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Pastimes : SI Beta Site Launch - 7/01/99 -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: John Biddle who wrote (1636)	8/10/1999 3:51:00 PM
From: RTev	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 2340

You think (probably correctly) that this complaining would become ineffective in an environment with an OT filter. I posit that the complaining is ineffective now.... My experience is that people post OT with impunity now, so why would it go up? One of the interesting things about this thread is that it demonstrates that various users have very different experiences of SI. I haven't seen the mass of OT posts you speak of on any of the few threads I follow. Most are very much like this one and stay focused on a single topic. I also haven't seen much of that posting OT with impunity. On most threads I read, folks identify their OT posts and recognize that they should remain limited. Those threads would be harmed by a button that encourages OT posting, because the number of OT posts would increase dramatically. It sounds like the threads you read behave differently. I won't presume to say which tendency is most common, but will presume to say that adding a button would make all threads become more like the ones you describe. That would be unfortunate. On the following issue, I also don't think the button would be of much help: As you point out, for awhile at least it just gets worse after one of those "hey let's get back on topic" reminders, but then it does get better. I see those blow-ups as usually detracting from the thread more than the original OT post(s) in the first place. If you had the button, you'd get the same flurry of arguments when a poster doesn't use it and another thinks he should and posts a complaint.