TV Forum Reorganisation: Any update?

Skid

There was some talk last year about an upcoming reorganisation of the TV Forum

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?p=75271970

It was also mentioned in the Late Late Show Forum request thread (last post)

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2056388759

Seeing as both of those threads are locked, and Basq requested that any similar threads should be posted in Feedback, is there any update on when/if there will be changes? And if so, what might be in store?

For what it's worth, I would like to see one forum for US shows, and one for Irish and UK programmes (similar to Digital Spy)

The TV forum gets completely swamped at times by threads on American shows, many of which will never be broadcast here. These threads are often no more than cut and paste stories from other websites, not genuine discussions.

Thanks.

LoLth

the tentative plan was to divide up the TV forum into Genres and then use thread tags to seperate shows, each genre would have approx 10 to 15 tags max. as new shows are added, older/quiet tags would be retired.

However, as this was being discussed we heard rumblings of a category re-organisation (which you can read up on HERE) so it was put on the backburner.

Its not completely off the cards and may still come into play once the category moves have been decided upon or if the category re-org doesnt go ahead - its more than likely going to happen but we dotn know yet exactly what form it will take.

Genre seemed the easiest way to divide up the shows purely froma user perspective. Other possibilities were:

production company (HBO, ABC, RTE, BBC etc) but that would mean a user would have to know who made a show before they could find it

Country of origin: again, users require foreknowledge and may only be interested in one show from the US

With Genres the thinking was, if you watch say, the walking dead, there's a good chance you also watch Fringe or if you watch Suits, there's a good chance you would also be interested in Franklin & Bash, Grey's anatomy fans would be more likely to want to discuss Private practice so it makes it easier for users to find common interests in one place. Users could also find a tv show they like and through the forum find similar shows they may not have tried yet (NYC 22 and Rookie Blue for example).

The thinking behind tags was: its easier to add a new show by adding a tag rather than creating a whole new forum. It promotes discussion by having more traffic in one place and you can sort a forum that uses tags using a drop down list that contains all the tags, you pick one and it filters all threads with that particular tag, making it easier to get the information the user wants without having to wade through stuff they arent particularly interested in.

Another benefit: mods cover a genre, meaning more shows managed by each mod meaning more consistency in what is and isnt allowed so the user has less of a elarning curve to know what is acceptable to post, hopefully resulting in less need for corrections because a user hasnt read the Chuck forum charter after just finished reading the charter for True Blood (for example)

Drawback: some shows cover more than one genre. To handle this, the suggestion was to use the IMDB genre classification to decide which forum suits the show best (for exmaple, is red dwarf sci-fi or comedy?, is Grey's Anatomy Drama or Soap?).

We were still discussing the mechanics of it when it was decided to suspend plans until we knew more about the shape of the categories in the future.

oh, and there was also to be a tag for miscellaneous or "not listed" shows to allow for general discussion like "New shows premiering this Autumn in the states" etc. Or these could have just gone into a general TV forum.

As I already said, this discussion was still at the planning/potential stage and nothing was finalised. The idea would have been to get a concensus among the mods who would have to handle it to find what they would be ok with and then present the options to the users to get their feedback and make a decision on the final setup based on the reaction.

You can never please everyone but we do like to try. You never know, we may even manage to please a majority!

There's not really much point in giving feedback now on the above idea but feel free to comment or suggest, just dont be too disappointed if nothing comes of it because its really in limbo at the moment and we didnt even get to a stage where the mods could tweak the framework to come up with a plan.

Skid

Thanks for that update, LoLth. Much appreciated.

There's not really much point in giving feedback now on the above idea but feel free to comment or suggest, just dont be too disappointed if nothing comes of it

I understand. For what it's worth, Here are my thoughts

I maintain that the TV Forum broadly splits into two distinct groups: Those who watch TV on traditional channels and those who watch mainly US Shows using other means (Streaming, Downloading, whatever the kids are into these days).

Naturally there is some crossover, but many people on Boards still only watch television the old fashioned way.

The proposed tag system, if based on genre, would lead to most shows in each category being 'non domestic' based, many of which are never broadcast here. The sheer volume of productions in USA/Canada/Australia etc would mean that few Irish and UK programmes would appear in the most recent threads. This will turn people away from Boards discussion, as they find most shows which have threads can not be viewed by them.

Would it be possible to have a separate Ireland and UK TV Forum from the 'Other TV' shows? Naturally this could have threads at 'broadcast pace' for foreign shows which are broadcast on Irish/UK Channels as happens at present.

As you said, I understand that this is somewhat on hold at the moment, but thanks for giving me the opportunity to throw in my opinion.