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From the very beginning, this forum has provided a place for members to free-associate upon reading a post, and write whatever inspires them.
Members place a title on new topics, but the normal flow is for the title to be ignored by the topic participants.
It is possible the members of this forum like having the freedom to say whatever comes to mind, without regard to the topic.
We are down from hundreds of simultaneous participating members to a dozen or so.
The question I am asking in opening this topic is what the membership and most importantly, the leadership, would like to see in the future for this forum.
Has anyone (other than Terraformer who recruited me in 2015) attempted to bring a new member into the forum?
Is there another human being anywhere on Earth the existing members would like to bring in?
If we bring someone in, what reward do we offer for their participation?
Trying to fit into an existing group is difficult. Do we make it impossible for a new member to "fit in"?
RobertDyck created the My Hacienda topic for me, at a time when I was hesitant to do something so bold as to create a topic.
It seems to me we provide ways for members to fork topics easily. We provide the Chat Category for unrestrained conversation.
Can topic discipline co-exist with free-style posting in the same forum?
Can members stick to their own topic, or is the pull of free-style posting too strong?
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This post is reserved for an index to posts that may be contributed by NewMars members.
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Topic title are sometimes a statement of end goals but doing anything on mars is a progressive build up and choices as information is compiled. This is the fishbone of where we start which for mars is what do we required to be sent to achieve the end goal. Not indicating all parameters and needs for any end goal will fail once details of any of the path gets exposed.
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For SpaceNut re #3... thanks for engaging with me on this important theme...
This topic does not accept excuses for changing the intent of a topic.
The model for a properly run topic is a Sports column in a newspaper or online.
The editor of a sports column does not allow writers to talk about whatever they feel like talking about.
If you are a member of this forum, you have the opportunity to read the topic title and write appropriate text, or you can follow the example of so many others and just ignore the topic title and talk about anything that comes to mind.
Who is this forum for?
If the forum exists only as entertainment for the members, that is one thing.
If the forum exists as a repository of knowledge that would be useful to present and future readers, then that is something else entirely.
The members will follow the example of the leaders. If the leaders ignore topic titles then it should be no surprise when the members do as well.
If a subject turns out to stimulate branches, then just form the branches and title them appropriately.
A Burger King restaurant might be converted into a fish and chips place, but you don't keep advertising it as a burger joint.
The title of a topic is advertisement for that topic.
It is up to the creator of a topic to keep posts ON TOPIC, and it is up to Administrators to enforce that fundamental rule.
If you want a free discussion topic, open it in Chat and call it an Open Discussion topic.
An example of a topic that seems to stay reasonably on topic is one about fighter jets. Occasionally the conversation drifts, but generally the posts are about fighter jets. A person wanting to read about fighter jets from the top to the bottom has a better than 50% chance of finding the posts reasonably close to the advertised topic.
The topic about a design for a rotating habitat by RobertDyck stayed on topic for a very long run of several years. It can be done.
This topic is about staying ON TOPIC. I will attempt to keep it ON TOPIC.
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Here is the previous attempt to New Mars Topic Proposals to try to keep discussions on topic.
Titles are character limited to a few key words that do not cover the range of a discussion and creates to narrow or no discussion at all.
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This post is about changing the topic title to reflect the new direction the topic creator wants to go.
The title of a topic is not cast in stone. It is a property of the first post of a topic. The topic owner/creator can change the topic title if the original title turns out not be a good fit.
As soon as the topic creator changes the topic title, suddenly ALL forum participants will see the new title when they log in,or even if they just call up the web site without logging in.
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Title now dead and so is project discussion.
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