Numerous Boards

Makaveli

No it isn't diluting anything. That was just an example of a board that is dying off.
The likes of Xbox and Playstation boards are diltuing the Games board though, as are all the music genres being given their own forum, and with individual sports being given their own forums.

Karl Hungus

Makaveli wrote:

When? Every 6 months or so? The place used to go quite well but it gets minimal traffic, probably down to it's location on the drop down menus.

Here's a good example of some of the great discussion that can go on there. Granted, it's far from the busiest of boards, but I think that's one of its strong points.

But of course, with that said... If a board on a serious subject gets in the way of these new fangled oh so zany boards where newbies get to up their post counts without saying anything of any intelligable worth whatsoever, then who am I to stand in the way of progress? Perhaps we should remove the "Now ye're talkin'" moto with "What crazy board will we make next!?"

'scuse me while I go over and pine about the good old days when people would make fun of newbies who suggested silly boards of the like, because we've gone way past the point of 'Big Shiny Toaster With Built In Radio Appreciation Community' with so many novelty boards.

Now don't get me wrong here, I certainly had a chuckle when the Hasselhoff bpards was suggested, but is tearing down some of the less popular boards in favour of more 'Novelty Act' boards really progressing at all? Perhaps I'm being a little radical now, but wouldn't encouraging more indepth discussion be more interesting in the long run compared to the inane gibberish of the hasselhoff boards?

Shrimp

I've got david hass. star from the walk of fame on my phone as my background.

Karl Hungus

Shrimp wrote:

I've got david hass. star from the walk of fame on my phone as my background.

Wow... You do know how to drop these nuggets of wisdom on us. You're like the buddah of boards.

BuffyBot

You're like the buddah of boards.

But a really crap one at that..

Tusky

There isnt enough traffic on the games forum to warrant a split.. theres only a few new threads per day. Its rediculous, its just gonna take longer to browse the different forums now.

waaaaay to many forums being created.

Makaveli

Karl Hungus wrote:

Here's a good example of some of the great discussion that can go on there. Granted, it's far from the busiest of boards, but I think that's one of its strong points.

But of course, with that said... If a board on a serious subject gets in the way of these new fangled oh so zany boards where newbies get to up their post counts without saying anything of any intelligable worth whatsoever, then who am I to stand in the way of progress? Perhaps we should remove the "Now ye're talkin'" moto with "What crazy board will we make next!?"

'scuse me while I go over and pine about the good old days when people would make fun of newbies who suggested silly boards of the like, because we've gone way past the point of 'Big Shiny Toaster With Built In Radio Appreciation Community' with so many novelty boards.

Now don't get me wrong here, I certainly had a chuckle when the Hasselhoff bpards was suggested, but is tearing down some of the less popular boards in favour of more 'Novelty Act' boards really progressing at all? Perhaps I'm being a little radical now, but wouldn't encouraging more indepth discussion be more interesting in the long run compared to the inane gibberish of the hasselhoff boards?

I really should have explained myself a whole lot better. I'm not suggesting get rid of the old when we usher in the new. Overall, I think there are far too many new boards popping up every week, but if there's traffic for them who am I to say otherwise. I'm not a fan of the gimmick boards being created. I think they are useless. I don't see what they offer to boards overall, other than post count ++.

Onto the old boards out bit, what I was getting at is, maybe they old ones seeing no use should be remerged with original boards that they may have split from. Say Golf or Snooker/Pool for example could be remerged with Sport. What is the point of having idle forums in the off chance someone might post there twice a year? I feel people have a stigma that they cant post something somwhere unless there is a specific board dedicated to it. There was no need to split Playstation and Xbox from Games, despite the numerous times people have requested a Consoles forum.

You can almost guarantee when GTA San Andreas comes out on the PC, people will call for a GTA forum. It happens every time. The Games board may for a while have five or six threads on the game but eventually they dissappear. The Games forum isnt hurt by the threads, just like it's not hurt by Xbox and PS threads.

Tusky

Makaveli wrote:

I really should have explained myself a whole lot better. I'm not suggesting get rid of the old when we usher in the new. Overall, I think there are far too many new boards popping up every week, but if there's traffic for them who am I to say otherwise. I'm not a fan of the gimmick boards being created. I think they are useless. I don't see what they offer to boards overall, other than post count ++.

Onto the old boards out bit, what I was getting at is, maybe they old ones seeing no use should be remerged with original boards that they may have split from. Say Golf or Snooker/Pool for example could be remerged with Sport. What is the point of having idle forums in the off chance someone might post there twice a year? I feel people have a stigma that they cant post something somwhere unless there is a specific board dedicated to it. There was no need to split Playstation and Xbox from Games, despite the numerous times people have requested a Consoles forum.

You can almost guarantee when GTA San Andreas comes out on the PC, people will call for a GTA forum. It happens every time. The Games board may for a while have five or six threads on the game but eventually they dissappear. The Games forum isnt hurt by the threads, just like it's not hurt by Xbox and PS threads.

Good post, I agree. I dont say we get rid fo boards that have low traffic but the dilution thats happening at the moment is silly and makes the boards feel messier in general.

The horror forum should stay though!!!

Karl Hungus

Indeed.

