Our BetterMost Community > Chez Tremblay

Some thoughts on our board, its title, and how to preserve our history/identity

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RouxB:
Jenny-I know exactly where you are coming from-you and me are like that!  I know this cyberworld  becomes difficult to manage when people have such diverse attachments. I, like you, are very much attached to the history of Chez Trembly and would be very (really, VERY) unhappy to see it lost in the shuffle.

It took me a while to get used to the thread segregations and, truthfully, as a result I posted less because I didn't make the move with the threads. I think the format we like is what we were accustomed to at IMDb-everything in one place. I can see a need to have "homes" for certain things but I would like to see the Tremblay community continue in a way that honors our beginnings.

There is no way B'most is going to be all things to all people. It is important to be inclusive but not in the sense that every forum needs to appeal to every member. I think those people that venture into Chez Trembly will like it-us-or they won't. Maybe they'll find a home in one of the other forums-Bettermost existed well before the initial Tremblay invasion. I would hate to lose what is dear and valuable and meaningful to me in an effort to attract newbies. I trust our new members will be able to find their way and make connections with us because this is a group of caring people who will suck them in like you did me  :-* There is lots to explore at Bettermost and I think we can evolve and encourage without losing our Tremblay identity.

 O0

Meryl:
Jenny, it's good to see you posting again.  It has been a while!  And thanks for your thoughts.  :-*

I know what you mean about keeping Chez Tremblay's identity, and when I went through the first 10 pages recently and chose some discussion threads to move over to the Open Forum, I kept that foremost in my mind.  I didn't move the two threads you mentioned (Barb's and the Ennis Hunh thread) for just that reason.  And for the record, it was a joint decision among the Mods involved to move the threads that we did.

I look at it as a beneficial trade.  We are welcoming a wave of new members right now, many of whom will want to discuss the movie.  They are much more likely to check out the Open Forum for that, and some really good discussions were getting buried here at CT.  They now have a new lease on life, so to speak.

Another way to think of it is natural evolution.  Most original CT members, myself included, hardly looked at the other forums here for the first few months.  But CT has now been a part of BetterMost for over twice as long as we were active over at IMDb---8 months here as compared to around 3 at IMDb.  Most members are now comfortable using the whole BetterMost board, and the line between the original Tremblayans and the new ones is much harder to define.  It seems natural now for the new topics in CT to be mostly comfortable conversations among friends, which is why we chose the cafe analogy.  A nice visit over a cup of coffee can cover a lot of things.

General housekeeping will continue, of course.  David recently removed a number of old threads referring to individual troll incidents, for example.  But no one is interested in cleansing CT of its past.  Just making the good stuff easier to find.  8)

newyearsday:
It's nice to see all the familiar faces posting on this thread and thanks for the sweet messages welcoming me back and letting me know my opinion is appreciated. It's always good to know that there's a home for a brokie out there  :)

I have three thoughts in response to what's been said so far:

(1) how about having a poll to decide what our subtitle should be? As in, three or four choices (more if they are offered) that would all somehow reflect our desire to be known as a welcoming place for people to chat that has a community feel to it. My options if I were the poll writer would be something like:

a) Chez Tremblay -- The Cyber Campsite for all Bettermost Brokies
Pull up a log and stick a boot in the fire!

b) Chez Tremblay -- Your Virtual Bettermost Diner
serving up cherry cake, coffee and coversation 24-7 [or insert Ma Twist "cherry cake" quote here]

c) Chez Tremblay -- The Cyber Cafe [the choice as it's now reading on the front page of the forums]


(2) In terms of the question of how to let people know what CT is, that it's a place with a special, though not exclusionary, history and always welcomes newcomers, how about the idea of putting a post in the Bettermost User Services forum that is always at the top and has a bit of a guide to all the forums, maybe two or three lines each so that it's a little more info than just what is on the actual forum page where you click to enter the various forums/boards. This way we could say yes, it's been around as a community for a while and moved here en masse due to trolls at IMDb, but that it's a welcoming place for people to post as a community.

The only thing with this approach is that I wonder if people would actually see that forum much when they first come to the site. In that case, maybe there should be the equivalent of a big sign pointing people to that part of the forums when they first get here or are looking around in bewilderment. I think Phillip did, at one point, have something that said on the main forums page "come here first if you're new to Bettermost" or something. In the interest of acquainting people with the whole site, maybe there should be a larger font or more obvious welcome page that explains, in easy to read bullets, something about the history of the site, and what the various boards are, as well as a brief condensed version of posting guidelines, along with links to more detailed descriptions of them. In fact the big welcome post could have links to all the boards in that post, so people could easily go out and come back in their first jaunt around the site.

