Too many forums on boards.ie?

Blisterman

Does anyone else think that there are far too many forums on this site?

Now virtually every interest has its own forum, from Military collectables, to Seinfeld to Adoption.

These forums tend to only attract people with a major passion for the subject, which in my opinion, often leads to quite boring discussion, and lack of debate.
Whereas, if they were posted in Afterhours, a lot of threads would get a much wider range of opinions.

For example: Most people have some opinion on public transport, and commuting but how many people regularly visit http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/forumdisplay.php?f=246

Would boards be better if the number of forums were reduced?

6th

I think all TV forums should move over to Boards.tv ..... I also think this thread should be moved to feedback

Anyway with Paranormal being my main interest I'd hate to see the threads there posted in AH, most of the posts wouldnt be worth a fart.

ScumLord

Ya, I don't like the way you can't talk about certain things in certain places.


In another way I can see why you wouldn't want AH bogged down by silly soccer talk.

Dragan

In fairness we can discuss by and large any subject in afterhours once we clear we are looking for the common view.

Segregation of topics is the only way to go with forums.

Karoma

Moved from AH...

Slow Motion

Blisterman wrote: »

Does anyone else think that there are far too many forums on this site?

Now virtually every interest has its own forum, from Military collectables, to Seinfeld to Adoption.

These forums tend to only attract people with a major passion for the subject, which in my opinion, often leads to quite boring discussion, and lack of debate.
Whereas, if they were posted in Afterhours, a lot of threads would get a much wider range of opinions.

For example: Most people have some opinion on public transport, and commuting but how many people regularly visit http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/forumdisplay.php?f=246

Would boards be better if the number of forums were reduced?

Not really, the point of a specific interest forum is just that! People can discuss they're interests without being trolled or spammed (except mythology;)) and are not cluttering up other forums with threads of little interest to others, such threads in AH would quickly fall off the first page which most people don't go past unless they are looking for something specific!

justsomebloke

seriously a thread on military collectibles in after hours, no I got to see this. how anyone with a passion for it would get anything out it is beyond me, especially when the 2 post is "yesterday I got the model of you MA, and then I spanked the monkey a little to it, but polish models are way hotter as the irish ones are too stuck up"

Bob in Belfast

If we didn't have all these forums,
What would all the moderators do?

leninbenjamin

Bob in Belfast wrote: »

If we didn't have all these forums,
What would all the moderators do?

go back to working?

monkeyfudge

Blisterman wrote: »

These forums tend to only attract people with a major passion for the subject, which in my opinion, often leads to quite boring discussion, and lack of debate.

You'd be surprised... The Transformers forum would be a very niche topic... but there can be some very heated debates...

smashey

6th wrote: »

I think all TV forums should move over to Boards.tv

So do I.

aidan_walsh

Blisterman wrote:

Would boards be better if the number of forums were reduced?

No. And heres why:

Blisterman wrote:

if they were posted in Afterhours, a lot of threads would get a much wider range of opinions.

Opinios uber alles? Opinion isn't everything, sometimes fact trumps opinion in every occasion.

If the Maths forum was removed and posters were guided to AH, do you think we would see any math based posts ever again? The same goes for other forums where the nature is inherently specialised, like the three that I mod.

Blisterman wrote:

Most people have some opinion on public transport, and commuting but how many people regularly visit http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/forumdisplay.php?f=246

I don't think some cross over is a bad thing, and we have seen that. Frequently we have seen posts that have the very general consensus and the equivalent thread in the specialised forum. People may argue in both, or may prefer to stick to one where they feel they will have the debate that better suits them.

But sometimes you need to direct people to the place they will get the better answer, from people who will know better. Sometimes people need to be guided to a regional forum, or somewhere they can get specialised help or debate. Maybe there are superfluous forums, but if they have an audience then whats the harm?

Blisterman wrote:

These forums tend to only attract people with a major passion for the subject, which in my opinion, often leads to quite boring discussion, and lack of debate.

Major passion for a subject doesn't always equate to no difference of opinion. In fact, a major passion for a subject often leads to the best debates.

Karoma

aidan_walsh said it best.

As for Television - I'd agree. boards.tv seems to be a bit of a waste as it is. How about recreating the boards.ie forums on boards.tv and redirecting users to there? Also, create an extra few fora that have been requested in Forums to satisfy all.
The only problem: boards.ie moderators cannot move stuff to the appropriate forum. Solution: Who cares? Lock them if they're in the wrong forum. Bah!

One or two fora could probably do with being made more general - one (poor) example: Magic The Gathering -> Card Collecting Thingymajigs or whatever

Otherwise, it's fine and the specialisation makes sense. You might get more opinions in AH, it doesn't mean you'll want or need any of them.
(2 legs + 3 legs = YORE MA AND ME, WEH WEH!!1!)

