I'm fairly new to the board and I'm curious as to what the general guidelines are for Off-topic vs. On-topic. I had assumed that anything JB was "on" and be extension titles/characters he's worked on, and possibly extending to comics in general. The reason I'm asking is I just saw someone post a Superman thread that they listed as OT, which seemed kind of strange given JB's affiliation with the character.

For some reason I can't bring myself to use the OT label. I'm also not partial to Nike t-shirts. I think it clutters up the message or thread title. I like a good title and hanging "OT" on it is almost as useless as using a bunch of exclamation points. Also, isn't it technically against the rules to use "OT" as it starts a thread on a negative?

As any community drawn together by a common interest grows its off topic banter and discussion will naturally increase. When cultivated correctly it is a sign of a mature group that has found that they have more in common than just the original common interest that drew them together. Unfortunately a single discussion area (like a this board) can stuff signal to noise problems when this happens. That's why an OT subsection of any message board system is always an excellent idea and can really help build a community.

Of course all that pertains to really OT stuff (I will admit to being rather conservative with my use of the prefix). If the new board goes the way of many board systems (e.g. the Geoff Johns boards) then that would probably eliminate most ambiguity, after all it's hard to post an OT article about comics to a sub-board labelled "General Comics Discussion".

OT is useful to me, since it signifies threads I don't necessarily need to check out. That can be a time saver.

SO if it something we are looking for an opinion on by JB, it shouldn't be marked OT? Even though JB might not be interested in the content or the subject. Thanks.

Joe Martino
http://www.jgmcomics.com

I find it useful when people mark threads OT because I often find myself playing catch-up. For example, I'm off to Barcelona for most of next week and probably won't have any internet access while I'm there. It can be quite daunting to come back and find several pages of threads to search through. Mind you, I think that things would be easier if people put a bit more thought into thread titles. Things like "Has anyone read...?" of "Did you see...?" are a bit too vague IMO.

Robbie

Nil Satis Nisi Optimum