Post your thoughts and questions about this forum here please.

Thank you.

10 questions in total from Funtrivia members.

The person being interviewed can obviously refuse to answer questions they deem too personal.

Only one member being interviewed at a time.

Person nominated to be interviewed gets to nominate the next interviewee.

Person nominated to be interviewed can refuse and nominate someone else.

I believe I've been interviewed by Mr. Roos before, somewhere. Eeek! It was a grueling (but pretty much acceptable ) experience. I think the boundaries he's suggested are pretty good ones.

Hehe thanks Dave, that was a fun interview and your answers were great.

I agree that only one at the time or it gets messy.

BxBarracuda has been interviewing me and will be posting the result shortly.

I like this idea very much--it would help flesh out some personalities and put a face on the Marmite jar or soup can! (Sue, I do remember when you had a face. The Marmite jar is great, too.)

My team ran a feature for months that, sadly, has fallen by the wayside, called "Spotlight on __________." Our leader selected a member to put the spotlight on; we could ask questions which they would then answer. Most of us really liked that thread.

Typical questions were:
What's your favorite dinner?
Who's your favorite musician?
What do you do for a living?
What hobbies do you have?

A few times I thought it got too personal, but here in this forum I think we have careful enough moderating to catch anything before it becomes too much like a soap opera.

Of course I've just determined my schedule doesn't allow for much time here...

I think the questions suggested are very good! Could be a interesting experiment

I like Roos suggestions, especially the question limit of 10. (Well, maybe 15 if needed) Also, I think that should be the maximum, could sometimes be fewer. Maybe go to another person if a new question within the limit is not posted within a certain length of time, say 2 days.

The interviews are going to be done by PM messages and the entire interview posted at once.

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The interviews are going to be done by PM messages and the entire interview posted at once.

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Sounds too "tight" to me, as in the "interviewer" has too much control over what questions are going to be asked. It could cause "bad blood" if your questions are not chosen to be asked by the "interviewer" whereas if the person being interviewed simply stated they didn`t wish to answer a question you would respect their right to do so. I think it would be much more interesting, and in keeping with this being a members forum, if the questions were asked directly to the interviewee by forum members in a thread.

Posting the lot in one go seems more like a magazine article to me.

I am excited to read about some of the mainstays here at Funtrivia. Let the interviews begin!

Hey! That was me! I thought I was logged in, obviously not. In fact, I didn't know posting could be done if not logged in. Anyway, the last post was mine! All mine!

I agree with roos, anonymous, and Jar. It would be more in keeping with how the forums are run for those who are inclined to join in and ask questions. I can see the sense of a time limit of sorts, perhaps a week, before that interview closes, and another opens.

To read the whole interview in one block, however, strikes me as somewhat static and non-participatory.

Yes the format is "tight".

Yes, an open format where anyone could pose questions would be an optimal format.

My experience tells me that while most site members will act properly in an open format, there will be some who won't. Those one or two people who will chose to not act properly could easily cause this entire section of the forum to be taken off the forums.

I think if the first set of "Get to know" interviews goes well it could possibly be expanded to a more open format.

For now there can't be any chance of the interviews turning into inquizitions or forums for people with gripes to get on a soapbox. Most people would take their question not being answered well, others would not be able to let the subject go.

If someone being interviewed doesn't want to answer a question, some will come up with theories as to why. To avoid the theories some may chose to answer a question they are uncomfortable with answering, to avoid theories as to why they didn't answer.

I believe it is important that the person being interviewed is comfortable to speak as honestly as possible.

I just learned the same thing Jar.

The post above is mine.

I would certainly hope all questions would be asked in a friendly spirit. Any meanness would simply not be tolerated. The point isn't to grill the person, but to give him a chance to tell about himself. All barbequers, stay home! This is a Tupperware party! (Oh, for the guys, it's a.... maybe a boat show, certainly not a gun show!)

