[size=4x]Best clubhouse to hit a ball through a big window ?

How does you club park the cars ?

Best club to hear a dirty joke ?

Best memorable menu item ?

Best locker room ?

Best ProShop responsiveness ?

OT  Finland beats USA ?[/size]

The site has attracted and encouraged those who prefer the discussion of non-architectural topics.

Perhaps other sites would better suit your needs.

You're diluting the quality of the topics and the discussions.

Please, cease and desist and eradicate these mindless topics.

And, if you have nothing to contribute related to golf course architecture, don't start mindless threads.

I actually thought Patrick was joking with the titles of those threads.

Sorry Brian but you are wrong on this one.  Merely because a topic is tangentially related to a golf course or courses does not qualify it as relating in any meaningful way to architecture.  Worse still, by posting these topics you push down others of greater relevance.  There are lots of other websites devoted to general golf issues where you might find an appropriate audience.  But this is a limited access site in which the participants have agreed to a focused discussion.  While that agreement is often stretched, I suggest you are exhibiting an intention to ignore the "deal" we all made when we were given the right to post.  Please reread the mission statement created by Ran and act in accordance with its terms and spirit.

Shelly,

I really hope to play golf with you someday. Your written words are certainly always appreciated by me.

There can even be one for John Kavanaugh.  

Wayne,

I pretty much start one thread per day for the last few years...Please name one that was off topic.

Why did the cartoon character as architect thread get taken down..

I'm with you on this one Patrick!

My understanding is that there is a waiting list of people who desire access to this site. It is a shame to have someone who wants to discuss golf course architectiure on the outside looking in while space in this forum is taken up by topics such as the ones you cited.

I can tell you that I spend much less time on this forum than I once did because I grow weary of sifting though the threads to find a topic that interests me. I don't think I am alone, because I notice that many of the early contributors to the forum have drifted away.

I would much prefer to rehash a good topic that has been discussed before than bother with a topic that is completely off the subject for which the site was established.

Hey it's Friday afternoon and when you first discovered GCAtlas would you have guessed that the guys on here would have such a great sense of fun?

But Pat has a serious point. At time of writing if a thread hasn't been added to in the last 3hours 10mins it's off the front page and I fear busy people who can only look in occasionally will not search beyond the first page or two.  Great topics are being lost and not fully explored.

There is a solution to this.

Perhaps it would be simple to have a second forum or more that deal with other off subject topics.  I have suggested in the past that one be a research forum, but why not have an off topic forum or even an off-off topic forum that won't bother anyone?  

Time to give this some serious thought.

Rich:

THANK YOU!

It is high-time for some myth debunking.

Want some more?

http://www.golfclubatlas.com/forums2/index.php?board=1;action=display;threadid=8361

Lots of familiar names in that one.  Not much architecture discussion.

The site is what is is, and always was.  

Craig,

Did something go seriously wrong on that thread..do you know why it was deleted.  

Rich and Tom H
In 1999 there was so little action on the site that all sorts of topics came up to help stimulate activity. In fact some of those names you see are aliases for the founder/founders having a converstation with himself/themselves...sad but true.

The site was always designed to discuss architecture, and there is nothing wrong with an occasional golf but non architectural related topic or a rare OT, but there is a limit, and I don't think digging up old OT threads (under far different circumstances) is fair or honors Ran's expectation for this site. He spends too much time deleting OT threads.

Oh great Crusty One:

I don't know why I am commenting either, other than it does pain me when people pine for some "good old days" which really never existed.

But you make the best point of all, indirectly, one which tomgoutman just echoed:  there is a very good way to deal with O/T threads, and it seems you are about to make that choice re this one.

All the best.

TH

Tom MacW

"Sow the wind and reap the whirlwind."  No double standards, please.

Ran knows the solution to this which is NOT spending his (or the Emperor's) valuable time deleting innocuous threads.  It IS setting up separate forums for various topic categories(e.g. GCA, Courses, Agronomy, Banter, etc.).  Many of us have advocated this for a number of years.

BTW--I doubt if discussions of the Arts and Crafts movement, as interesting as they sometimes can be, would make the cut for the "GCA" forum.....

Rich and Tom H
In 1999 there was so little action on the site that all sorts of topics came up to help stimulate activity. In fact some of those names you see are aliases for the founder/founders having a converstation with himself/themselves...sad but true.

The site was always designed to discuss architecture, and there is nothing wrong with an occasional golf but non architectural related topic or a rare OT, but there is a limit, and I don't think digging up old OT threads (under far different circumstances) is fair or honors Ran's expectation for this site. He spends too much time deleting OT threads.

Tom M.:

Understood, and well said.  This is surely not meant to be any indictment of anyone, and yes, that is how it went back in 1999.

So yes it's not fair, but it does make a good point.  

But the larger issue doesn't really interest me - we've beaten it to death constantly.

I was just trying to agree with Rich (if I take his point correctly) in that the good ole days weren't as pure nor as good as some seem to think.  So the double-standard is bothersome.

And of course O/T threads didn't stop in 1999... we can can dig up a LOT more if you wish....

TH