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Conquests, Software/*NIX and Peripherals forums update...
As part of on-going efforts to generally improve the forums, we have decided to make some changes to what is allowed to be discussed in the Conquests, Software/*NIX and Peripherals forums. These forums are going to be tightened down to only cover topics relevant to vintage (specifically 68k and PPC) Macintoshes – which, after all, is the focus of this board.
In the Software forum the cut-off point will be "Classic" (pre OS X) Mac OS versions and software that runs on them. In the *NIX forum it will be anything that runs on 68k/PPC Macs (A/UX, AIX, Debian, etc).
Similarly, the Conquests forum is going to be for vintage Mac finds only, however we will be slightly more tolerant for other, interesting, vintage technology (SPARC, Sun, NeXT, other old UNIX boxen, etc) in this forum.
From now on, all other topics (i.e. those relating to OS X/Windows/lawnmowers/etc) should be placed in the Lounge. We hope that this will better represent the theme of the forum as a whole and hence, hopefully, the interests of the majority of our users.
The forum descriptions have been updated to reflect this change and over the next few days/weeks/months (depending on how long it takes) we will be moving any topics from these forums that now belong in the Lounge. You'll have to bear with us, as it's a manual process and we're all busy people. Please check there if you can't find a topic that was previously in one of these (or any other, since we may have a scan through them too) forums. Please, as always, take a few moments before posting a thread to consider which forum best suits it and please feel free to contact one of us if you feel a thread would be better suited to a different forum.
Many thanks,
The 68kMLA moderation team.
In the Software forum the cut-off point will be "Classic" (pre OS X) Mac OS versions and software that runs on them. In the *NIX forum it will be anything that runs on 68k/PPC Macs (A/UX, AIX, Debian, etc).
Similarly, the Conquests forum is going to be for vintage Mac finds only, however we will be slightly more tolerant for other, interesting, vintage technology (SPARC, Sun, NeXT, other old UNIX boxen, etc) in this forum.
From now on, all other topics (i.e. those relating to OS X/Windows/lawnmowers/etc) should be placed in the Lounge. We hope that this will better represent the theme of the forum as a whole and hence, hopefully, the interests of the majority of our users.
The forum descriptions have been updated to reflect this change and over the next few days/weeks/months (depending on how long it takes) we will be moving any topics from these forums that now belong in the Lounge. You'll have to bear with us, as it's a manual process and we're all busy people. Please check there if you can't find a topic that was previously in one of these (or any other, since we may have a scan through them too) forums. Please, as always, take a few moments before posting a thread to consider which forum best suits it and please feel free to contact one of us if you feel a thread would be better suited to a different forum.
Many thanks,
The 68kMLA moderation team.
All Intel discussion should be in its own forum. phpBB gives you the option of having multiple forums and I do suggest that that feature be used to keep the lounge from being some hellish cluster of topics, as if it already isn't. :
I mean, why must you force a conquest into the lounge just because it isn't 68k, it's still a conquest. Likewise, if the admins are going to be this picky, at least have a non-68k conquest forum and a non-68k software forum.Yeah, forcing non-vintage-Mac conquests and other such discussions into the Lounge will make it more cluttered. But remember, this forum was established for people to discuss 68k Macs and (later) vintage PPC Macs. The Lounge is really there to keep people involved because they are permitted to socialize in a manner that extends beyond the focus of these forums. So perhaps it is best if we don't encourage the Lounge to proliferate since some of the focus will be lost. (I don't really care either way, as long as there is some way for people to socialize outside of the bounds of the specialization.)
Gotta love the limitations of the web as a medium.
Gotta love the limitations of the web as a medium.
I think there should be two sub-forums:
Conquests should be for items that are "rescued" or otherwise acquired from inhospitable environments, or items of interest for "vintage" purposes. For example, if you rescue a G5 from the dump, or get a Quadra for $5, that should be a Conquest. I think that's the entire point of Conquests anyway, and why it was named such.
Another sub-forum called "Acquisitions" could serve all other purposes, such as buying a Windows Laptop at retail price, or getting a new car, etc.
Conquests should be for items that are "rescued" or otherwise acquired from inhospitable environments, or items of interest for "vintage" purposes. For example, if you rescue a G5 from the dump, or get a Quadra for $5, that should be a Conquest. I think that's the entire point of Conquests anyway, and why it was named such.
Another sub-forum called "Acquisitions" could serve all other purposes, such as buying a Windows Laptop at retail price, or getting a new car, etc.
This is exactly what the forum needs.
The "Conquests" of thinkpads, watermellons, lawnmowers, cellular phones, netbooks, XBox 49607687960s, and scrap pc's can be moved elsewhere.
I just conquested a pen. Its amazing. Wow. Black Ink. Ball Point. Wao.
-end rant.
I do think a separate "Acquisitions" forum as a sub forum of the lounge is a good idea to vent out about the above. In general, the move change should had occurred from the start. But, we should be more tolerable of Early G3 and before, its now getting quite old as well. They are the 040s of the current day.
The "Conquests" of thinkpads, watermellons, lawnmowers, cellular phones, netbooks, XBox 49607687960s, and scrap pc's can be moved elsewhere.
I just conquested a pen. Its amazing. Wow. Black Ink. Ball Point. Wao.
-end rant.
I do think a separate "Acquisitions" forum as a sub forum of the lounge is a good idea to vent out about the above. In general, the move change should had occurred from the start. But, we should be more tolerable of Early G3 and before, its now getting quite old as well. They are the 040s of the current day.
