Off topic

[beatnic]

Not sure if this has been discussed elsewhere, but given it's human nature to veer off topic every now and then maybe someone could invent a little "off topic widget" for the forum which allows us to take our conversations elsewhere easily e.g. the Lounge - automatically creating a link for us to our meanderings.

Some wikis make it easy to create a new page using some or other syntax such as double square brackets. Maybe there could be an equivalent in the forum world. Maybe there already is and I just haven't come across it.

[Mark]

Hi

Do you mean making it easier for people to say, "let's discuss this in the lounge" and start a new thread in the lounge area? So perhaps giving people a new button that says "start a new discussion in the lounge" on every post which would then take them directly to a new topic in the lounge area with the title (originally xxxx post). Otherwise giving people the option to split a thread would be dangerous, best left in the hands of The Administrator. Could you show me a link to a wiki that does what you say so I'm clear about what you mean?

One of the problems is that people don't actually realise they're going off topic, they're just having a conversation. Lots of people do say things like "best get this back on topic" but there are some who converse directly with others about things irrelevant to the thread which is annoying for the majority of users and the Administrator steps in to control these. It's a judgement call that cannot be left to the users as a whole and I think The Administrator's about to have a bit of a crackdown.

thanks

[beatnic]

Yes, now I've had time to ponder this I'm not sure it would work.

I've seen wikis where you can put a word in camelCase and it will create a link and a destination based on the word you type. Also seen a wiki where you can type [[somethingindoublebrackets]] whic turns it in to a link and a destination.