I don't know if this will be considered or whatnot, but i like this idea and think it would be a welcome addition to such a great forum.


My idea is PRIVATE DISCUSSIONS. Much like normal discussions which are open to everyone to post, private discussions are just that: private. What the creator of the topic does is fairly simple. When creating a topic said person can click a box called 'private' and choose who to add to the topic from the members list OR buddies list.

Example:
-BurnSide creates topic: Bigfoot Chat.
-BurnSide ticks PRIVATE box.
-BurnSide scrolls through the members list OR through buddies list and selects snuffypuffer, janielsenj666, odinsgrl and Falco Rex as active in the topic
-The topic is then locked to the general public and only said members are able to view and post in the forum.
-An automatic message is sent to the members BurnSide selected letting them know they have been invited to the Bigfoot Chat private discussion.

Also, new members can be added at will by the forum creator.


Well, thoughts?

can you actually do that?

Well it isn't entirely my idea, i've been on forums in the past with this sort of thing implimented.

hmmm...it sounds interesting

It's more of a general chat thing though.
Say, you wanna have a chat with 5 people instead of just one via PM. You can chat in a private thread instead.

I think by doing this Burnside you risk alienating yourself and causing animosity between members.

I can understand why you might want to do it but I also see some drama being caused through this sort of thing.

Just my 2 cents mate

yeah, that'll probably happen. People will think you're too good to talk to the rest of them or something.

I totally agree TO, alienating is a good word for it i couldn't think of a word myself which is why i didn't say that.

But i don't think it'll be a problem. It's pretty much only good for talking personally with more than one other person or one person without using PM's.

nah

I understand your idea, but i dont think its wise. What if one person (or group of people) want to talk about another member? for bad, good, or other reasons, not many would appreciate it.

There are other ways of doing what you're suggesting. MSN offers free groups, and chatrooms, i'm not sure about a forum like this (i've never made one) but there definetly are other ways.

Of course there's MSN. But that's chat, not forums. And i personally never use chat programs, i'm only ever on the net at work where i can't access anything else.

I don't think there's people on this site would would make disscussions simply to talk rudely about another member, and i certainly have never had that problem, but you never know i guess. Good point.

Actually, it seems more like it would be a formal debate for a group as opposed to two people. I disagree that it would alienate people, as it is not going to be a secret partyline type of thing (I would imagine those not part of the thread would still be able to read the posts, just not participate).

If no one feels alienated by formal debates (2 on 2), I don't see cause for feeling alienated by a group debate.

Well the private discussions i was referring to would be that, private. No one would even be able to SEE the discussions, or know they exist.

I should have mentioned that. Private discussions would be invisible to all members except those participating in them.

You raise a good point though aquatus, they could be useful for debates. The mods would have access to them, the debate organisers and judges, and the debaters. Everyone else would not have access to post, only read. I like that!!

It's an interesting idea, but unfortunately the changes you've suggested would be extremely time consuming and difficult to implement. There are no custom built modifications available for Invision Board that can do that, so i would have to manually modify the invision board code myself in order to make it happen.

I personally don't think it would be worth it to be honest, since the existing private messanger is the board's answer to being able to talk to someone in private, and having a conversation with more than one person could be achieved by sending more than one private message.

I'm also working on a number of other projects at the moment, which would make it difficult to find the time to attempt this.

Sorry about that.

That's okay, as i said, it's only a suggestion and i wanted your opinion on it. I completely understand and agree that the coding would be exhausting to say the least. Still, tis a neat idea if i do say so myself. Thanks for the feedback.