Faith

I agree with moving the television forums to boards.tv too. After all, that's what the forum was created for. It'll take years for it to get going as it is, whereas if everything was moved over, it'd be a ready-made established forum.

Not to mention, it might ease the load on the .ie servers.

abelard

I kinda think that a sense of community is emphasised here too. The fact that it's often a concentrated set of users that post in any particular forum helps this sense of community as you do kind of get to know users. Also for a new user with an interest in a specific area, it helps them to get to know some people and feel like part of the community sooner.

If there were fewer, but more general, forums, I think the site would feel more....faceless and impersonal, I guess.

Blisterman

Well, I don't mean removing every sub forum.

Obviously forums which are mostly people asking for advice, such as the fitness or photography forum or personal issues, work well, by themselves.
I also see your point about maths and other, more niche interests.
I was talking more about forums, where most threads are discussions, about things that a lot of people would have at least a passing interest or opinion.

For example Fashion/Appearance, Television, Food and Drink, Literature, music.

By the way, I appreciate the irony in this thread being moved from After Hours to feedback, a very specific forum.

Cabaal

Lets get rid of all forums and post everything in after hours as people can discuss details of a subject or topic without being trolled by every muppet in Ireland with a net connection....no wai....

6th

Faith wrote: »

I agree with moving the television forums to boards.tv too. After all, that's what the forum was created for. It'll take years for it to get going as it is, whereas if everything was moved over, it'd be a ready-made established forum.

Not to mention, it might ease the load on the .ie servers.

Exactly. Look at when Adverts.ie came about, and thats worked brilliantly.

Pruning Boards.ie will help it grown.

Dragan

6th wrote: »

Pruning Boards.ie will help it grown.

Much like your mighty beard.

RoundyMooney

As I've said before, I fully support the moving of TV topics to .tv

It's a logical progression.

With a few aberrations, each forum on boards was created in response to demand. Variety is no bad thing.

aidan_walsh

6th wrote: »

Exactly. Look at when Adverts.ie came about, and thats worked brilliantly.

Pruning Boards.ie will help it grown.

Not necessarily.

Adverts and boards.tv are special cases where it has been shown that an immense specialised forum can be broken off as its own entity.

Karoma

Blisterman wrote: »

For example Fashion/Appearance, Television, Food and Drink, Literature, music.

Not everyone has an interest in Fashion and Appearance or Literature or even music. Plus, the volume of traffic for each is far too much for one forum. Members would be swamped with threads - there wouldn't be as much discussion on a matter as it'd fly off the first page(s) too quickly.
We couldn't moderate it. We would have to moderate it - AH regulars + music = "NO! YORE MA'S BAND SUCKS!" ¬_¬
It'd be a nightmare.

We do allow less domain-specific threads to be discussed in AH. Threads with a particular interest go to fora for particular interests.
I can kind of see where you're coming from, don't get me wrong. There is a level of elitism / hive-mind in many of these fora, but that's a deeper issue. Why not tackle it as opposed to giving up and wanting everything in non-specific fora?

By the way, I appreciate the irony in this thread being moved from After Hours to feedback, a very specific forum.

My work here is done.

faceman

Faith wrote: »

I agree with moving the television forums to boards.tv too. After all, that's what the forum was created for. It'll take years for it to get going as it is, whereas if everything was moved over, it'd be a ready-made established forum.

Not to mention, it might ease the load on the .ie servers.

im not sure about this, maybe there are stats knocking around on it. Someone who spends about 10-20% of their boards.ie active time to post in television is probably less likely to then register on boards.tv just for the sake of a few posts on tv shows. Dont know, i could be wrong.

Boston

6th wrote: »

I think all TV forums should move over to Boards.tv ..... I also think this thread should be moved to feedback

Anyway with Paranormal being my main interest I'd hate to see the threads there posted in AH, most of the posts wouldnt be worth a fart.

You can't force people to use boards.tv. Move the TV forums there and you will loose the casual reader/ poster that isn't interested in posting on a site dedicated to one topic. The casual reader is the person that becomes the regular. Moving the forums does not imply the people will follow and its the people who make a forum worth reading.

The forums already exit on boards.tv and sweet fa people use them. You would not see a huge increase in posts on boards.tv if you closed down the tv forums here, as its not like people don't already have the choice to post there. Furthermore, adverts.ie is still far from as successful as the adverts forums on boards, but at there you had a huge number of people who only wanted to use the forums on a one off basis and as such it was easy to move the community as they where already largely separate from the wider boards community.

projectmayhem

monkeyfudge wrote: »

The Transformers forum

transforum*

while i would think sometimes there are too many forums here, some of them do serve a purpose, and cutting down forums by activity means shutting down quake... the founding father of boards.

mike65

and this was in 2002!

