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

Fixed_Cross · September 3, 2016, 1:29am

to something cool,
like

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

or anything really.

MagsJ · September 3, 2016, 12:31pm

Someone else who agrees that NPC should have a cool name

Carleas · September 3, 2016, 7:35pm

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:

I tend to favor clear, descriptive forum naming: ‘off-topic’ for the forum that houses off-topic discussion (the topic being philosophy). You [MagsJ] seem to lean towards names that are evocative and give the forum some character: ‘the beer garden’ to evoke the casual, social atmosphere of a beer garden. Both approaches seem valid as a matter of subjective preference.

But are there objective reasons to prefer the change? Benefits of descriptive naming are that it makes clearer to new-comers what the various forums are for, it is more search engine friendly, and it acts as a continuing suggestion about what kind of posts should go in a forum. So, e.g. ‘Off-Topic’ houses off-topic discussions, and when creating a new post, a user might wonder, “is this post off-topic? If not, maybe it should go in one of the on-topic forums.”

Evocative names set a mood for a forum, so while they might not signal subject matter, they do signal tone. They also may do more to foster community and improve retention, as people become attached to the quirkiness and character, and other forums look more alien. But the name is only evocative to people with certain cultural capital: many of our users are in the US and under the legal drinking age, I’d imagine they wouldn’t have much association with a beer garden, and I personally wouldn’t know what to do with “le salon” (and I speak french!). Moreover, for people for whom English is a second language, evocative names are likely to be particularly opaque.

Of course, a descriptive name has many of the same problems, but you can’t do much better than the literal dictionary definition in terms of communicating the purpose of a forum. And the name ‘Off-Topic’ does have some evocative content, in that the term ‘off-topic’ is also used on the forum to refer to posts that don’t relate to the topic of a thread. Such posts should be discouraged, and having a forum that’s clearly labeled as the place for that kind of discussion helps.

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!’?

MagsJ · September 3, 2016, 11:59pm

What about ‘Hold That Thought’?

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

Carleas · September 4, 2016, 5:11pm

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’?

Fixed_Cross · September 4, 2016, 6:39pm

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.

Carleas · September 4, 2016, 6:53pm

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

Fixed_Cross · September 4, 2016, 6:56pm

How about the half full glass

MagsJ · September 4, 2016, 7:13pm

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.

iambiguous · September 4, 2016, 8:04pm

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

Carleas · September 5, 2016, 1:40am

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’

Mr_Reasonable · September 6, 2016, 7:52am

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

iambiguous · September 6, 2016, 10:25pm

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

Magnus_Anderson · September 7, 2016, 1:43am

How about “World Peace”?

Arcturus_Descending · September 10, 2016, 3:49pm

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

How about The B&N Coffee Corner?

Barnes & Noble

Mr_Reasonable · September 10, 2016, 6:39pm

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

surreptitious57 · September 10, 2016, 6:58pm

[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]

Arcturus_Descending · September 10, 2016, 7:12pm

I enjoyed that.

Ecmandu · September 14, 2016, 12:23pm

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 …

MagsJ · September 17, 2016, 1:03pm

…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?

Den of iniquity? still a firm favourite of mine…

Ramblings?

Boisterous banter/ramblings/musings?