Has the possibility of an off-topic forum been discussed?

[TheBlackPaladin]

The title says it all. No big deal, I only ask because occasionally I run into something that's only vaguely Dragon Ball-related and want to share it with other posters on Daizenshuu EX who I'm sure would appreciate it nevertheless. Like I said, no biggie, just wondering if the possibility has ever been talked about.

[bkev]

The reason there isn't one is because Big V feels that the forum would eventually lose its Dragonball focus. This is why we can't post in the Introduction section, which makes it really quite useless: we were too silly there. There is the now abandoned Daizex Random should anyone wish to try and revive it.

edit: looks like daizex random has been closed, nevermind.

[Shiyonasan]

Yes, it has been asked many times before. In fact, there was a thread about a month ago where ShadowDude asked the same question.

Basically, what bkev said is right. The closest thing Daizenshuu EX has to an off-topic forum is the chat room (which I have actually never been on myself).

[B]

The chat room is the de facto "off-topic board." We talk about whatever* in there.

*Pokémon, One Piece, Super Sentai

[Godo]

edit: looks like daizex random has been closed, nevermind.

Nope, it's there. You just have to register to see everything. I think it had problems with spambots.
There should be a sticky in this subforum with a mention about the reasons why we don't have an Off Topic forum, with a link to other possible sites one can venture to if one is interested, such as Daizex Randomness.
In that way, we don't need to explain in every thread and we will have less threads about this same question.
What do you think?

[Taku128]

There should be a sticky in this subforum with a mention about the reasons why we don't have an Off Topic forum, with a link to other possible sites one can venture to if one is interested, such as Daizex Randomness.

But nobody posts on Daizex Randomness. The last post was made in April 2009, and even before that there was almost no posts.

[caejones]

There should be a sticky in this subforum with a mention about the reasons why we don't have an Off Topic forum, with a link to other possible sites one can venture to if one is interested, such as Daizex Randomness.

But nobody posts on Daizex Randomness. The last post was made in April 2009, and even before that there was almost no posts.

May 2009, by Sato. . (April woulda been me. XD).

But... yeah. Basically, we have an off-topic sister-board. I think Mike even posted on it a couple times. But it just can't seem to sustain activity. Maybe it's because people can't find it... but I really doubt that's it. It's probably just the fact that it's not connected to the boards here directly. More effort is involved.
I mean, not a whole lot, but enough that I wasn't checking it all that often even before I was attempting to loiter after the painfully obvious death.

*Is very sure is not the reason the introductions got supermodded, but can't help but feel partly responsible because of that one instance involving Frankenbell being brought up in a general discussions conversation just before the law got laid down. Though it would probably have happened eventually anyway.*

[Hellspawn28]

I won't mind seeing one seeing that we have a few mods that should able to handle taking care of it. Not to mention it would be a good alway to get to know members a lot better, and I don't think anyone even uses the Chat room anymore?

[Kaboom]

I don't think anyone even uses the Chat room anymore?

Oh, far from it. There's always an average of a dozen or so people in there.

[Hellspawn28]

I notice its a IRC type of chat room which I can never get to work. I do think we can remake Daized Random since the old site is dead if we wanted too.

[Drabaz]

From personal experience, I don't think an off-topic forum is a good idea. I joined a LittleBigPlanet forum about 2 years ago and they had an off-topic thread. After about 3 months, I only came back to that forum for the off-topic section.

[Turtle Marked Stone]

From personal experience, I don't think an off-topic forum is a good idea. I joined a LittleBigPlanet forum about 2 years ago and they had an off-topic thread. After about 3 months, I only came back to that forum for the off-topic section.

Yup, this is usually how other forums I went to ended up. On top of that the off topic area didn't really have anything of substance, it was a bunch of unfunny nonsequiter bullshit.

[B]

From personal experience, I don't think an off-topic forum is a good idea. I joined a LittleBigPlanet forum about 2 years ago and they had an off-topic thread. After about 3 months, I only came back to that forum for the off-topic section.

Yup, this is usually how other forums I went to ended up. On top of that the off topic area didn't really have anything of substance, it was a bunch of unfunny nonsequiter bullshit.

Hit right on the target with this. However, similar goings-on DO happen in the chatroom(People who aren't on the forum as much are still there everyday).

FYI, playing devil's advocate with this post. Couldn't care less about an off-topic board.

[Suupaa Gohan 2]

I notice its a IRC type of chat room which I can never get to work.

