Forum Structure - the Poll

--amadeus--

Ok simple decisions....

1 - Stay as is: No explanation needed, it ain't broke so don't fix.

2 - Rename but stay as a stand alone forum: Stay out of the Athletics forum but rename this forum to reflect the wider interests; "Running & MultiSport" seems like a logical suggetstion. All road / cross country / ultra / mountain runnning as well as duathlon / triathlon / quadrathon stay in here. track and field and competitive / elite stay in athletics. Our forum to cover training and racing as well as BAC.

3 - Merge with Athletics: Move all current threads into Athletics. If this option is chosen we'll probably need to have a joint poll with them to decide on teh exact structure (any sub forums, etc)

For background on the choices and arguments for and against see here. Feel free to discuss the options presented and why you voted for / against but please (please) don't bring up new options or we'll just go round in circles!

I suggest we leave this for a couple of weeks or until it falls off Page 1.

Over to you!

robinph

Rename gets my vote.

MCOS

Athletics & Endurance

--General
--Running/Ultra Talk
--Triathlon/IM Talk
--Training Logs


I think it was Tingle who prompted a structure like this initially.

donothoponpop

Appreciate you doing this amadeus, particularly since you have no appetite for a change.

My main concern is running info being missed because its posted in an incorrect forum- at the moment the Mara/Tri label is inaccurate description of a lot of what gets discussed here.

So I vote for a rename, under a Running label (keep it simple).

jlang

My vote is for not merge/reorganise but I can't decide yet between Rename or stay as is. The two board scheme is working well for me and as I posted before, I don't see much need for change beyond resolving the possible naming confusion. (In fact, editing the description on http://boards.ie/vbulletin/forumdisplay.php?f=42 might be enough)

buck65

Rename forums
1 Road running, and endurance with training log and road race calender sub forums.
2 XCountry and track
3 Triathlon , dualathon etc.

thirtyfoot

--amadeus-- wrote: »

2 - Rename but stay as a stand alone forum: Stay out of the Athletics forum but rename this forum to reflect the wider interests; "Running & MultiSport" seems like a logical suggetstion. All road / cross country / ultra / mountain runnning as well as duathlon / triathlon / quadrathon stay in here. track and field and competitive / elite stay in athletics. Our forum to cover training and racing as well as BAC.

I've voted 3 but would use 1 as a 2nd preference as I'm afraid having a forum talking solely about track and field and competitive/elite (Option 2) will be disasterous to be honest as it will be very, very quiet for 9 months of the year and reasonably busy for 3 months.

People overestimate the popularity of track and field and competitive/elite. Of the last 20 threads on Athletics, only 2 will fall under the track&field and competitive/elite umbrella (granted its quiet now but it will never be more than 40-50% of the general posts) while the rest will be under running/multisports (or will they)

Where will the "Antrim International Cross" fall, what is competitive/elite, what about shoe discussions? I as a sprinter wear Kayanos for training, same as a marathon runner? There are many more examples like this, diet, flexibility, strength etc etc, where do they sit.

Will I as a former international sprinter not give value added advice to a newbie road runner on diet, race preparation or someone like Domer (close to a 4 minute miler in his day) not give good advice especially as he now does a bit of road running? Vice versa, will Tunney/hunneymonster not be able to give advice to track athletes on various aspects? After 27 years in the running game I'd say it is naive to say no.

Option 2 will create even further chaos (not that it is chaos now!) and go along the way of killing the athletics forum as a lack of threads will eventually lose posters.

I'm with Racing Flats idea from the other thread, just lump them all in together and see how it goes. Not saying its the case here but there are too many examples in our sport of groups/people going on solo runs to the detriment of the sport as a whole. Coaches do it, clubs do it, everyone does it. Lets pool resources, share ideas etc etc as debate will always be better. Fitness has discussions on various fitness topics from people from sporting backgrounds with no connection whatsoever and it has the best fitness/training discussions on Boards because of it. We are all the same, whether a grassroots track person, a jogger, an elite sprinter or a Kenyan marathon, we all have something in common (its the throwers who are the outsiders:D - if you don't understand that joke if we had a merged forum you would:cool:).

Will Option 2 require a name change of Athletics as that would need to be discussed too because separate "Athletics" and "Running" threads would be confusing?

--amadeus--

Excellent post - tbh I hadn't realised that the "crossover" traffic was such a large part of Athletics. Much the same as here I guess - concentrate just on Mara & Tri and our forum would be much quieter.

But as an international sprinter you are an athlete and are activley involved in athletics. Me? I just do a bit of running - no matter the jurisdiction or governing body I just can't see me (or people like me) going into an Athletics forum so we will ose a category of poster, the recreational runner I guess.

But it is clearly unacceptable to change our name and so "kill" another forum. So here's a radical suggestion. We rename as suggested but have "Track and Field / Athletics" as a sub forum here? That way all the threads and experience are housed in one place, it's clear where the recreational runner should go but there is still a dedicated area for the track & field / athletics folk. (Or we merge into Athletics, it is renamed more generally and has a sub forum, but you get the idea!)

