After reading through some of these posts, I also realize I'm late to the party but what the heck why not
contribute.
First off is one major detail needs to be gotten out of the way. Right now, as Minitokyo stands, it's on the
decline. Aside from Himi and Aki, the shout box generally consists of a handful of different people that come and go
(Hoo, Angel and Huesin being the only other staffers that come in there semi-frequently) and aside from that, it's
severely lost a lot of members. While the activity has slightly picked up in recent months, it is still down greatly
from when I first came back to Minitokyo in mid 2009. Honestly, right now the last thing we should be focusing on is
making more rules to alienate members from the shout box. We want to encourage members to join in conversations and if
someone happens to be more random at times, I'm sure they've got a reason and if it's not causing harm
then I see no foul to it. It's never been a problem in the past and if things get too out of control we've
always talked to the member. Personally, the shout box is fine as it is. No need for us to go crazy about it and drive
people out of it. Let's wait for it to become busier again and then go from there.
As for off-topic threads, well to be honest those threads are really the only threads that get activity.
It's sort of a sad-but-true statement. They're the threads that get the most attention and they are also the
threads that are frequented the most out of any section. Threads that, generally speaking, require a much lengthier
discussion are either ignored because the off-topic ones are more fun, or simply because there's just a general
lack of member activity in the forums. Personally speaking, it falls in the same area that the shout box does. There is
just not enough activity in the forums to keep any other types of threads active. Back in the hayday of MT, there were a
lot more topics. Mainly because there were a lot more members going to the forums and creating diverse discussions. I
would go so far as to say that the amount of spam threads really hasn't increased or decreased, it's just the
amount of diversity in forum topics has simply because there is just no activity in that section anymore.
I would even argue that Off Topic threads are essential in aspects. They're fun way for members to meet new
members. Sure, it may be a thread with minimal information, but that could lead to someone going to their userpage and
starting a conversation. I know in the past that's how I met many different individuals, far more than I met in the
more branched out conversations. Of course that isn't always the case, but they serve a purpose and they've
been here since the foundation of the website. If Minitokyo wanted to push to limit them, or for some more action to be
taken against I'd highly recommend yet again for Minitokyo to first work towards getting a more active and larger
member base before establishing rules that generally create an initial negative response. Right now, the forums are
literally dead outside of Off Topic Discussions.
Bottom line, I think Darthas summed up the facts of it. Random shouts are fine. People have always randomly shouted and
it still isn't a problem. A daily random shout isn't going to cause any undue stress or wreck up a
conversation, unlike someone genuinely spamming the chat or someone swearing up a storm. Random is what Minitokyo needs
right now, because there's too much of the same going on. Minitokyo needs a big kick start, and random in my book
is part of how it's going to get it.
After all, I joined Minitokyo to participate in something completely random on the shout box.
