Time For a Cull?

Doc

Just a suggestion but I think it wouldn’t be such a bad idea to cut back on the amount of forums that there now are on Boards. I know all of the forums that were added at the time went through because people thought there was a need for them but after the first week or two they tend to die out.
Also if you post now on the correct forum the amount of people who actually view the post is a hell of a lot lower as would have been on the original forum which is now split down into 5 smaller slightly differently titled forums so you don’t get as many people replying.
Just my 2 cents worth but are all these sub forums really needed?

[edit] think I should have posted this in the feedback / suggestions forum :rolleyes: [edit/]

ecksor

I'll move it and see what the reaction is.

Btw, Feedback and Suggestions along with discussion are more than welcome. Needling and trolling will probably get a ban.

Rabies

Originally posted by Doc
Also if you post now on the correct forum the amount of people who actually view the post is a hell of a lot lower as would have been on the original forum which is now split down into 5 smaller slightly differently titled forums so you don’t get as many people replying.

If you post a question in for example the Mathematics forum then you will get a limited amount of replies but at least they will be from people with a genuine interest in that topic. The replies will be prob be helpful. On the other hand, post the same quesiton in the afterhours boards and you will get loads of replies and half of them could just be bullshít.

Doc

Originally posted by ecksor
I'll move it and see what the reaction is.

Btw, Feedback and Suggestions along with discussion are more than welcome. Needling and trolling will probably get a ban.

Come on now with 441 posts in 4 years I don’t really think you could call me a troll
(Unless your talking about my looks in which case ill just have to find a quiet corner and cry)

Rabies I’m not saying all the new Forums should go but If I was to ask a question on say the Physics/Chemistry Forum then I would get a limited amount of replies but if I asked the same question on say the Science Forum If there was no Physics/ Chemistry Forum then Id probably get more replies. Also I never really minded the odd sarcastic or funny reply to some posts as long as it wasn’t anything too over the top. I always found that to be part of the fun of posting and reading posts on Boards.

Surely I’m not the only one who feels like there are a too many sub forums on Boards. If it’s just me then hey that’s okay I still think its an excellent Board as is but that it was better.

Lafortezza

Give us a list of forums that you think should get the chop-chop

DeVore

Er, we already do this periodically. Cloud and I go through forums and any without a post in the previous 30 days gets the chop or gets mixed back with an appropriate forum.

A list (for the anally over time-subscribed) follows:

127.3.*
1720
Astronomy Ireland
Belvedere
Boards Trek
BSE
Clergy
Darkside
DIE
DNA
DNC
Dudes
ESaD
F2B
FOD
Gang Wars
HB
HI TK
HIV
IE TFC
IO MWG
Legion
LIFE
Maximus
na Daghda
Nakamoto Associations
Project X
SA
SOE
The Cammarilla
TLR
UL Study Group


If you see any you think could be culled do post them here but we do tidy up around here you know

DeV.

flogen

its a good suggestion in theory, but the problem is whatever forum you suggest for the chop, your going to get people opposed to it.
Maybe a timeframe could be set where if a forum is dead for X months then it gets shut down. As Rabies said, even if the forum is quiet it can still be a huge help for people.
There are alot of forums here that i think are useless, but if there is a community within the forum then maybe its best not to just drop it (maybe merge it )

Also, i dont think exsor was saying you were a troll, but instead warning other posters not to troll on this thread

Flogen

flogen

oh, well it looks like you already do what i suggested....
well carry on so....

Flogen

GuanYin

Originally posted by Doc
Come on now with 441 posts in 4 years I don’t really think you could call me a troll
(Unless your talking about my looks in which case ill just have to find a quiet corner and cry)

Rabies I’m not saying all the new Forums should go but If I was to ask a question on say the Physics/Chemistry Forum then I would get a limited amount of replies but if I asked the same question on say the Science Forum If there was no Physics/ Chemistry Forum then Id probably get more replies. Also I never really minded the odd sarcastic or funny reply to some posts as long as it wasn’t anything too over the top. I always found that to be part of the fun of posting and reading posts on Boards.

Surely I’m not the only one who feels like there are a too many sub forums on Boards. If it’s just me then hey that’s okay I still think its an excellent Board as is but that it was better.

