Come take an OpTor (opinionators.co.uk)

Member Name: triplecthegame

Product:	opinionators.co.uk
Date:	19/07/06 (112 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Varied personalties of members, well moderated, easy to navigate.

Disadvantages: Unfairly given a bad name

Over my 6 years of writing there have been many ‘opinionating forums’ come and go - there was the original Yahoo Dooyoo Club, then there was OpCom, Chatterweb, several others and now amongst others theres Opinionators (here-on-in called OpTors), when it comes to talking to other members and discussing Dooyoo, Ciao and Opinionating, OpTors is the choice for a new generation.

** The Site itself **

Set up originally in June 2004 it’s a forum led site based on the pphb forums and is easy to use, to join up all you need to do is pick a username (not necessarily your username on any of the writing sites), give a valid e-mail address and pick a password as well and you’re away, if you want you can include a personal signature and avatar (the little picture next to your name) but that is all up to you.

Once you’ve joined its onto the actual posting side of things, there’s several sub-forums set into different categories (all of which I’ll get to in a minute) - in each forums theres various ‘threads’ (topics) where members are chatting about 101 different things, to reply couldn’t be simpler, if you want you can use the quick reply to just freetype your response in, or if you’re wanting to use more advanced effects such as bold, italics, changing the font size or many other things, just click reply and you’ll have access to all these features.

The actual different forums themselves are all well governed and explained as well, each of the sub-forums have a short description underneath their title to ensure that you post in the right place, the sub-forums are as follows:

Site Information - simple really, its information about the site, be it updates on what’s happening, generally posted in by the Site Admin with brief notes of whats happening and what it means to the actual members.

New Members - As good a place to start your OpTors career as any, it’s a place to give a shout out to everyone to let them know who you are, you’ll find that people will reply to you just to say hello and if nothing else its a good ice-breaker for everyone.

Forum Guidelines - A great place to read before you start posting, basically a few simple rules for everyone to abide by that keep the site a friendly place for everyone to be.

Opinion Sites in General - If you’ve got a query or comment that doesn’t actually stick to one particular site then its probably best to post it in here, you’ll always get an intelligen and light-hearted discussion going on, but then that can be said about every forum on here.

Ciao.co.uk and Dooyoo.co.uk - Actually 2 seperate forums but basically the same thing just for different sites, if you’ve got something to say about Ciao or Dooyoo then chose the respective forum and post away.

Opinion Sites 101 - A list of hints and tips on how to get the best out of the sites, more appropriate for the newer user of the sites, but even a wisened old coot like myself could find something of use in here.

Entertainment - A place to discuss books, magazines, websites, music and sports amongst other things - anything you find entertaining that isn’t opinionating is probably best off in here.

Other Stuff - Light hearted chat about anything not opinionated base or classed as Entertainment such as posting jokes, wierd news headlines you’ve seen or just random things that you don’t know what to think about.

The Soapbox - If you need to rant away about something then this is the place to go - though if its an outspoken opinion prepare to get into a heated but friendly discussion with someone who disagrees with you.

Lifestyle - Say you’re considering joining a gym but want advice on what sort of exercises to do (I do walking - generally past the gym to the pub - it’s great), then this is the place to be, but its not only gym related threads that allow me to include a crappy joke that appear in here oh no....... going on a diet? (lager diets the best), quitting the fags? (take up drinking lager - it’ll give you something to hold in your hands) - then there’s plenty of advice in here for you.

** The feel of the place **

I honestly think that OpTprs has been given an unfair bad reputation, a lot of people see it as a place for gossiping, snidy comments, bitching and people being too opinionated. Firstly in response to the last one of that list I hate to sound narky but the clues in the title of the site as to what you’re going to get, on OpTors there’s no such thing as too opinionated, and if you wasn’t opinionated at all then a lot (not all mind) of the parts of the site are going to feel a bit off for you.

However onto the other comments being thrown at the place, gossiping is one thing I’d say doesn’t happen at OpTors as much as the detractors would like you to believe, there’s a lot of talks about general issues that have happened on the opinionating sites but rarely have I ever seen people being openly gossiped about and when it has happened I’d take my hats off to the Mods and Administrators who are quick to jump in and nip it in the bud.

Finally the snidy and bitching comments again I think have been taken out of proportion, as with any place there’s people who just aren’t going to be ‘got’ - who may seem like they’re openly being nasty and having a go at you, but that’s just their sense of humour and/or personality, heck the world would be boring if everyone was the same and if someone really annoys you, just don’t get into discussions with them.

My own opinion of the feel of the place is that like many forum’s on this here interweb it needs a bit of time getting used to, just slowly ease yourself into posting and you’ll find that there’s not really one bad egg in the whole of the OpTors membership, granted things get heated at times but that could be said of any forum on the web, its how the site deals with these situations that makes it, and I feel that this one has it just right, letting people carry on so long as they don’t get downright nasty or personal.

** Overall **

I honestly think that OpTors is a great resource for all members of Opinionating sites, be it to discuss the latest goings on in Dooyoo Towers or Ciao Halls, or looking for information on the latest meet thats being planned or just to chat to other members you can’t go wrong.

Lastly a quick comment about the moderating of the site, moderating any forum is going to be a tough job, you need to keep the respect of the members whilst not letting them run riot either - I feel the OpTors mods have got it spot on in their balance on this, so long as you don’t flount the rules or get nasty then you shouldn’t have a problem at all and because of this I take my hat off to these kind people.

Summary: A great place to chat and discuss issues with other members