[An.American.Expatriate]

Carney,

I have repeatedly said that the banter needs to be kept down, not eliminated! I have no problem with banter and engage in it a bit myself when there are no events to discuss. However, when the first several hundred posts of the thread are overwhelmingly banter, someone trying to catch up or inform themselves is confrinted with a lot of "useless" posts. After reading about 30 or so back to back, one starts to skim through and can miss information they actually want to read.

As to "news only", that was the intent of this thread - a place to gather related topics and disucss them in general as oppossed to indepth discussions of one topic.

Making friends is a fringe benefit of this type of thread and the usual back and forth IS tolerated - no one has been harrassed for this - we simply need to keep to the topic as much as possible.

Is that really too much to ask?

[Tree of Liberty]

Fox - back to the Iraqi health minister

[blondee123]

have repeatedly said that the banter needs to be kept down, not eliminated! I have no problem with banter and engage in it a bit myself when there are no events to discuss. However, when the first several hundred posts of the thread are overwhelmingly banter, someone trying to catch up or inform themselves is confrinted with a lot of "useless" posts. After reading about 30 or so back to back, one starts to skim through and can miss information they actually want to read. As to "news only", that was the intent of this thread - a place to gather related topics and disucss them in general as oppossed to indepth discussions of one topic. Making friends is a fringe benefit of this type of thread and the usual back and forth IS tolerated - no one has been harrassed for this - we simply need to keep to the topic as much as possible. Is that really too much to ask?

I couldn't agree more, I am not on here til late & trying to catch up on "news" is very difficult when there is a lot of "banter"! It is very difficult to sift thru pages & pages of OT to find a few posts on topic. The admin of this site would suggest those who want to chat & make friends, should go to a chat room.