To be fair, I'd hoped that a future boards upgrade that Dev has talked about would be a good front for the science forum in general, and talking to Regi and Ecksor that still may be the case down the road. Anyway the subsections all get more traffic than the science forum these days so if you were to do away with any of them, it'd make most sense to kill off science.

One suggestion could be to start all forums off as a private community forum (having made the mod choice in feedback and suggestions and then listing these forums somewhere). Everyone once the forum get enough traffic over a certain space of time, then maybe make it a public forum. It may or may not work but I've not had coffee and its my best idea so far today (except perhaps the one about going to have coffee).

flogen

I may just be abit ignorant here,
but how does a forum get popular if its private, and thus only open to a very limited number of people

Flogen

Doc

I don’t mean to criticise any forum in particular but I think that potentially interesting treads can be lost to people who do not visit the quiet forums by them being posted there. I know I now only tend to visit about 4 of the forums and so probably miss a lot of interesting things.

GuanYin

Well it needs initial support, but alot of people here will say yes to any forum idea that comes along (unless, it seems, Paddy20 suggests it). So the forum is created privately, the mod isput in place and every that said yes on the thread now has a chance to join it and participate. Because the thread is there and perhaps a sticky listing these private forums and the mods to contact in order to join, all anyone has to do is PM the mod for access if they are interested in that area.

Then say after a given period of time, you can judge the forums success on posts, threads, members and views, and then decide if its busy enough to be worth keeping.

It's probably too simple an idea to work, but at least the forums would be active from the start.

Rabies

Originally posted by Doc
Surely I’m not the only one who feels like there are a too many sub forums on Boards.

some times a think that, but people still post in some of the smaller forums. So they do have a following and get used. They might not have 5-10 new threads a day but maybe 1 new thread a week is enough.

Most of the forums that Dev posted are private. unless you are a member you will never see them. so it is hard to know what amount of traffic they get.

Rabies

Originally posted by Doc
I know I now only tend to visit about 4 of the forums and so probably miss a lot of interesting things.

then i think that is your problem. you need to spread your wings a bit more and move away from the usual few forums.

flogen

hmm, it sounds like an ok idea, but i dont think you could judge just how popular a forum would be when access is limited. I mean, id say there are alot of people who dont go near the feedback forums, so theyd never see new forum ideas until they were made into public forums.
Id suggest that any forums that seem popular when suggested should be made, and then its sink or swim (which is pretty much how it works already as far as i know)

Well it needs initial support, but alot of people here will say yes to any forum idea that comes along (unless, it seems, Paddy20 suggests it).

and me....
seriously though, there hasnt really been many new forums made in the last while, the last one i can think of was the Battlefield cult, and suggestions such as cartoon, the simpsons have been rejected, and scouting is still mid-debate.

Flogen

smiaras

This post has been deleted.

BuffyBot

Well you find something new out everyday. I didn't know we had an "Irish Skateparks" board. That's another piece of information I never needed.

There are quite a few niche boards on the site, but just because they aren't busy it doesn't mean they aren't useful. I guess it's a matter of balance.

DeVore

Forums are rivers of information... some of them flow fast and can wash you away. Some are far lazier and meander around as they see fit, going whereever they take themselves. I like both types, some people like only one or the other.

DeV.

SheroN

Life is like a box of chocolate....

DeVore

I'll give you a box....

DeV.

Raphael

Whats wrong with me, i thought this topic was "time for a cult".....i was looking forward to DeV worship...aww


Seriously though, certain low traffic forums are used, ie buddhism and theatre, just because there covered in dust, doesnt mean they ain't used now and again

Crash

DeV the one thing i would say is most of the boards that are listed there are boards which are community or private. what i think doc is saying, or my interpretation of it is that some of the sub-forums are not neccessary per sé. where something has been divided, for instance science, leads to a serious drop in posts, which may build up over time (using the science sub division as an example of division, not of dead boards btw )

I would believe there are some that are quite frivolous, and i would probably broaden the search to include boards which have only had say 3 or 4 posts in the past month, though selectively tbh.

