bgk Posted March 7, 2009 Posted March 7, 2009 Hi All, The forum has been a huge success this admit season. In this final month, I'm asking to see if there's a couple of people who would be interested in being global moderators. Your duties would include monitoring the forums, moving misplaced posts, deleting dupes, and just generally keeping things ticking along. It'd be great if you were willing to stay around after the admit season is over, but not essential. For those who don't have the time (why are you reading this?? ) if you still are interested in helping without the moderator title, remember you can always "report this post" using the little "!" icon in the triangle at the top right of each post. If you're interested please send me a PM. Look forward to hearing from you.
boneh3ad Posted March 9, 2009 Posted March 9, 2009 I think one thing that you might consider is adding a few more forums that fall in the general talk category so that after admissions season there are other things to talk about on here. I know there is the Lobby, but that is one forum out of like, what, forty?
ec86 Posted March 9, 2009 Posted March 9, 2009 How about a forum for post-doctoral fellowship and faculty applications? :mrgreen:
bgk Posted March 9, 2009 Author Posted March 9, 2009 I think one thing that you might consider is adding a few more forums that fall in the general talk category so that after admissions season there are other things to talk about on here. I know there is the Lobby, but that is one forum out of like, what, forty? What kind of forums are you thinking? ec86's suggestion is a good one... what else?
belowthree Posted March 9, 2009 Posted March 9, 2009 TA life, RA life, Submitting Grants, Submitting Papers...
rising_star Posted March 9, 2009 Posted March 9, 2009 belowthree, a lot of those are already under "Officially Grads", if you read the description on the main page.
boneh3ad Posted March 9, 2009 Posted March 9, 2009 belowthree, a lot of those are already under "Officially Grads", if you read the description on the main page. I guess the point I am making is that the suggestions made by belowthree might be something that could be expanded into separate sections. As it is, the site has almost all sections for "current grad students" within a few small subforums. Meanwhile, all of the application-related material is spread out and organized. While that makes sense given that the current purpose of the site is primarily graduate admissions, it may not be a bad idea to expand those aspects of graduate life into their own separate forums and section. That is, if you guys are actually looking to broaden the aim of the site. I know that if it was broadened to cover current graduate students, I would most definitely stick around.
liszt85 Posted March 9, 2009 Posted March 9, 2009 I know that if it was broadened to cover current graduate students, I would most definitely stick around. Seconded.
procrastinatrice Posted March 9, 2009 Posted March 9, 2009 Seconded. I agree. It would be nice if each discipline got its "officially grads" section. That way, people who have already bonded over graduate admissions could continue to chat.
belowthree Posted March 9, 2009 Posted March 9, 2009 Thanks folks, for saying what I should have more eloquently. Gradcafe is heavily admissions-focused. If you want people to stick around, give them some real forums to do so, not just one catch-all forum for every topic related to being a grad student. Hell paper submissions alone could have a couple different forums if you wanted to go nuts with it: Deciding which venue to publish in, formatting/editing help, a place for people to procrastinate and complain about waiting for those too, making sense of reviews. Another set for grant proposals. Going for all of these might be too many, but certainly I don't think one forum to cover each of these processes wouldn't be out of line. Rising_star, you have a surprising tendency to assume that other members of the forum don't read. Do you honestly think people just type without thinking? :\
misterpat Posted March 9, 2009 Posted March 9, 2009 I agree. It would be nice if each discipline got its "officially grads" section. That way, people who have already bonded over graduate admissions could continue to chat. Would this over-fragment the board into tiny enclaves?
belowthree Posted March 9, 2009 Posted March 9, 2009 Would this over-fragment the board into tiny enclaves? Combined with some more general and common forums for post-application graduate topics it wouldn't be significantly more split than it is now. But I think it is probably too soon to split out field-specific sections for this, the existing field-specific boards gradcafe has now could probably be made to evolve to into more general field-specific boards that cover more than just admissions. The tricky part is to actually get people to stick around to talk about more than just admissions stuff here and then I'd imagine the field-specific boards would slowly change too.
procrastinatrice Posted March 9, 2009 Posted March 9, 2009 Combined with some more general and common forums for post-application graduate topics it wouldn't be significantly more split than it is now. But I think it is probably too soon to split out field-specific sections for this, the existing field-specific boards gradcafe has now could probably be made to evolve to into more general field-specific boards that cover more than just admissions. The tricky part is to actually get people to stick around to talk about more than just admissions stuff here and then I'd imagine the field-specific boards would slowly change too. I think, you are right,misterpat, it would be a little over-fragmented. But I don't see how we could have productive forums otherwise. While people from all disciplines could chat together under, say, cities, I don't think it make much sense for a Biology and an English student to write in the same forum regarding the academic aspects of grad life. But maybe, dividing things into a few compartments like natural sciences, humanities, social sciences etc. could still work. ( I think this is also what belowthree meant, I just wasn't 100% sure) But to be honest, I don't think "tiny enclaves" is such a bad idea. But that may be because I am in poli sci, which is a pretty happening community in this forum.
boneh3ad Posted March 9, 2009 Posted March 9, 2009 What about if, under the existing format, under the "Applied Sciences & Mathematics" forum, have two subforums, one for admissions, and one for everything else. Then follow suit with all of the similar categories.
