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[Rogwell]

I'm wondering if I'm the only one that has thought of this - the introductions board is being used for a lot more than introductions recently. Now, there is nothing wrong with saying you are leaving but a couple times already new people have said they feel every body is leaving as soon as they get here. The introductions board is the first place a lot of new forum goers look and post before they start discussing else where on the forums - the first thing they will see is that a few people are coming and a lot of people are going. It can be very discouraging.

My thought/suggestion is a "taking a break" board - a dedicated place for these topics that won't discourage new people and won't clutter the intro board.

What does every body else think of this? Its not like this is a genuine issue but the thought still occurred to me.

[Ethelshai]

On many different forums, the introductions section is often used for hello and goodbye threads. :) The idea of separating them sounds good, but maybe it would be easier to rename the section into something like "Introductions and departures" or something like this. :)

[Selroth]

The introductions board is appropriate for this - we don't need to seperate the "goodbyes".  If anything, it could be renamed to better suite those as well.

Overall, the "goodbyes" are a trend now.  One I certainly do not like.  There's little to no purpose to announcing one's leaving of the website, unlike an introduction.  More often than not, it's done out of spite or attention (not always the case).  I don't mean to sound like a dick about it, but well... think about it from the perspective of the forum's health.  Cases where you're just saying you'll be on vacation or just a simple goodbye is fine, but that hasn't been the majority lately.

[Rogwell]

It was just a thought I'd bring up out of shear curriosity so no harm can be done  :drag_bounce:

I guess my confusion comes from that most forums I do/did frequent are very large with 1000+ members on at a given leaving no room for an intro forum - thusly the introductions were new to me to begin with and the leaving topics looked incredibly out of place to me  :drag_idea:

[Hebby]

Hmm a good point, kinda like the idea, but, guess the idea is hoping people dont have to leave or if they are taking a break that its not really that important to announce it, so i can see why it might want to be left out. but i think the presense of an away board would look less bad than leaving posts in the intro forum [even though i know the desc already states its dual use, mixing them does look a little omonous]

[aaarhus]

Overall, the "goodbyes" are a trend now.  One I certainly do not like.  There's little to no purpose to announcing one's leaving of the website, unlike an introduction.  More often than not, it's done out of spite or attention (not always the case).  I don't mean to sound like a dick about it, but well... think about it from the perspective of the forum's health.  Cases where you're just saying you'll be on vacation or just a simple goodbye is fine, but that hasn't been the majority lately.

Oh...
 :drag_blah:

I think one other forum I went to... I had said I might not be on as much as usual, and the reason was because sometimes if you're "inactive", if the forum does an attendance check to unclutter the memberlist, you get the boot if you don't say anything.
And... I thought it was ok to like, make announcements of whether or not you will be present for extended periods of time. Or, like, make an "important" announcement.

Like for example that if I were to go to my dad's for the summer ("back in the day" lol), I would state that I would be gone simply because of the fact that I couldn't visit this forum, the other forum, or see the guild on GaiaOnline, or even have Trillian open... simply because I could get is some serious... deep stuff... if my parents besides Mom found out just what my beliefs are. Or "religion" as they might view it.
Stepmom is so convinced I'm a Christian. I have no clue why.
 :drag_confused:

Although, this isn't so much of an argument as it is of stating a view on things. As in, like with most all of my opinions on something... it's not a request to change your view or to even change established rules... it's an idea.
 :drag_idea: