It is comforting to see that this is our biggest concern of the day. It could be a lot worse.
10 Likes
As someone with no dog in this fight (I don’t participate in What’s For Dinner), I am nonetheless going to come out in favor of separating “what I made” from “where I got my meal from.” I can see that the title of the thread in question is not specific enough to make obvious what it’s designed to be about. But I have no doubt it’s designed to be about “what I made,” because it’s modeled on the identically-titled Chowhound thread, which I think is limited to home-cooked meals.
I understand arguments for more inclusion, in the interest of keeping the thread as active as possible. But I’m still against it, for the reasons others have mentioned. Recall several recent examples of posters adding a picture of food X or meal X in a thread about…not food or meal X. I don’t think anyone came out in favor of that.
1 Like
I hereby make the only-mostly-joking proposal that all location-specific boards and all restaurant reviews be permanently merged into WFD, and any attempts to set them up again continue to be re-merged. 
1 Like
ha!I disqualified you for vacillating over night. We need definitive votes, not vote one way, then sleep on it, then vote another way. That’s not how HO works, we need driven results minded people who vote and vote with vigor!! You will be defined by how you voted from now till eternity!!! You are either with us or against us or are you “one of us…one of us…one of us…”. (forget what thread that was in and if you were part of it, if not it’s funny trust me)
8 Likes
HAHAHA. I’d expect nothing less! Good man!
2 Likes
@NotJrvedivici can put me in the vacillating category.
I think it’s telling that so many people popped up to talk about this. In my mind that speaks well of the HO community health. My perception is offered as is without warranty and certainly not suggesting more rules.
I’m simply not interested in pictures of restaurant meals. I like seeing pictures or text descriptions of what people do themselves. The more scratch cooking the better. When there is a restaurant meal (absent COVID - see below) I just scroll on past. No interest, no inspiration. Just not what I come to HO for. I don’t advocate prohibiting them, I just don’t care. If HO turns into pictures of restaurant meals I’ll just quietly look elsewhere.
Pictures of what people actually make at home feed active discussion of ingredients, techniques, and taste. Some spawn threads of their own. That’s what I come here for. That is what moves me to start threads of my own (my recent chicken thighs thread for example).
I’d like to avoid rules. The foundation of cooking leads to relationships that in turn spawn additional discussion, some on HO and some on back channels. Friendships are born and nurtured. Let’s not break that.
I’m extremely conservative about COVID. My small business has a pretty restrictive COVID policy. In my opinion eating in restaurants is not well advised. Legal does not mean smart. Frankly, pictures of restaurant meals in the midst of a pandemic leads me to judgment about the poster. My business has done well by being educated about COVID and being extremely careful. I picked up two new clients today due to care about COVID. The message here is that there are subtexts and assessments beyond cooking one’s meals oneself and going out to restaurants. YMMV.
In the end, WFD will be what it is. If the balance of home cooking vice restaurants and prepped food tips away from home cooking I’ll simply stop reading the thread. If restaurants dominate the board I’ll go elsewhere. No need for rules at all. Each of us can make our own choices about how to spend our time and where to turn for advice and counsel.
10 Likes
100 percent agree. Discussions like this are useful to have from time to time, I think—like a check-in.
9 Likes
It was fun re reading those threads. I miss Phreddy and Jim’s contributions.
7 Likes
Where did they go?
As somebody who missed all of this, I vote for more fun!
OFF TOPIC ***And don’t forget to eat at Jersey Mike’s tomorrow because ALL the money goes to charity only tomorrow.
6 Likes
I have no idea but I haven’t seen their “handles” posting in a long while . Have you?
1 Like
You need fewer words than I do. hugs
1 Like
The other discussion I alluded to a few times - re people post non-food chatter like how their day went and so on - that one started out “benign” too but didn’t end that way. @PHREDDY was a casualty of that iirc.
3 Likes
No idea what happened to @redjim, I tried to contact him via PM, no reply. I hope that you’re fine if you read this post, Jimmy. I hope that it’s not because of health issue that keep you from posting.
As for @phreddy, he was upset (it was a long story) and now post very rarely. I do miss him.
2 Likes
Redjim just disappeared off the face of the board one day. Hope it’s a self imposed break and he’s ok.
1 Like
I give my opinion as a contributor for WFD (not as mod), I do feel the lively conversation and the sharing the best part of WFD. Whether it’s homemade, restaurant, store bought, cooked by your best friend, by your partner, made by your chef friend or a paid meal in a restaurant. When it’s of celebration, most of the time, we eat out (before the covid days) but at the same time, we want others to share the joy of this event in WFD. Spontaneity is more important than trying to categorizing information in the site. A few of the WFD contributors also write detail restaurant reviews but just repost the event for WFD. It’s especially nice to see what one eats when traveling. I agree with @bbqboy, we don’t visit all the regional boards, especially it’s not my neighbourhood, but I still enjoy reading them and get inspiration from that.
Detail restaurants reviews should be posted in the regional boards, repost to WFD if one wishes or brief mention in the dinner thread should be accepted, I think.
Actually this thread is about WFD, but lunch and breakfast thread can have the same problem of eating out versus home cooked.
9 Likes
I noticed that with certain browsers, a post with a lot of hi-resolution pictures can be very heavy to load and lead to sluggish display in WFD thread. It happens especially to Brave or Chrome (on iphone). I wonder if this is an issue for anybody?
I’m reading this post . What !! You want me to go to a region like Spain to see the beautiful pictures Barca takes when she goes out to dinner or find pictures of the wines that Eli posts. Well I don’t like the sound of this . So my neighbor is bringing over food . I didn’t cook it . Confused I am . Keep it just the way it is . I vote no change.
9 Likes
Hear, hear! Well said.
1 Like
