So lets be grown up & talk about OBOB, articles, etc.

[Michie]

I need to go to the bank & I plan on starting a poll in another thread after this one.

Criticize & discuss productively. Let not turn this into a school yard fight.

There is a group of people that like Catholic based articles & opinion. There are those that don't.

As I have said before, I'll do what the majority wants.

People do not realize that doing what I do is a lot of work & I do it for people that enjoy it as well as having different topics to discuss & to break up the snarky debates & arguments.

Two things need to happen here. We need to decide what we want as far as Catholic content & news that may interest Catholics & how much & from what sources.

We also need to make resolution to let old grudges die & learn to stop the bullying & sarcastic behavior. We need to learn to work with one another.

I mentioned to Mike that I thought we needed an external hand given past history with this issue & I think everyone should weigh in. It's not just him & I. Or two rival groups. I've been asking for something like this all along. Lets get it done. It would take a load off me as well. If we need something official, we can contact David. He is good with this sort of thing & will make sure all are involved.

But Mike wanted to try the good neighbor policy so lets give that a shot first.

Please feel free to criticize productively. It will not bother me at all. We can follow up with an another thread with an anon poll with choices suggested in this thread.

Lets get this over & done with so we can improve that atmosphere of the forum.

We can limit news posts a day.

We an have a forum for just news links.

We can decide what sources we'd like to see alone.

Etc.

Go for it & thanks.

Whatever you think of, throw it on the table & we'll go from there.

 

[Winter]

As I've said before, I've no problem with the news posts. I've learned a lot from them - stuff I would never have found or read on my own. There are some days that the news posts are numerous, but overall I've always viewed them as positive and of great value. Thanks for the work you put into them, Michie.

 

[Winter]

And let me just add that the news posts do no harm at all. Its the combative attitude that folks have on OBOB about the littlest thing. If a person proclaims tomatoes are the greatest thing to eat, someone will debate that till the cows come home. The news posts should be least of our problems. I say they stay as is.

 

[MKJ]

I have just some general thoughts.

I think the articles can be a good way to spark discussion.

I would suggest though that there are often many on the same topics, and some are not really good news sources or articles.

Back when I was in the army for a while I had the job of compiling every day news articles on subjects of interest, and it was the same thing. All kinds of news sources talking about the same things.

So I chose the best articles on the most important subjects, ideally ones with a new angle or new information, or particularly well written or really good summation or analysis of the issues.

I think if some sort of criteria like that were implemented by people posting articles, it would maintain the good things about posting such material but keep the stuff relevant, useful, and not overwhelming in the amounts.

 

[Chany]

Please stop the flood of homosexual-related threads. There are thousands of other things to talk about; do we really need to discuss the same exact topic over and over again on five differents threads with articles that pretty much say the same thing over and over again?

 

[TheOtherHockeyMom]

I have a few scattered thoughts...

First, my feelings on the articles are kind of mixed. Sometimes they start interesting discussions, but sometimes they drive the interesting discussions down the page too far to where they die.

Two things that might contribute to my feelings are the quality of the article and whether or not it covers the same topic...for instance, if there is a lively discussion on something like the school shootings, and a few new threads show up that link to other writers comments on the issues, they drive the lively discussions down and people may not be motivated to repeat their comments on the new thread. Adding them to the active thread would be better in my opinion than starting a new thread on the same general topic.

The other thing is the quality of the article...if it's a news piece (or even an opinion piece), are the facts correct and cited? There's a responsibility, I think, in writing an article (or even a post) for public consumption, to do your best to be correct and accurate in the reporting of facts. It may seem like attacking, but it's my opinion that if someone posts made up information as facts, they should be called out on it.

Finally, I think that it would lead to less confusion and better discussion if the poster of an article indicated their feelings on it instead of posting with no comment. If I posted an article on an issue related to global warming, there's a big difference between prefacing it with "here's a great article that explains..." vs. "here's an example of someone writing an opinion piece without considering the science". Then there's no misunderstanding of my motives, and while you might disagree with me, at least you know where I'm coming from.

 

[AvilaSurfer]

Keep doing what you're doing. You perform a service. Nobody is holding a gun to anyone's head forcing them to read anything.

 

[TheOtherHockeyMom]

Keep doing what you're doing. You perform a service. Nobody is holding a gun to anyone's head forcing them to read anything.

It's a service when it is quality information, but it's a bit of a disservice when articles or blog posts containing misinformation are propagated.

 

[Michie]

Ugh! No bank today.

So far it seems that articles having to do with homosexuality should be posted sparingly or condensed together?

Add same topics having to do with each other where there is active discussion to the active discussion thread.

Add introductory comment to the linked article.

Should I add 'opinion piece' to the opinion articles?

What about the ones written by clergy?

Keep it coming.

 

[Cosmic Charlie]

Please stop the flood of homosexual-related threads. There are thousands of other things to talk about;

Well, yeah like there's:

Abortion
Contraception
The Death Penality
and
How the 1960's (Now officially a decade that occurred 50 years ago) ruined this country'
oh,

and

How Vatican II ruined the Church


That's entertainment

And ftr: I like Michie's posting and always have

 

[MKJ]

Ugh! No bank today.

