The current Not About Food board parameters read thusly:
“Discussions unrelated to food. Per forum rules, please no discussions on policies, politics, racism, disability, religion, sexual orientation, discrimination. Discussions on these topics require a large amount of moderation resources that the site do not have.”
IMO, this needs clarification and narrowing. On Chowhound, NAF is for topics like etiquette, tipping, ambiance, and other subjects that while not strictly about food, ARE tangentially related to food/dining. My feeling is that HO should have the same boundaries. I don’t expect a food-related website to discuss cars, TV shows/movies (which aren’t about food), or deceased celebrities. Does anyone really need another place to “dish” about pop culture?
I’d classify these as perfectly fitting for the applicable regional board; no reason to add yet another board. But if you posted solely about your travel plan and your accommodations, without mention of what/where you ate, I would not see it as appropriate for a food-centric site like HO.
Here’s my thought process when I created the NAF board:
One option is define the site as about food only, and when things get off topic, I get involved, perhaps during work hours, or be away from the kids, and remove/ lock the off-topic threads, and probably be viewed by participants as a bit tight-fisted. The site will be about food.
The other is create a NAF board and let people talk about anything that doesn’t tend to blow up, and in the process keep the food boards on topic about food, while all the other stuff stays on the NAF board. I don’t have to spend too much time moderating or be seen as controlling, people can be reasonably happy if they want to talk about other stuff with their pals. At the end, I chose this option out of self-preservation.
To me, as long as the traffic on this board isn’t very big it seems to be an ok compromise. Of course, if there are more threads on this board vs all the other boards, maybe we need to rethink. And I’d prefer to dedicate what little time I have to grow the forum, especially at this stage of the site.
I agree. Or at least create a topic for these types of posts called “Seriously, not even remotely about food, no connection at all, nothing.” There are plenty of forums devoted to discussion of tv shows, and I doubt very much that posts about where you ate last night would be welcome there.
If it grows to the point where new posts have so much of that that it’s hard to scroll. I just think it’s easier to not allow it. As you say, go elsewhere. Please.
