[Serious] Should we have a "serious" tag for non-humorous, serious discussions?

There's a time and place for humor, BS, inside jokes and callbacks and general asides.

But seems to me that every serious discussion inevitably has a couple of jokers, or folks that feel they have to say something even when they clearly don't have anything that adds to the conversation.

Take this one. What should be a serious discussion about what to say to the police after a self-defense incident. One guy wants to comment on the clothing of the presenters on a youtube video, then some joker posts a Sanford and Son youtube clip.

https://pistol-forum.com/showthread....=1#post1063700

All these out of work comedians need to a break and allow serious discussion to take place in threads for serious discussion.

Reddit uses a [serious] tag to let people know this isn't the thread for jokes and memes. We could implement something similar. I don't know what to do about all the random asides from folks that post too much. But this would be a start to increasing the signal to noise ratio - something that used to be a selling point of this forum but I fear is slipping away.

That's why we have technical and non-technical sub-forums and we moderate as such. I'd cull the funny video if the thread were in mindset and tactics, but it's not. The bar for staying on topic is lower and the bar on general fuckery is higher in General Discussion and even more so in Romper Room. Hence why threads sometimes get moved, split, etc.

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Originally Posted by BigD

There's a time and place for humor, BS, inside jokes and callbacks and general asides.

But seems to me that every serious discussion inevitably has a couple of jokers, or folks that feel they have to say something even when they clearly don't have anything that adds to the conversation.

Take this one. What should be a serious discussion about what to say to the police after a self-defense incident. One guy wants to comment on the clothing of the presenters on a youtube video, then some joker posts a Sanford and Son youtube clip.

https://pistol-forum.com/showthread....=1#post1063700

All these out of work comedians need to a break and allow serious discussion to take place in threads for serious discussion.

Reddit uses a [serious] tag to let people know this isn't the thread for jokes and memes. We could implement something similar. I don't know what to do about all the random asides from folks that post too much. But this would be a start to increasing the signal to noise ratio - something that used to be a selling point of this forum but I fear is slipping away.

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I get what you're saying @BigD, but since I'm often in the role of the offender such as you are referring to here, I find it (almost) offensive that you're singling out a couple of my online friends for doing so in a thread started by me. Had I thought that the topic was sufficiently new or unique enough to warrant particular attention to it, I'd probably have posted in one of the technical forums.

I do take your point, but as BBI said, there's a lot more latitude in "General" than in the so-called technical forums.

Anyway, I don't think it's that hard to winnow the wheat from the chaff in this instance.

No, we don't need a "serious" tag. Thread in question was opened in GD forum. GD is not a "serious" forum. This part of the site has this guidance:

"Open discussion for anything that doesn't really belong elsewhere on the forum. If you can't act like adults, at least act like reasonably well-behaved children. LIGHTLY MODERATED"

I don't see anything in that thread that is against the rules. GD is...General Discussion. Threads can and do go back and forth on and off topic as things occur to the people in the discussion. That back and forth is what is interesting about GD topics, as opposed to otherwise dry sterile technical discussions.

If you (general "you", not singling anyone out) feel offended, you have several avenues available to you:

- You can just ignore it and scroll on by
- You can use the features available on the site, like ignore a member, ignore a whole thread, or ignore an entire forum.
- (of course if you still feel offended, you can report the post to an admin.)
- If none of these work, you can log out and find somewhere else online to hang out.

What you mustn’t do, ever, is speak up, though. Your options are, pretend it didn’t happen, ignore it, have it ignored for you, or leave.

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Originally Posted by Medusa

What you mustn’t do, ever, is speak up, though. Your options are, pretend it didn’t happen, ignore it, have it ignored for you, or leave.

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I'll make the decision for you. You've been given plenty of bites at the apple.

Did some kind of uncalled for hysteria just make an entrance?

ahhh... the air feels lighter somehow...thank you!

Quote:

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Originally Posted by BigD

There's a time and place for humor, BS, inside jokes and callbacks and general asides.

But seems to me that every serious discussion inevitably has a couple of jokers, or folks that feel they have to say something even when they clearly don't have anything that adds to the conversation.

Take this one. What should be a serious discussion about what to say to the police after a self-defense incident. One guy wants to comment on the clothing of the presenters on a youtube video, then some joker posts a Sanford and Son youtube clip.

https://pistol-forum.com/showthread....=1#post1063700

All these out of work comedians need to a break and allow serious discussion to take place in threads for serious discussion.

Reddit uses a [serious] tag to let people know this isn't the thread for jokes and memes. We could implement something similar. I don't know what to do about all the random asides from folks that post too much. But this would be a start to increasing the signal to noise ratio - something that used to be a selling point of this forum but I fear is slipping away.

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I tried keeping a thread on track once. You know personally vested an all that. Fergit about it. Youd have better luck herding squirrels. The easiest way to deal with it is just ignore it. Amazingly that works quite well. And besides some really good stuff comes out of those forays.

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Originally Posted by BehindBlueI's

I'll make the decision for you. You've been given plenty of bites at the apple.

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My first two thoughts were:

DO IT!!!
Get off his neck!! 😂

Do it wins however. Im just not cut out for SJW stuff. 😂😂