Discussion Forums

The final section to discuss with you is the new Discussion Forum we have available onsite. You can read the comments others post, but in order to post a response to anyone else, you must “register” a User Name and Password for yourself. You can choose to hide your e-mail address from others when you post. You will need the User Name and Password every time you log on to the Discussion Board (the Board is the only place you have to log-on to actively participate…you can read the rest of the site as much as you want).

We have set-up several areas in the Discussion Forum that are main categories: 1) Georgia Politics, 2) Federal Politics, 3) International Politics, 4) U.S. National Issues, 5) Political Vent, 6) Employment Exchange, and 7) Leisure Exchange. At some point down the road, we hope to have regular moderators for some of the discussions, like for the Fair Tax and similar topics.

Ummm…most of these forum subjects are pretty self-explanatory except for three: Political Vent, Employment Exchange, and Leisure Exchange.

Employment Exchange is a test forum that we are offering for your use. We know that there are a lot of folks out of work, in-between jobs, looking for part-time jobs, as well as employers, whether within the political arena or not, who may be seeking folks. If it turns out to be something of strong interest and some folks get hooked-up with jobs and it is successful, we will think “Great! Awesome! Glad we could help!”

We also know what a pain in the behind it is to look for a job and sometimes talking to other folks helps smooth-out the search.

The Political Vent forum is a place where you can post things to get off your chest. Whether observations about political situations, politicos, or whatever. Be clever or be serious, but above all else, be interesting.

It’s along the lines of what the Atlanta Journal & Constitution offers its readership, but we figure you folks could really make this section fly right past the AJC’s Vent. Besides, we also want to encourage all of you folks who have been stuck in some Georgia government job for years and no one will listen to you and the issues you see problems with. This forum may be an opportunity for you to anonymously post problems that your boss hides from her boss and a lot of things get pigeon-holed that shouldn’t be.

The Leisure Exchange is just that. A place for folks to exchange conversations and ideas about their non-political hobbies in life. Whether it’s cooking, brewing your own beer or wine, smoking seegars, buying the newest electronic gadget, swapping computer problems, etc., this is the place to start your own topic and try to find other people who can share knowledge or interests.

(One Note, though: This will not be the “dating game” or “Sex Hotline” in any way, shape or form. Posts of such types that are normally found on sex-oriented sites will be summarily removed and the posters permanently banned. Yeah “free speech” is free…if you want to start your own Website, you are free to say anything you like on it. On here, there will be limits.)

For all of the forums, it is up to the participants to initiate subjects within the forums, and new subjects can be added as the discussions evolve. We hope that the folks who participate in the forums will stick to the forum arrangement for their particular subject matter (e.g. not putting stuff that goes on in D.C. in “Georgia Politics”).

Discussion Board-Use of Profanity

Ohhhh…one other thing about our Discussion Forum. When you sign-up to post, there will be this semi-involved statement of “Terms of Use” you need to read regarding posts. And, as well, a declaration that in no way is the Political Vine ever held responsible for the posts or their content (though we will remove personally offending material if so needed).

As part of this Terms of Use Clause, there is a little blurb about the use of profanity on the board, and a threat of what happens to you if you violate these Terms of Use. Now, integrated within this Discussion Forum software is a “Bad Words Filter.” You may be familiar with something like it. When someone types a word like the four-letter word for manure, you might get a real output like **** instead of the word you originally wrote.

At the Political Vine, we have decided to…tweak our Bad Words Filter a bit. Let’s say you’re in a heated discussion on the Forum, and, out of frustration, you call your opponent a 7-letter word beginning with the letter “a” that usually describes a hidden part of the human anatomy. Rather than the word coming out as ******* or a**hole, the word comes out as “Bill Nigut” on our forum. And, of course, we have substituted other names for bad words as well.

And, while we believe we’ve just about thought of every bad word possible, we’re sure someone…somewhere will come up with some word that we missed. That occurrence will have the lifespan of however long it takes someone to e-mail us and inform us of the post so we can 1) delete the post, and 2) add the word to the Filter list.

(Note to the AJC: Fear not. None of you have ticked us off to the point of “honoring” you by substituting your name for a profanity...not yet, anyway)

In The Political Vine Has Landed! - Part 3, we discuss our new self-managed E-Mail Maintenance Tools.