Forum separation?!

brian_bugle

I'm not sure if I'm allowed to ask, or if I'll be given out to, but I'd love these forums to be split into the three separate sports. I'm an avid triathlon fan and would rather have all the triathlon threads easily accessible in one forum.

tHE vAGGABOND

I really dont think there is enough trathlon traffic for its own forum tbh

I also think lots of people [inc. Me!] would have an interest in reading posts about running and triathlons tbh - so it would be a shame to split it out

TheRoadRunner

brian_bugle wrote: »

I'm not sure if I'm allowed to ask, or if I'll be given out to, but I'd love these forums to be split into the three separate sports. I'm an avid triathlon fan and would rather have all the triathlon threads easily accessible in one forum.

Sick of reading about marathons ?

brian_bugle

Well, it's just that it's not my thing ya know (no offence)

mloc123

It is that time of the year, give it two weeks...

The bulk of the new marathoners will be injured, the weather will be cold and wet again and order will be restored.

TheRoadRunner

brian_bugle wrote: »

Well, it's just that it's not my thing ya know (no offence)

None taken. Marathons are my thing and I'm even sick of reading about them

token56

To the best of my knowledge there used to be different forums for Athletics and multi-sport events and this forum is an amalgamation of them, I cant exactly remember why this was done. I suppose you are asking for a reverse. I can see where you are coming from but I'd agree with others that there might not be enough traffic for a pure multi-sport or marathon forum, i'm not sure.

I suppose one option might be creating sub-forums for these areas, or even something akin to the religion forum where you just have several sub-forums, maybe the two that are currently here, a multi-sport one, marathon one, general athletics one, etc. I personally dont think its necessary but maybe it would give greater organisation.

ThisRegard

tHE vAGGABOND wrote: »

I also think lots of people [inc. Me!] would have an interest in reading posts about running and triathlons tbh - so it would be a shame to split it out

+1

I find it good to read about other athletic events, some of which tweak my interest enough to get involved in. Had I not browsed through them in passing I'd have missed out on a lot.

Think of this forum as a gateway drug to bigger and better things for people.

--amadeus--

Back in ye olden dayz there was an Athletics forum which was joined by a separate Marathon & Triathlon forum. The Mara & Tri forum was great (ahhh, nostalgia isn't what it used to be) as it allowed a focus on discussion of training & competing strictly as it applied to endurance and multi sport and IMO it was unique. Every other running forum on the Internet caters to all distances so it was nice to have somewhere that was just about running long.

But obviously if you are talking about running marathons you'll talk about warm up races and so it drifted into a road racing / running forum and a campaign began to merge the two and now here we are

I was a Mod at the time and I personally didn't see the benefit in the merger but we had a poll and majority rule and all that! It's worked really well in some ways - the ART forum is now one of the busiest on Boards. But I think we've lost a lot as well. There are so many posters now that there is no longer really any single "ART community". Instead we have lots of smaller communities - the Half Marathon thread community, the 1000 mile challenge community, the sub 4:30 mentor thread communities for example. And sometimes smaller, niche stuff gets pushed out. There is - in proportion - very little discussion of elite athletics or T&F events, for example. And while there are a lot of regulars on here who are Triathletes there are fairly few threads on Tri specific topics. And it's self replicating - a front page full of road race and marathon threads means that a random browser will be discouraged from starting a thread on a T&F or elite topic as that is clearly not the forum focus. In some ways a slower, quieter but more focussed set of sub forums that are centred on niche subjects might lead to better forums and a bit more vibrancy all round. After all a lot of people were opposed to the Events sub forum initially and I almost had to railroad it through and yet look how successful it has become.

Ideally I would restructure the forums as:

- Athletics / Running / Triathlon
- - Elite & Track and Field
- - Road Running and Racing
- - Triathlon and multisport
- - Adventure and Mountain Running and Racing
- - Training Logs
- - Events

Some of those forums would be pretty quiet initially but give them the space and I am pretty sure they would grow pretty rapidly. And personally I would rather have a smaller community with a lower post count where every post and thread is interesting than the current sprawling and hectic forum where I scan teh front page a couple of times a day and think "hmmmm, nothing interesting there.."

robinph

mloc123 wrote: »

It is that time of the year, give it two weeks...

The bulk of the new marathoners will be injured, the weather will be cold and wet again and order will be restored.

..but then we'll be in to Woddle trying to think of a new thread to beat the 1000miler again.

RayCun

--amadeus-- wrote: »

Ideally I would restructure the forums as:

- Athletics / Running / Triathlon
- - Elite & Track and Field
- - Road Running and Racing
- - Triathlon and multisport
- - Adventure and Mountain Running and Racing
- - Training Logs
- - Events

That seems like a sensible split to me, but it's probably worth waiting a month before discussing it. It seems like every second thread at the moment is "I am running DCM and would like to know...", but not for much longer.

Izoard

brian_bugle wrote: »

Well, it's just that it's not my thing ya know (no offence)

Once you are in the IM zone, you'll start paying a bit more attention to all things marathon-related.:)

tunney

Izoard wrote: »

Once you are in the IM zone, you'll start paying a bit more attention to all things marathon-related.:)

But you really shouldn't.