Almost more importantly, do we care? If you think we do, then post it in the lounge, if you don't think we do, then don't post. I didn't post about having gotten my T400, or the T42p, or even my X24, or my SunRay thin client (although that last one would make an interesting lounge topic.)
In the other thread, I suggested that some more of us should start our own blogs for posts about new thinkpads/watermelons/telephones/catching-the-plague etc.
I've mentioned them casually before, (or even very vehemently, as with threads/discussions about why Apple's laptops are no longer professional computers.)
My big point there was that a lot of people post in the conquests forum on a very dailybasis, using it almost like a blog, when it's really not.
My thought about the conquests forum are that it's almost more like an inventory than a blog.
My big point there was that a lot of people post in the conquests forum on a very dailybasis, using it almost like a blog, when it's really not.
My thought about the conquests forum are that it's almost more like an inventory than a blog.
For the most part, I view the conquests forum as a place where guys boast about the stuff they have. And quite often it is mundane stuff, even if it is a 68k Mac. Quite frankly, I could care less if you just saved an LC. An LC is a boring machine. A boring machine that was probably made in the millions, just to satiate the Mac-lust of schools in the 1990s. Now if you save a copy of A/UX or an AWS, that's interesting. That stuff is rare after all. If you found an LC that came from an interesting place, talk about it too. Like if it came from a university lab and still had the NI data acquisition card in it.
Then again, I guess that sort of thing is subjective. Sometimes just finding a manual or a boxed set of common software is interesting since most of that stuff seems to have been broken up.
Then again, I guess that sort of thing is subjective. Sometimes just finding a manual or a boxed set of common software is interesting since most of that stuff seems to have been broken up.
I've spoken with cory about this and my feeling is the lounge is doomed to needless clutter because the topics about winPC's and intel macs will fill it up when we want to talk about other topics such as cars, women, that cool new scifi movie and so on.
I kind of feel that the 68kMLA has lost it's focus in the last few years, almost going down the road of the now almost useless lowend mac.
The site is called 68kMLA, not PPCMLA, not WinMLA, and so on.
We should either have a sub-forum for the useless junk or simply not discuss Windows troubleshooting and Intel Macs here. There are about 1000 other places on the web for those topics but very few for the discussion of Quadra Feets or AWS boxen.
Instead of expanding, can we return to our roots?
I kind of feel that the 68kMLA has lost it's focus in the last few years, almost going down the road of the now almost useless lowend mac.
The site is called 68kMLA, not PPCMLA, not WinMLA, and so on.
We should either have a sub-forum for the useless junk or simply not discuss Windows troubleshooting and Intel Macs here. There are about 1000 other places on the web for those topics but very few for the discussion of Quadra Feets or AWS boxen.
Instead of expanding, can we return to our roots?
This is exactly the reasons we made these changes. One side effect of this is that Lounge will become more cluttered, however hopefully this will be countered by the rest of the forums being less cluttered and they are the forums that makes the MLA unique (or at least semi-unique). As you say, there are plenty of other places to discuss Windows and Intel Macs, so we don't plan on adding another forum for them. Since the Lounge is for everything "off-topic" we're not going to start locking Win/Intel topics, but we would encourage users not to post them [
] ]'>"The Lounge" is the off-topic area of this forum. If you look at a lot of other narrowly-focused forums, their equivalent off-topic areas are also quite popular.
http://www.silvercreator.net/cgi-bin/yabb2/YaBB.pl (General Discussion)
http://www.gamemakersgarage.com/cgi-bin/yabb/YaBB.cgi (Trash Talk)
http://forums.macrumors.com/ (Community Discussion)
If you only want to discuss 68K Macs, that's fine, but The Lounge represents an important part of the forum.
http://www.silvercreator.net/cgi-bin/yabb2/YaBB.pl (General Discussion)
http://www.gamemakersgarage.com/cgi-bin/yabb/YaBB.cgi (Trash Talk)
http://forums.macrumors.com/ (Community Discussion)
If you only want to discuss 68K Macs, that's fine, but The Lounge represents an important part of the forum.
Mike: I think some people are saying that they don't want to participate in the Lounge, so they don't want to see it coming up when they click on "view new posts" under their own account. Noone else needs to be affected by their own personal decision because it is their own personal decision.
That's really the point... for those who want to limit their participation to 68K topics, some way of filtering a new message search would accomplish that without affecting anyone else.
Whether or not the Lounge (or any other sub forum) is important is up to the individual member.
So? It's wrong to discuss non-Mac topics?
Honestly, if you look at the first page of the Lounge, more than 2/3rd of the threads are computer related and most of those are Apple related. Page 2 has fewer Apple related threads but still about the same proportion of computer threads.
Perhaps the answer is a new sub-forum specifically for general discussion of Apple, or maybe even general discussion of Computing. This will reduce the size of the lounge by at least half.
The loung would be better if we took out the non computer related posts. Stuff like cars, dating, sickness, music, should be shared with your friends and not on a 68k forum.
Another option is just to delete threads in the loung after a week to get rid off the fluff giving time for anything of use to be sent to the correct section of the forum. That way people can do offtopic but it doesn't fill up the place.
Another option is just to delete threads in the loung after a week to get rid off the fluff giving time for anything of use to be sent to the correct section of the forum. That way people can do offtopic but it doesn't fill up the place.