Off-topic

Hello everyone.

As you know, everything's pretty relaxed around here. I've let people have a fairly free-reign over topics of discussion, and generally left discussions to evolve of their own accord.

However, as the site grows and we find ourselves with an increasing number of guests wanting to know about specific programmes - be they other fans, the writers, producers, or anyone else involved - I'm going to have to set down some ground rules.

As from today, I must ask people to avoid going off-topic in the following forums:

British Sitcoms
Other British Comedy
Help & Feedback

This will also apply to the British comedy-specific forums after the site's relaunch. I trust that you'll all understand that I don't really want to have to curb the natural flow of discussion, but that it is necessary to impose these guidelines at this point in the board's life.

All other forums are free to carry on as they are.

Thanks in advance for your co-operation.

Hi everyone, just to add to what Aaron has said (and bump this thread back to the top of the 'active threads' page so it catches those of you operate at night rather than during the day too)...

The basic reason behind this request to stay on topic in the main two comedy forums from now on is that we're getting quite a significant amount of external visitors reading those two forums now - all of whom are looking to find out what proper comedy fans (aka you BSGers) think of the current comedy output, not so much what you ate for lunch or what your dog's name is.

For example, if you type "How Not To Live Your Life" into Google, the BSG thread for the show is currently sitting there right below the iPlayer link!

The people who are finding our threads via Google links like that are obviously not so interested in personal inter-member banter - they want to read opinions about the show they just clicked on.

The quick question to ask yourself before posting in 'British Sitcoms' or 'Other British Comedy' is: "Is this post relating to the comedy the thread is about". If it isn't you'd perhaps be best putting what you were about to say in a thread in General Discussion or sending a Private Message to the member you were going to respond too.

This isn't about stifling the community vibe though: General Discussion is still the best place to chat and socialise - anything goes there still!

Thanks for reading, taking part in the discussions and helping us stay on-topic in those two particular forums!

Off-topic posts will, from today, start disappearing in the aforementioned comedy forums.