No Islay. I think it's way past that. It seems that there has been irreparable harm done to this great forum all because someone couldn't overlook the OT posts. Why couldn't they do that? I would like the "several" people who all of a sudden this morning (yesterday morning?) got your nerve up & complained to GW to step up & let's hear your reasoning on this matter. Where/who are all of you?

My .02 worth:

No, I did not complain about anything to GW, never have, never would unless spammers were trying to sell stuff here.

A number of members keep saying they "like things the way they are." Well... the way things are is that you post On Topic threads in Discussion and Off Topic threads in Conversations. That is the way GW set up these forums all the way back to the olden days when Spike owned it all and could send people flying off in tea cups to Disneyland if he didn't like what the were posting or the tone used.

Other forums on the GW seem to follow this plan just fine, so why can't we? Over in Cooking, we've even had members apologize for posting an Off Topic thread in the wrong place accidentally. It's just one of the rules of the road in navigating these forums. Most forums and discussion groups anywhere else on the web have moderators that review the posts made and keep track of who doesn't follow the rules and causes trouble. I don't think I would want to belong to any group that wasn't moderated. You get lots of trolls and spammers and nasty people otherwise.

I don't want to see any of the members here leave because they don't like the way the forum functions. But a love of quilting is what brought us all here and we should remember that.

Teresa - who will try not say any more about this

Ok Teresa, "like things the way they are."
67 or so pages back to 1/07 on discussion and 8 or so pages back to 6/06 on Conversations... That is the way we are.. It is just so much easier to just keep up with one page. I have lots of time in the summer but very little in the winter but either time every free minute counts.
Another point is that the friends I have made here are quilting friends whatever they do is quilt related. Be it grandbabies, deaths or a new quilt. grace

I have no problem with keeping the discussions quilting-related, and the "family" stuff in the conversations, but coming here this morning I see there are quite a few legitimate quilting related messages moved here to conversations - such as quilting tips (what could be more on topic?) and photos.

I check in here quite frequently during the day and somehow I missed all this current stuff. But I'm catching up on it now!

Donna

Donna and everyone,

I think topics were moved even though the powers that be didn't know they were quilting/sewing related. Or perhaps they moved threads that seemed to becoming contentious?

Who knows?
Teresa

I also like to stick to one location so I plan to use Conversations for everything I post...quilty or otherwise. If this is going to upset anyone, please let me know.
Jean

Well Jean, the question about the quilt is something that should be viewed by everyone! It IS a "quilt" related post, and an important one.

The conversation page is new to this forum and was not set up here when Spike was here. I still don't see what is wrong with OT. If you are new ask what it means or we can type out OFF TOPIC
I'd rather have two Galleries .

Hmmm, I never got a teacup from Spike, just the warning about Disneyland. I feel so left out.

Now to be serious, I don't care where we meet, as long as we are ALL together. I hate the thought of having new forums pop up here & there & everyone splitting up.

I'm staying. I also hate the idea of everyone splitting up.

Marti,
"sent spinning in the tea cups" was the euphemism for being sent to Disneyland; when you logged into the Garden Web, you immediately were taken to the Disneyland web site which meant Spike had banned you - sometimes temporarily or in some cases permanently. I have never been banned but I know of others who were.

PS
My hope is that people remember this trouble with OT posts in the future. I've been here since 2002 and we never had this problem until just recently. 'Course, we didn't have a Conversations area or Gallery either.

Teresa, you said:
>>>...Well... the way things are is that you post On Topic threads in Discussion and Off Topic threads in Conversations. That is the way GW set up these forums all the way back to the olden days...Other forums on the GW seem to follow this plan just fine, so why can't we?...I've used other forums and been very careful to try to post in the right places. One reason I resist here is because the layout/navigation is annoying but I think that's be hashed over 1000 times already.

The other big thing to me is this:
I came to the forum after the days of Spike. About 2.5 years ago, I think. And there was NO conversations folder (that I was aware of?) until more recently. Maybe less than a year?

From my perspective it seemed like everyone was really happy and respectfully posting OT or a topic title you could tell was OT. And then ONE PERSON (I don't remember who) got uptight about it. A small minority agreed with that person but the vast majority did not. THEN the "conversations" folder appeared.

So while other forums on GW may have had a special OT folder all along, I am pretty sure the quilting did not. So it felt like ONE crotchety quilter got to change everything which caused resentment and resistance from most others. (Perhaps not the most MATURE response, but I certainly did not feel like changing to humor one or two cranks.)

I've worked places where there are a lot of WRITTEN rules that get ignored, but everyone is productive and the environment is harmonious until one rigid person starts crying to management so they put the hammer down to appease that one person and suddenly the entire atmosphere shifts to the negative. It may have been "the rule" but things were much better before the "rigid" person came into the situation.

---- ALSO --- (sorry so long...) Obviously GW does not do it this way but most other forum sites have moderators -- usually a couple active members who are not paid, but are on the site a lot -- and they simply move posts into the appropriate folder. (Like GW did here but it is done constantly). So it's not a PERSONAL thing like poster ABC complained about poster XYZ. It's often inadvertant when people post to the wrong folder. A moderator just moves the thread. No big deal. Since GW doesn't actively monitor the discussion board, here things go along one way for months and then when suddenly everything gets moved around you know someone was snitching.

Actually the forum did not have so many Off Topic posts until just recently - maybe the last couple of years. I think many members got in the habit of posting their personal questions/problems etc. here and don't want to be bothered to change their habits.

Maybe if something were said much earlier about posting Off Topic messages in Conversations we wouldn't be having this big to-do. But I know that I was reluctant to say anything because I didn't want to come across as the forum police-person. I often read some Off Topic posts and other I merely pass by, so I'm just as guilty as those who made the posts?

I can only relate what I have experienced on other forums:
a) some groups will blast you out of the water if you post Off Topic in the Discussion area b) some groups are very much in the habit of going to Conversations to discuss any and everything else and will apologize if they accidentally post something in the wrong place and c) some groups can be very snide if newbies keep asking the same questions. I hope we never get to where we don't welcome newbies and their questions.

When Spike first owned the GW, he did surf the forums to keep a handle on things. But in the manner of all good things, the GW just got to be HUGE and he finally sold to iVillage - hope he got big bucks for it too. Perhaps now iVillage is just trying to keep the monstrosity up and running and making some money off sponsors and they don't have time to patrol the forums, until someone complains. Who knows?

I would hope that some of you could see that having OT after OT on a quilting page might be off-putting to some newcomers. If you want everything OT, then why is this called a Quilting Forum?

I've looked at other quilting forums and this is the one that I found the most fun so I stayed. I like both quilting and personal posts. Some days I only have time to look at the quilting posts. Now if I want to make sure I see ALL the quilting I have to look at both pages. The quilting posts are wonderful and inspiring I donÂt want to miss any of them. I WILL look at both pages if that is the only way I can be sure I donÂt miss anything. Those of you that are going to post on the conversations page only does that mean you won't be making follow-up posts on the discussions page? I might have a quilt question that you have the answer to. IÂm just getting started here and I donÂt want to see anyone leave.
Suellen

Teresa, several sources reported that Spike made in the neighborhood of a million dollars on the sale of GardenWeb to iVillage. Whether that's big bucks or not is hard to say. He worked his tail off to build this place. Sorry for the temporary hijack.

Good for Spike! He had a great idea and deserves all the best, IMO.