The Fedora Lounge: The crash, The move and The Aftermath

[Charlie Noodles]

Facebook's Fedora Lounge Group

Myspace's Fedora Lounge Group

 

[Rufus]

I've just returned from a short holiday, and I have to admit I'm disappointed at the new harder line FL.
While some of the threads were not directly related to vintage 'business', the ability to socialise with like minded people was one of the great attractions to me in the first place.

I know I can still obviously PM people.... but that rather defeats the purpose of multi party conversations.

I know this is a privately run site, and I'm very appreciative of it, and the hard work of it's volunteer Bartenders ( and like most essential jobs, a thankless task), but I feel clamping down on some of the more social threads detracts from the site.

As all these were contained within the OB, they were not cluttering up the partitioned vintage topics (Outerwear, suits, WW2 etc), and the bartenders were always quick to remove off topic posts...

So why the need to curtail obviously well used and liked features that were not detracting from the site?


Yours disappointedly,
Rufus

 

[Sunny]

So why the need to curtail obviously well used and liked features that were not detracting from the site?

Since we're airing opinions, I'll chip in that I, for one, found it very distracting and, yes, detracting. I came to the Lounge a couple years ago and stuck on because it was the only place people were discussing how things worked "back then," how people did stuff back then, etc. I want to learn. It's become a real chore in the last year to six months to wade through the laundry list of newly-updated threads that are only peripherally related to the vintage idea.

 

[Rufus]

Hi Sunny,

as I mentioned, all the more sociable threads were in the OB, not the Vintage categories... so all the categorised threads, (clothes,history,radio etc) were all readily accessible and uncluttered.

One of the pleasures of FL is the simple layout, and the ease you can find things (Thanks again to the Bartenders for their tireless work).

I don't think the various threads were dreadfully distracting if you were looking for 'vintage only' threads(The very off topic were obviously deleted very promptly!)

Not that I'm calling for this being turned into a social based forum, but I liked the balance.

Personally I feel we've lost something in this transition.

Oh well...

On to new pastures...

 

[Slim Portly]

It's become a real chore in the last year to six months to wade through the laundry list of newly-updated threads that are only peripherally related to the vintage idea...

...even though they were extremely popular, placed together in one subforum, and easily avoided. Meanwhile non-vintage conversations are still ongoing about "man rooms," eBay seller gripes, what movies/books are you are watching/reading, opinions on modern men's fashion, America's Olympic team suits, pictures of our families, books on motherhood, what cigars we smoke, how we act when we are drunk, etc., all over the forum.

We are a community that shares a strong bond in our interest for things vintage and we want to talk to each other about peripherally related topics without having to "leave the room." If we are told that we cannot do so here, then so be it. What we are instead being told is that some of the most popular threads are gone and are not to be revived, but many of the lesser and just as non-vintage-specific threads are kosher. Color me confused.

I beseech those in power to revisit this subject in light of the input of those most affected by the recent decisions.

 

[Sunny]

I would like to point out that length does not equal popularity. It just means a lot of posts. I've noticed that on some threads it's a (comparative) handful of enthusiastic posters that keep things going, and not a wide cross-section of users.

 

[Slim Portly]

As is the case with many (most?) of the threads on this forum.

 

[Feraud]

As is the case with many (most?) of the threads on this forum.

Are you referring to threads that serve the intention of the Lounge?

I cannot see any issue with a 60+ page "Show us your hat thread" continued by a handful of enthusiastic posters. This is exactly what the Lounge is about.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Speaking as a bartender, I'd say it's *very* important to maintain a distinction between an information-driven site and a social-networking type of thing. It's one thing to say that those who don't enjoy the chit-chatty threads can just bypass them, but it's not that easy for bartenders -- we have to keep an eye on all the threads under our control, not just the ones we personally like. And it does take a LOT of work and a lot of time to keep the networking threads from getting out of hand -- this *isn't* Myspace, and the sort of anything-goes flirt-and-smirk attitude that you find on sites like that isn't what MK intended the Lounge to be about. And speaking not as a bartender, but as a Lounge member, the absence of that sort of stuff is one of the specific things that brought me here in the first place.

 

[Miss Neecerie]

I am gonna say something here, and this is -my personal non bartender- opinion, so please please take it as such.

We all used to socialise here. No doubt about that. But in comparing socialising now and socialising a while back, there are some differences.

Tidbits about each other used to be revealed in due time, via threads on other topics. Someone would mention -why- they liked a particular thing, or how they found out about a certain vintage thingamajig....and that is how folks got to slowly find the people they liked best and wanted to get to know more about, even in just an online context.