The few times that, in my opinion, the Spotlight on ______ on my team's message board went over the line were when the people in the spotlight started unloading personal woes. I don't remember any members asking poor questions. In fact, many had their stock question they would always ask.

Since only "professional" people here in forums--those who have already proven they're not going to make off-the-wall comments--would be interviewed, that point is moot; none of them is going to start telling us about his addictions or crimes or phobias.

I, too, would prefer to have the individuals answer questions as they come up in open forum.

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none of them is going to start telling us about his addictions or crimes or phobias

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Awww! We can't??
I am undecided here. I must say the first interview, with Sue, made very interesting reading, but it would be nice if the follow up questions could be also put by other people, not only the interviewer. Would that work?

I was very impressed with the kid of questions asked in the first interview - much more in depth (in a good way) than I expected.

I agree. Excellent interview--very professional. Exactly what I'd expect BxBarracuda to compile.

Whilst I found it to be well written I also found it to be as I thought it was going to be,a magazine article. Reading the interview was a long process and I found it to be too much information at once, there is also nothing to keep me going back to the interview, once read it`s over and done and therefore nothing like a dynamic community forum. A little bland and "souless".

I don`t think it will be of any further real interest to me in its` current form but good luck if it`s decided that`s how it`s going to stay.

This is cool! I just saw this forum subset (I don't know what you call it - sorry!) and can totally see the potential.

I just read through the first interview. Sue, it was nice to know more about the person behind the screen name and avatar

Although it was an interesting read, I can see it going stale pretty quickly. The thing I like about these forums is that feedback can be given on almost any topic and at any time.

It would be nice for other people to followup on original questions or add comments to the interview. I would think that several discussions could be started just as a follow-on from an interview.

Would it be practical to maybe leave the interview posts open to feedback from members for a fixed period of time (say maybe a few weeks) then lock them? That way, people can add in their own bits and pieces and make the whole process more dynamic, without opening up a whole can of worms months down the track.

Just my 2 cents worth...

Enjoyed reading that...thanks Sue and Bx. However, I do agree that the format is a bit flat. As Roos says, like 'a magazine article'.

Just another suggestion, to break it up a bit. Could the questions be put in bold?

This was just the initial interview, something to start the forum off. Nothing is set in stone at this stage.

Making the question bold sounds like a good plan so I will edit the interview to do this.

I thoroughly enjoyed getting to know a bit more about Sue, thanks for sharing with us Sue.

I can see that with a bit of reshaping this could become a very popular thread.

This new "Interviews" Forum looks like it's going to be a very nice and interesting place and I am hoping we will all do our best to keep it that way for many many months/years/eons .

I agree with those who said that a more 'public' interview would be better. PM-ing the questions and then posting all the answers at once doesn't look "interactive" enough to me.

When the idea of this Forum appeared, I envisioned the interviews more like a real-time conversation. As Roos said, once you read the interview (in this form that it was experimentally done) there's nothing to make you go back to that thread, if you know nothing is going to be added.

My idea would be to have a list of 10 initial questions, asked by one person (the interviewer). We can then give a week or ten days for the answers to come - they can be posted all 10 in a single post OR one post each.

After the 10 questions are answered, then I'd allow 5 extra questions coming from other members. First-come, first-served.

The interview thread has to be for questions and answers only - no 'lateral' posts/comments whatsoever (on or off-topic).

To me, that would be a fine and clear way of organising the interviews. And I think we might even have 2 or 3 (not more) threads/interviews rolling at the same time.

I do know that we all have our own "logic" and what seems clear to me might confuse others, so please forgive me if my explanations look clear as mud.

Several ideas are being bounced around at the moment. One is that after the initial interview is posted the thread is left open for a period of,say, two weeks to allow additional questions to be asked. After this the thread will be locked and that interview closed. If someone has a particularly burning question they want answered it could be sent to either Sue or myself and we can then look at it and contact the interviewee to see if they want to answer it.