A permanent off-topic forum'd be awesome, to just talk about random stuff and the like. Anyone in agreement? Anybody think it a horrible idea?

Excellent! Now to implement it...
Er... Wait... I'm not a corporate exec...

Just so you know, there WAS a lounge here on DS before. Over the years it became more and more of a trouble spot. Flame wars regularly burst out and people would log on almost exclusively to post there rather than about shadowrun (which defeats the purpose of a shadowrun forum, neh?) A transexual person even began using it has his/her personal blog space which, needless to say, resulted in even more regular flaming, name-calling, mods having to step in to settle things, etc.

As such, the mods, in a decision I felt was both late-coming and prudent (and I understand most people here agree) closed down the lounge indefinitely and happily gave suggestions on where people could move their transexual flaming. Since then, for the most part, no one has really been anxious to bring the lounge back, least of all the people who saw it when it was around.

Honestly? I like DS without a lounge.

You want one, though? Go to Bulldrek. I'm sure your Google-Fu is strong enough to find it.

Sorry, I didn't know about any of that... For a very brief while, a long time ago (when it was called Deep Resonance, iirc) I lurked the boards, and remember a whole bunch of nonsensical random funny crap.
It makes me very sad to hear that the lounge went down, quite litererally, in flames.
[edit] for the purposes of nostalgia, I was wondering if any incarnations of the only 2 people I can remember the names of from those forums are still around... Kwyndig and Cazmonster[/edit]

Both of those people frequent (or at least used to) the Bulldrek Forums, which is one of the spin-off, lounge-like forums. You might try to track them down there.

Actually, Bulldrek died. I know you can track Caz down on the animalball forums. Not sure about Kwyndig, havnae seen him in quite a bit.

Did it? I knew it was ailing, but wasn't aware that the final death knells had been sounded.

Yeah, it's toast. A lot of people relocated to 3278's http://freespeech-alpha.com

Thanks all. Also, whatever happened to AbortionEngine?

The FreeSpeech board belongs to AE, who goes by the name 3278 now.

Cool beans. Its awesome to know everybody didn't just drop out've existence.

I think most of us who saw the original lounge blow up feel it is a less than perfect idea.

Really, why do you need an off-topic forum that starts with 'forums.dumpshock.com' anyway? Aren't there a bazillion off-topic forums skewed across the internet? Aren't there even ones where many of those DS posters you'd like to chat with (meaning the ones who actually would like a lounge too, which would happen not to include me), as well as those who DID like the lounge and moved when it closed?

I feel kinda like it's asking to make a D&D folder. Why? The forum isn't about D&D. It's not about 'off topic'. It's a feature that ultimately detracts and distracts from the reason this forum exists at all.

Opinions vary.

It's been tried. Twice. And it imploded badly both times.

And as I don't feel like cleaning up the mess yet again, I will vote against it anytime it comes up.

As has been stated, there are plenty of boards out there whose purpose is random off topic chatter. This board is for Shadowrun and shadowrun related topics. We have the General Gaming board for specific "off topic" stuff, since general gaming is more or less related to Shadowrun, but beyond that... It's not necessary, and it's proven to be a bigger headache than it's worth.

Bull

All the more reason to sticky one of these threads since I've seen that same post, verbatim nearly, so many times over the years that it's almost funny. Nomatter what my disagreements may be with the logic behind the reasoning against are, as I said in the other thread, that's pretty much asking for the same thing this one is, their toy box, their toys, their rules.

That said some of the other boards aren't bad joints, depending on what you're looking for. Check some of them out. A lot of them have alot of RPG background that may not be obvious at first glance.

And now that I look isn't your General RPG forum pretty much a Lounge?

Hm... I do agree putting up a sticky somewhere might not be a bad idea. It does come up pretty regularly.

The general gaming forum is a lot more limited than a full scale lounge. When we had the lounge, people talked about all sorts of things, religion and politics especially. Someone basically set up his/her blog here and attracted a lot of flames. I think if the moderators knew people could behave themselves and keep the interest centered on Shadowrun it would be different. A lounge would be useful and a lot of fun. Unfortunately people can't, and our lounges always seem to attract a lot of trouble.

Three alternatives:

www.freespeech-alpha.com
www.underworld93.com
www.animalball.com

To which you could add a few too, but I think those cover the big three bases of posters of all types.

Animal Ball is great if you're looking for something that doesn't take itself too seriously. Underworld has the thought police as bad as this place does, but can be fun if you're willing to overlook that. Freespeech is an odd combination of anarchy and establishment that is still figuring out what it wants to be.

i remember the lounge. Back then i was king and all the women adored me implictly *sigh memories*

your friendly neighborhood Hocus Pocus has since moved to underworld. Swing on by sometime and bask in my sexy manliness

actually a recent poll suggests i'm still king. All hail king Hocus Pocus!

Hail to the king baby

It's good to be the king

Is a King with no castle still a King?

Only if people still think him to be a King.

then i can rest assured that I am indeed king cool beans