Is fluther only a Q/A site, or should it be a place to start conversations about a topic?

Being “cut” and being “moderated” are different. I think perhaps the moderators maybe just would have liked to see you re-word or re-tool the question. It’s always hard when your stuff is moderated, I know from experience. It hurts, and it’s not fun. It feels personal. The thing to remember is that it’s not personal, and it’s not that they’re “deleting” the question, they’re just asking you to change it a little.

It’s much more than just a Q & A site, it’s my crack. Btw, welcome to the collective.

they said it was better suited for a chat room.. how so?

Thanks @AstroChuck

I know, I have tried to start conversations before and it worked to a certain degree.
This time I got bummed.

I can see where the moderators were coming from (in terms of the official rules), but honestly, I like an open question once and a while.

[mod says] Here is what the faq says on the subject:

If your question is an attempt to connect with people (as opposed to an attempt to figure something out), like “Where is everyone from?” or “How old is everyone?” or “Are the Jonas Brothers lame?”, or it’s a yes-or-no, this-or-that question, it will probably be moderated — those questions are better suited for the chatroom.

wow. i thought fluther was about attempting to connect with people

so i could have framed my question in the negative way like “why doesn’t anyone like to talk about art?” and that would have been better, cause i would have been trying to figure something specific out.

[mod says] In the process of asking and answering questions, we often do connect with others… but that is not the purpose of Fluther. Q & A is Fluther’s reason for being, the social aspects are a bonus!

@quasi Not necessarily negative, just more defined. Something like “What attracts you to a piece of art?” would be fine, too, as long as it had good details.

im just kind of bummed.. anyone know of sites where you can just start a topic and have a free for all discussion?

it seems like i saw these types of things on fluther, but maybe i didn’t

I think you should have just made it specific, like, “What kind of art do you like?” or “What kind of art do you make?”

That might be approved by moderators.

To open up the site to any version of “Who wants to talk about X?” would just make Fluther a glorified chat room with a nice interface, which is not the intent of the founders.

FIRST RULE ABOUT FLUTHER IS THAT YOU DO NOT ASK ABOUT FLUTHER.

thanks for the suggestions..

i will try to be more clinical and specific with future questions.

@shilolo yeah, i understand.

just disappointed.

@Sampson- That’s the second rule of Fluther.

@AstroChuck Same difference.

Just to be the devil’s advocate here, I have the beta thing, which means when I ask a question, I am directed to a page that asks me if I want to either “Start a Discussion” or “Solve a Problem” and if I click “Start a Discussion” I still get to ask my question, and there are prompts about how I should ask it. I think it sounds like on this thread you guys (mods) are saying that starting a discussion isn’t an acceptable reason to create a question though, so that’s an issue that needs to be resolved or perhaps clarified.

@La_chica_gomela There is a difference between starting a discussion “Will Obama be able to push through his health care agenda?” and “What do you think about Obama?” In this case, the question was of the later variety.

I’m never asking another question here.

@quasi I hope you don’t go that far… you’ve asked some really good questions here! FWIW, almost everybody gets modded at one time or another, including me. Try not to take it so personally.

I know @augustlan thanks i appriciate that

i just feel like i tried to contribute something meaningful, and it wasn’t taken as such.
maybe i need to get over it, but i had really looked forward to a nice bit of conversation tonight.

cheers all, i guess i learned my lesson. sorry to make a big deal out of it

I just want to back up what @augustlan (who is right about basically everything) said. I have asked hundreds of questions and given thousands of answers (!) and still routinely get my stuff moderated. Even if it feels like it, moderation isn’t personal, and it’s not a criticism. If you can take it in good humor and keep participating, I bet you’ll get a much better feel for what makes for a “Great Question!” and what doesn’t.

yeah, i tend to take everything as criticism.

thanks @nikipedia

@nikipedia Aw, now you’re makin’ me blush.

@quasi nikipedia has a gigantic brain. :D

One thing to keep in mind is that the discussion should be a question.

I see a lot of questions were people say something and post a link to a article. Pretty much they are using Fluther as a soapbox.

Those will most likely be nuked.

I saw your question, @quasi, but I wasn’t attracted to it, and here’s why: it didn’t really ask what you wanted the answer to. The answer to “Does anyone love to talk about art?” is yes, some people love to talk about art. The end.

I tend to avoid questions like that, and also questions with the word “favorite” in them, questions with superlatives (What’s the somethingest something you ever somethinged?), and purely speculative questions (If you could ~~ just one ~~, what would it be?). They all seem like they’re just designed to pull comments and don’t really have any other point.

Here are some questions about art that would have caught my attention, and I think they would all have passed muster with the mods, too:

— If you visit art museums, do you always gravitate to your favorite genres and styles or do you try to branch out?
— Do you own any original works of art?
— Does a person have to study art in order to be able to enjoy and appreciate it?
— If a work of art is popular with ordinary people, does that mean it is not really serious art?
— How do you learn to look at abstract art and see what the artist intends for you to see?

I think questions like these (these are just examples) would all draw out people who love to talk about art, but it would give them a focus for what to talk about and not just invite a pointless yes or no answer that ends with a thud.

The point was I didn’t intend to be specific, I wasn’t looking for a particular answer.
Just a conversation.
Fluther isn’t the place for that, I have learned.

My research is in contemporary art and I was curious where the conversation would end up. Like an experiment. I say “Who loves to talk about art” and then the conversation could naturally gravitate towards a certain issue. This was what I wanted to see happen. Conversations about art (outside of the art world) seem to always gravitate towards certain issues, and I find this interesting. I wanted to see what would happen on Fluther.

Fail.

@quasi did you ask…“What attracts you to a piece of art?” yet?
lurve for @augustlan
oooh I can see HOT topics coming from there….nudity, sex, colors, blah blah blah…..

If you wanted to start an open-ended discussion, you might have asked “What do you love about art?” Then you might have added details about what kind of art you are asking about, and perhaps what you love about art in order to give an example. Or, “What do you learn from works of art such as paintings and sculpture?” Or “What ‘speaks’ to you when you see a work of art?” I guarantee you that that would generate exactly the kind of discussion you want. Also, you may want to research questions that have been asked about art in the past.

Fluther supports discussions. They just ask that you give people a little more direction, so the discussion can go where you imagine it going. If you aren’t imagining any kind of answer, then it really isn’t a discussion-starter. It will fall flat. You may also get a lot of abuse about vagueness, or a lot of jokes built on the vagueness of the question.

“What do I love about art?” Hey, I thought my love for Art was a secret. How do you know him?

right.. i agree, i just.. well the question was “does anyone love to talk about art”
in general, people don’t like to talk about art; it seems to be one of those topics
that generally isn’t being discussed by many people (outside of the proper channels).

so i kind of wanted to see if there was anyone here that does in-fact LOVE to talk about
art.. and my details were something like “what kind of art do you love” and “what kind
of art do you make”..

but it was still too vague. i didn’t want to direct the conversation per say, just see where it ended up. interestingly enough, the question itself was discussed more
than anything.