So far it seems that articles having to do with homosexuality should be posted sparingly or condensed together?

Add same topics having to do with each other where there is active discussion to the active discussion thread.

Add introductory comment to the linked article.

Should I add 'opinion piece' to the opinion articles?

What about the ones written by clergy?

Keep it coming.

Yeah, I think there seem to be too many about homosexuality too.

It might be good to flag opinion pieces, including those written by clergy.

I don't really see the need for an introductory comment from the poster, unless it really helps to make the article more clear.

 

[Michie]

Well, yeah like there's:

Abortion
Contraception
The Death Penality
and
How the 1960's (Now officially a decade that occurred 50 years ago) ruined this country'
oh,

and

How Vatican II ruined the Church


That's entertainment

And ftr: I like Michie's posting and always have

Thanks Charlie but you know I've posted on every topic you mentioned above as well. I post on all sorts of things but people can't see past threads dealing with homosexuality. *shrug*

 

[MKJ]

Thanks Charlie but you know I've posted on every topic you mentioned above as well. I post on all sorts of things but people can't see past threads dealing with homosexuality. *shrug*

I suspect he was being tongue-in-cheek.

 

[Michie]

Yeah, I think there seem to be too many about homosexuality too.

It might be good to flag opinion pieces, including those written by clergy.

I don't really see the need for an introductory comment from the poster, unless it really helps to make the article more clear.

Thank you! Ugh! I read this stuff & most times I think commentary is really not needed. It can be discussed or not if it is found interesting. What gets me is those that read the title alone & go of on a tangent without knowing the content.

 

[Michie]

I suspect he was being tongue-in-cheek.

Charlie is an enigma... you never can tell.

 

[seeking_perfection]

i tend to read a lot of the articles and don't have any problems with them. If they don't interest me, i ignore them. Surely if 'interesting topics' are being replied to a lot, they won't fall down the page for long anyway?

 

[cathoaholicliz]

In all honesty and fairness you're not the only one who posts articles. Sometimes you are the first one and sometimes you may post something someone else has posted. That can be overwhelming but its not your fault. I think what people need to do is look at whats on the main page and see if its being discussed before posting about it.

All you ever seem to post about is Catholic content. But people on a very specific side of the political spectrum--won't mention which one-- tend to get huffy and assume its American politics because well the Pope is from the United States right? *insert chuckle here* It must be American to consider abortion, adultery, sexual immorality, sin. Not Catholic.

Only American Catholics care about liturgical abuse. *sigh*

Michie all Catholics should care about things that pertain to the Catholic faith but only very few do and those who don't agree with the faith, but still want to call themselves Catholic for whatever reason, will blame it on your posts, blame it on self-righteousness, Pharisaical behaviors, or blame it on America....anything to look into their own eyes and pluck out the plank. That's what I think of this whole argument that you shouldn't post articles.

And then people claiming that you don't ever include your own opinion as if you're a spam bot just posting articles and never visiting your own thread again or responding. You respond a lot and sometimes I don't agree with you, you've seen it....that doesn't mean you don't respond.

And I've seen the threads that die. I've seen their content. Sorry if it was ignored because its not relevant, not interesting or plain old not Catholic but even CC got responses to his thread. Post something people wanna read about, talk about and discuss or don't get mad when someone else does it for you.

And as far as telling Michie not to post about homosexuals then we might wanna apply that to the liberals who post with hot fiery passion any time some so-called religious leader has something to say in favor of their pet sin of the day. Whatever. I don't think we need another subforum for your posts. This is the Catholic subforum you post Catholic articles.

WHY do we need another subforum? Guess how busy any of the other subforums are visited? How much are our own subforums paid attention to? The political one? is it as active as this one? probably not. if your articles got sent to another subforum we might all end up posting in there more and ignoring the main forum where people will just find another reason to complain, right "OBOB main forum is abandoned because obob's article forum is being flooded with spam"

Or would your articles be ignored and obob be abandoned all together because people didn't have anything to talk about except how awesome they felt as people applauded them after the guitar mass and how wonderful altar girls look even though attendance is down. or maybe they wanna talk about how their niece is being liberated through abortion or i dont know whatever else nonsense people want to talk about as long as its not catholic.

 

[Michie]

i tend to read a lot of the articles and don't have any problems with them. If they don't interest me, i ignore them. Surely if 'interesting topics' are being replied to a lot, they won't fall down the page for long anyway?

It was always my theory as well.

 

[Davidnic]

I have always been of the opinion that on threads like news stories that what people are interested in stays up and what they are not drifts down. My solution to keeping other threads up in a heavy news day is bumping them if they are active but fall off the main page.

 

[S.ilvio]

This is the only forum that tolerates spamming in my experience (and thats 15 years worth of internet forums of all shapes and sizes).

Michie, your 'link' threads are spam in my view and I think management should require you to stop.