A bit of off-topic (he-he…) here: I’ve never found any forum in my life that used this term. I’m a bit…puzzled 
It’s more common than you think!
I’ve also managed some large private company forums that have used similar wording.
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I think “water cooler” is mainly a US idiom that might not be well known internationally. Where I work we get water out of the tap!
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I know you’re half joking, but it made me think. Here are 3 questions that we should ask about this category.
I thought it was agreed on, but I’m understanding now that may not be 100% true.
- Should this category be called “The Water Cooler” or something else?
- If we’re not going to call it a water cooler, that doesn’t let us “copy” the guidelines of other water cooler topics. What should be allowed here?
- Does this category permit introduction posts like other Water Cooler categories? If so, should it maybe merge with “Welcome to Discourse!” or replace it?
Interested to hear what you all think!
Why exactly do we want to have a narrower Water Cooler category? Wouldn’t it be better to create an actual “General” category if people really refuse to use Python Help like it’s supposed to be used? (after all, everything discussed here is clearly on-topic there).
I lean toward repurposing Welcome to Discourse! to become “Water Cooler”, that is, to rename it and edit the description to indicate that this is for any fun semi-off-topic discussion, not just to say hi. The reason is saying hi alone, I think, is too niche of a topic to deserve its own category (evident by how litle the category is used), and I don’t see any reason why saying hi shouldn’t also be allowed in “Water Cooler” if the two categories were to be separated (e.g. there is a introduce yourself megathread in the Fedora Water Cooler).
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I don’t exactly follow the history of this forum, but I feel, from past discussions, that it’s just something that there’s more controversy on and is less likely to hapoen. Meanwhile a Water Cooler category seems to be pretty well accepted.
Agreed. I guess the closest to this in Germany would be the “Coffee Machine” for business; at home, it’s definitely the “Kitchen” 
Some other terms which come to mind: “Lounge”, “Plaza”, “Lobby”, “Offtopic”, “Cafeteria”.
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The statement by the moderators here against a Discussion category as far as I can see also applies to a potential Water Cooler category. Since no moderator has said anything here and based on the tone of this comment [1], we shouldn’t get out hopes up that anything will change.
Which essentially says “discussions not involving the moderators directly are pointless for changes to the website” ↩︎
Moderators can’t create categories, that would be admins, a different group.
I suggest avoiding a completely off-topic space, and instead have a space to share libraries, applications, or other Python-related creations that don’t fit into questions or ideas. But also, there are already communites for that, such as r/Python and Discord Python, we don’t have to have all types of discussions here.
As a moderator, I don’t monitor the Help category directly, relying on flags from the community for the most part. I’d likely ignore this new category as well. This is because it’s just too much noise on top of everything else I pay attention to. So it’s on you as the community that wants this to also help keep it on track by demonstrating good behavior and flagging bad.
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I think part of the criticism made there is that this would be yet another place for people to ask their questions in. This would definitely happen in “Off-topic”, but not in “Water Cooler”
That’s why I’m trying not to be to specific (Like the other post working so much on a pinned post without any moderator/admin involved).
Sorry, I looked in the forum’s group list, and only saw moderators. Am I looking in the wrong place?
That sounds good. That’s something that should be clarified in the pinned post if this category is added. It’s not a catch-all category.
I think the speakers meant they want a subforum that is related to Python but it’s not a person asking for help about Python. As I was quoted here, I have a tip about limits of the shelve module (which I think uses the Berkeley db (eventually) 1-2 more layers of modules “down”, i.e. shelve I think uses pickle, when then uses Berkeley db IIRC), that is not a question asking for help, it’s a tip. Others wanted a forum to post Python-related Easter eggs or oddities.
If someone is going to make a non-Python subforum here it should explicitly be clear that it’s for non-Python stuff. Which I don’t think I would want to bother the mods or admins about either.
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Hey, is there any enhancement proposal model for changes to the forum?
Should I try to continue the discussion to get more consensus? Or maybe form a more concrete proposal? I’m not sure if that’s something that I should do or to just leave it to admins.
Maybe this was discussed by admins privately, or it’s just something that takes time? Sorry if this sounds impatient - I’m just really not sure of the status of this or how to proceed with it.
@admins [1], is there anything for me to do/any way to get a verdict?
Sorry if this is spammy, I’m just not sure what to do ↩︎
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