Safe Speed Forums

Hi all,

After a successful 8 months (just under actually) of the Safe Speed forums, I'm reviewing the forum titles and topic scope.

I want to create a "Brainstorming" forum where people shouldn't be afraid to post wild ideas. In my experience a lot of excellent and original thinking develops from wild beginnings. Of course I'd expect 80% of it to be dross, but then that's well worth it for even 5% of pure gold.

Can anyone think of a reason why a Brainstorming forum wouldn't be a good idea?

There's a huge overlap between "Improving Road Safety" and "Speed, Safety, Driving and The Law". So much so that I think the categories must be wrong. It's not that people post to the wrong forum, it's more that the thread contents overlap. It's possible that a stronger definition would help. It's not working out as I imagined. I'd imagined that "Improving Road Safety" would contain discussions based on initial posts expressing single ideas, but it doesn't seem to be working like that at all.

"CSCP Refugees" seems rather redundant presently since the CSCP forum didn't actually break up. Should I delete it or merge it with another forum? Or lock it, move it down and call it historical? Or leave it just in case?

I'm pretty happy with the rest, but any ideas or suggestions would be most welcome.

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Paul Smith
Our scrap speed cameras petition got over 28,000 sigs
The Safe Speed campaign demands a return to intelligent road safety

Seems a great idea, when will it be implemented?

Yes, worth a try, but needs a strong guideline not to simply engage in the "usual" arguments.


There is a distinction there, although it seems very blurred and, as you say, there's a large overlap. I think "Improving Road Safety" is worth keeping, not least because it reinforces the message the site is not primarily about defending prosecutions.


I'd keep it, but lock it. Presumably it can be unlocked in future if necessary.

Do we need "Hidden Anonymous Submissions" as it doesn't seem to get any use?

Also the four forums right at the bottom are scarcely used either.

I might move "Polls" into the discussion forums area as it is something that can be used by everyone and not really a "Special Forum".

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"Show me someone who says that they have never exceeded a speed limit, and I'll show you a liar, or a menace." (Austin Williams - Director, Transport Research Group)

Any views expressed in this post are personal opinions and may not represent the views of Safe Speed

At first glance I'd have thought that 3 or 4 sub-categories ought to contain most topics, plus a generic "Miscellaneous / Off Topic / Chat" category.

I know people will post stuff that doesn't exactly slot into the categories, but how important is that? If you have too many categories people won't bother trawling through them all looking for things to read, and a lot of good posts will get neglected.

Ultimately you have to ask whether a forum exists as a filing system for ideas, or simply as an informal place for discussion?

Consider the other extreme:

Leaving aside the anonymous and members only categories, you could nearly do the whole thing with two categories. These could be titled however you like, but lets call them "conversation" and "stuff to keep". Only the mods can start topics in the latter, but other registered users can add to them. Thus every new topic gets started in one location so everyone who visits will see it, and the mods only have to keep an eye on one area.

In time most conversations run their course and drop down the pages, but any that are considered to have long term merit can then be moved into the "stuff to keep" area so this becomes the storage area for interesting and useful stuff.

I often find I miss a lot of new posts as I come on the site, look under one category that is showing new topics and get engrossed in some topic or other. By the time I extricate myself from that discussion I usually end up losing all the "new" markers on the other stuff so I don't know what's new and what isn't, and I can't be bothered "manually" looking through 10 or more sub-categories for new stuff. If everything were posted in one area then it wouldn't be so difficult to spot the new stuff.

Just brainstorming...

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CSCP Latin for beginners...
Ticketo ergo sum : I scam therefore I am!

Interesting points, John, I'll consider them.

One the point about losing "new message" tags, that's you doing that, and you don't have to.

I use Opera, and I always have an Opera window open on the Safe Speed forum. Opera supports multiple windows and multiple web pages within each window.

When I come back to the forum, I hit reload and the forums with new messages are flagged. I then zip down the list opening every forum in the background as a new page within the window. Then I go to these pages and open every new thread in further background pages within the same window.

The process of opening in a background page is achieved with a single click if you hold down control and shift.

I have other Opera Windows open on other web site and other forums. It's typical to have about 70 to 100 web pages open in 7 to 10 windows. The only downside to this is the load time if you restart Opera for any reason. Opera has the most excellent characteristic of remembering every page, so when you restart Opera you (optionally) return to exactly the same set of Windows and Pages that you had last time.

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Paul Smith
Our scrap speed cameras petition got over 28,000 sigs
The Safe Speed campaign demands a return to intelligent road safety

70 to 100 web pages open? Jeeez! You want to try that on a dial-up connection. Opera is fairly quick, and still my preferred browser for the same reasons as you, but I can make a cuppa in the time it would take to reload that many tabbed windows. Could probably drink it too. I'll stick to restarting with no tabs or only one or two.

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Make everything as simple as possible, but not simpler - Einstein

You'll need to leave the cell door open for at least a month until r11co serves out his punishment

Something that occurred to me is whether it would be worth having a specific board for discussion of individual cases.

Questions along the lines of "I've just been flashed doing 75 in a 50 - what's likely to happen to me?" are often posted here.

In general, the posters are correctly told that their query would be better made on Pepipoo, but on the other hand there is a lot of relevant knowledge here, and some of the queries raise more general points that are worth discussing here.

On the other hand, if you find such requests tedious, you could then just ignore them!

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"Show me someone who says that they have never exceeded a speed limit, and I'll show you a liar, or a menace." (Austin Williams - Director, Transport Research Group)

Any views expressed in this post are personal opinions and may not represent the views of Safe Speed

I see a couple of problems with the idea... Firstly these sorts of posts come from new users and they are least likely to post in the correct forum. But the bigger point is that we have to read them if we're to benefit from: "more general points that are worth discussing here".

I'd welcome any other views.

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Paul Smith
Our scrap speed cameras petition got over 28,000 sigs
The Safe Speed campaign demands a return to intelligent road safety

I believe the status quo is better than the new idea.

A classic example occurred recently in here. Someone ran a red light and asked of his prospects for a camera flash. Anyhow, cutting through it, he came up with a "... so I'm safe..." comment, leaving the door open for Paul (as it happens this time - but could have been any one of us) to take an opportunity to impart a message of safety.

If we answer clinically in an "auto-sticky" or whatever, those vital opportunities will be lost. And, SafeSpeed apart, those vital opportunities, which used to be a commonplace occurrence on our roads by friendly tugs from TOs, with a few notable exceptions, sadly just don't happen any more in the UK.

Even if they initially turn up in a general forum, they can easily be moved into the new forum.

We've had several more today

_________________
"Show me someone who says that they have never exceeded a speed limit, and I'll show you a liar, or a menace." (Austin Williams - Director, Transport Research Group)

Any views expressed in this post are personal opinions and may not represent the views of Safe Speed