Japan', the forum pops up and at present, much of the relevant information people are looking for about Japan is readily visible and accessible- the language help, the travel info, the daily life info and the basic culture questions. And they are ~consistently~ there. It's part of what makes JF a valuable internet resource. On a massive forum like this, it's no good saying 'oh, but it's there if you just go here and skip back 30 pages or so', because the n00bs don't know that. Honestly, if the first time i'd logged on and it had been a solid front page of Hungarian dining traditions, gamer chat and "LOL, a dog in a wig!" posts, I would have backed out quite quickly assuming no one knew anything useful. And I'd have missed out.

So it's kind of a matter of 'time and a place' constraint. I mean, personally, I've got a lot of things I talk about on the internet, but it's kind of niche topics. Rambling about classic British children's literature of the early 1900's or the evolution of cheese-producing societies here is not really 'inclusive' and it pretty much excludes Japan by definition. Worthy of discussion, sure, in someone's opinion it's not spam, but this isn't the place for it and you aren't the people for it either. So I'd find other communities for that. If someone wants to PM me or ask me about it in the chat thread here; awesome. I'd have a good natter, but I'm not going to make a thread about it, because it's inappropriate even though it isn't offensive.

[carinazhang]

I am confused