Sticky Sportive

studiorat

Any point in having a sticky for events each year?

Would be nice to be able to see them all in one place. Perhaps even embed a calendar...

Just a thought.

Beasty

You mean like the one we already have in the FAQs sticky?;)

godtabh

Beasty wrote: »

You mean like the one we already have in the FAQs sticky?;)

something like that but with events in it!

Captain Havoc

godtabh wrote: »

something like that but with events in it!

The magic update fairy will be along to do it any day soon.

godtabh

Captain Havoc wrote: »

The magic update fairy will be along to do it any day soon.

I dont believe in fairies. Not the make believe ones anyways

PS I am extracting the urine by the way

SomeFool

@irishsportives if you're on twitter, they have a facebook too i think

Eamonnator

Here's Cycling Ireland's Leisure calendar for 2013.



http://www.cyclingireland.ie/Home/Leisure/Calendar.aspx

Beasty

Captain Havoc wrote: »

The magic update fairy will be along to do it any day soon.

I thought the idea was that everyone could add to it and assumed the fact that no-one (apart from you good self Cap'n) could be bothered meant there was not actually a big demand for it ...

kerry4sam

SomeFool wrote: »

@irishsportives if you're on twitter, they have a facebook too i think

Yeah the FB linkie seems relatively new by Irish Cycling Sportives. Great Resource though I must say!

studiorat

Beasty wrote: »

I thought the idea was that everyone could add to it and assumed the fact that no-one (apart from you good self Cap'n) could be bothered meant there was not actually a big demand for it ...

Never even knew it was there tbh.

Captain Havoc

Beasty wrote: »

I thought the idea was that everyone could add to it and assumed the fact that no-one (apart from you good self Cap'n) could be bothered meant there was not actually a big demand for it ...

Lots of people ask the question, nobody bothered to fill it out. Great idea but in practice it just doesn't work. I just use google calendar, import CI's calendar and fill in the rest myself.

furiousox

SomeFool wrote: »

@irishsportives if you're on twitter, they have a facebook too i think

Yep, irish cycling sportives on facebook

thebouldwhacker

From other boards and forums I visit events sub forums work quite well. A Google doc list is just that but does not allow conversation, the exchange of knowledge or temptation.
A sub forum is quick and easy to start and to get involved in pre and post event conversations, it would also be a good reference source for following years.
A bit like the main cycling forum but more sub.
Events sub forum would like really really rock....


I love events sub forum.

dastardly00

thebouldwhacker wrote: »

From other boards and forums I visit events sub forums work quite well. A Google doc list is just that but does not allow conversation, the exchange of knowledge or temptation.
A sub forum is quick and easy to start and to get involved in pre and post event conversations, it would also be a good reference source for following years.
A bit like the main cycling forum but more sub.
Events sub forum would like really really rock....


I love events sub forum.

I'm not sure I follow.. please be more specific :pac:

Captain Havoc

I think events should be part of the main forum, where everyone sees them and not tucked away, hidden and something that only 10% of poster and lurkers see.

lennymc

what about commuters?

Beasty

For anyone that missed this:
A discussion on the direction and possible subforums of the Cycling forum

Please do not use this thread to go over the issues already discussed there

Thanks

MediaMan

Captain Havoc wrote: »

I think events should be part of the main forum, where everyone sees them and not tucked away, hidden and something that only 10% of poster and lurkers see.

Beasty wrote: »

For anyone that missed this:
A discussion on the direction and possible subforums of the Cycling forum

Please do not use this thread to go over the issues already discussed there

Thanks

I agree that we don't want to be going down the sub-forum route, per those previous discussions. However I would like to think that we could come up with some way to easily track down recent discussions relating to sportives and similar events. This is because the forum topics turn over very quickly sometimes, and if someone isn't visiting the forum every day, there is no doubt they will miss stuff unless they have hours to spend catching up.

A lot of folks already know what events are on and what they want to do this year, so for them it doesn't matter so much, but there are many who are new to this and I think it would benefit them a lot to be easily able to find posts about leisure events. Including those who are visiting the forum for the first time, looking to meet up at events, etc.

Before someone says "use search", the problem with that is that we are looking for sportives, audaxes, randonees, and events that have been posted that use none of these words.

Would it be possible to agree a key word to use in the title of each new sportive-related thread? Or a tag? Or something else that the Mods or Admins could come up with?

At this time of year many people are planning out their cycles for the months ahead, and although there is the CI Calendar and that Sportive Facebook thingy, it would be great to be able to easily find all the recent posts on here about these events.

