Advertisement
If you have a new account but are having problems posting or verifying your account, please email us on hello@boards.ie for help. Thanks :)
Hello all! Please ensure that you are posting a new thread or question in the appropriate forum. The Feedback forum is overwhelmed with questions that are having to be moved elsewhere. If you need help to verify your account contact hello@boards.ie

Mega-forums killing smaller forums

Options
  • 29-06-2019 10:15am
    #1
    biko
    Registered Users Posts: 81,223 ✭✭✭✭


    AH have for years been the most lenient of the forums, and also one of the most popular.

    This has led to people posting threads in AH that could/should be in other forums.
    Letting that happen has led to two things, the other forums are less used and, it sent the signal that AH is really the place to post.

    Most notably the Literature, Films and Music forum suffers from threads in AH that has the power to drain traffic from more deserved forums.
    Efforts have been made with Politics Cafe and Current Affairs to push traffic to smaller specialist forums.

    "What book are you reading atm" - already have killed off Literature.
    "Most beautiful women in the world" - about to replace entire Slydice forum.
    Another thread in here notes how AH is sucking the life out of Music.

    Please don't drain/kill off smaller, specialist forums to feed the larger mega-forums.
    Instead of pulling everything into AH you may want to consider pushing it out to smaller forums.
    Post edited by Shield on


Comments

  • Options
    #2
    looksee
    Registered Users Posts: 28,136 ✭✭✭✭looksee


    It does seem that rather than shop in a row of boutique, specialist shops, for many items people would rather visit a supermarket.


  • Options
    #3
    Ken.
    Closed Accounts Posts: 12,898 ✭✭✭✭Ken.


    That book thread in AH has 8600 posts in 8 years. About 3 posts per day. If that has killed the literature forum then the literature forum shouldn't be there.

    Music has almost 30 forums. The thread in Ah,7100 posts in 6 years. Same again about 3 posts per day. Hardly sucking the life out of the music forums.


  • Options
    #4
    Tokyo
    Politics Moderators, Social & Fun Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 22,655 Mod ✭✭✭✭Tokyo


    If you feel that a thread is better suited or can be merged in a thread in one of the smaller forums you describe, you can always report the post/thread to the forum mods for consideration.


  • Options
    #5
    Sad Professor
    Moderators, Category Moderators, Arts Moderators, Entertainment Moderators, Technology & Internet Moderators Posts: 22,671 CMod ✭✭✭✭Sad Professor


    I'd be concerned about this as well, though it's not a new problem. For as long as I have been posting on Boards AH has been sucking in traffic that could/should have been going to other forums. In the past when the site was smaller there was a more concerted effort to push traffic to other forums by moving threads, but it's a thankless task. Users complain about it and the mods on the receiving end of the threads may end up locking them because they don't comply with the rules etc of their forum. As the site has grown over the years and AH has developed its own culture, I can understand AH mods feeling it's easier to leave threads where they are. Speaking as a Films mod, we rarely get threads moved in from AH anymore where as it used to be a common occurrence.


  • Options
    #6
    Tom Mann Centuria
    Registered Users Posts: 10,935 ✭✭✭✭Tom Mann Centuria


    It's been going on a while, AH is seen as the last great hope for Boards and things just don't get moved like a few years ago.

    Oh well, give me an easy life and a peaceful death.



  • Advertisement
  • Options
    #7
    LuckyLloyd
    Registered Users Posts: 36,165 ✭✭✭✭LuckyLloyd


    Posting numbers are down all over. After Hours is an increasing rarity on the site: a busy fast moving high volume forum. The small forums are doomed, let them die.


  • Options
    #8
    osarusan
    Registered Users Posts: 16,564 ✭✭✭✭osarusan


    I think that within a forum like AH, posters get to know each other to a certain extent, get to know each other's opinions on a wider range of stuff.

    So if a poster starts a thread about music, or good films, or whatever, they are not just looking for information about music or films, they are interested in hearing what fellow AH posters X, Y and Z have to say about them.

    So moving them to the music or film forum might mean that the poster who started the thread isn't getting the discussion they'd hoped for.