Whats wrong with me, i thought this topic was "time for a cult".....i was looking forward to DeV worship...aww

...lickarse :P

if only i had been granted that "ancient society of no DeVores" board way back when....all my troubles would ....still be there, but in a more amusing manner

er.../me waves at DeVore

mike65

Has anyone been bored enough to count the number of public foums? Cos I have'nt!

Mike.

yellum

Originally posted by crash_000


if only i had been granted that "ancient society of no DeVores" board way back when..

But that allows in a DeVore , it only disallows DeVores

Crash

ah yes but my cunning plan involved giving access to DeVoreisgay20 to belay this.



...i'm gonna stop before i get given out to

GuanYin

Originally posted by crash_000
for instance science, leads to a serious drop in posts, which may build up over time (using the science sub division as an example of division, not of dead boards btw )

I would believe there are some that are quite frivolous, and i would probably broaden the search to include boards which have only had say 3 or 4 posts in the past month, though selectively tbh.

You say this knowing that I (A) Have access to infectious diseases and (B) Know that CTYI is in DCU ( ussed to tutor at it).... not very "talented" my friend

In the defence of science, since the split (30/9/03..roughly 6 months ago), the new boards (Biology/Medicine and Physics/Chemistry) have gotten 298 posts and science had 251, so its 531 total. In the six months before the split, science alone had 534 so the status quo is pretty much the same over the three boards. Its nice and stuctured now tho

Crash

syke : i said "NOT of dead boards. saying that after your last long post i was not gonna use it as an example of that

Heh, actually, go on, cover the CTYI'ers in toxic diseases. means i'll have to clean up less of their ****e on here

po0k

there is no need for a cull.

DeVore

The science area is an area Ecksor and I decided to kinda experiment with. We noticed that we had passed some majical online-membership threshold where we could basically build a forum for Java-enabled-toasters and people would post to it, on topic!

We didnt want to do this but since we'd often talked how much we'd like a Math, Biology etc sub forums we decided to test our hypothesis (a bit).
There was no demand for the science subfora before we created them, certainly Science wasnt exactly over flowing to the brim with new posts on these topics (which had previously been our criteria for board creation).

When we specialised an area we seemed to catalyse people to post in that area and build a "backwater" community of people interested in that niche.

Those sorts of communities tend to form critical mass very quickly or not. Those that form critical mass tend to become the *only* place worth posting stuff about that topic (and its relation to Ireland where applicable) and no other community can come along and challenge it at a later date without very serious effort (getting people to change their browsing habits is a tough thing to do).

I'm glad to say it seems to be working with the Science sub-fora (the irony of them being a kinda mini-experiment for us just hit me ).
I think we may take this one step further soon enough too...

DeV.

ecksor

actually, Cloud created the Maths forum first to stop me talking about numbers.

Woden

i didn't think the seperation of the science board was a good idea tbh, astronomy and space seems to support itself quite well, but as you mentioned there was no overflowing need for it and i don't like the way chemistry has been seemingly isolated from biology if anything i would put chemistry in with biology and put physics on its own due to the general overlap between chemistry and biology today.

for example these threads i was interested in here

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?s=&threadid=141097

and

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?s=&threadid=141513

would also be at home in the biology/medicine forum, so shame to think people miss out on the overwhelming discussion that took place on these topics due to there location

oh and we'll we are on the topic the overwhelming support that people had for the engineering forum that they needed doesn't seem to be materialising into threads just a comment

data

GuanYin

I think one thing you miss on the science forums is that many people would read a thread but not post. They see it as sort of a news digest. Look at the posts where there has been discussion. Alot more views than posts.

Both those threads were quite technical for the lay person which is why they may not have responded. We are getting alot more technical posts in some of the forums than when it was just science which is something I did notice.

I actually think Science has lost an awful lot of posting traffic to Irish Skeptics, which I said at the time, I still didn't see why they couldn't have had it private or posted in science, so if anything its doing well to hold its own.

In any case, I'm not sure why the Science forum is getting shot down. The peopel who are interested read it regularly, I haven't psoted as much lately due to work commitments but its still moving along.

