You are about to witness a new experiment for Vintage Computing and Gaming…a full-fledged discussion board. It’s now up and running, so check it out!

I hope our forum can have a loose, friendly, all-inclusive atmosphere. I’m tired of forums that are filled with an elite, exclusive “old boys’ club” attitude that shuns new members who don’t know every esoteric detail about some computer / game system / whatever. As a result, as our forum grows and we get more established, I hope you can be as tolerant as possible to new members and those who might come looking for help on a situation that might seem “dumb” or “obvious” to you. Just remember that we were all in the same shoes once, knowing nothing at all about the world, much less computers and video games. Some of us were lucky enough to learn through the kindness and generosity of mentors and teachers who freely shared knowledge with us without feeling threatened. If you were graced with such fortune, think back and remember how it felt to be treated with equality and respect, despite your youth and inexperience. Now it’s your turn to pass on that knowledge, and that gift, to a new generation. Now you are the mentor.

All forums will be moderated by myself (or trusted persons I choose in the future), so please try to stay on topic. We have a wonderful place to talk about miscellaneous stuff called the “Off-Topic Forum” as well, so if your post is not about computers or video gaming in some way, post it there. Blatant personal attacks by members to other forum members will not be tolerated. Disagreeing with each other (or me) is perfectly fine, but please be civil. Once you hurl an insult — no matter how subtle a dig — or assign someone a negative label (i.e. call them a name), the flame wars are sure to begin. Keep these things in mind so we can douse the fires before they spread out of control.

Any suggestions about the forum are welcome at any time. I stocked the forum with some interesting VC&G-related avatars to get us started, and I’ll be starting more message topics in the days to come. I know the forum is really empty now, so any help you can provide in getting our new forum rolling will be incredibly, gratefully appreciated. Thanks a ton in advance, and have fun talking!

This entry was posted on Tuesday, March 21st, 2006 at 4:49 pm and is filed under VC&G Announcements. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.