So, in some other topics lately, there's been some ideas & discussions concerning a "
SOCIAL" component/aspect for this site.
My idea here is to implement something to fulfill that...but...in a way that keeps everything simple (yet available) to everyone here.
It's *NOT* an entirely unique or an original idea of my own -rather- it's more of an adaptation/alteration to similar things that I've seen done on various other sites & boards.
The long & the short of it...is to simply use *
THIS TOPIC* (preferably & possibly) getting it 'stickied' and legitimized (read: *
Made "Official")* somewhere down the line...for all things social, miscellaneous/extraneous, etc.
It could/would be a "catch-all" thread/topic for everything from Introductions, birthdays, vacations/trips, happy/sad events in real life, anniversary's (both marital & VGC-Anniversarys
, "Whatcha' Playing Now", discussions for any/all topics that just don't belong in another section...
What I've found personally (from seeing *succesful* variants of this used on other sites) is that it's
*GREAT* in stream-lining & keeping a lot of space & room in other threads & forums from getting 'overly-cluttered' w/ "Mini"-topics and "short/destined to die soon" topics...
Some (recent) examples would be 2 other topics that I've made recently...
(1). The "did you know this about the pS2" topic (w/ link) and
(2). the "Dear Gamers" 'letter' by Aisha Tyler (also w/ a link)
In the kind of social thread that I'm talking about, rather than things like these becoming their own new & individual topics...they'd likely just by topics (in the social-thread) that would (probably) end up getting, say, 5-10 responses, or so.
Another example would/could be something like Bugs' projects/programming applications/contributions to the site -
something like this could (and, IMO should) be brought-up, addressed, and discussed in this "social"/"Misc". topic as well.
Long story short, I think it would keep everyone (*especially* the "regulars" here) checking-in on & contributing to what could have been (potentially) on-going and/or *Short*-lived topics (in other words, it would eliminate random musings/posts from everywhere else on the site) and keep them all together in one topic.
It also could & would greatly cut down on the *Number* of threads for each person to need to keep-up with.
Lastly (and not insignificantly), where I've seen this done before - it's always seemed to foster a much more closely-knit community of posters as they get to know each other better in one central topic (as opposed to, maybe seeing poster "A" in topic "X", poster "B" in topic "Y", poster "C" in topic "Z", etc, etc...
