A(n) (admittedly self-righteous) Suggestion

[KevinM]

In perusing the boards here, it seems that there are many participants in the LL who rarely, if ever, post about running. Political discourse is great, and arguably more important on a large scale than the minutiae of the Missouri Valley XC Championships, but I think the discussion on the other board could benefit by increased particpation from the "Legends". There are some people here with good things to contribute, and yet non-running posts drastically outnumber running posts by most of us. Yesterday alone, the LL had twice as many updated topics as the College board, and this is the prime time for one of the three collegiate seasons.

I'm fairly guilty of this myself, but was curious as to other folks' ideas as to increasing good discussion on track/field/xc.

[Kalaby]

In my 4 years or so on Dyestat, the LL has pretty much always been this way. I generally come here for some political/current events discussions but anything is fair game - especially running talk. I post frequently in other sections of the board about running, but like I said, anything is fair game in the LL, so I'm sure nobody will complain about more running threads or other non-politically themed threads.

[KevinM]

Not really referring to the LL as much as I am the tendency of many LL (and Playground, I assume) posters to come here to discuss ONLY politics/current events/socialize and not to contribute to the entire point of this website's existence.

[herr]

I post on running on the running threads, but tend to discuss politics in the lounge. I think the lounge was created, back in the day, to get political discussion OFF the running threads. The Lounge was then made into a semi-membership based space to try to impose a little decorum in discussions. That alone, obviously, did not work. But things have become more civil lately than they have been. People have deep political disagreements in the lounge and that can often lead to people getting upset

[Kalaby]

Not really referring to the LL as much as I am the tendency of many LL (and Playground, I assume) posters to come here to discuss ONLY politics/current events/socialize and not to contribute to the entire point of this website's existence.

OK gotcha. I can assure you that I'm not a "guilty party" ;) with respect to that. I'd say that over 95% of my posts on Dyestat are running related and most of those are geared towards the high school running scene.

[Wayne B]

...but I think the discussion on the other board could benefit by increased particpation from the "Legends". There are some people here with good things to contribute, and yet non-running posts drastically outnumber running posts by most of us. Yesterday alone, the LL had twice as many updated topics as the College board, and this is the prime time for one of the three collegiate seasons.

I'm fairly guilty of this myself, but was curious as to other folks' ideas as to increasing good discussion on track/field/xc.

Kevin M,
First, I'd say that the fact that during a critical time in their season, collegians aren't spending much time on message boards is possibly a sign that they're taking care of what's important (school, running, etc.) I also think that for many of us, running represents a small part of our lives, and we, as runners see ourselves as part of a grand family of runners, with whom we share our lives, albeit to varying degrees.

I'll also say that I find a great many of the non-running discussions are political, and highly partisan, and most degrade rather quickly into partisan bashing, rather than intelligent discourse. As a result, I avoid them much of the time. I find that at least some of the participants seem to accept virtually any and all bashing of the opposition or the opposition's points as genuine truth, but as is sometimes said, "there are three versions of the truth; his (her) version, your version, and the actual truth."

I'm wondering a bit whether you're saying that your hip question seems to be getting ignored. I will confess that I tend to check the "Patti" thread regularly and ignore most others, so from my point of view, a posting there is more likely to draw a response.

Finally, just a semantic point, why is your posting self-righteous? It raises a legitimate point of inquiry, and while I guess it could be argued that the fact you raised it means you feel you're "holier than thou," I'd have to disagee. If, on the other hand, you were posting it to try to get people to look at your hip injury post, that would be self-serving, but what's wrong with looking after your interests?

[KevinM]

Sorry, didn't really have anything to do with my hip situation. Separate issue.

I just thought I might be coming across a bit preachy or as telling people how they should post when my main objective would be for more of the intelligent folks we see in the political and other threads (even the contentious ones) to contribute to the running-specific threads. Some people post on the LL maybe 20x more than they do in running threads.

[jake]

Kevin M,
First, I'd say that the fact that during a critical time in their season, collegians aren't spending much time on message boards is possibly a sign that they're taking care of what's important (school, running, etc.)

Either that or they're all on LetsRun, trying to wade through the chaos of the message board.

[Andrew Carey]

Not really referring to the LL as much as I am the tendency of many LL (and Playground, I assume) posters to come here to discuss ONLY politics/current events/socialize and not to contribute to the entire point of this website's existence.

We can discuss running in other areas of the site that are expressly set up for that. While, I suppose running might be nice to talk about but I run all the time and just don't care to talk about it too, so I would rather just come here and the Playground and not have to think about running. That's just a personal preference. If other people like to discuss running more that's totally cool with me.


I just thought I might be coming across a bit preachy or as telling people how they should post when my main objective would be for more of the intelligent folks we see in the political and other threads (even the contentious ones) to contribute to the running-specific threads. Some people post on the LL maybe 20x more than they do in running threads.

To each his own.

[BisonHurdler]

You'll never find me coming here to discuss politics. I'd rather discuss the mating habits of the three toed sloth (and I have no interest whatsoever in the mating habits of the three toed sloth).

[jrun]

You'll never find me coming here to discuss politics. I'd rather discuss the mating habits of the three toed sloth (and I have no interest whatsoever in the mating habits of the three toed sloth).

What about an easier topic, like religion?