The Antesup and Boards Forums

DeVore

Hi, you will have noticed that I've started into the forums creation we discussed before. I was going to have a big discussion about what we wanted to do with them but it was clear to me that it would be better if I set things up so you could see how it might work first, and then have a framework to talk about.

So far we've created Omaha, Beginners, Reports, Regional and Social. My plan is to shave away various topics and replant them on Antesup and see if they can grow from being a single off-topic post into a full forum.
By compartmentalising these topics I hope to relieve the pressure on the poker forum (now one of our busiest forums). Currently I'm leaving this forum here as both boards and antesup's main "poker" forum.

Thats as much as I felt really NEEDED to be done and I need to talk to the mods here about how we move forwards. I'd very much like the same mods on both sides of the fence (because they're damned good mods!) but thats their decision. They have first refusal on the job.

The way the two sites are currently linked is cool imho, but if there are things I have forgotten or could do differently, please discuss it here.

DeV.

Daithio

Is the pressure on the poker site really that much? I mean it's fairly busy but it's not like posts disappear in a matter of minutes because of new threads being started. I would have thought that if you start compartmentalising certain topics like omaha etc that threads on those topics will get alot less replies than they would if they were posted in just the main poker forum area. I know myself that I won't bother checking the omaha forum, but there may be some threads about omaha that I would be interested in if I came across them in the main poker forum.

Imposter

Is there any way to link the antes-up with the boards frontpage or something similar?

DapperGent

I think it's far too awkward to have two seperate forums. I don't want to have to log on to a seperate forum simply to continue a discussion.

A few sub forum offshoots to this forum like there are for others (look at food/drink for a good example) would make far more sense.

DeVore

the best thing to do is create Dappergent on the forum, login and click the remember me box. Then you can switch between them using the linked forum entries on both sites. The other alternative is that we simply create a second poker forum entirely and let each do its own thing. Antes has to have a forum now as we are doing reports that way (and it worked much better that way for the City West reporting then ever before).

The pressure on the poker forum is intense. I came back from 3 days in Birmingham and there were unread threads on the second page of threads, thats far too fast for casual readers, you might not notice it but then you're sick for the game

DeV.

DeVore

Imposter wrote:

Is there any way to link the antes-up with the boards frontpage or something similar?

There might be, I'll look into that.

DeV.

DeVore

Daithio wrote:

Is the pressure on the poker site really that much? I mean it's fairly busy but it's not like posts disappear in a matter of minutes because of new threads being started. I would have thought that if you start compartmentalising certain topics like omaha etc that threads on those topics will get alot less replies than they would if they were posted in just the main poker forum area. I know myself that I won't bother checking the omaha forum, but there may be some threads about omaha that I would be interested in if I came across them in the main poker forum.

I would have thought that if you start compartmentalising certain topics like omaha etc that threads on those topics will get alot less replies than they would if they were posted in just the main poker forum area

Actually we find the opposite. For example there were very few threads on Bikes in the motors forum and people said the same thing when we created the Bikes sub forum. Now its mad busy with biker nuts!

People wont post in a forum if they think its an unusual topic to talk about (where are the Cork and Belfast tournie reports here? We definitely have players who play them but rarely talk about them!). Thats because the social norm in this forum is for dublin reports but not others (not that anyone would object but still people just don't write them).
When you create the space, people will (hopefully) fill it. We created the Mustard forum as a test of that! It a case of "if you build it they will come" kinda thing. But if it doesnt work out, we'll just scrap that forum.

DeV.

Lafortezza

I don't know that 2 forums on different sites will work, they'll be covering alot of common ground so there'll be alot of repetition. I understand that DeV and Mike want to increase the traffic going through the antesup.com site but I don't personally think that this is the way to go.

I love antesup for the excellent trip reports and the blogs and profiles but I don't see myself adding the forum to my bookmarks since everything I want poker-wise is on the boards poker forum, which is showing no signs of slowing down.
If I was to suggest a way to relieve the pressure currently on this poker forum it would be to create a couple of extra forums here.


1) Tournament Announcement and Discussion forum. Vegasnights, Pokerevents and every other poker tournament organiser have a forum to post their details. Rules would be the same as they are now, give as much detail as possible and log in every now and then to answer questions. It would also be a place for people to post trip reports.


2) Poker for Newbies. A forum for people who are new to the game to ask questions that might otherwise frustrate the older/more experienced players who have seen XYZ asked a zillion times. Muso's sticky plus other info for new players (offline and online) would appear here.


3) Then just the General Poker forum for everything else. It would be as the current poker forum is now, but with less traffic since threads would be split over the 3 poker forums.


