Can we change the name of the "Non philosophical chat" back

to something cool,
like

The Garden of Simple Joys
The Shed
Idle Chatter :text-bump:
The Tavern
VIP Room (No Dances)
Cold Beach With Jutting Rocks

or anything really.

Someone else who agrees that NPC should have a cool name :smiley:

I’m open to that, but I’ll repeat here what I said when Mags and I were discussing the change from Off-Topic to Non-Philosophical Chat:

Mags subsequently made the solid point that ‘Off-Topic’ was actually misleading, and we settled on ‘Non-Philosophical Chat’, which is the most boringly descriptive name possible for the forum.

So probably we could find a different name that ticked more boxes. But it should be relatively transparent, including to people of diverse ages, nations, and cultures, and those whose first language is not English. Of the suggested names, I think only ‘Idle Chat’ gets close enough – honestly, I don’t find any of the suggestions particularly evocative of the tone we’re going for, either. ‘The Tavern’ is close, but I think of the whole site as a tavern.

How about, ‘No Philosophy Allowed!’?

What about ‘Hold That Thought’? :confusion-shrug:

Thing is… many threads in the social forums turn philosophical these days, so need to consider that along with the new name.

I think that’s a good example of a culturally bound evocative name. I don’t have much of an association with the phrase “Hold That Thought”, so it doesn’t convey to me that the forum so named is a social forum for non-philosophical chatter. I have to assume that that is just a matter of culture, and that in the UK or some part thereof the phrase has a meaning that it doesn’t in the eastern US. Am I alone in that ignorance?

Are there universal idioms for things like this? I was thinking “Bleachers”, “Sidelines”, “Spectators”, but all of those are not very good both because they are culturally bound to sports culture, which a lot of our target audience probably doesn’t have much association with, and because they suggest that the forum is for discussions about the other forums, which isn’t what Non-Philosophical Chat is for.

Maybe that’s a better place to start: what’s NPC for? I think of it as a place for users to talk to each other has humans, to do that human-social-bonding thing I hear so much about. How about ‘Social Bonding for Normal Humans’? 8-[

Wait wait, but where did the idea arise that philosophy lovers arent human or “normal” when they chat about their interests?
Why not off-topic?

I dont agree that the content of that forum is non philosophical or that it should be or could be. We are on ILP, all people here are interested in philosophy.

I like any light term like chat and casual etc etc but I kinda resent “non-philosophical” after all the philosophy we posted there.

Interesting. I like non-philosophical because it distinguishes the forum well from the others. Maybe ‘More Casual Chat’? Not the evocative sort of name I think Mags would prefer.

How about “The Hollow of More Casual Chat”. “The Empty Pint Glass of More Casual Chat”. “The College Dorm Room Floor of More Casual Chat”. This is brainstorming, there are no stupid ideas :slight_smile:

How about the half full glass

Or… the glass half full?

The games room? The Lounge? The Living Room? The Treehouse? The Circus Tent? The playhouse?

I do not think that that forum name can be misleading ever again, after posters interpreted it to what they thought it meant and posted accordingly.

While we’re at it Rant could be renamed Den Of Iniquity.

I know: Let’s call it “mundane babble”! :wink:

That assumes a static set of users. Moreover, descriptive names help people find topics, they help search engines return topics, they people stumbling on a topic through a search engine something about how the topic fits into the site.

Of these, I like Loung and Living Room more than the others. I don’t think games, treehouses, circuses, or play reflect the tone of that forum.

It’s interesting that all these suggestions use a metaphor of a room or other real-world interior space. The Chamber of Debate and the Rant House also do that. Is a room the best metaphor for a forum? I think I tend more towards a journal, and secondarily towards a correspondence. How about “Correspondence”

Rant seems to matter less, since it’s hidden to new users and bots. How about “Dumpster Fire”.

Not sure how serious this is, but I actually do like ‘mundane’, though not ‘babble’. ‘Mundane’, in the literal sense meaning “of the world”, seems fitting. How about ‘Mundane Chat’

Let’s call it the toilet and make Turd the moderator.

Maybe only in a parallel universe but I thought this forum was once called “mundane babble”. :-k

How about “World Peace”?

Judging from that standard, we have more than a few of the above places.

How about The B&N Coffee Corner? :evilfun:

Barnes & Noble

No. That’s stupid. Why would you even type that out?

[b]

I Suggest Something Short And Snappy Like This : Welcome To The Free Form Improvised Thinking Forum

Where Every Thought Is Entirely Spontaneous And Nothing Anyone Says Makes Any Sense Even To Them

[/b]

:laughing: I enjoyed that.

It’s really a subjective politics forum that people are trying to get at here…

Uccisore basically won’t let me post in his forum, that’s subjective politics…

Rant is where all this stuff goes…

Social science is rant, right??? Blocked by web searches!!!

Some of the best threads are in rant … Censorship from the public eye for sure …

So I’ve learned to post in other forums…

This is just politics though …

Meta, is a discussion about the website politics…

But that’s only a single thread for us …

There should be a forum called, and with the disclaimer, politically incorrect …

Like bill maher …

…a bit vague, no? but inkeeping with your theme…

The scrapbook?

Mental montage?

Food for thought?

Musings?

Fire? Dumpster fire? an odd pairing.

Fiery musings?

On a mad thing? :laughing:

Den of iniquity? still a firm favourite of mine…

Ramblings?

Boisterous banter/ramblings/musings?