RacoonQueen

Ideally I would restructure the forums as:

- Athletics / Running / Triathlon
- - Elite & Track and Field
- - Road Running and Racing
- - Triathlon and multisport
- - Adventure and Mountain Running and Racing
- - Training Logs
- - Events

That's quite a good idea actually. "Food and Drink" is split into numerous sub forums with general threads going into the main forum.

donothoponpop

brian_bugle wrote: »

I'm not sure if I'm allowed to ask, or if I'll be given out to, but I'd love these forums to be split into the three separate sports. I'm an avid triathlon fan and would rather have all the triathlon threads easily accessible in one forum.

We had a previous iteration of this a couple of years ago, here's a quick background:

"Athletics" and "Marathon & Triathlon" had their own seperate forums. There was an awful lot of cross posting, and someone wondered why they should be seperate.

Someone also asked why Tri and Marathon were together?

A merge between Athletics and Marathon was suggested, with Tri kept part of the fold. Here's the poll.

Can't find the thread with initial reaction, but it was mostly positive. The overall forum is a lot more active now.

The general feeling from before was that Tri would not have enough traffic for a forum of its own- I'm not so sure thats correct anymore, with the growing popularity. I can certainly see how a Tri-head would get fed up with all the marathon posts lately- but thats a very seasonal thing, and will disappear after the DM. Another option would be to have Tri moved to a sub-forum of cycling?

FWIW I'm happy enough with the status quo. I'd ask anyone who wants change to read the previous threads, and then go about change if you like.

robinph

donothoponpop wrote: »

Another option would be to have Tri moved to a sub-forum of cycling?

Tri being bundled in with the running types proves that the swimming and cycling parts of it are just a warm up to the real event at the end.

kennyb3

Really dont see the need for different forums - looking at the 1st page now and the bottom thread is one from 12.37 yesterday morning, dont think there is the traffic to have 3 forums or loads of sub forums. They all be half dead. The logs are the busiest item on here.

TheRoadRunner

kennyb3 wrote: »

Really dont see the need for different forums - looking at the 1st page now and the bottom thread is one from 12.37 yesterday morning, dont think there is the traffic to have 3 forums or loads of sub forums. They all be half dead. The logs are the busiest item on here.

agree, logs and events are busy but main ART page is piss poor. Further dilution is no needed IMO. Once DCM is out of the way number of posts on main ART page will decrease again.

--amadeus--

TheRoadRunner wrote: »

agree, logs and events are busy but main ART page is piss poor. Further dilution is no needed IMO. Once DCM is out of the way number of posts on main ART page will decrease again.

Yea, I agree the main page is poor but I disagree on how to make it better.

The forum is really busy as a whole and - as you say - one of the reasons for that is that the Events and Logs sub forums are really busy. But there are virtually no interesting discussions on teh front page anymore.

As I type this there are 8 current threads about what I would call "consumer advice"; where to but Skins and Bodyglide, what runners should I buy, Aldi have a special on, questions about Garmins and the like. At the standard 20 threads per page thats almost half (40% to be exact, DP is doing a maths degree )

Then there are the three "mega threads" (1000 mile, Swim / cycle / run and the Half Mara Support). These are little (or not so little) communities in thier own right and unless you are part of them they have no interest to you.

So that leaves 8 "other" threads. One is a bit of nonsense from me, 2 are related to an elite changing coach (1 is a redirect) and there is one about the Comenwealth games. Add in a couple of marathon threads (Big 5 and a question about tapering through injury) and you have two genuine "discussion" threads, one on what to do if you are told by a medic not to run and one asking for your generic advice.

So what?

Well the mega threads and consumer advice stuff are important and wanted and have a place here. But the volume of them is (IMO) crowding out other conversations. A small group of regular threads keep bouncing up to the top of page 1 and that pushes other content down, possibly before it's been spotted and replied to by interested people. By breaking the forum you aren't diluting it you are giving it space. Space both for threads that are there to be seen but also for new users to post in a place that they feel is relevant. If a triathlete stumbled in here would they know straight away that there are dozens of triathletes posting here? As it stands I don't think they would, but with a dedicated tri forum they would be posting new threads among similar content. Same goes for mountain running, adventure racing or conversations about elite athletics.

The forum is busier than it's ever been and yet it seems that there is less variety than ever to the discussions. I'm sure that compartmentalising things would resolve that. And if it doesn't work it can always be switched back.

As an aside if we did have a Tri forum hosted under ART it could be a "linked" sub forum of both cycling and swimming (with those Mods permission) which would increase traffic and be the best way of joining those dots, IMO.

tunney

--amadeus-- wrote: »

As an aside if we did have a Tri forum hosted under ART it could be a "linked" sub forum of both cycling and swimming (with those Mods permission) which would increase traffic and be the best way of joining those dots, IMO.

I'd be against this.

Pay a visit to the cycling forum, stay a while, now tell me what this board has to do with sports? The same as motoring and F1 racing.