I'd also add another mod to the forum. The volume of posts has massively increased since Christmas, every day there's new posters I don't recognise and they're arguing with all the 'regulars' and often proving them wrong.
If you don't log in for a single day, all the new posts easily spread on to page two, sometimes more. The number of users online is reaching After Hours levels during the 9-5 day.
The poker forum has 51,000 posts, the Humour forum has 70,000 and is number 10 on the list of 'Forums wih most posts'. Yeah sure, poker forum is fairly busy, but the poker forum has only been open a couple of years! This website is about 7 years old.

If you're looking to create a massive Irish poker community, and essentially a poker hub for Ireland then I think here is the place for it. Expand the poker forum, make some sub forums and make it n00b-friendly (cos it isn't really right now).

All of the above imho of course, any further ramblings will be added in due course

RoundTower

Daithio wrote:

Is the pressure on the poker site really that much? I mean it's fairly busy but it's not like posts disappear in a matter of minutes because of new threads being started. I would have thought that if you start compartmentalising certain topics like omaha etc that threads on those topics will get alot less replies than they would if they were posted in just the main poker forum area. I know myself that I won't bother checking the omaha forum, but there may be some threads about omaha that I would be interested in if I came across them in the main poker forum.

I don't like the idea of this being the main poker/Texas Holdem No Limit Tournament forum and having other "variants" on other forums. If you created something like a strategy forum where people could discuss the play of a poker hand, or poker strategy in general, that would be much more useful.

Dub13

I like the idea of a Tournament Announcement and Discussion forum...I think that would ease alot of pressure.

Culchie

Dub13 wrote:

I like the idea of a Tournament Announcement and Discussion forum...I think that would ease alot of pressure.

http://www.flopturnriver.com/phpBB2/ has an ideal layout for a poker forum.

I'm not in favour of splitting between different sites either.

A regional Forum and all the others over on Antes Up can easily be accommodated within boards.ie, just needs a little re-vamp of the structure.

cardshark202

I too would prefer just one poker forum with several sub-fora.
How about this:

Tournament announcements and reports forum.
Strategy forum.
General discussion forum.

Shortstack

The Antes Up Forum has not been created to replace anything that boards does currently. Our intention is to compliment and have a place that is more social than techinical. It will also become a breeding ground for new boards members.

Tom & I are very grateful for the support that Antes Up has been given by boards and the last thing we want to do is to step on their toes now. We needed a forum for the live updates and while we were doing that we decided it would not be a bad thing to cater for other areas that boards does not.

I believe that there is room for both and a necessity for both. I seem to remember a discussion not so long ago about adding new sections to the poker forum and the vast majority of boards members were against it.

Lafortezza

Shortstack wrote:

I believe that there is room for both and a necessity for both. I seem to remember a discussion not so long ago about adding new sections to the poker forum and the vast majority of boards members were against it.

That was for an off-topic non-poker sub forum for the poker forum. I was for it because the poker forum here has a great community to it. But the idea went against the general boards.ie way of doing things so it came to nothing. That thread was here if anyone fancies a read.

I think everyone who reads and posts on this forum sees that it's growing and growing and that a couple of divisions and the creation of some subfora here would make this forum easier to keep up to date with.

Why try to make people move back and forth between sites when you can have everyone contributing together on the Regional/Beginners/Announcements/Social forums here?

Shortstack

lafortezza wrote:

That was for an off-topic non-poker sub forum for the poker forum. I was for it because the poker forum here has a great community to it. But the idea went against the general boards.ie way of doing things so it came to nothing.

That's sort of exactly what we are trying to accommodate, doing some things that are not 'in the boards way'. I get a strong sense that some people think we are trying to take something away from boards which is definately not the case.

Over the coming months there are a lot of things going to be happening at Antes Up, none conflicting with boards but we need some way of commicating them and getting interaction. If we did not have our own forum half the posts on his forum would be started by me or Tom and we would be seen as trying to take over the forum :eek:

Thanks for finding that thread because it just re-inforces the fact that other topic areas are needed and that boards did not want to do it or they would have done it by now.

I certainly will be reading and posting on boards as much as I have before and so far most of the posters on Antes Up are from boards but they are not contributing on here any less either.

Lafortezza

Shortstack wrote:

Thanks for finding that thread because it just re-inforces the fact that other topic areas are needed and that boards did not want to do it or they would have done it by now.

I think you may have misread that thread, it was for a request for a non-poker subforum for this poker forum, people replied that they didn't want that off-topic forum, not that they didn't want the current poker forum split into manageable sections.

People disagreed with the non-poker sub-forum and the idea died. I think the idea that creating for example a "Tournament Announcement and Discussion" sub-forum for the present poker forum would be a very popular idea. Similarly for a Beginners section/Omaha section/etc.

