Posted by andyb on October 07, 2005 at 11:51:54 from 213.249.162.132 user beardbiter.
In Reply to: Re: Mine exploration (was Re: Church Beck as the River Amazon?) posted by John Nichols on October 06, 2005 at 18:27:24:
As a sociologist with a different approach to the study of risk I found it very interesting but it was a bit technical. John did a good job using AR examples. Personally I enjoy on-line discussions which start from a shared interest and move into unexpected areas, especially when one or more of the contributors has an expertise in the topic.
In theory, given the threaded structure of Tarboard, this shouldn't cause problems to people who aren't interested in that particular topic. In practice, however, I have noticed that people (including me) have a tolerance for a certain noise to signal ratio on discussion boards. Too much off topic stuff, no matter how interesting, does seem to put people off. Despite this, I still maintain that discussions or risk and adventure or parenting styles have a place in serious AR studies.
But there again, I still think the outside speaker who thought we are all dotty had a point. Have we considered the possibility that we might be dotty despite liking AR, not because of it?