Mike.

RoundyMooney

Boston wrote: »

You can't force people to use boards.tv. Move the TV forums there and you will loose the casual reader/ poster that isn't interested in posting on a site dedicated to one topic. The casual reader is the person that becomes the regular. Moving the forums does not imply the people will follow and its the people who make a forum worth reading.

Interesting viewpoint, and one that bears further thought.

Earthhorse

I think all the music genre forums should be merged into one and we should be give thread tags (Post Icons) to replace them; so you can tag a thread "Rock" or "Punk" or "Dance" or whatever and maybe people could filter on that, or they could just do an eye check, but they would only have to check one music forum essentially. That way you may get a lot of cross polinisation that I think you miss out on by segragating everything.

There are probably other forums where a similar system would work; the regional forums spring to mind and maybe even sports to a certain extent. Anyway, I don't know how much development would be needed to achieve that but I think it would work better than the present system where a lot of forums are starved of decent posts because people only have a certain amount of "clicking time" on boards.

Also, I totally agree with Boston on his boards.tv point. I'm a registered user of boards.ie not boards.tv. The two are separate entities and should be treated as such.

tSubh Dearg

But then in the case of the forum I mod (Classical) I think that kind of thread would disappear as they would mainly see rock/pop etc threads and feel that there was no room for discussion of Classical.

Fajitas!

Boston wrote: »

You can't force people to use boards.tv. Move the TV forums there and you will loose the casual reader/ poster that isn't interested in posting on a site dedicated to one topic. The casual reader is the person that becomes the regular. Moving the forums does not imply the people will follow and its the people who make a forum worth reading.

The forums already exit on boards.tv and sweet fa people use them. You would not see a huge increase in posts on boards.tv if you closed down the tv forums here, as its not like people don't already have the choice to post there.

Agree 100%

Boston

Earthhorse wrote: »

I think all the music genre forums should be merged into one and we should be give thread tags (Post Icons) to replace them; so you can tag a thread "Rock" or "Punk" or "Dance" or whatever and maybe people could filter on that, or they could just do an eye check, but they would only have to check one music forum essentially. That way you may get a lot of cross polinisation that I think you miss out on by segragating everything.

There are probably other forums where a similar system would work; the regional forums spring to mind and maybe even sports to a certain extent. Anyway, I don't know how much development would be needed to achieve that but I think it would work better than the present system where a lot of forums are starved of decent posts because people only have a certain amount of "clicking time" on boards.

Also, I totally agree with Boston on his boards.tv point. I'm a registered user of boards.ie not boards.tv. The two are separate entities and should be treated as such.

The problem with that is that you end up have massive threads on the forum which has historically cause problems with the database.

rigman

need help, i'm not very good on computers. I'm moving to Galway soon with loads of free time, I don't know anyone in Galway. How do I post a 'thread' to get help to find out what to do in Galway

Earthhorse

tSubh Dearg wrote: »

But then in the case of the forum I mod (Classical) I think that kind of thread would disappear as they would mainly see rock/pop etc threads and feel that there was no room for discussion of Classical.

I don't know that they would disappear though there would certainly be less of them. The remaining threads might be healthier for it. Maybe we don't need to merge all the music forums but I definitely think we could do with some cull; "Alternative & Indie", "Punk" and "Rock & Metal" could all live happily in one forum as far as I'm concerned.

Boston wrote: »

The problem with that is that you end up have massive threads on the forum which has historically cause problems with the database.

Haven't we been through a few upgrades since then? I honestly can't remember the last time a thread was locked because it got too big or boards coming down as a result of same.

Boston

Its just that many smaller threads are easier to handle then one larger thread. Last time it was a serious problem was approx 6 months ago.

Mr. Presentable

There are too many fora on Boards.ie. OP is correct. There should perhaps be a moratorium on new ones for six months while the current fora are re-evaluated.

Does mustard need it's own forum? Or baseball, or computer health or Lifehacking or myriad others? So many fora appear to be little more than "vanity fora", created for "goodly mods", or "because they got one" (Ladies Lounge my ar5e).

I say start collapsing the trees a little. let poker share with gambling, Nature and bird watching share with Animals, Wolfenstein, Unreal, Quake etc just SHARE. 5000 active members? There'll soon be a forum each at the rate things are going.

Boston

Back the **** away from the mustard forum :mad::mad:

Also, merge poker with another forum? Are you mad, its highly active.

Mr. Presentable

Boston wrote: »

Also, merge poker with another forum? Are you mad, its highly active.

Poker may be, but Gambling's not and could easily be accommodated.

Boston

Poker discussion would drown out any other discussion on the gambling forum.