Comments | chironian: My first ever poll!

chironian

My first ever poll!

Jul 26, 2006 14:40

linnyb and I were discussing how to improve the Unofficial Christopher Meloni Forum's interaction with the Ask Chris process on Brian's site. I've made a little poll below (my first one!) and would like your thoughts. How can we make the Ask Chris process a little sweeter?

Poll Improving UCMF and Ask Chris

Comments 16

noblerot July 27 2006, 01:02:52 UTC

I am dense and not really understanding the "Ask UCMF" question thing. Who are we asking what ( ... )

chironian July 27 2006, 17:41:36 UTC

I am dense and not really understanding the "Ask UCMF" question thing. Who are we asking what?

rileyc's got it in a nutshell in her comment above: it would be "a specific section at the UCMF board where someone asks a question about Chris and gets it answered." I was thinking that we could have one place to ask questions like this of the community, so that random questions don't pop up all over the UCMF (particularly from newbies who aren't sure where something should be posted or where to look for answers to their questions).

About your rant: Hee. Yes, there's always a number of folks without a grammar-meter or with a few screws loose who ruin playtime for everyone. I'm not sure how to handle that one without opening a separate thread on the UCMF called "Mocking the Questions."

noblerot July 27 2006, 17:45:44 UTC

I think a "Mocking the Questions" thread sounds like an excellent idea. Mock mock mockity-mock. It clears the sinuses and oils the soul.

dont_know5 July 27 2006, 10:21:38 UTC

I think it´s completely unecessary for people to ramble so much about themselves before a question. Sometimes it seems like the question isn´t even the purpose. They just ramble and ramble and throw a question in the end almost like "what do you think about me, Christopher?". Honestly and basically, that´s how I read most of those fans questions. They just wanna ramble about their lives to get some validation about themselves or something. Quite sad, frankly ( ... )

chironian July 27 2006, 17:47:17 UTC

They just ramble and ramble and throw a question in the end almost like "what do you think about me, Christopher?".

You've put your finger on it! A lot of times, I think people think they're writing a fan letter, when this method of interacting with Chris is a lot less private than that. Strictly speaking, I agree: the rambles should go in a fan letter, while the question should go on the site. I just don't think much can be done about that without changing the format of the fan question boxes (one space for preamble - with a character limit, one space for each question, one space for a closing).

And the repetitive questions I think could stay also, because sometimes the way you think about something changes overtime and the answer can be slightly different.Yes, I draw a distinction between repetitive questions and repeat questions. A repeat question is one that can draw a different answer over time (like, What do you think of U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East?). A repetitive question is one where it's very unlikely (or ( ... )

dont_know5 July 28 2006, 09:05:11 UTC

You see, like noblerot, I am quite dense, so I didn´t pick up on the difference between repetitive and repeat. But I am on board with you on that topic.

I have an idea: if you have a problem with editing or changing the format of the box, just make a section, before a fan can ask the questions, putting out the restrictions on questions (spelling, rambling, repetitive) and just point blank stating: "if your question breaks any of those rules, they will be refused". And then, another section for dummies:

"Question: My question was refused. Why?

Answer: Click here to see why".

I think we need a good, smart dictator, like the moderators from TWoP.

I also think the "mock the question" is an excellent idea! Just excellent. Pretty please, can we have it?

mashfanficchick July 29 2006, 04:58:28 UTC

I have no idea if this is possible, but maybe it would help if--other than the most recent answers--the Ask Chris pages were in the opposite order from the way they are now; that is, first to last, instead of the other way around. This is the way I read Ask Chris the first time (with all the "See Next Page" clicking that required), and I think it helped me write better questions to see how the patterns of questions and answers changed over time, not to mention the fact that people might discover their question asnwered in Ask Chris before they ask it. Also, this might be obvious, since it was my and linny's idea, but I advocate a list of names--on the official site, the UCMF, or both--of people willing to work with people to edit/translate their questions without changing their meaning. And for the record, I would love to see fewer stupid questions, but as I pointed out to linny, Chris has repeatedly asked that questions not be pruned, and I think everyone shuold respect his wishes. Though that exclude the option of having a Mock the ( ... )