Welcome everyone to our new Melbourne-flavoured slice of the internet!
I am RustyRaven one of the moderators of this community (AKA BrightFadedDog). I am working to develop some community guidelines so we can make sure that the community stays a productive and welcoming place, and would like to hear what you want.
What would you like the group to focus on? Do you like to dip into the group for a quick update on the latest local news and carrot man sightings, or do you want to spend time with deeper ongoing discussions? Would you prefer to keep the posts strictly to things concerning Melbourne, or would you prefer to be able to be able to get a local perspective on wider issues?
Suggestions for the best way to arrange posts are also welcome – particularly if we should separate some areas of discussion into separate regular or ongoing posts. We could for example have a post for restaurant recommendations or activity suggestions.
I’d also like to know whether you would value having a wiki or other reference source connected to the community.
Feel free to add any ideas, suggestions or things to aim for.
OK, rant incoming (sort of).
One of the things I liked most about the old DT was that it was inclusive. I think it's a very bad idea to silo topics. There is, after all, nothing to stop users from making their own community if they want to barricade themselves against barbarian invasion. It didn't take long for ausfinance to set up a siloed community here too.
I guess my rule of thumb would be to allow any topic on the Random Discussion Thread, but insist that the discourse is civil and respectful. More detailed or particular discussion of a topic probably belongs in a separate post/thread to the community. Eg sunset pix. I do agree with keeping iMelbourne very very Melbourne, and the random discussion thread very very random.
I think everyone here likes the DT vibe. Possibly the biggest risk right now is that everything goes in the daily thread and nothing in the main community!
It will be interesting to see what happens with things like sunset pictures, given the increased ability to post pictures within the comments. It might make it easier to consolidate things in one post - like sunset pictures developing into a thread full of pictures, which is good. It also has the potential to overwhelm comments with picture/meme content instead of discussion - "sky pretty" in the DT is good, 28 individual sunset pictures takes the focus away from discussion and has the potential to change the feel of the thread. Hopefully people can self-moderate enough that it won't be an issue.