Cheers.

Chips Lovell

Like the good Captain, I just import the Cycling Ireland Road and Leisure calendars into my own Google Calendar.

thebouldwhacker

Ok so here goes, I have advocated for a sticky/ sub forum for some time now so would be foolish not to post and set out my reasons.
Allow me to start by saying that I believe such a resource would add to the quality and service of 410 and if us cyclists like anything its an nice add on or bling.

I was active in the thread mentioned above by Beasty and argued against the proposed split. I did so because I think that such a suggestion was based in a false belief that a split was necessary as certain groups of cyclists are different. My reason for an events sub forum/sticky is to complement and grow the existing main forum.

Currently the cycling forum has two sub forums, first the adverts forum which to this day pretty much serves its initial purpose of providing a more relaxed and easy trading stage for boardsies than other outlets such as adverts etc. It has worked and still does work with 6,295 threads and 43,023 posts (I wonder how much cash has been spent there?) all since May of 2009. This success looks as though it is being replicated in other forums such as the running forum equipment sub forum with 1,023 threads with 11,917 replies since November 2010. The version over there includes a Q&A element which exists in the main forum of cycling but shows that sub forums work as a way of focusing attention on a certain aspect of activity.
This can also be see in in the second sub forum for training logs, the cycling forum has one since Dec 2009 with 195 threads which contain 5,276 posts. Like most I do not have a thread there but do lurk a lot. So while the thread count may not be impressive the traffic is what its all about. One way of guestimating the high traffic can be indicated by examining the view count of the rules sticky coming in at 4288 (training logs) in close contrast to the equivalent thread in the adverts forum coming in at 5,423.
Perhaps the gods of Boards can examine the exact traffic numbers to these forums but these numbers do show the relatively high traffic in both sub forums. In the running forum the equivalent sub forum carries 800 threads with an impressive 152,428 posts since 2008. Again this shows how popular sub forums can be and how effective thay are at focusing specific aspects of a forum into a sub forum context. But the main point of all this is the fact that they did not damage, weaken or disturb the main forum but they did lead to better usage, easier access to specific aspects of the topics and possibly increased traffic.

So what about an events sub forum?
Running started the event sub forum in August 2009 and took off to a running start!! it now holds 1,890 threads with 68,206 posts. In fact it was so popular that the spin off thread (triathlon/ duathlon & adventure racing (splitters!!)) could be described as one big events forum. They use a google doc but the main forum is dominated with events conversation. Looking at the running events sub forum tonight it holds 20 active threads on the first page, of these 9 have movement today, 9 yesterday and the final two Tuesday, so its an active sub forum, and the clocks haven't even gone back yet... Tonight in the cycling forum there are only two threads on upcoming events. Surly this can be taken as a need which if facilitated can grow.
My point here is that the running forum is not as busy as cycling and the events forum is a great success, it has maintained a great main forum attracting some pretty knowledgeable posters and was so popular that it allowed a split to a spin off and popular forum.

The main advantages of an events sub forum are that...
It allows easy discussion on events which will not get lost. I started a thread on the DCM cycle in Blarney, a small sportive in Cork, a thread which will not attract much attention on the main forum and it soon got lost and a twin thread was started a few days before the event...
It shows what other events are up coming and allows for Q&A about them thus allowing new participants to get a feel for events. I like many others travel to events and so its good to get conversation going about the event, possible meet ups etc. While this does happen to an extent at the moment a dedicated sub forum would attract more and more people because they will know that such discussion is easy and thus will increase forum use and traffic...
Temptation, with a dedicated place to talk about those little known sportives there is no better place to discover hidden gems which would otherwise be missed year after year. Any one who has cycled the Iveragh 200 as opposed to the ROK will know what I mean.
It would spread the reach of the forum around the country, lets face it the cycling forum is mostly populated by cyclists based in Dublin, such a forum will allow people from every village in Ireland post, comment, meet and use the 410.
Like C.I., Run Ireland has a calender which can be imported to peoples personal calender as I sure people do. The Run Ireland site a very user friendly website and has a well constructed calender but the value in Boards supplying a stage for discussion on these events is easily seen in the other forums, I see no reason why it would not be replicated in the cycling forum.
I see no reason why it would in any way damage the main forum as per other forums. I do think however that as the largest cycling forum in Ireland it is curious why we do not have an events forum, if the new facebook page shows anything its that it is wanted.

These are only my thoughts, I;m sure others will have similar or differing views. I do not wish to take this as a proposal to the main boards suggestion forum as the last one turned into a right pizzing contest. I think better to look into it in the tranquillity of the 410.