  • Options
    #9
    Beasty
    Administrators, Social & Fun Moderators, Sports Moderators Posts: 75,594 Admin ✭✭✭✭✭Beasty


    I actually think one of the issues we have is the number of dead forums (don't worry Tom, I don't include Rugby League in that) that make the site feel bloated (for example 3 main forums in the Arts Category have had no posts in the course of 2019). Conversation is spread so thinly across many forums, and people looking for info may ask in the right place, but then wait weeks or months for a response (or indeed never get one)

    AH does though attract new users, who may be prepared to explore further. In my view we need to think of ways of narrowing down their options to allow those forums where interest remains to hopefully build up their respective communities

    On the specifics mentioned in the OP, I guess my question is how popular such a thread would have been in Literature? At least in AH it gets visibility which turns into traffic. It may even be that someone reading through that thread decides it's a topic they may wish to explore further. Now one thing we may want to think about is if we have a long-standing thread like that in somewhere AH, should we maybe put something in the OP along the kines of "If you would like to contribute to wider discussion of some of these topics pleas visit our [Literature] forum"

    It might only work in a small number of examples (the "what are you eating" thread could be another example). However taking these threads away from AH risks lower overall traffic for the site


  • Options
    #10
    Ken.
    Closed Accounts Posts: 12,898 ✭✭✭✭Ken.


    I was thinking something like the stingy thread. I put in the thread title. "link to R&R in op". They got flooded with requests in their request thread.


  • Options
    #11
    Ken.
    Closed Accounts Posts: 12,898 ✭✭✭✭Ken.


    Here's what I've done with the music thread. Changed the name and the op. https://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2057179175#

    If anyone can think of better wording let me know.


  • Advertisement
  • Options
    #12
    Sad Professor
    Moderators, Category Moderators, Arts Moderators, Entertainment Moderators, Technology & Internet Moderators Posts: 22,671 CMod ✭✭✭✭Sad Professor


    Beasty wrote: »
    On the specifics mentioned in the OP, I guess my question is how popular such a thread would have been in Literature? At least in AH it gets visibility which turns into traffic. It may even be that someone reading through that thread decides it's a topic they may wish to explore further. Now one thing we may want to think about is if we have a long-standing thread like that in somewhere AH, should we maybe put something in the OP along the kines of "If you would like to contribute to wider discussion of some of these topics pleas visit our [Literature] forum"

    It might only work in a small number of examples (the "what are you eating" thread could be another example). However taking these threads away from AH risks lower overall traffic for the site

    Literature already has an almost identical thread stickied. And there mods can choose to split discussion off into its own thread as we often do with such threads in Films, or users might click into the main forum to read other threads. But in AH a thread like that if allowed to grow could turn into a huge megathread that would pull in a lot of traffic that would have been going to Literature.


  • Options
    #13
    Beasty
    Administrators, Social & Fun Moderators, Sports Moderators Posts: 75,594 Admin ✭✭✭✭✭Beasty


    Sad Professor wrote: »
    But in AH a thread like that if allowed to grow could turn into a huge megathread that would pull in a lot of traffic that would have been going to Literature.
    Obviously no=one can know for certain, but I'm not convinced many would find the Literature forum. I know of the thread in AH and may post there in passing, but I would never head over to somewhere like Literature where I would be a little reticent to post among what I would perceive to be "subject matter experts".

    I was a bit like that when I discovered Boards - yes I could see both Soccer and Cycling forums as they were among the most popular on the site, but I wanted to sit back and work out the lay of the land before posting there. Within the Arts Category I've probably only posted in Photography, but despite having a keen interest in it as a hobby, but I was on the site nearly 8 years before I plucked up courage to post one of my pictures there. Again, it may just be me, but I'm wary about posting in many of the "specialist" forums about topics I could be quite comfortable mentioning in AH


  • Options
    #14
    Sad Professor
    Moderators, Category Moderators, Arts Moderators, Entertainment Moderators, Technology & Internet Moderators Posts: 22,671 CMod ✭✭✭✭Sad Professor


    If most users perceive the films, photography, music, literature etc forums as specialist that's a problem that needs to be addressed because otherwise those forums are going to die as well. In the past one of the ways I think this happened was that traffic was pushed from AH to those forums whether the users/mods in them liked it or not. This forced a compromise with the regulars in those forums, helping those forums grow and avoid becoming niche.

    I'm not blaming AH though. Fragmentation and pushback from mods/users in other forums over the years surely made many non-AH forums seem inaccessible or too much like hard work to new users compared to AH. Nor am I saying these topics shouldn't be discussed in AH at all. But there needs to be a balance and consideration of the effect that duplicating the discussion of topics covered by other forums may have. I don't frequent AH enough to say if that balance is being struck or not, but like biko I have noticed a lot more threads about topics covered by other forums.

    Obviously many forums on here have died all by themselves. But some have also been hurt by bigger forums cannibalising them. I mod a forum which despite my best efforts has been bleeding traffic to a larger forum for years and it's very annoying.


  • Options
    #15
    biko
    Registered Users Posts: 81,223 ✭✭✭✭biko


    A thread in AH to take away from TV and Film forums

    "Suggest a film or tv series to watch"
    https://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2058027113

    much like the "What book are you reading" thread..

    It spans two forums so doesn't fit in either and thus has no place but AH, much like a thread "What motorbike or car do you like?" couldn't be moved.


Advertisement