You should sell that to TV. 
OT Split - One Year On
- Thread starter Silurian
- Start date
I don't really see how an argument can be made in favor of closing the Chamber that could not be made regarding closing down A&E.
And afaik the case in favor of closing down A&E has been thoroughly argued - and dismissed.
Of course this is true for the argument you just made:
In the default view (2 weeks) A&E has 15 active threads right now.
In the default view (2 weeks) the Chamber has 16 active threads right now.
Also:
4 of the A&E threads are 10 pages and longer.
5 of the Chamber threads are 10 pages and longer.
Also:
Both forums have generated roughly the same ammount of content, despite A&E existing a lot longer.
Also:
Why is noone among the A&E people who vehemently protested the possible closure of "their" forum coming forward here and now saying something like "oh, and you shouldn't do it to other people either"?
Mise
isle of lucy
I forgot that place even existed... I don't think S&T should be an open forum either. Roll it back in with OT. We don't have the traffic to support so many subforums anymore.
What is gained by merging all these forums with the Tavern?
That the previously undisturbed people doing their thing there can experience some fine abortion-and-Reagan-spam too?
That the threads they maintain over years only stay on page one when it's a slow news day?
That the environment of consensus and amicability they currently experience is replaced by that of the Tavern?
That's obviously not true for the people who post there. And shouldn't that be what counts?
warpus
In pork I trust
I would love to have a subforum just for American political discussions, and then one for everything else. But I have a feeling most people would be against that.
Mise
isle of lucy
I have a feelingthat's what the tavern is now...
hobbsyoyo
Deity
- Joined
- Jul 13, 2012
- Messages
- 26,575
There is something to be said for the power of forum default settings when it comes to ease of use issues.
I actually suggested that in the survey, that S&T needs to be rolled into OT (the chamber specifically, but the tavern if the chamber goes).
As to why: it would drive up traffic overall and attract more users (imo) if you have a hopping subforum or two instead of several nearly-dead ones. Also, as Ziggy previously stated, the merger of forums means that different types of threads inside the subforum can inform each other in ways they can't when the two groups of posters mutually-ignore each other to stay solely in their tiny (and dying) walled gardens.
Not saying i am in favor of this. But i can say that i could see some sense in merging A&E and the Chamber (and give the whole thing a new name of course).
I am not sure about S&T. Potentially one could toss together all three forums. They wouldn't really push out each others contents.
I have to say, though, that i suspect S&T could easily be the one most damaging to the other two, if the three were merged.
I am very glad that i don't have to witness some stupid thread about this recent cloning business in the Chamber. I suspect there would be one if the forums were merged and frequented/populated the way you guys wish for.
Maybe an additional rule could fix that: "If you start a thread on something that is up on the front page of the Sideboob Gazette you can be infracted. Don't argue. You just can."
Something like that...
I have been saying that. Or at least I haven't been advocating other people losing their favorite forums.
If it turns out the staff become set on merging any of the Colosseum forums, S&T and History seem like a good pair - they're both primarily about serious topics, and the participants tend to prefer serious replies. There are seldom any really serious moderating issues that crop up, at least in my recollection.
A&E can be (and has been) all over the place, from frivolous to normal, and right up to stuffyboringzzz. There have been a couple of troublesome issues with particular posters, but the current moderators there (Atticus & Plotinus) have things well in hand.
My objections to messing with A&E are mainly twofold:
1. DYOS - I've spoken about this before, and hardly need go through it all again.
2. Writing competitions. This could work well in A&E, and was one of the activities I wanted to get going during my time as a mod. Things didn't work out then, but there's no reason it couldn't in future. This activity simply would not work if this entire forum were folded back into OT.
Borachio
Way past lunacy
- Joined
- Jan 31, 2012
- Messages
- 26,698
I'd be in favour of a US political subforum. Those are so tedious, imho.
That's what they did at TrekBBS. It makes their off-topic forum much more palatable, in my opinion.
Plus I would get far less exposure to it htan I currently do, which would be a shame.
That said, the Tavern does seem to be the US Politics forum, with a few other things thrown in because (you know) 5% of the world's population needs an entire forum to themselves. If all those threads were in their own subforum, you could probably merge a couple of others into the Tavern without losing them from page 1 after a day or two.
TrekBBS did this when the US election started clogging everything up. That forum is also vBulletin, and the subforum created is quite visible as far as seeing it's there. It's just that the whole list of threads isn't visible.
I do have to admit that if this were done here, it would totally screw up the Thread Juxtaposition serial threads.
I do have to admit that if this were done here, it would totally screw up the Thread Juxtaposition serial threads.
That's because nobody can find them. Sometimes they're 10+ pages down!
