Off Topic section?

[CptBob]

A couple of months ago I was driving to Tottenham (from Sussex) to pick up a job lot of 103 records I'd won on ebay for 99p. They really were worth the drive, I think I'll be keeping at least half of them. The vendor was heartbroken that no one else had bid. I didn't point out to him that it was he himself had described the music contained on the discs as "crap" in his listing.

Anyway, to get to the point, on my way there I was listening to Ethel Smyth's Mass in D on a CD in the car and was thinking that if I didn't know who the composer was I might suppose it was Brahms. I've had the CD for over ten years and that day was the first time I'd played it. I bought about 200 from a friend of my cousin's very cheaply. They had belonged to the BBC television music library which had been closed down. I think the CDs and records had been sold off to the staff even more cheaply and I think the guy had about 20,000 which he had to clear from his house.

I also thought that this was probably the last time in my life I would ever need to listen to the CD. Life is short, I did my music degree over twenty years ago, I don't need to listen to minor 19th century choral pieces more than once.

As I was listening to this music, I thought I'd put a post up, or start a thread - "What CDs are we listening to today?" I enjoyed the discussion of the Mendelssohn Piano Trio started by Frankia a couple of months ago, but where to start this thread?

I think an area to discuss music outside the context of gramophones and phonographs would be a useful addition to the forum, if not a section to discuss all sorts of off topic issues. I'd steer clear of suggesting a politics and other big issues section. That would probably be a step too far - I'd probably want to tell all you about the very excellent MRI scan I had today on the National Health Service, free at the point of need paid for by my taxes and everyone else's.

Anyway, as long as we kept away from politics I think a pub type section would be good for the community aspects of the forum. What do others think?

[Retrograde]

I vote NO.

Off topic posts have gotten more than one phono forum into trouble... I'm not for having any such section added to this forum. I don't see a need to continually add sections to the forum, even phono related. The more there is, the more convoluted the whole thing becomes.

[alang]

I am also against it for the exact same reasons. Slightly O/T things are already being discussed and that's OK, but an O/T section just calls for trouble. There are enough places on the Internet to discuss everything and anything, it does not have to be in the phonograph forum.
Thanks
Andreas

[Henry]

Ditto. I had to quit a forum because the postings had become uncomfortably political in nature, and totally unrelated to the ostensible central purpose of the board.

I have a good friend whose political views are at 180º from my own; our common interest is trolleys. Whenever he starts to sermonize about politics, I just say, Hey, let's talk about trolleys. He's good about taking the hint, and he does have a sense of humor, which helps a lot!

[CptBob]

Hi all,

After reading the replies so far, I've changed my mind. It might not be a good idea here. Perhaps that's an example of the power of debate to make one think again.

Cheers

Robert

[Player-Tone]

Perhaps just this thread can be used as an "off topic section".

Speaking of off topic-I wanted to point out that the "most users ever online [at the forum] was 78 on Tue Apr 19, 2011 at 4:03pm.
-I thought it was funny that the most users ever on here just happend to be '78'!