A gathering place for like-minded off-topic posters...

OK, I admit it; this is a blatant attempt to draw the idle chit-chat away from the main "Orchard" threads! But, I have my reasons... "The Orchard" is only one small section in the bigger Guide, and the intention was for Mac users to "subscribe" to it so that any Mac questions posted would receive as wide an audience as possible. Unfortunately, any "chat" also pops up at the top of the conversation list of anyone who has subscribed... With multiple "chatty" threads all that will be achieved is that the more "serious" users will unsubscribe, and only the chatters will ever be able to see the questions being posted - this dilutes the functionality of the whole scheme, somewhat. (I can't believe I said that...) Here, on the other hand, topic drift is not merely tolerated but encouraged - if I see a thread stay "on-topic" for more than three posts I'll probably post off-topic myself, just to break it up... So go on, you know you want to... (Peet, August 1st 2002 )