Remon, I've been here for some time yet your twisted logic still amazes me at such ocasions like this one. About that first part... I'm not sure if I understood you correctly: So entirely serious person would commit suicide because she whould die anyway "so why wait?".
Anyway if you have problems with defining seriousness or person look into dictionary for gods sake or put some of your knowledge and common sense into use.
With all due respect - I think that the main flaw this time is Your way of thinking... I'm not sure if you cannot comprehend simple, fundamental matters of social life / society or that You just like to make things complicated...

Leaving that since definitions aren't what we are talking about, You've said:

I agree, yet if that was entirely true - there wouldn't be this disscussion.
As You have said, forums are like "organisms with different parts dedicated to different things", then people would be like blood that needs to circulate trough the whole body. In here Gen-spam is "The heart of community", as it is true that sometimes people like to visit other parts in a change of mood - those parts are just less important. So it would be natural that this forum would attract those, who value non-serius talk over serious one (and would look less attractive to people that like serious topics the most).

I forgot about other factor... Forkheads have a bad pool from which it takes users (when it comes to serious topics). As I have said earlier - most users finds out about FH from chatango, and majority of chatango users is um... how to put this... not very fond of serious conversations.

Yom. Third thing is that we have in here some things that many serious-fagottry lovers would find creepy or offensive so it's no wonder that they would stay away from forum containing such things.
It cannot be home for everyone since some people wouldn't want to share a room or talk with (for example) pedophile, otaku or a game-freak. I think you know what I mean?

1. What logic? I do this kind of thing for fun. It's not supposed to have a real end.
2. I just like to make things complicated.
3. Gen spam has been christened the heart of the community, but it's not like it's impossible for a person to stay in the serious board and just not post elsewhere. It's not unheard of, either.
4. Chatango is only the main place people come from because the only person that recruits is AFH. Which is something of a problem. Some people do come from the games, though.
5. Serious board is for your serious side, music is for your music loving side, gen spam is for everything. There's no such thing as an entirely serious person, and serious people can easily be accepting of other things. Take slavery. Millions of people supported that. Doesn't mean it's not a crime against nature. Obviously some of those people were serious people.

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You guys are clearly either not familiar with or have forgotten about the prime time of the serious board and the serious board members. For a while, people like PKB, myself, and perhaps Carsito would spend a considerable amount of time in the serious boards, for a while I was spending most my time there. Other members would show up often enough and put in their words, some more than others. Even when not in the serious board I would approach everything at least to some degree as if it could be a serious discussion. Pissed some people off when I would treat a spam board thread as a serious topic, and even when they would say, "this is spam, not serious, duh" I would just continue, and treat that comment as a serious matter for lengthy discussion.

Those were the days.

To be fair though, the notion that someone would be an emotional wreck because of the conflicts that arise when they are always serious, and would "logically" kill themselves because of a sense of meaninglessness, is silly. It was specified that it depends on how the terms are defined (and it is fair to say that people do define such terms, with connotations, very differently, regardless of dictionaries which often present multiple possibilities and largely reflect the view or analysis of an editor), but whatever definition would lead to that conclusion should be thrown out.

If one approaches all matters with care and seriousness, and approaches it intellectually, they do not necessarily approach it in a personal way. They may, or the may not. Likewise, one can understand the principals of differing ideas and philosophies, and thus not be angered by the conflicts, even on matters that are in some way personal to them. You can also approach positive topics seriously as well as negative topics, or approach serious topics positively or negatively, and thus balance things out or avoid the negative despair all together. Likewise, one can be very serious and filled with joy, and that joy can flow from having something that they are serious about but which may also make them, in some senses, invisible to the despairs that flow from opposition and confusion even against the source of that joy.

There are many possibilities in this world. However, I think often enough the people, like myself, who stay with serious topics more do so because they are compelled to it, they feel some sense of obligation or some burning which leads them to continue with at least certain serious topics, despite any frustration that it brings with it. Sometimes it consumes so much of their time that they find they simply don't have much time for anything else, even if they prefer the more relaxing subjects. Though, again, they may find the causal topics unfulfilling and to be not worth their time.

n0th1n won my heart today. I would shake your hand if I could.
Anyway as you may see, I registered not long ago so yes - I'm not familiar with how things used to be in here, so i only tell how i see it from my (fresh member) perspective.
Most of problems I've mentioned came out from my own first experiences with this forum, thou many of my acquaintances describe my personality as a fussy one, so that may partialy be the reason.

About that last part... so, if you say that there are people in here that feel need of talking about serious things, yet they stay in other places of this forum cuse normaly they prefer more casual topics then... what?
If problem isn't about lack of this kind of people then... it's lack of topics or differences in perception? People don't have serious enough matters to talk about that they could be putted in gen-serious and treated only as such, or is it that they prefer to put it in gen-spam and let others decide if they treat it seriously or not?

...

Guys, something just sprung to my mind... meaby we analyse too much? (not sure if I or someone else haven't said that before) Meaby it's just that serious things that could be talked over don't apper so much in our lifes so we rarely find anything worth putting in gen-serious? So we just don't have enough active members that it could work properly and be active all the time?
Or the other way around: We just would like to keep them for ourselves and not share our thoughts? Yom once said on chat that this site for many is kind of refuge from their boring lifes... so logicaly also refuge from everyday seriousness.

OR BOTH!

I'm horrible at putting my thoughts to words and making them into a coherent argument. So normally if I'm in the mood I just ramble on about whatever. Often times it's not a serious issue, either. Just mind games to play with myself. If I feel that something is important and worth talking about seriously, I'll put it into serious. Unfortunately I don't keep on top of politics or the like, so such things are few and far between.

Res, you should probably go read through old posts or look around the site. Or ask people about things. Especially ask people. It's pretty much impossible to figure out what this place was like at any given time without either reading through the old posts or getting someones firsthand account. That history of FH thread does fuck-all for anyone that isn't on top of the important parts already. FH has seen many stages.

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The activity level in Gen Serious is mostly due to number of members and their interests at this point. I was under the impression though that the original concern of this thread was the quality or appropriateness of what IS in gen serious, which has little to do with the frequency of its use.

In any case, it's difficult to get a good grasp of how things used to be now. If you go back to really old posts, you can get some idea, and reading up the history thread or talking to others gives you some knowledge, but one of the problems is the forum used to get destroyed completely and frequently, and then recreated somewhere else and sometimes by someone else. Which means, a lot of the old threads of this iteration were already from after a lot of the times we now talk about, and a lot of the old people never even made it to this iteration.

Do we have a shot at resolving this problem?

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I doubt it at this point. If anyone is in contact with those people still, maybe, but they likely have lost interest a while ago.

It might be easier to focus your efforts on getting newer, more reliable people.

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And I certainly cant be the only one to do it
I used to be a reliable recruiter but I have getting into a university to worry about now, and thus, I'll use forkheads for its original purpose of relaxing

Recruit motherfuckers, somehow, anyhow, if you don't have a place to find people, look for a place to find people

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