The DC United Forum Charter/FAQ :: Draft :: Please Comment The moderators all agreed it was time to update the FAQ for the upcoming season. So I made a draft, ran it by the other mods, and now we're looking for suggestions and comments from all of you. Please post your thoughts below. I'll leave it up for about a week and then I'll make up the final version and post it as sticky. Also, please take a look at the links section and see if there isn't anything that should be added or left off. There have been a few notable changes. The formatting is totally different. Hopefully it'll make it easier to read and use. We also decided to have a real FAQ for the first time. Some substantive things have been removed, some changed, and some things added in. We're also going to change the name to ... something. Lastly, we tried to take a lot of the suggestions from the state of the board thread and incorporate them into this document. Here's the old FAQ for comparison: https://www.bigsoccer.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&threadid=42696 So at this point we've got the basics down, and the mods all more or less agree on things. There's surely some more editing to do though. But it was time to post it on the board and get some comments and suggestions.
Whew, that's alot of reading (and I'm sure, typing)! I didn't have time to go any further than the second part yet, but noticed these two dead links, just like in the old one: DC United Legends and Lore DC United Personal Legends and Lore too bad, I always want to click them.... Maybe instead of the generic "click here" crap, maybe give an indication of where you might be going ("the bigsoccer admin FAQ" , "this classic DC thread", etc.) - something more clever and informative. Also might want to expand on where the MLS Fans (dreamy) thread is, that FAQ is for newbies after all. All in all, I like the new layout. I'm sure something in the later parts will spark another comment when I get around to doing that much reading
That's too bad since there were alot of good stories there like the famous airplane over the stadium saga and the infamous rocket incident.
That's a good effort, Mods. Everything seems pretty clear to me except the about the town thread. Happy hour threads are traditions that I hope will continue to be allowed as separate threads. I'm not sure how you do it, but I'd sure like to see a forum position that advocates free speech instead of political correctness. Even George Carlin agrees that political correctness is anathema. Terms like 'Sallie', that was created on this board to denote El Salvador locals that come to games to boo DC United, should be allowed. If somebody wants to make an a$$ out of him/herself, they should be allowed to do so, politely. Yes, I think one can be politely politically incorrect. Anyway, the faq is a fine effort to delimit the abstract. Well done. GM
You're right. Those were post crash threads so I'm not sure what happened. But they don't seem to exist at all. Maybe we should start new threads on both those topics.
I blame Kevin Payne. --------------------------- Thanks, Knave. I like the new format - it looks like a lot of work.
It didn't take too long actually. Most of it was already written - only two sections are new. Most of the language I just stole from the State of the Board thread. The rest was just editing. I've gotta add one thing to the FAQ section - a link to a thread on DC area soccer shops. That question must come up every few weeks.
Thanks for posting this. I have a comment about the notes below (I copied them from above). I really don't like the idea of a sticky thread w/ "near news and rumors" b/c it has over 400 posts. Many posters are able to come here every day and spend a lot of time reading, etc. I'm not able to come by that often b/c of work and it's very difficult and time consuming to wade through such a large thread. Why can't we have a new thread for each idea/news item? Just some food for thought... ----- Breaking News and Rumors Threads This thread is modeled after the breaking news threads at USSoccerUK. It serves two purposes. First, it’s basically just a blog for DC United related rumor and gossip with a bit of light banter added in. The idea is that not every rumor deserves its own thread (a few probably do), but there still ought to be a place to discuss them on the board. Second, this is also the only place on the DC United board for discussion of non-DC United related news. It’ll serve as a repository for links to breaking news on other boards and websites. This is also something of an experiment. This last off-season we had a pretty successful “near news” and rumors thread just about DC United. With this thread we’ll broaden out topically and see how it goes. There will be some additional guidelines on these threads. Please consult them before you begin posting there.
Actually, that wouldn't be a sticky anymore. And I'd anticipate starting a new one every so often - say every ten pages. Though that depends a bit on what people want, and on how much the thread is used. (I personally don't mind long threads. Clicking the arrow button takes you to the first unread post so I don't find navigating them very difficult.) It's important to understand that this thread is something of a compromise. The off-season thread was just a fun idea that worked pretty well, and offered a different style of discussion for those that liked it. I didn't anticipate continuing it at all during the season. But then the state of the board thread showed there was a lot of interest in having a place on this board for broader MLS discussion. Well, in many respects I just don't think we can do that without losing our focus on DC United. This just isn't a general MLS board. Still, I thought continuing and expanding the focus of the already existing thread might be a way to sneak in a bit of general MLS discussion for those that wanted it without disrupting the focus of the board. As for having a new thread for each new thing that might be posted on such a thread - First, often the thread does spawn new threads. That's not going to change. Second, much of this thread during the season will probably actually be off-topic for the DC United board. So a new thread for each thing really wouldn't be appropriate here. Part of the reason people wanted a bit of general MLS banter was because they didn't have much time but still wanted to know about the latest trades and happenings around MLS. This new thread won't offer in depth analysis and discussion but it should help to keep you up to date and point you towards more information. Does that make sense and answer some of your concerns?
Knave, I'll echo the comments about appreciating the hard work. I like the breakdown of posts-by-topic rather than the old One Big Post. I don't know if that's just for this comment period or for the final posting... I have one editing suggestion: Given that visitors to the FAQ will be folks new to the board, consider taking the "newbie" Q & A and putting it first on the list. I spent a lot of time lurking before ever posting, but some of these whippersnappers just jump right in, figuring it's just like IM or some other bulletin boards (like the electronic editions of Tiger Beat). It might be better if the first thing they encountered kept them from embarrassing themselves. One other anal-retentive point: On Special Threads I, there is a reference to additional information on spoilers "below" when that info actually preceeds the post. (At least in this formatting.) I look forward to seeing how "near news and rumors" evolves. Actually, i look forward to the d*mn season starting, but that's for another thread. dadman
Great job, to all the mods. I like everything I've seen. I have just one suggestion, though: I'd like the "Official DCU Word Association Thread" to be stickied. That's how I got 1,200 of my posts!
Excellent job, I finally got around to reading the rest of it. I echo dadman about the newbie stuff being higher up, and maybe tell them that on this board, the majority of people here seem to like it if you spell words out instead of using computer/IM/chat speech, if ur kewl w/dat neway I have to stop myself quite a bit (and I'm ancient); newer, younger posters will have a hard time being abused for it since some of the older people can't figure out what they're saying, even tho it's pretty simple, IMHO Oh, and Ned Devine's in Herndon is a pretty soccer-friendly bar http://neddevines.com
Thinking more about it, the Useful Links title should be changed to Links to TV, News, DC Bars, etc.... That way the people who really need to find the stuff but can't seem to identify that Useful Links might have that info, can find the links... And no, I'm not kidding about my distaste for people not able or willing to peek at the FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS to get answers to their questions that are probably asked by quite a few people! This is becoming my number 1 pet-peeve on the DC Boards - overtaking the slightly more annoying posting of duplicate threads!