Thoughts on guidelines for posting and starting threads.

[paper_clips43]

Feel free to correct me at any point if you disagree with my opinions as I would like to learn more about others perceptions on this topic.

My thoughts are this.

A user starts a thread with a question or a topic. Many experienced members are now allowed and invited to comment and share their opinion on the topic and/or answer the question specifically. I feel that members should basically and usually be talking to the OP and not to other peoples answers. This leaves the OP to make his own decision based upon the evidence given from each individual response. If another member has a problem with someones answer or just would like to debate their answer further then potentially another thread could be started.

Now this sounds good in theory but how would it play out in practice?

Maybe this would contribute to too many topics started and a scattering of information although I am guessing that the opposite would the case.  Threads would now only contain direct information about the topic and be free from distractions. I have experience many many times an interesting thread full of good information as well as many unnecessary squabbles that in reality make the truth harder to find.

I do not think this have to be some sort of rule that people need to follow. I am just sharing my experience and opinion on this matter and anyone is free to interpret it how they wish.

Really the main reason for my post is to express my belief system at this current moment in time so that I may either change them later when I come across new information or maybe this might reinforce my perception and I can now strive for impeccability in all that I post.

[Projectile Vomit]

I generally agree with you. I think this is really an issue of moderation. If forum moderators wanted threads to look as you describe, they could make it so. They choose not to. We've had discussions about the level and flavor of moderation that happens on this forum in the past, and there's plenty of disagreement as to whether the forum is well moderated or not.

[Iguana]

I guess it would be difficult to implement and control. It's not that we don't want threads to stick to the initial topic, but there's a natural tendency for them to derive. It would be a lot of work to insure that each remains strictly on topic while still keeping all discussions followable.

What do the other mods think? 

[TylerDurden]

The current system works fine. if we did the other method, we would have too many short threads around. Plus, with everything sticking to just one big thread, the OP can get to see what controversial issues exist which are vaguely related to their particular original question. For example, if someone posts about the suitability of eating ray  fish and then another poster mentions the mercury-in-fish scare, then that would enable another poster to provide debunking info to counter this notion, thus providing the OP with lots of easily found stances on a particular issue. Otherwise, one would be forced to  search endless threads just in order to get a rough idea of most of the major issues within the raw, palaeolithic diet community.