Football & Coronavirus Feedback thread part 2. [READ THE FIRST POST]

Post from the previous thread....

I've made the case before that splitting the two superthreads into two seperate sub-forums would have loads of benefits. At the most obvious, the "Superthread" format is a massive pain in the hole, and makes it impossible to actually look up news and stories from longer than two days ago. Deconstructing them into seperate threads spread over dedicated forums for the two sets of Waring fans would make navigating stuff a whole lot easier.

It would also move towards seperating the two sets of fans away from each other.

For years, the argument is that this forum should be a "melting pot", but to be blunt, you've got two sets of fans who want very little interaction. When it's forced on them, be it in the Covid thread or the match threads, it's ALWAYS a disaster. Year on year, the issues between the two sets of fans always dominates the feedback threads. And year on year, those issues are largely ignored. There'll be some handwave towards coming down harder on people, that lasts for a few weeks before everything is just ignored again.

It's pretty clear, at least to me, that the vast majority of United and Pool fans don't want or don't care about the forced interactions thrust upon them. Yet, the antiquated superthread system is forced upon them like they are small kids being taught how to socialise. No other section on boards.ie seems to have this either; there's not a single other topic that would have 100k posts a year that wouldn't get dedicated forums, to make it easier to view and to mod. The games forum doesn't say "one thread for ALL Xbox news, one for Playstation news, and ye can combine into one joint thread for some issues". The regional forums don't say Louth can have one thread and Meath another. They were split into sub-forums because it made sense from a logistical point of view.

Seperate sub-forums would means the "problematic" Liverpool and United fans could be banned from their rival forums. 90% of the reported posts would probably vanish, if the mods in charge of the sub-forums were given free reign to be harsher on rival fans looking to cause problems. Liverpool mods with control to actually moderate discussion on Liverpool threads, with zero tolerance on United fans stirring ****. United mods with control to moderate discussion, with zero tolerance on Liverpool fans on the wind up.

And leave the soccer forum open in general, for those who want the general discussion between groups.

But separate forums for the two sets of fans would remove all accusations of bias, all accusations of bad faith discussions, etc.

Year after year after year, there is cries that the two fans can't co-exist, and year after year, absolutely nothing is done about it. And it's driven away a whole lot of the more serious posters from both sets of fans.

Part of this is more general feedback, than just feedback to the Corona-virus thread.

But the reality is that the corona-virus thread was not some unique occurrence. It was rather the 1000th example of the issue that underlies this forum on a much larger scale.

99% of United fans do not post in the Liverpool thread.
99% of Liverpool fans do not post in the United thread.

I'd wager every penny I had that the vast majority of posters that do come onto the Soccer forum don't ever read a thread other than their super team threads. Not match threads, maybe some transfer threads. But even the "general PL thread" just devolved into secondary threads for the super teams.

There's not a melting pot being created. I know there's mods and admins who have that as the vision for the forum, but the vision is not lining up with whats being created. The idea is admirable. The execution is lacking, and the result is a situation where the segregation is already entrenched. At this point, it simply boils down to a userbase frustrated by antiquated, failing systems.

The corona-virus thread was yet another example that what cross-posting does occur tends to devolve into a small number of posters starting to wage battles with each other. Two sets of fans who, time and time and time again, have shown they cannot co-exit.

The corona-virus thread was not a special occurrence. Its the same problem that creeps up multiple times a year. Was happening before the coronavirus thread. It was happening before Liverpool won the CL title. It was happening, contrary to the belief held by some, before Liverpool and United's power dynamic shifted. This is not a new occurrence. When I was modding here 5 years ago, the Liverpool vs United threads were still blazing war zones. Trying to dismiss this as all something that started in the last 2 years, or 5, or 10, is part of the problem.

It cannot be dismissed as some "bitterness" or sour grapes, because to do so ignores the fact it's a problem that was always been on this forum. Events have caused it to bubble up at specific points, sure. No denying there's not moments in the forum's history that people can point at as yet more examples of the issues growing.

But so long as the culture is to ignore the larger issue, nothing will change. These wars will keep festering, keep boiling over at bad points.

Seperate sub-forums, with harsher sanctions for trolls and WUMs from opposite teams, would relieve a lot of the tensions. It would give people seperate topics to discuss separate issues. (Using United as an example) Don't want the 1000th Pogba debate? Stay away from the Pogba thread. Want to discuss your fantasy historical team line ups? Doesn't have to be drowned out because there's a discussion going about the 200th player linked to United this week.

And want to discuss Rivals with other United fans, without being screamed at as a troll or have personal jibes thrown your way? Luckily, there's a Rival Watch thread in both sub-forums for discussions about other teams.

Neutral fan, wanting to discuss things without it all devolving into another Liverpool vs United war. Have neutral fans modding the remaining section of the soccer forum. And when i say modding, I mean actually moderating discussion, coming down ultra-harsh on any United or Pool fans trying to stir ****. A facilitation of viewpoints. Not a free-for-all with the usual children screaming at each other.

There an opposition fan who seems to have zero desire to do anything but troll and WUM? Ban him from the sub forum. If he wants to still talk about his own team, he can. But it's a lot harder to cause issues in a sub-forum, with multiple topics, than right now where he only has to derail one or two threads to grind ALL discussion down to a complete halt.


(Also, as a more specific response to one question asked a few times....no, not every team would get a dedicated sub-forum, no more than every topic doesn't get it's own sub-forum. United and Liverpool threads generate 40-60 thousand posts a year. The current threads, only a few weeks old, have half a million views each. That's ignoring separate match threads and discussion threads. The traffic those two threads alone generate is unreal. Looking for quick examples, Newcastle's thread has generated 7500 posts since 2014. Chelsea's thread took 2 years to reach 10000 posts. The Man City thread has 2500 posts in two and a half years. While every team will make an argument as to why they should have their own sub-forum, the reality is not every team generates the attention needed to get one, no more than the vast majority of subjects do on boards. Just as the rest of this website operates, there could be set criteria lined up as to what teams deserve sub-forums. X number of posts, Y level of engagement, over Z period of time.)