uh....what does it matter? Some of us that do chit chat don't exactly care about rank, except for you that is.
And they've already announce they are changing the ranks sometime over the next few months. They will be a mixture of how many flings you've done and how many posts.

Some of us just aren't as rich as you to fling so much, so we chit chat. This IS the "everything else" /chat area.

And I thought that we had all agreed to quit the chit chat/off topic stuff in the "Products" section.

I think we are beginning to see an emergence of two ways of thinking--those who are in the new party and living it large on the forums, and those who preferred the forums how they were up to 2 or 3 months ago--it really has transformed tremendously.
You know what I think? I think what is really spurring on the sentiment is the fact that the "active discussions" list is now always majority filled with the idle chit-chat threads. I for one always used to use that as my way of keeping up with topics, but it is less useful to me now. Just my observation, in my eyes, the everything else forum could stand to be split off of that list and leave it for well, everything else.

I personally don't think it is in Thing Flings interest to have people who buy from their site go to another website to chat as it were. TF shouldn't mind it because now they have people coming to their website for 2 reasons or twice as much (which ever way to prefer to look at it) TF is a business. Think of it like Barnes and Noble. You have people just hanging out and sometimes buying things, Then you have the people who come in, purchase and leave. All these customers make the store "busy" Could you imagine B&N asking people to go to Dunkin Donuts instead? Besides, online the more people you have viewing your website the more AD revenue you can create. It is in TF's best interest to have as many people as possible come to their site.

It isn't as if we didn't have people on the forum before the recent boom in membership, there always was a community here, and always discussion, and plenty of people who came back daily for the discussion alongside withe flinging. But it was largely a different crowd, a paradigm shift in at least the most vocal group is occurring. The question that stands to be answered for TF in way of draw back as you discuss, is whether the new paradigm will attract and keep members more successfully than the old (a quieter forum, more focused to TF related topics)

I think that's part of the point, you have a WE, you have a group[ small enough that can take such a vow--It is primarily a small group creating most of the activity. Nothing wrong weith that, but it is different. I merely think the forum population is likely to change greatly even still.

By boon, I meant those that appeared since a little bit before Xmas till now, so that would mean us oldies attracted you all.

Keep going with what you're all doing, change happens, though in my case it has meant frequenting the everything else forum far less frequently, but that's okay. It is healthy though to discuss the matter, and really these forums have always been self-governing. So continue the evolution! Have fun, always what the atmosphere around here was.

I think scaredwitless made a very important point here that has been ingored in the susequent conversation, and that is the line about the "Active discussions" list. I think it is true that most of the chit-chat has been taking place in the "Everything Else" forum, and I think that is good. However, I think most long-time flingers are not used to actually clicking on "Forum" up at the top, then on "Products", then on the thread we're interested in. Instead, we're accustomed to just checking the "Active Discussions" section at the bottom. (Not too long ago, you could check in there every few hours and not miss a thing.) We're used to all the useful info being right there under "active discussions", but now the "active discussions" are mostly chit-chat and you have to dig a little to get info. So unless TF is going to increase the "Active Discussions" to show the last 20 or so threads (which personally I think would be great) or have two active discussion sections (one for products, one for misc.), the old-timers are just going to have to accept that "active discussions" is now useless to them, and actually dig around in the forum. This really should be no big deal, but of course old habits die hard, and any change is usually accompanied with a certain amount of complaining. I think that is understandable.

Just trying to help the new folks maybe understand the old folks a little, since I kind of feel like something of a hybrid (been around for a while, have been posting much more since the forums livened up, but will never have time to post nearly as much as the handful of mega-posters).

1. This forum IS for our personal chat...duh!

2. in case you haven't noticed..we are TRYING to keep products..just products and What did you get..Just that

3. maybe there are a FEW who post just to get their posts up there, but not ALL of us.

We are trying to be a NICE ThingFling community here. So we're interested in WHO we are sharing this site with...what's the big deal??

ANYONE can come in and post with us...we are not bais to anyone...UNLESS they're just trying to cause trouble...then there's a problem.

I understand there's a problem when the MAIN forums have a bunch of OFF TOPICS in them....I personally have asked that we TRY to stay ON TOPIC because I know it IS upsetting the others. BUT it will happen occasionally...

Also, I'd like to add that there are WAY more older members joining in on the 'chatter' and have even said they enjoy it.

SO..MY question is:

What is ya'll's problem with ANYONE chatting in an EVERYTHING ELSE FORUM???

Or, for that matter why come in and try to cause trouble when everyone is having fun??

ARE YOU JEALOUS?? All you have to do is post with us..INSTEAD of against us!!

AS for the MAIN topic here...I could really care less about the RANKINGS....ThingFling could base it on Flings for all I care!!

I LIKE meeting these people and I enjoy learning who they are

HELLLOOOOO That's HOW you make friends!!

Yes, I clearly am JEALOUS of your ability to MAKE friends on a DOD website. And that you have such a GREAT command of the SHIFT key. And you MIGHT check the sensitivity of your keystrokes. Hello has only two els and one o.


My point was that the incessant chatter has made TF less attractive for me and perhaps others.

The solution is very simple - don't frequent the board if you don't like it. I'm fairly new here, and every time I have seen a post from you it has always contained a negative connotation in some form or another. Why are you so bitter about the fact that there is a lot of fun in this forum, and posters, for the most part, highly enjoy participating? I'm not trying to bash you, but it seems you want to eliminate the happy and fun aspect of the TF forums. What reason could you have to want to do that???