rising_star Posted March 9, 2009 Posted March 9, 2009 Rising_star, you have a surprising tendency to assume that other members of the forum don't read. Do you honestly think people just type without thinking? :\ I've found that you can never assume that people have noticed or read the things you might expect. In particular, you didn't say anything in your original post about subdividing Officially Grads. Apparently, I, and everyone else, are supposed to infer that you know of and dislike the current Officially Grads forum. In general, things work much better when people are specific, rather than just saying "TA life, RA life, Submitting Grants, Submitting Papers", which actually sounds a lot like the current description of Officially Grads. The original point, whether you know this or not, was for this website to serve as a place to discuss admissions and post results in a searchable format (originally done in an Excel spreadsheet, believe it or not). It's interesting that everyone has assumed that the best thing would be to expand to graduate student life, without considering whether that has ever been the intent or purpose of the site.
boneh3ad Posted March 9, 2009 Posted March 9, 2009 It's interesting that everyone has assumed that the best thing would be to expand to graduate student life, without considering whether that has ever been the intent or purpose of the site. For the record, my first post (or was it second...) said something along the lines of "..., if the plan actually is to expand to graduate school in general rather than just admissions." On top of that, I think it is actually a good thing that people are interested in expanding your site. That means you have created a site that has developed quite a following and a group of people that would be more than happy to continue patronizing it. In addition, you seem to have Google adsense on your front page, so wouldn't expanding the site lead to more traffic, and thus more revenue anyway?
Minnesotan Posted March 9, 2009 Posted March 9, 2009 The original point, whether you know this or not, was for this website to serve as a place to discuss admissions and post results in a searchable format (originally done in an Excel spreadsheet, believe it or not). It's interesting that everyone has assumed that the best thing would be to expand to graduate student life, without considering whether that has ever been the intent or purpose of the site. True enough. I wonder, though, if a little expansion would hurt? I can certainly get behind adding a new section -- separate from the general "The Bank" and "Officially Grads" -- for post-docs, CV construction, grant writing, CFPs, fellowship opportunities, etc. It could be under the aegis of Officially Grads, if need be, but it would be specifically dedicated to professional dev. topics that are germane to applicants and current grads, alike. While resources like Grapes and COS are out there, they are anything but user-friendly, and we already have a nice community of dedicated young scholars built up here. Also, UPenn just tragically @#$%ed up their CFP site, meaning the last intelligently designed interface for viewing CFPs is gone, and H-Net is now the best of a very bad field.
belowthree Posted March 9, 2009 Posted March 9, 2009 Apparently, I, and everyone else, are supposed to infer that you know of and dislike the current Officially Grads forum. Everyone else seemed to do fine explaining the point of my post to you, so maybe it wasn't quite the chasm of understanding you make it out to be. If you look at the actual thread you could have probably made the leap that such a short message might have been in response to the message, say, right above it where bgk asks for other suggestions stemming from ec86's ideas. In any case, I think my intention with that post is now quite clear! The original point, whether you know this or not, was for this website to serve as a place to discuss admissions and post results in a searchable format (originally done in an Excel spreadsheet, believe it or not). It's interesting that everyone has assumed that the best thing would be to expand to graduate student life, without considering whether that has ever been the intent or purpose of the site. It's interesting that you assumed that everyone assumed the best thing would be to expand. I think most people are just throwing out ideas and talking about it, not just saying the site should expand. I tend to think it's an interesting concept that merits debate and outlined a few potential topics that some might be interested in. I personally have no clue whether it would be best for the site to expand or whether it would be appropriate. Things are pretty admissions focused around here and it could be pretty frustrating to continue to have those topics always spilling over into other areas of the site if admissions were no longer the sole focus. Certainly some things probably wouldn't matter, like I don't think anyone really needs a results tracker for conference submissions. (But maybe one for faculty positions? ) I dunno how well it'd apply, but seems like it might be interesting to talk about. I'm not sure whether or not the intent matters at all. If the community here now is more expansive than the original intent, why would you possibly see that as a bad thing?
psycholinguist Posted March 10, 2009 Posted March 10, 2009 There are some really interesting people here. I'm not normally the type to hang around message-boards at all (in fact, this is only the third Internet forum that I've used more than a handful of times, and I've long since stopped frequenting either of the others), but I'm enjoying it here. I think you'd get a good response if you opened up the current-grad section a bit. It's good to be in contact with this group. That said, we do recognise that doing so might trigger additional needs in the way of finances, staff, and so on...
rising_star Posted March 10, 2009 Posted March 10, 2009 If you look at the actual thread you could have probably made the leap that such a short message might have been in response to the message, say, right above it where bgk asks for other suggestions stemming from ec86's ideas. You do realize that unless you include a quote from the post you're responding to, it's impossible for anyone to do much more than guess at what specifically you're responding to, right? This isn't a site where your post appears directly below the one you're replying to, unless you happen to be the first (chronologically) to reply. Or has that changed and I missed it? It's interesting that you assumed that everyone assumed the best thing would be to expand. Has anyone posted to say that they think the site should keep its focus on admissions and not include topics related to graduate student life? If so, certainly not that I can see. So I guess my assumption is based on what I've read in this discussion, which makes it less of an assumption and more of a deduction based on reading. If the community here now is more expansive than the original intent, why would you possibly see that as a bad thing? Because there already isn't enough time for the moderators of this site to keep up with all the spam, double posts, reported posts, and posts made to the wrong section. I wish I still had the time to keep up with it like I used to but, I don't. I doubt anyone really and truly does. An unregulated forum would be a huge problem (which you'd understand if you realized that every time I log on, I deal with almost every single one of the problems listed above, and that the other mods feel the same way every time they log on). From a user perspective, maybe it would be great, maybe it would all die off in July and the work would be for naught. From the mod perspective, it involves a lot of extra work that you barely even see.
boneh3ad Posted March 10, 2009 Posted March 10, 2009 Well then in the spirit of the original post, I suppose that if you guys need more mods, then I can try to lend a hand some.
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