Contrast that with lots of polls about personal likes and dislikes and many more 'get to know each other' threads...including quite a few aimed toward finding a partner....its much more of an 'in your face' forced socialisation, if you will.

Call me old fashioned, but I would prefer to become enamored of people (in a platonic as well as any other context) by slowly having things to like about them, be revealed. Much more fun and sense of mystery then reading continually about all the things someone -wants- me to know...I would rather read the 'info that slips between the cracks of their defence mechanisms' then the front they put on so they can find new freinds or a gf/bf or whatever.

 

[olive bleu]

...

I beseech those in power to revisit this subject in light of the input of those most affected by the recent decisions.

The only thing that's affecting me is the tiresome bellyaching.

I don't get it. we have been told that we are returning to something closer to the original intent of this forum, yet we have been allowed to keep "some" of the non-vintage related threads.isn't that better than none at all?

 

[Lefty]

Lack of a clear statement of purpose, whether you call it a mission statement or anything else, leads to even the most established and respected members of an organization disagreeing as to purpose and direction. Based upon the three posts quoted below, the Lounge has either a strict "core mission", a more general "intention", or a loose "orientation". Any of them would be fine, but they can't co-exist.

Are you referring to threads that serve the intention of the Lounge?

We are a vintage-oriented forum. Always have been. The rest sprouted, some took root, but at the core, we're about pleats and martinis and William Powell.

I loathe mission statements almost as much as I loathe windy, pointless meetings. The day MK kicks around those two words, I think I'll have to hang up my Stetson.

At this crossroads, we decided to get back to our core mission: as a vintage forum, which is the reason we all came here in the first place.

Future posts to threads outside of our scope will be discouraged as will threads that are better suited to blogs and social networks. That is how it is.

 

[John in Covina]

Here is a Good View of why it worked well.

As I mentioned, all the more sociable threads were in the OB, not the Vintage categories... so all the categorised threads, (clothes, history, radio etc) were all readily accessible and uncluttered.

One of the pleasures of FL is the simple layout, and the ease you can find things (Thanks again to the Bartenders for their tireless work).

I don't think the various threads were dreadfully distracting if you were looking for 'vintage only' threads (The very off topic were obviously deleted very promptly!)

Not that I'm calling for this being turned into a social based forum, but I liked the balance.

Personally I feel we've lost something in this transition. Oh well... On to new pastures...

******************

The Observation Bar was excellent as it was. We don't all have the luxury of meeting face to face and it is important to have friends. It is important to have communication and it is important to share with others.

I see it as a club not some dreary institution for the preservation of whatever. Guidelines Yes, Propriety Yes, but exclusionary - no.

We know the politics whether overt or thinly diguised is a no-no here and that tends to keep things civil.

The info in the other sections is wonderful but the socializing made it a community not a library and communities are much more vibrant and alive than most libraries.

 

[Sunny]

Tidbits about each other used to be revealed in due time, via threads on other topics. Someone would mention -why- they liked a particular thing, or how they found out about a certain vintage thingamajig....and that is how folks got to slowly find the people they liked best and wanted to get to know more about, even in just an online context.

Contrast that with lots of polls about personal likes and dislikes and many more 'get to know each other' threads...including quite a few aimed toward finding a partner....its much more of an 'in your face' forced socialisation, if you will.

Call me old fashioned, but I would prefer to become enamored of people (in a platonic as well as any other context) by slowly having things to like about them, be revealed. Much more fun and sense of mystery then reading continually about all the things someone -wants- me to know...I would rather read the 'info that slips between the cracks of their defence mechanisms' then the front they put on so they can find new freinds or a gf/bf or whatever.

Call me old-fashioned, too, but that's precisely how I like it. Many times the poll/get-to-know threads seem just like a laundry list, with everyone showing up with their opinions. I've done it.

 

[Samsa]

I think that a lot of the confusion is the lack of consistency. For instance, when we tried to resurrect the "Favorite Poets/poems" thread, it was shut down immediately, even though it could have very easily become a thread about Golden Era poets (Auden, Hart Crance, Wallace Stevens, Elizabeth Bishop, Marianne Moore, Yeats, etc.) with a little steering by bartenders. At the same time , threads devoted to Facebook (a, er, social networking site) are alive and well. As is a thread devoted to tattoos. Then there's the Autumnal Thoughts thread. The Military Experience thread. The Things to do in Phoenix thread. Things to do in Detroit thread. Are those threads vintage? No - not in the least.