ROK ON

+1
Ditch training sub forum.
Replace with events.

MediaMan

Vladimir Kurtains wrote: »

Like the good Captain, I just import the Cycling Ireland Road and Leisure calendars into my own Google Calendar.

That's fine, but as well as knowing what's on when, it's about being able to engage in discussion about the events - compare notes, expectations, arrange to meet up, share war stories afterwards, etc.

Captain Havoc

The problem with a sticky is that you'd have discussions going on about different events at the same time, so someone is talking about the Ring of Kerry, the Wicklow 200, the Tour de Kilkenny, the Tour de Burren etc... all at the same time.

Discussion threads on events gets popular on the run up to an event and most clubs would have a member on here that would bump a thread (which is an activity we don't encourage but turn a blind eye to once it's not OTT).

The mods here are certainly treating this thread seriously and we want what is best for the forum.

Captain Havoc

ROK ON wrote: »

+1
Ditch training sub forum.
Replace with events.

That will only lead to a similar thread down the road.

thebouldwhacker

I see where ROK is coming from. No one wants to change the main forum into a menu of sub forums but only 4 threads have moved in the training log forum this week.
The first page contains threads which are a month old, hardly burning up the bandwidth hosting it. I dont know about getting rid of it, perhaps there is room for three sub forums, perhaps people could start a log in the main forum with a link to a sticky.
I don't know but I do think that it is a niche which is viewed far more than it is updated or used.

Beasty

Training logs is frequented by a small number of regulars and serves the pupose it was designed for. What use will ditching it do? Basically leave those of us currently with logs not bothering.

On the stats for that forum, there are 10 posters with 20 or more posts in the last 6 months. The 20th "most prolific" poster has made 7 posts in that period supporting the view it is actually sufficiently "specialist" to serve the relatively small numbers that frequent it

The adverts forum attracts a large number of posters that rarely go near the main forum as well as a steady stream of "one-off" threads. However it's sufficiently specialist to flourish in it's current form

Splitting the forum has been extensively discussed very recently in the thread I've already linked to. I am not going to go over the same points again, except to say that if it happens you will almost inevitably find one forum dominates and posters will generally stick to it. If someone wishes to propose a new sub-forum they are entitled to start a new thread in the forum proposals forum, although consideration should be given to the rules over there which prohibit a new thread on the same subject within a certain period of a similar thread.

By the way, as another stat - that thread attracted the 2nd most posts ever in the forum requests forum. This topic was done to death then, and I see absolutely no point in going over it again so soon.

thebouldwhacker

I believe the main point of that thread was that the cycling forum was populated only by snobs and the individual wanted their own republic.

Not really the same as wanting to discuss a sub forum about events. If my memory serves me right simular discussions happened before the Adverts and training sub forums were started, just a chat is all, no splitting.


I love events sub forum...

Beasty

thebouldwhacker wrote: »

I believe the main point of that thread was that the cycling forum was populated only by snobs and the individual wanted their own republic.

Not really the same as wanting to discuss a sub forum about events. If my memory serves me right simular discussions happened before the Adverts and training sub forums were started, just a chat is all, no splitting.


I love events sub forum...

The thread was deliberately re-named to get away from the initial point and discuss "the direction and possible subforums of the Cycling forum" "to reflect the changed nature of the discussion"

560 posts with stickies linking to the thread for this and the commuting forum gave everyone every chance to have their say, and tbh if this thread continues to head in the same direction I will close it.

thebouldwhacker

That thread was nuts, it was a fire fight against people who just didn't like the forum and served very little purpose in getting any kind of constructive ideas. From page one it was a massive troll set up to damage the forum and the forum was 'defended' by many here.
That thread has no relation to what is being discussed here, sensibly and constructively by people who are posting here for many many years. I find it difficult to understand how its existence gags any discussion on expressing ideas and how as a result this thread should be locked!

MediaMan

Will try this once more...

Could we agree a practice where we put the word "event" in the title of threads about events and then people can easily search for them. The advanced search allows search by title only, and since people don't normally put titles on replies then the quality of search results would be high.

It's cheap and cheerful. We could try it out and if the practice doesn't achieve critical momentum then we are no worse off than we were before.

I had suggested using tags, but although I can tag a new thread, there seems to be no way to search by tag...

thebouldwhacker

MediaMan wrote: »

Will try this once more...

Could we agree a practice where we put the word "event" in the title of threads about events re:

Sounds good to me, give it a go...