 Re: 2009 ReMake of HCW
As one of the owners of the site - I'm going to weigh in on this one.
OP - from literally YEARS of experience online, off topic conversations happen in a community forum. And in all the studying I've done in human communication, giving people a venue with the context of a community is an important way to engage community members.
When we started the site, we'd had the experience of being on a site previous to this that shut down their off topic area. The natives revolted and there were politcal and controversial discussions going on in every other section of the board. So to us, to give people both what they wanted and to create a sense of community, the HUTC forum was the venue we chose to give people to converse here.
Now, you're pretty new to HCW and being as that you came in right in an election year with lots of pretty HOT topics going on, there was certainly more than our fair share this year of diverse conversation. In most years, it's not quite as nutty.
And there's more to the Hot House section of the board than just the HUTC - as others have said, there's the daily living section and a few others. Life is more than just couponing, and part of being a good couponer is being connected to the others in the community. To do that, it helps that we have more than just coupon topics.
You'll note that our way of doing this seems to work because we have some of the least amounts of bad trading and negative feedback in the couponing sections of the board of any other trading site on the net. Being connected to people in other ways than just wanting dog food coupons from them means you also have to be a little more accountable to them when you do want to trade with them. I've based that philosophy on research I've done about accountability between businesses when they have a higher level of connection to each other than just business, and the theory applies here as well and seems to work.
All that said - really, if you don't want to engage in the community at that level, it's not a requirement for you as a trader or deal seeker to do so. I personally enjoy engaging with people in this part of the board - it's like having friends in my living room who I've invited in to share our diversity and our opinions. This section of the board is what adds dimention to our relationships and helps us step to the plate when people need a hand up. Most of the people who we've helped this year we helped not because they asked, because we really don't operate that way - it came from us going to them because of what came out of their engagement with us and others on the site. Hard to fake when those dialogues have been going on for a year in this part of the forum.
So no, we're not going to remake Hotcouponworld because some people don't like the HUTC part of the board. If you'll notice, you have to scroll an awful long way down the forum home page to find it, or if you use the "New Posts" features to read the recent threads, then you'll have had to make the conscious choice to click open and read a HUTC thread.
"It's all about the deals" might be our tagline, but we get better deals IMHO when we are working on them with people who aren't strangers. The Hot House is a huge part of where we build those relationships.
__________________ I AM THE GREAT CORNHOLIO!!! I NEED TP FOR MY BUNGHOLE.....ARE YOU THREATENING ME???  The crazy half of Hotcouponworld The Shopping Cart Economist - my blog about tracking food prices Post Content Copyright 2006-2009 Hotcouponmama @ HCW. Permission to repost is denied.  | 
Christy 
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