And if there's not supposed to be any social networking component here, why does the Lounge have an Events - not thread - but entire room where Loungers schedule events to meet one another in person.

Am I missing something?

 

[imported_the_librarian]

/opinion

Well, I'll just throw in my two cents here.

Love the board, I've found out quite a bit of knowledge and I appreciate that very much.

Learn what you can, contribute what you can and have fun....at least that's what works for me.

/end opinion

 

[Lady Day]

Facebook's Fedora Lounge Group

Myspace's Fedora Lounge Group

All the off site Fedora Lounge social networking youll ever need.

Thank you Mr. Noodles

LD

 

[Darhling]

This was sent to me by one of the sweetest and most vintage lounger I know, I am keeping her name out of it. I got the persons permission to post it as I thought there was some great points.

Darhling,
Thank you for speaking up in the Fedora Lounge crash thread (in the Observation Bar). I had a thread rudely locked and have since seen others locked in a similar fashion. There really isn't any consistency of which threads stay and which threads are locked or even mysteriously disappear. This is not the forum that I enjoyed a few years ago. I believe it is evolving very similar to the Classic Style magazine--it started out with good ideas and intentions and then somehow went down the wrong track to its demise. If you've ever watched the old movie, "The Wizard of Oz", there's a part where the main character, Dorothy says, "We're not in Kansas anymore, Toto" Well, its really not the Fedora Lounge anymore to me--at least not what initially drew me here in the first place. I so enjoyed the diversity--especially when it crossed geographical borders. Remember the Show Us Your Hairdos thread? I still like reading it, although it seems to be more and more slanted to the 50s (as a lot of other threads as well) recently, but I prefer the lifestyles of the 1930s and 1940s. Regardless, I always enjoyed reading others opinions, and ideas--I especially have enjoyed all your posts here on the Lounge. But it has gotten to the point that the new "policies" being implemented here on the FL are just too much for me. I don't like having to worry about the "thought police" with every word that I post. That is why I'm posting this to you here and not on a thread--I'd probably be banned. The place is started to get a little too snobbish for me. Not everyone is like that, but those in charge sure seem to be.

Anyway, I really appreciate your comments and boldness--I'm a little fearful when it comes to really saying what is on my mind.
Again, thanks for being a voice for a lot of us Fedora Lounge refugees!

How sad is it, that it has come to this that people are afraid to voice their opinions because they are afraid to get banned. Is that what any forum would be proud of?

 

[Feraud]

How sad is it, that it has come to this that people are afraid to voice their opinions because they are afraid to get banned. Is that what any forum would be proud of?

I really wish you would stop misrepresenting the policies of the Fedora Lounge and creating an "Us versus Them" mentality.
No one gets banned for having/sharing an opinion.
If we were banning members, don't you think most of the members who have voiced their opinion in this thread would have been banned?

For what it is worth, there are members who are banned and lie to their friends about why they were banned.
You should think about that before pointing fingers..

 

[scotrace]

I'm sorry, this is about all of this I can stomach. We are what we are, we've been successful at it for several years, and if what we are doesn't fit you, then here's your dues refunded and mind the swinging door on your way out.


Edit: You can still socialize. No one said you couldn't. We all do. It's all over the Lounge within the contexts of threads.

The "Am I Hot?" threads and the "I Don't Have A Boy/Girlfriend..." threads, and the random news item threads, and those sorts of puff threads will not be continued. A mission statement is not necessary. We'll continue to shape and mold the tenor of the lounge based on our editorial decisions.

The crash affected many of our larger threads and posts. We spent days reassembling what we were able to reconstitute. We may also choose not to continue certain threads as they emerge. I have closed some that have come up.

Remember, you all only see what is left on threads; you do not see all the we have to do behind the scenes. What looked perfectly normal to you was the product of many hours of work that was put in by each bartender here. Some threads were wrestled down to a minimal level of acceptability. The poetry thread was a good example of this. Numerous poems were political, or contained profanity. Several times we've had folks at each other's throats in it. Yes, the poetry thread. Now it's not to say that a vintage-themed poetry thread cannot be started back. Samsa, as HJ posted and closed it less than a minute after you, he did not notice how you were trying to frame the new poetry thread with a decidedly vintage approach, which is a good suggestion. That's exactly what we're trying to do.

So, if you’re upset about socializing, you need not be. If you’re upset that you can no longer get your daily does of narcissism here, you may be right.