Rules change proposed

I have started this new thread, so as not to turn the Best Cake Shop in Santo Domingo thread into a discussion of the forum's rules.
http://dr1.com/forums/showthread.php?p=283899#post283899

I had been accused of breaking the rules of the forum. When I did so, I was not aware of it.

Reading the rules I see the one I broke was:
"ALL follow up posts should relate directly to the business/place named in the first post. Any off topic posts will be removed."

May I suggest to Robert then that the rule be mended to be instead:

All follow up posts should relate directly to the category/subject named in the first post. Any off topic posts will be removed.

In this case the topic was: Best Cake Shop in Santo Domingo.

I think it would be more interesting then if one could post topics such as:

Best Cake Shops in Santo Domingo.
Then people could post the shop or business or place they think is the best. I think that we could then come up with a list of the top 10 or top 20 in a category, which will still be the Best of..., but more complete instead of agreeing or disagreeing with one person's opinion.

Actually, in order to disagree, what is natural is that one present other options. The other options enable people to share opinions about places and this then makes interesting reading as people can discover good places that they were not aware of. In the case of the cake post, I was not disagreeing with the original post, just adding other pastry shops that also had good items. Mea culpa, didn't do my homework and read the rules!

But now that Chirimoya suggested it... Maybe we should change the rules. Robert could even set up a poll after a thread has gotten 10 posts or so, where the places mentioned could be listed, and then people could vote. Then we could actually have the top best in the category.

Just some thoughts. I haven't discussed this with Robert who is putting in little time at the office as his father and nephew are visiting.

mido said:

But everybody should give a good reason why he likes his idea more than the first post.
No just "I like this one better".

Click to expand...

Agree, but in many cases this will be about a category. For instance, if the post had read...
The best cake shop(S) in Santo Domingo, then it would lead to the development of the list.

Many times a category will be more interesting than rating a specific business or place. The value of the thread is more in the list. I think the different alternatives should be encouraged, and people could comment what they like about the places or compare it to the first place suggested in the category.

As happens in the case of the pastry shops, each of these places may have a cake to die for, but it doesn't make it a best. Some may have poor service, some may be great for meeting people, for a capuccino. You name it. The shared knowledge and spontaneous research could uncover those details.

In the cake category, I would be very hard pressed to choose a best and think that some research would be needed and some definite thought and visiting of these places over time. Those interested in pursuing the topic would be welcome to do so. At some point the moderator could make a sum up thread that later could be posted in a sticky. The value would be in the list of the 10 best, not in the selection of one.

I guess I have come to the same point as gringito did in his Best Idea post (that I had not read until I innocently made the same mistakes and had the same idea). http://dr1.com/forums/showthread.php?t=38971