Nike_Dude

I dont think there is a need for a major cull, but what could be culled is the amount of members with no posts (i.e. people who signed up and never posted) it takes ages to trawl through the member list

mr_angry

Originally posted by syke
So the forum is created privately, the mod isput in place and every that said yes on the thread now has a chance to join it and participate. Because the thread is there and perhaps a sticky listing these private forums and the mods to contact in order to join, all anyone has to do is PM the mod for access if they are interested in that area.

That's all very well, but the problem with the private fora is that they are obscurely named, and there doesn't seem to be anywhere to see what kind of discussion goes on in that actual forum from the outside. For example, the whole "Fezmaniac" thing - took poor Beruthial ages to explain to me what that was about. I was also wondering what Tech Haven Ghosts was, but getting Hobbes to reply to a private message seems to be nigh on impossible. How are you ever supposed to know if you want to join a private forum?

ecksor

Originally posted by Nike_Dude
I dont think there is a need for a major cull, but what could be culled is the amount of members with no posts (i.e. people who signed up and never posted) it takes ages to trawl through the member list

Accounts that are properly registered with no posts might yet be used (we recently had one user post for the first time a full year after registering). We will look into a culling of accounts that failed to correctly register, along with bulk signups to 'nick squat' or other obvious nuisances.

SheroN

I know of several users who have been registered for years and who never post, but regularly visit boards.

yellum

Originally posted by mr_angry
the whole "Fezmaniac" thing ..

/me whistles...


How are you ever supposed to know if you want to join a private forum?

You don't, you are invited/suggested. Kinda like the square dealers.

Nike_Dude

Originally posted by SheroN
I know of several users who have been registered for years and who never post, but regularly visit boards.

Fair enough but what extra benefit do they get from being joined as oppose to just coming and viewing as a guest?
Thats the sort of thing I meant ecksor. There must be loads of people who just come across boards and register, but have no intentions of ever posting

ecksor

Originally posted by Nike_Dude
Fair enough but what extra benefit do they get from being joined as oppose to just coming and viewing as a guest?

They can subscribe to forums and threads and set preferences and ignore lists amongst other things. Also, I believe there are people who never post but do use the private message facility occasionally.

Thats the sort of thing I meant ecksor. There must be loads of people who just come across boards and register, but have no intentions of ever posting

That doesn't mean they never will. There are other targets for culling that make more sense at this stage.

Roller Toaster

Well I suggested the Collectibles/Antiques forum a few months ago as it seemed to fill a gap within the site but it's sort of trailed off from it's initial flurry of posts. That's not to say that it should be culled though as I still think that it's a useful resource to people. The only problem is getting the right people to notice it as once you have a good mix of knowledgable people and newbies asking questions any forum can be successful.

I think that a lot of people click on a thread out of curiosity on the front page but when theres nothing happening on a forum that they're not aware of it's not brought to their attention. Perhaps a spotlight on some of the quieter forums on the frontpage would help to get their wheels in motion again and if that still didn't help then they should probably be culled.

ecksor

If you want to try to promote the forum you could try putting a link to it in your signature and seeing if helps the interest levels.

yellum

You could have a dropdown menu thats autogenerated at the end of every day, listing the top 20 least used public forums with the least used at the top of the dropdown list and it going down in ascending usage level.

Might be one way of generating new traffic. Call the dropdown - "Forums of the day" or something.

Roller Toaster

Isn't "Forums of the day" false advertising since it would solely consist of the reject forums?

GuanYin

Originally posted by ecksor
If you want to try to promote the forum you could try putting a link to it in your signature and seeing if helps the interest levels.

I was doing that for a while...someone deleted it though *cough*

yellum

Originally posted by Roller Toaster
Isn't "Forums of the day" false advertising since it would solely consist of the reject forums?

Well in a restaurant the dish of the day is usually something the chef wants to push on you for that day so he can get rid of the last of that meat or whatever.

Forums of the Day are forums that Boards thinks you should check out. Its not stating "Most Popular Forums of the Day"

BigO

oi! dont get rid of belvedere,

all the lads discuss the rugger there roysh!

actually destroy it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Vader

I think new public forums should be advertised in devores announcements the same way he advertises regular forums. I understand why he doesnt, its logical, but I think it would help the new forums