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<blockquote data-quote="cybertalus" data-source="post: 1440943" data-attributes="member: 4400">Morrus,After reading your idea, I wanted to mention some concerns I have.&nbsp; Not in the spirit of stomping on the idea, but in the spirit of trying to find problems before they happen so they can be prevented.The idea overall seems pretty cool.&nbsp; And I can certainly see advantages for EN World's users as well as for you (fewer websites for the users to access, and more revenue for EN World in exchange for that convenience).&nbsp; However, I have some concerns about private forums.One problem with private forums is that whether they are created for that purpose or not, they tend to become the nucleus of cliques.&nbsp; I've seen it happen before on other boards and in chat rooms.&nbsp; Someone creates a private area for themself and a few friend away from the &quot;noisy&quot; main area, and before long most of the activity in the private area consists of complaints about people in the main area.&nbsp; I think a very large part of the success of EN World has been that for the most part the mods and admins have managed to keep the board from breaking into cliques and factions so that people don't begin to think of some people on the boards as &quot;us&quot; and other people on the boards as &quot;them&quot;, and I'm concerned that private forums could undermine that.I've also seen that it's very difficult to keep conversations isolated to private areas.&nbsp; I think this could be of particular concern if you allow for religious, political, or other controversial discussions in private areas.&nbsp; If someone develops a dislike or even a grudge against someone else because of a discussion in a private forum, it is going to be extremely difficult for them to not carry that over into the main boards.&nbsp; This could potentially lead to closures of otherwise legitimate threads.&nbsp; On a related note it could also make it very difficult to stomp out flames.&nbsp; If users are going at each other and the topic is closed on the main boards but they're allowed to continue flaming on in a private forum, then a particular topic might never truly settle down.I expect that there are ways to avoid all of these potential problems, but I figured they might be easier to avoid if someone mentioned them early on.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="cybertalus, post: 1440943, member: 4400"] Morrus, After reading your idea, I wanted to mention some concerns I have. Not in the spirit of stomping on the idea, but in the spirit of trying to find problems before they happen so they can be prevented. The idea overall seems pretty cool. And I can certainly see advantages for EN World's users as well as for you (fewer websites for the users to access, and more revenue for EN World in exchange for that convenience). However, I have some concerns about private forums. One problem with private forums is that whether they are created for that purpose or not, they tend to become the nucleus of cliques. I've seen it happen before on other boards and in chat rooms. Someone creates a private area for themself and a few friend away from the "noisy" main area, and before long most of the activity in the private area consists of complaints about people in the main area. I think a very large part of the success of EN World has been that for the most part the mods and admins have managed to keep the board from breaking into cliques and factions so that people don't begin to think of some people on the boards as "us" and other people on the boards as "them", and I'm concerned that private forums could undermine that. I've also seen that it's very difficult to keep conversations isolated to private areas. I think this could be of particular concern if you allow for religious, political, or other controversial discussions in private areas. If someone develops a dislike or even a grudge against someone else because of a discussion in a private forum, it is going to be extremely difficult for them to not carry that over into the main boards. This could potentially lead to closures of otherwise legitimate threads. On a related note it could also make it very difficult to stomp out flames. If users are going at each other and the topic is closed on the main boards but they're allowed to continue flaming on in a private forum, then a particular topic might never truly settle down. I expect that there are ways to avoid all of these potential problems, but I figured they might be easier to avoid if someone mentioned them early on. [/QUOTE]

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