Notice...to all few of you.

[M. A. Dockter]

Because this forum only sees a minority of active members using it, and the election is coming to a close, the plan for this forum, as stated when it was created, is to close it down and make it an archive when the elections died. Because this election will still rage on for a while, we have decided to close it down February 1st, after President-Elect G. W. Bush is in office.

If there are further political discussions, please move them to http://www.forumclick.com/vblite/index.php The reason for this is simple. This is a tech forum, and not a general use forum. Although we like to see discussions of all types, we also want to keep this a predominately tech forum.

Now that David has some free time, he will probably be visiting in here to put the smack down on all of you liberals. (That would be a joke)

Now it's time for some of you to get out of this Auditorium. Yes, there are actually other people out there, and it is kind of bright, but you'll make it some how. Maybe you can even help people like in the days before this election (yet again, another joke)

In the mean time, before Feb 1st, feel free to kick, punch, and pillage each other to your heart's content.

[Kubie]

Understand where you're comin' from, Dok. Thanks for letting us rant and rave for awhile.
With Bush in office everything will be A-OK so won't need this forum. :D
Carl

[LawyerRon]

Sounds good to me.

[SARGE]

And the preacher said, "AMEN".

[troysvihl]

>>Because this forum only sees a minority of active members using it, and the election is coming to a close, the plan for this forum, as stated when it was created, is to close it down and make it an archive when the elections died.<<

acctually, i've been watching the numbers and this is one of the more popular forums. the title of this forum mentions that if seen fit, this may become a permanent one. i for one, would like to see this forum remain open. deligating it to forumclick will effectively end any political discusion. i know that pcmech is mainly a tech forum, but if politics is kept in here, then what's the harm? i hope this shut down plan is reconsidered.

[mairving]

It is a popular forum but it does seem that it is only used by a few regulars. It would be nice to keep it but it can be distracting and possibly turn some people off of the whole PCMech deal.

[M. A. Dockter]

You are exactly right mairving.

Our first point: This is a tech forum. The only reason this forum was started was to keep me as a part of PC Media. David and I disagreed about Politics being discussed here at all. I didn't want any part of them, and he thought this was a nice place for them...for some reason or another I guess.

Second Point: We have more than 4 separate political forums at http://www.forumclick.com. Political Discussion is WELCOME over there! David is relaunching the site, so every bit of your traffic over there helps us. If you don't wanna use that for Politics, you won't be discussing them on any PC Media related forum after Jan 31st.

Third Point: I've noticed that some that used to post tech related stuff, now mostly post in here. Although we appriciate the traffic, this isn't the type of traffic we are looking for.

With all of that said, I encourage you to check out forumclick.com. Although I don't agree with the colors (they hurt my eyes personally), I'd like to see all (non generally offensive) discussion over there. The Bad news is that I'll still be your Admin at Large. The good news is that I'll be MUCH more liberal as to the discussions it will be a Forum that deals with almost all topics of life, besides what we do in the bathroom. That is of course unless you disscuss Politics or College in the bathroom with your friends...then you're just sad...very very sad.

As always, if you wanna talk about this via e-Mail, or would want to push harder to keep this forum, feel free to e-Mail me. Unless you think that everyone is out to "get you", my keyboard is always open to you. :D (That's a joke)

[SARGE]

Doc, traffic is traffic, and it pays the bills. Actually, it separates pcmech from other techie forums elsewhere, because it shows you have a well-rounded site. Although pcmech is predominately tech related, having this political forum indicates that we're more than just a bunch of geeks.

[M. A. Dockter]

Traffic on Forumclick will Pay the Bills just the same as traffic on PC-Mech. That's why we want to Target this site to Tech, and Target forumclick to General use.

I don't see why everyone is getting so upset over this forum being archived. You can carry on just the same at forumclick...

[Gintaras]

It's time to...

enough to BS.

I agree, who[incl. myself] wants to BS, let's go to ForumClick.

[LawyerRon]

I don't mind if this forum goes away if it is detrimental to PCMech.

[Kubie]

Whoa Dok, not everyone is upset. One way or the other, doesn't make any difference to me if the forum stays or goes.
Carl

[SARGE]

Me neither, I ain't upset. Was just offering another point of view, which ain't worth much.