I'm yet to hear why it would be a bad idea to create sub-forums for poker on boards.ie, I think it would be a great thing for Irish poker to have one big place for the community, instead of split between two sites.
That said, why not create sub-forums here as well as the Antesup forums, it not like it a ghost town here lately

Shortstack

lafortezza wrote:

That said, why not create sub-forums here as well as the Antesup forums, it not like it a ghost town here lately

That is a good idea. Although the two sites are not really that far apart. they link back to each other and look the same bar the colour and are both owned in part by the same person

Dub13

lafortezza wrote:

That said, why not create sub-forums here as well as the Antesup forums, it not like it a ghost town here lately

This forum is getting so busy its unbelievable.

DeVore

because we rarely if ever do that. Boards is a general site for general people, we leave the specific and indepth stuff to the specialists sites ala the Soccer forum, we could (and probably SHOULD) break it into Eircom League and specific team forums (like Man U and Chelsea). We don't because foot.ie exists and thats all good. We could (and occasionally kinda have) broken that rule but its unusual.


"Why try to make people move back and forth between sites when you can
have everyone contributing together"

Its not like its a big jump!
We need to have a forum reporting tournie live coverage and I thought I might as well set up some of the others there too, at least the ones I saw a strong need for.

I'm a bit confused how the tone can be that we are trying to take from Boards, when... to be blunt, I'm a director of both
I didnt even think about it, I put the specific stuff on the specific site. *shrug*... its awkward but I was respecting peoples wishes to stay here...

The only other answer then splitting them is that:
1. We all move there. We might even be able to take the posts with us, I dunno.

2. We set up a General Poker forum on Antesup and split the community further.

DeV.

DeVore

Mike wrote:

hat is a good idea. Although the two sites are not really that far apart. they link back to each other and look the same bar the colour and are both owned in part by the same person

No its not a good idea because Mike is being far too polite. Mike gets nothing from Boards (noone does!) and why should he work to build a vibrant poker forums for 5 people of whom he only knows one and has no commercial agreement with. Its unfair and when we had the Antesup Forum here, it WAS a ghost town.

DeV.

DeVore

Sorry, I'm miffed over something completely different and I'm coming off sounding bad when really I just want to kill one person in particular (non-poker). I'll sleep on it.


DeV.

Dub13

Its 1am on a Saturday night and 20 odd people are lodged into the poker forum...it must be one of the biggest forums on boards now.

Culchie

Dub13 wrote:

Its 1am on a Saturday night and 20 odd people are lodged into the poker forum...it must be one of the biggest forums on boards now.

lol

If anyone told me 2 years ago I would be at home at 1am on a Saturday night, they'd have been laughed at.

Imposter

I've been browsing boards a while and used to be a lurker on the poker forum back when it started and was all pretty much about people's home games and who's playing the freeroll on Thursday! The reason I now play poker could possibly be 'blamed' on the sense of community I seen in this forum!

On a general boards note I found it easier to browse boards when the subbed.php page existed. This has got lost in the latest redesign but basically it was a page that displayed a set number of threads (options were 30, 50, 100 and 200 or something like that) from your subscribed forums. This allowed me to login in the morning, select the 200 option and see all the threads that have new posts, in the forums I am interested in, since I last checked boards. If boards and antes-up could combine in some way to have a page like this with links to the latest X number of active threads then browsing the forums would be a lot easier and less time consuming.

While I think that maybe the 2 forums can be combined to make browsing easier I think there is a problem when there are 2 places to correctly post any given thread. It will probably cause a lot of confusion and I think it will take from both sites ability to reach the maximum number of readers.

I'd like to see Antes-up just dealing with tournament reports etc like it has done and maybe blogs as well and leave the rest to boards. Also create some sort of page that combines both to make browsing easier (and maybe also combine login info across both sites if that's possible and there's no security issues). That way antes-up has there own specialist niche in the irish poker scene and boards continues to do what it has done for the last few years and the split is clearly defined and obvious yet the connection is also there (that sounds weird but I hope it makes sense).

I also know that Tom and Mike have their plans for antes-up and hopefully my opinions don't cause any offense or step on any toes, they're just my opinions.

DeVore

On a general boards note I found it easier to browse boards when the subbed.php page existed. This has got lost in the latest redesign but basically it was a page that displayed a set number of threads (options were 30, 50, 100 and 200 or something like that) from your subscribed forums.

You can ask Cloud about that but in the meantime you can still get the last 20 from your subbed forums here:
http://www.boards.ie/index.php?filter=subbed


Mmmmmm Offtopicness....

DeV.

DeVore

I think probably the best thing for us to do is to leave the Poker forum here to its own devicesand grow as it sees fit and simply let Antesup do its own thing. I'll let Regi or Ecksor make the decisions about subfora etc. We can leave the links to each other there I guess for ease but I can't turn to Mike and say "sorry mate but we're not going to use the vB software we forked out for and we wont have a forum of our own because it will compete with a site I own but you don't". Not very fair that...
Perhaps the very existance of another decent forum will relieve the pressure on this forum in the first place. *muse*

DeV.