BIRTHDAYS: Is it time for a change?

[S. Heisley]

At the time of this writing, there are now 15,372 MEMBERS on the forum, and GROWING! At our current member count, if each of these members noted their birthday; and, if the birthdays were spread out equally over all the days of the year, that would be more than 42 Happy Birthday topics per day, each year. Also, if we continue to celebrate each birthday separately, that number will increase as our member count grows. Leaving birthdays in the General Discussion space could clutter it, taking space through the years. Giving birthdays their own space would allow for easy deletion/clean-up at the end of each year or decade or….?

I’ve never started a User Poll topic; so, I may mess it up royally. However, I think it’s time for a change. Is it time to do something new with birthdays or is it time to forget about birthdays?

[nevadatear]

Yes, there are a lot of members, but a fraction of them are active, and even less who list their birthdays. There are only a few a day, and i dont find them intrusive. Those that do can just ignore those posts, like others ignore the chat threads or other off topic threads, or me that doesnt find interest in cargo conversions, so i ignore those, but have no problem with their existnce, inhust dont read them!

[Eunice]

Personally I like the birthdays. I like seeing who is having a birthday and I like to post greetings. I wouldnt mind putting them in a section for birthdays only but I dont want to see them disappear.

[PKCSPT]

I kinda like the idea of them having their own space, this coming from on who keeps her birthdy a secret. For me it is a day that comes and goes like any other.

[Steve_Cox]

A birthday thread.......

Sharon, I know your birth date.

[wagondude]

How about a birthday banner that comes up on the home page. It would just list the members whose birthdays are on that day. Then those who would like to send their own message, could just PM the ones they want.

[Mary C]

For those who want separate individual birthday greetings, share your love and offer to be responsible for the postings for a set time(a Year) You have no idea what a responsibility that is. I am sure the one who has been posting is getting tired of having that responsibility and making their job easier I know will be muchly appreciated. Been There!!! I thought it was great idea but as Sharon said, it is over 15,000 posts in one year. Get real and that would be 15,000 posts in the general discussion area. As a member you could be asked to do it. So I vote to either forgo or post as a group in separate thread.

Mary C.

[Wanna Be]

Thank You for bringing this up !!!!!!!!!!!

I think it would be better to have a seperate section JUST for Birthdays !!!!

[mikeschn]

I think this is a very good question. You guys need to vote on this! Remember, you're shaping how the forum looks and feels!

And don't forget, you can see this every day, at the bottom of the main page...



Mike...

[Gage]

I'd rather read about birthdays than some of the stupid threads that come up in the GENERAL section. And besides shouldn't Miriam have a say in this.

[nevadatear]

Although i think it is a good question, mike (unknowingly) confirmed with his screen shot, we may have 15'O00 members, but we do not have 15,000 birthday posts per year. Today has two. Just by guess, we have 0-3 day, or maybe average of 2 a day or around 700/year. Still a lot, but no where near 15,000. and i think a special birthday sub forum might be nice. Its a lot for the poster (Miriam), but not really for the reader. This forum is both technical and social. Impossible not to be when you are dealing with people!

[Corwin C]

Birthday wishes ... some I read, most I don't. I'm one of those who doesn't have their birthday listed anywhere (that I know of) on this forum. I did not provide that information when I signed up to protect my identity (important considering the damage that can occur when nefarious people have access to personal information.) I chose other in the poll because it makes no difference whatsoever to me personally. It does add to the character of the forum, however. Perhaps it makes us more of a family. Maybe I should revisit the decision to keep my birthday private.

[S. Heisley]

I'd rather read about birthdays than some of the stupid threads that come up in the GENERAL section. And besides shouldn't Miriam have a say in this.

Okay, Gage. Realize when I write this that I'm teasing you...: Do you mean like the "Another Silly Question" thread?

Seriously, Yes, Gage, Miriam probably should have a say in this. She's probably holding back and reading it all; waiting to see what happens. Actually, if the birthday greetings were in their own space, it would highlight Miriam's work better and show how much she still does for us. (We don't hear from her in the other threads as much as we used to....Miss you, Miriam.)

Right now, if you query the General Discussion area for "Happy Birthday", you come up with about 5,000 postings, which isn't a lot when you consider that "Happy Birthday" threads have been going on since about 2006. However, there were less people here in 2006. When I joined in 2007, there were about half as many as there are now.

Please recognize that, even if the "Happy Birthday" threads were in their own space, they would still show up when you click on "View New Posts", just like they always have.

The advantage to having them in their own BIRTHDAYS space is mostly for housekeeping and quick fixes:

- It's sort of like paper birthday cards. Most people look at a card once and then toss it, unless it is from somebody special or says something special. Even then, they usually end up catching dust in a drawer after a while. So, the birthday greetings could easily be archived to a disk or deleted once a year or so, saving space.

- Also, if we suddenly ran out of space to post, being able to do this might be enough of a quick fix to be able to get back up and running sooner.

- Additionally, if one was running a search in the GENERAL DISCUSSION section, the search would probably run quicker and more smoothly without the birthday greetings interspersed within.

I voted for putting birthday greetings in their own space but came close to voting for doing away with the greetings all together, not because I'm a scrooge but because I feel guilty whenever I see a greeting and don't wish that person a happy day. I used to wish people I knew a happy birthday but felt uncomfortable about ignoring the others; so, I stopped totally and now I feel uncomfortable about that, too. It's just plain awkward. The other thing that bothers me is putting one's birthday out on the Internet. That can be dangerous as it can lead to identity theft for some. Frankly, I never list my real birth date out on the Internet, if I can at all keep from doing it. And I even hide the fake dates, if I can.

Earlier in the week, when I clicked on 'View New Posts', there seemed to be a plethora of greetings and that's what got me to thinking that maybe it was time to ask what people really wanted and what was best for all of us. So far, we've had a pretty poor voting turn-out; but, that's not unusual for this time of year, and there's no hurry on a decision.... Also, posting this now gives us something else to 'talk' about while we're waiting for the winter weather to soften into spring and waiting for camping gatherings to begin/increase.

PS. Admin, if you decide to put birthdays in their own space, you can throw this topic in that pile, too.

[Miriam C.]

I am watching and at least you had the good sense to do a poll. Last time someone made a demand about this time of year when nothing was going on and OMG. Well it wasn't pretty to say the least.

It might surprise you all to know there has always been a plan where if we did end up posting too many birthdays we would change it. Right now I am not running out of gifs. LOL I am sure they are repeated often enough to be boring though.

The new forum programming give us a lot more birthday posts than the old calendar but is much easier to manage. I will admit I have never used View new posts so I don't really know what it looks like. I can imagine when I do 4 birthdays and it is a quiet day ...well...

I suppose we could all post a Happy Birthday gif? Really I could use some new ones. Getting bored with my old gifs.

Thank you Sharon for thinking of us.

[Ron Dickey]

How about a birthday banner that comes up on the home page. It would just list the members whose birthdays are on that day. Then those who would like to send their own message, could just PM the ones they want.

I like that too, I am not on every day and miss some of the important birthdays of my friends. I also feel the birthdate should not be the year because it is a ID thing on a lot of important stuff in your personal life. what age you are does not matter, by the teardrop clock .

Oh and if I missed your birthday happy balloted birthday..... mine is next sunday....

Ron Dickey