[troysvihl]

dok, i think you're interpretting my post in too harsh a tone. i'm not upset. i am just dissapointed that this forum will be lost. forumclick sees very little activity, and unless that changes, i won't be going there often. and without the political forum here, i won't have much motivation to stop here either. (i just don't have that many tech problems myself and i don't have enough experience to offer much help to others) so i doubt that i'll be here multiple times a day without the politics board. pcmech was just a convenient place to stop to read up on both some tech stuff and political debate. i used to have to go to multiple boards over on yahoo, but i've stopped doing that long ago as i get both my tech fix and politics in one dose here.

i do think it was a good idea that politics was segregated onto it's own forum, that way people that don't want to discuss politics don't have to even look at the thread titles. i seriously doubt that anyone is going to be put off by a seperate political forum.

[Edited by troysvihl on 01-26-2001 at 08:00 AM]

[mairving]

Maybe we could have it both ways. Could you leave this here as a link to a ForumClick political forum. That would be the best of both worlds and might help to build traffic on both sites.

[Carl Price]

Fantastic idea Mairving. It is perhaps the only way I would go to Forumclick. It could be like an announcement at the top of the thread.

[M. A. Dockter]

Offically, These are the PC Media Tech Forums. Forumclick is a general purpose forum.

Personally, I feel that if you're here just for the political forum, this forum isn't serving it's purpose.

Officially, A very large majority of the moderators and I agree that this forum goes come Feb 1st. You are more than welcome to join us at Forumclick to disscuss Politics free of being baned, or having forums closed down.

Personally, I feel this is a tech forum, and has no place for politics, at all, as it just causes trouble (the recent flamers in here is my case in point).

I'd like someone to explain to me why there was no offence to closing this forum until it finally came within a week of being closed...

One-One Notes:
troy: "forumclick sees very little activity, and unless that changes, i won't be going there often"

If everyone had that attitude, forumclick would NEVER get any bigger. If you're there first, and become an active part, you might get a bigger role in the forums, like all current moderators on this forum have.

marving: "Maybe we could have it both ways. Could you leave this here as a link to a ForumClick political forum."

I see that as both overkill, as well as leading to confusion. I see that if we have one at forumclick, you don't need one here. (Did I mention that <i>this is a tech forum</i> enough yet?) :D

[Edited by M. A. Dockter on 01-26-2001 at 11:28 AM]

[SARGE]

As you get older, you'll get wiser. Forumclick is more an afterthought, another click along the highway. Kinda like eating halloween candy - eat the good stuff and ignore the rest.

[mairving]

I probably won't go to ForumClick for a couple of reasons. One is time. I don't have time for two forums. The other is that all my buddies are here. We probably are better at debating partition sizes & which Motherboard to buy than politics any way. This was a pretty fun forum to me though. But then again I don't get out much.

[troysvihl]

dok -

>>Personally, I feel this is a tech forum, and has no place for politics, at all, as it just causes trouble (the recent flamers in here is my case in point).<<

Then why have a general discussion forum? or the "For Sale" forum? neither of which is purely tech. I really don't think that politics discussions cause that much problems, especially if the board keeps it in it's own forum. (I've only counted one true flamer so far in the last year and a half i've been coming here, and it was taken care of pretty well, so I wouldn't really call it a problem.)



>>I'd like someone to explain to me why there was no offence to closing this forum until it finally came within a week of being closed...<<

well, i raised it because it became apparent that no one else was going to do it. i figured the continuing popularity of this board would be pretty apparent even though the election was over.



there are two reasons that i was hoping this forum would remain on this board:

1. the most obvious is forumclick suffers from the chicken-and-egg/catch-22 problem: no one goes there, so no one goes there. i'll check it for a few weeks after this forum shuts down, but if no one is posting, then i'll find some other tech board with a political thread so that i can get both worlds in one stop.

2. I already am familiar with most of the poster's handles over here. it's such a pain to get familiar with the unfamiliar. when i do have an occasional tech question, it's nice to get answers from someone you feel you can trust since you've been reading a few of his/her posts for the last year. i've seen a few boards where i wouldn't be able to tell if someone was purposely sabatoging me with bogus answers.

[M. A. Dockter]

"Then why have a general discussion forum? or the "For Sale" forum? neither of which is purely tech."

The For Sale forums sell mostly, if not all computer stuff. Upon taking a look around in Gen Disc, I noticed a lot of people talk tech in there too. I don't see how you can call them both un-technical.

[stylin19]

M. A. Dockter

Ok..Ok...you win. We'll call "for sale" & General discussion" TECH-LITE :)

[Gintaras]

If Political Forum is moved to ForumClick, and anyone who wants to read/post theree have to make just one more extra click than if Political forum stayed here.
What's "don't have time" reasoning here? How long takes to make one more click?

I'm for Tech Forums just for tech Q & A/Discussions- look what it says on left-top of the page.