Re: The Inception of the Edge

Posted by fak, 2011-10-05 11:15 BST

OK, let's try out this q tag, see what it looks like:

I am not on a crusade to convert rec.jugglers. Using rec.juggling is not a sin & rec.jugglers do not need to be taught the error of their ways. I just want to attract interesting jugglers with something to say. I don't care where they come from. To do this (when the site is Ready™) I will be approaching lots of interesting people personally, I will try to pique their interest with one or two thought provoking questions & ask that they contribute a Big Post. I will not be standing up in rec.juggling & shouting, "Come & use my forum!" As I said in my original Big Post I am well aware how many discussion forums have failed, I would even go as far as to say I'm more aware than most people. Which is why I won't be repeating their mistakes.

I'm a little bit more confused now, since previously you had said that you wanted to replace rec.juggling, then went on to say

I'm not sure I understand your concern about rec.juggling filling a gap. Surely that is a good thing? If rec.juggling provides you with value that's good isn't it?

particularly when combined with

Succession is a tricky thing. For a new product to replace an old one, merely being better is not enough. It has to be *much* better.

With just Small Talk and Big Talk I think The Edge is missing out on a range of conversations that fall in the middle of those two. Topics that aren't chat (which Small Talk seems to be at the moment) but that aren't big serious topics that require 24 hours thinking time before posting (Big Talk). Unless The Edge provides somewhere for these topics to be discussed I think people will continue to use r.j. for that. If they are using r.j. for the "medium" talk, chances are they're going to continue using r.j. for the small and big talk too (why visit several websites to discuss a topic when you can do it all in one place?). If you want to replace r.j. for online juggling discussions (and I'm now confused as to whether you do or not or to what extent) then The Edge needs to be better than r.j. Without space for "medium" talk, I don't think it will be.

As I said before, maybe I just don't understand what goes into Small Talk and what goes into Big Talk, but there are lots of topics I could think of that I wouldn't put in either - festival announcements and reviews, prop reviews, show announcements, etc (off the top of my head). Would these sorts of topics be covered by other sections of The Edge? At the moment I wouldn't put them in Small Talk as that moves too quickly (and I'm finding it hard to read atm, but I'll deal with that in ST), but would want faster feedback/input/replies than 24 hours, which rules out Big Talk.