About 6 months ago, a friend recommended getting an IRC chat for my forum, and it was a little tricky for me to get the hang of it, but it's really not as intimidating as it looks - it's just a little different than other chat clients people are used to (AIM, MSN, etc). If you don't like or can't get mIRC (the one recommended on Mike's IRC page) to work, there are a bazillion and a half clients out there for whatever operating system you may have (I run Linux and use Konversation; KVirc is a good one that runs on Windows, Linux and Mac).

In my experience, when directing my forum members to the channel, they run into the same thing and end up confused about this whole IRC thing, or for some reason can't/don't want to download and install an application just to chat on one channel. For that, I recommend using qchat, which is a really simple web-based IRC - what you see is what you get, couldn't be easier to use. Just type a nickname for yourself and connect to the channel of your choice (#daizenshuu in this case), and boom, done. Start chatting. For anyone who just wants to hang out and discuss off-topic things, but doesn't want to or have time to learn anything more in-depth about IRC, I highly recommend the qchat.

More on-topic, I'd have to agree about off-topic forums. Back in 2005, I started my forum as a continuation of an Anime text board me and some friends used to frequent before it got shut down, as well as a place to host my fanfiction and art (before I was aware of sites like FF.net and deviantART). Since the board we migrated from had an Off-Topic forum, I created one for my board as well. 5 years later, Off-Topic pretty much IS IGNO, ironically making Off-Topic the most On-Topic forum on the board (hence my retcon of the site's title to no longer represent my fanfiction, and instead 'Insanity Goes Nearly Overboard')...my fanfiction was removed years ago (though I've got links to my FF.net and dA pages in the affiliates page), and though most of the founding members met through Anime and DBZ, the focus shifted further and further away from that, its intended subject. I could even argue that back when we visited the text board, before IGNO was even created, my little clique posted in Off-Topic more often than the Anime forums...though admittedly, it was so disorganized, half our off-topic threads still involved DBZ in some way or another.

So yeah, an Off-Topic forum isn't a good idea for a place like DaizEX, which has a very specific goal - being the most definitive and accurate (and literate!!) English-speaking Dragonball forum. It would detract too much from the intended goal, and everyone would just want to hang out in the Off-Topic forum. Well...I'd be more apt to say this applies to newer members, since the majority of us here are here in the first place because we want the Dragonball discussion, and I can't see a lot of the more hardcore members somehow posting any less in those areas. In any case, I'd personally just be an advocate for getting more people to use the IRC channel if they want general chit-chat, and keep the board focused on what we're here for in the first place.

And on top of all that, I still feel personally responsible for the closure of the Introductions forum, since my intro post devolved into what was apparently the most posted to intro ever, and is a prime example of what would happen if we got an Off-Topic forum around here... *sinks*

[Hellspawn28]

I can see why a off topic forum would never work since most members would hang out their instend then the main Dragon Ball forums. On TK, most of the older members just hang out on the other sections of the site then the main Toho sections since most of them don't really care for Godzilla anymore.

[cRookie_Monster]

I signed into the Daizex irc channel a while back. I was using a really old mIRC client from years ago. My virus alert went nuts just for connecting... when I got into the chat it was Mike and maybe one other person for hours, maybe days, I don't remember how long I stayed connected. I don't think I ever saw any conversation.

[TripleRach]

I signed into the Daizex irc channel a while back. I was using a really old mIRC client from years ago. My virus alert went nuts just for connecting... when I got into the chat it was Mike and maybe one other person for hours, maybe days, I don't remember how long I stayed connected. I don't think I ever saw any conversation.

That must have been a looooooong time ago. The other person was probably me. But it's much more active than that nowadays.

[caejones]

I tried signing into it using web qbirc. I've done this before, once I saw that it worked at SG2's forum, but couldn't connect.
Today, I tried again using the link that SG2 posted. It connected me, but wherever I wound up, there was noone in there but me. I'm assuming something went wrong, and it isn't that I happened to join at the time the place was abandoned.

[TripleRach]

I tried signing into it using web qbirc. I've done this before, once I saw that it worked at SG2's forum, but couldn't connect.
Today, I tried again using the link that SG2 posted. It connected me, but wherever I wound up, there was noone in there but me. I'm assuming something went wrong, and it isn't that I happened to join at the time the place was abandoned.

Probably because she said the channel name was #daizex, but it's actually #daizenshuu.

[Suupaa Gohan 2]

I tried signing into it using web qbirc. I've done this before, once I saw that it worked at SG2's forum, but couldn't connect.
Today, I tried again using the link that SG2 posted. It connected me, but wherever I wound up, there was noone in there but me. I'm assuming something went wrong, and it isn't that I happened to join at the time the place was abandoned.

Probably because she said the channel name was #daizex, but it's actually #daizenshuu.

Gah, my bad, sorry. I should have double-checked that before I typed my post ^^;