(3) Re: the threads moving issue. I'm really glad to know that Meryl and others feel the same as I do about not losing our special history through moving posts. I know that with 36,000 plus posts, some housekeeping is in order... But maybe we should come up with more criteria as a community as to what should stay here and what should be moved. If we know that we want to keep threads like the Ennis del Mar catalog of Huh and Hmmm at Chez Tremblay, what are the factors in that decision? Or in keeping Barb's thread here, for that matter. 

It seems like we might have some criteria like (going from the top of my head)

--was the post re-constituted from our IMDb days?
--Is it from someone who's been a longtime member of CT?
--Is it posted here because the user wants it to be discussed here specifically?
--Does it demonstrate somehow the level of community we developed on this particular board?
--Does it have a peculiar brand of humor that has come to characterize a lot of the posts and feeling of camraderie at CT?
--Is it a particularly active thread here or was it once very active (and maybe deserves a bump)?

These are some ideas, maybe others have more. I think in any of the above cases, if it's a "yes" then the thread should be a keeper at CT for sure. But that does not really cover all the instances that threads should stay here, it's just what comes to me now as I'm getting ready for bed.

One more point. Something Ruby said in her post reminded me of what I do miss from IMDb: that everything was in one place there, and it was easier to know the immediate feel of the community in any given day by just looking at the first page of CT. It's interesting that the discussion here did grind to a halt a month ago, as David said, and part of me wonders if that had anything to do with the new boards and re-organization. In other words, are the social events forum, the chat room, and the open forum serving a lot of the needs that CT once had for us?

...I just wonder if there is a point at which too much compartmentalization could be de-unifying to Bettermost as a whole, and not just Chez Tremblay. It's something to think about.

...I remember back in February when threads at the IMDb Chez Tremblay would be like a chat, where someone (usually Chris Slayers or maybe Ray) would start off a thread by asking how people were doing today and saying good morning. I miss those days of it feeling like one big room. Of course, Chez Tremblay and the whole site has to change over time, as people come in, or others move on, or new ideas come to pass. But maybe we can bring back a little more of that kind of spirit to the CT board. Chat is great but it's so ephemeral and fast moving at times, and can only happen with whomever is there in the moment; whereas a leisurely "how is your day out there" thread could happen at Chez Tremblay, and incorporate longer reflection than chats generally do. It's just a thought.

Thanks for listening and now it's off to bed!

Jenny

Kelda:
Hey.. thought I'd give my two cents worth.

I am also of the view of not losing the CT spirit that we all hold so dearly - I certainly wouldn't be here now if it wasn't for the friendships!

But certainly things have trailed off recently - and those quizzes I liked to start with and then they got on my nerves!

The reason for the trail off - certainly as others suggested - when I joined I dd bnot venture out of CT for months - then Anything goes came about and I ventured there and now I look in most of the sections where I see new posts have arrived although I more active in CT/Anything Goes/Our Daily Thoughts.

An idea I had - and I'm not sure if its do-able - would be either to

a) make the original CT posts which would be eligible for a move to the open forum, able to be viewed on both the open and CT boards
b) make a child board for the more open forum suited posts in the CT board - so retain it in CT but provide a link to this child board as a sticky in the open forum. Howver it might suffer the fate pf other child baords of not being used very much?

Re: the hello thread. Perhaps we resserect properly the type of lounge thread that was bumped yesterday (see below for link) and mke an effort to use it. I certainly would come in and say hey everyday.

It could be a sticky - after all this is the cafe/campfire/diner - and as we all know with any good sitcome/drama like Friends, Frasier, Coronation Street, Eastenders, Home and Away there is always someehere to congregate and have discussions - why not here?



http://bettermost.net/forum/index.php?topic=979.0

SFEnnisSF:
I think hard-core discussions about the movie and the book (scene by scene, elements, etc) should be in the Open Fourm.

Chez Trembley is more for the fun stuff and announcements, personal BBM stories, occasional chit chat; the not so necessairly hard core discussion.  IE: the Ennis Catalogue, Lines U wont hear in BBM, The 2-disc Special Edition is coming, What are people reading, Where's kirk been, Jake Jake Jake, A personal experience with a viewing, Heath's new movie, etc. etc.  A little more of a personal community feeling to it...Which is what we are.  :D

I agree that the threads that were moved to the Open Forum should have been moved there.  When I'm in the mood to discuss the film and the scenes, I head there to the Open Forum.  When I'm in the mood for light chit-chat, announcements, and community warmth, I head to Chez Trembley.

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