Stupid_Private

uhm... call me daft (or stupid!) but is having a sub forum not the exact same thing as two seperate forums? You have to go check in two places for posts. Breaking the forum into sections depending on the terrain really isn't ideal. It would be like breaking the swimming forum into pool and river. It's still swimming regardless of where you do it. Likewise you're still running, whether its on road, mud, track - no difference at all. Over the course of a year I take part in races on these three surfaces - my training is pretty much the same year round so should I only post in XC during the winter, track in summer...?

Why would anyone be against checking athletics for recreational running? Do you not think that your running is part of athletics? Athletics does not mean elite or competitive - it's what we do day in day out. Many moons back when I first started reading boards I stayed in Athletics the whole time. I had no idea there was a seperate marathon forum for months. If I was going to a forum for the first time I'd look under athletics or running in the sports section to find what I'm looking for.

If theres an athletics forum and a running forum who dictates what posts are valid where? Will there be a constant movement of posts from one forum to the other? Good look admins!

Bambaata

MCOS wrote: »

Athletics & Endurance

--General
--Running/Ultra Talk
--Triathlon/IM Talk
--Training Logs


I think it was Tingle who prompted a structure like this initially.

This would be my preference too

Racing Flat

At ^^^^^, there are no options to create more fora or sub-fora, just stay the same, stay the same but rename, or merge with athletics. This makes sense as far as I am concerned. Surely what we want is a busy, thriving forum. Just did a quick check, bottom of the page thread on athletics was last posted on 27th Dec while that of Marathon/Triathlon was 2nd Jan. So not that busy compared to say Soccer (last night at 10.30) or Fitness (yesterday at 4.30), the other 2 I check/contribute to. Also, at this check there were 9 viewers on the athletics forum, 24 on Marathon/Triathlon, compared to 62 on Fitness and 52 on soccer.

So merging the two fora (Option 3) might see a little increased traffic, but not enough to make it so busy that things would get lost (as happens in soccer). The benefits of cross-talk between residents of the 2 fora could be beneficial. A lot of people straddle both, but some predominantly reside at one or the other. Certainly I think many of the marathon people would benefit form some of the threads on shorter distance training and racing.

Most of the people I know in running race frequently between 5k and half marathon, on road, track and XC. Many of these will do a marthon a year, and many will also do the odd 800m/1500m races as part of running leagues. In training they do long runs but they also do speed sessions where they might do 400s or 200s, so they cover a whole gammut of distances in training and racing. So I think the 2 fora should be in together. Some will also dabble in the odd duatlon, aquathlon, or triathlon... Therefore I advocate Option 3. Vote Option 3! Is canvassing allowed?

Training Logs could be a sub-fora as this is very busy. But Boards AC should be a sticky I think. One with just an explanation of what it is and how to join and maybe another Boards AC sticky on upcoming races etc. I imagine Boards AC want to attract as many members as possible, and so this needs to be visible and not hidden away as a sub-forum where it might get lost. There could also be stickies on 'Running your first marathon', 'Training Principles', 'What to look for in running shoes', as there are frequent queries about these subjects.

Funkyzeit

From a Tri perspective I defo think we should have our own forum.

Considering how fast the sport is growing we'll defo have enough traffic coming into the Spring.

Seems like most boardsies also agree:

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2055419233

Racing Flat

Funkyzeit wrote: »

From a Tri perspective I defo think we should have our own forum.

Considering how fast the sport is growing we'll defo have enough traffic coming into the Spring.

Seems like most boardsies also agree:

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2055419233

I can see how Tri might want their own forum. However, marathon and athletics should be together. It's absolutely crazy that they are not.

Stark

Yeah I think having a separate Tri/multisport forum and merging Marathon with Athletics makes sense.

MCOS

+1 Yep, Marathon belongs with Athletics and Triathlon either alone or tied to Cycling. Best alternative is the sub fora idea


Option 3 catching... come on!!

Clum

Agree on letting Triathlon/Dua/Iron/etc off on their own and merging Athletics and Marathon.

I'd still visit both forums but it'd be neater this way.

thirtyfoot

--amadeus-- wrote: »

(Or we merge into Athletics, it is renamed more generally and has a sub forum, but you get the idea!)

Yes, I would say rename both to just "Running/Athletics". All in the one place. As demonstrated by Racing Flat the volume is such that sub-fora probably aren't required except for the training logs. Best keeping it simple and making us one big happy family. I will start a thread in Athletics to gauge the one or two posters there who don't post here:) and see what they think.

--amadeus--

Exceptionally tight; 18/19 in favour of teh merge at the close!

Looks like the result is the renaming of one of the forums as "Athletics / Running / Triathlon". In there we have a "Training Logs" sub-fora and everything gets put into one place.

Tingle, HM; how do we make this happen? PM DeVore or CuLT?

hunnymonster

pm CUlt