I would agree with you that some of the spin-off boards are rather unessicary, but perhaps the point I'm trying to make (and failing, as it seems), is that smaller boards still have their place in the big picture. So what if people don't post like madmen on the Horror board? It's got it's regulars, and when something gets a discussion going, there is actual discussion, opinions and posts with depth. I see far to many boards where people just post one-line responses that add nothing to the thread in question (Step forward Shrimp), and a lot of users just don't take the time to reply with an interesting, well thought-out post. These are mainly younger types who posts in "Txt spk" and turn threads into chatrooms, not even realising that you're meant to discuss what the topic of the thread is. Again, step forward Shrimp.

All these new novelty boards are encouraging more of this:

I've got david hass. star from the walk of fame on my phone as my background.

Posts that have nothing to do with anything, ever mind what the thread in particular is about!

Makaveli

The Horror forum should indeed stay. It was just an example of a forum that is getting forgotten about because of the sheer amount of forums on boards.ie now.

Karl Hungus

Makaveli wrote:

The Horror forum should indeed stay. It was just an example of a forum that is getting forgotten about because of the sheer amount of forums on boards.ie now.

Ah, in that case, yes... I concur in full.

Sherifu

David Hasselhoff forum should be sub-forum of Humour.
It is a piss-take? right?

PiE

The novelty forums are retarded, but at least they fade away after a few weeks when something else that's just oh-so-hilarious pops up.

However... Frisbee? Classic Cars? My god.

koneko

I don't like the idea of consoles with their own boards, I like posting in a general Games forum. This new idea scares me and makes me a little bit sleepy.

Lots of games are cross-platform anyway. Now I don't know where to post.

Boro

Like Koneko said - the splitting up of the Games Forum is a bad idea. It seems that every time a new (Best Thing TM) game comes out, people call for a forum to be made for it. As someone else said earlier, the posts die down after a while and the need for a seperate forum goes away.

Having a Xbox/Playstation/etc forum as well as games means more posts - but mostly of the same stuff. Different people will post the same information in multiple places - many games are multi-format these, and we will have people posting the xbox version, the playstation version, the gamecube version (well if there was a gamecube forum) and the PC version - the result? 4 threads instead of one. Then of course, you will have the threads saying this game rocks/sucks, please help me threads, arrggghh stuck, threads. A load of pointless information that will be repeated (up to) 4 times. Is that really what boards wants? Traffic to quadruple over an insignificant item?

With the current trend in console gaming (ie the decreasing amount of console unique titles) about the only difference between the consoles is the hardware contained within them, and hacks/exploits on said hardware. Couldnt this be easily kept in one single forum such as 'Console Harware Discussion' or something similar?

As to everything else? Well i liked reading all these discussions in the games thread. It is food for thought, exposure to new concepts/ideas. What is the point of compartmentalising everything? The best way to spread ideas and beliefs is to share them, and that means a central thread. Keep the games threads in 'Games'.

ecksor

A few general points.

On the particular instance of the Horror forum (and there are others like it), if it's not interfering or conflicting with anything else then being low traffic isn't a problem in my opinion. If what "I can't believe it's not AngelWhore" is correct it's certainly better than some of the very busy monstrosities we have with a low signal to noise ratio from my point of view.

The idea of there being a stigma attached to posting on forums that aren't specialised enough is an odd one (I don't think it's a stigma exactly, but certainly some sort of reluctance), but the fact remains that people are often unwilling to post about certain topics on pre-existing suitable fora. I don't know why but that's the way it is. I'd love to beat sense into all of our users (oh $DEITY how I'd love to do that, but I shouldn't stray off-topic here) but it isn't practical to do that. We work with the users we have.

What forum ideas are runners and what aren't runners isn't as easy to predict as people let on. Often people come along and criticise a forum idea on the basis that it's a fad or it's a stupid topic or whatever. I couldn't care less about such criticisms and I don't think the other admins put much stock in them either. What I do put stock in is the possibility that another forum will suffer as a result of it, whether or not all the supporters are acting like muppets or suspiciously and whether or not the forum is likely to represent more hassle (or hassel ) than it's worth.

Lastly, if you spot a forum that you think is busy and is ready to be consumed by another busier and/or more general forum, then feel free to post on the Forums forum suggesting such a thing.

steveland?

I don't really get the objections to all these new forums being created. If it annoys you don't post there. For instance, I can never see myself EVER posting in the David Hasslehoff board....

Yeh, I don't get the XBox Playstation thing and there was no need for it but does it really make all that big a difference to you? Maybe if you have a question you'll find someone more speciallized to answer you.

The quieter boards have much less spam which seems like the only reason they look quiet. There's some forums that have very little spam that can be very helpful such as Photoshoppage which doesn't (in my limited experience) get huge traffic.

Some of the forums that have been created seem like great ideas, such as the Open Source forum, and I'd say they're gonna generate a nice amount of traffic as they seem like they could be put to work well.

ecksor wrote:

"I can't believe it's not AngelWhore"

Heh heh, genius

DeVore

Use the Subscribe To This Forum option, create your own flavoured Boards.ie and forget the rest ever existed. Why would they bother you?

You know, I keep forgetting we have a Motors forum and a Parenting forum. You know why? I havent subbed to them, so I dont see posts to them in my Subbed list on the front page. They dont show up on my subbed list of Forums (which neatly arranges all the subbed forums I'm interested in in one drop down so I dont have to go hunting for them). They might as well not exist for me.

Xbox and PS were created because both are going online in a big way and more and more games are specific (Halo2 on Nintendo? Over Bill Gates dead body, you cant even play it on PC yet). And if something gets discussed in two places, that isnt a travesty of nature you know...

Sports has ALWAYS been planned to be phased out, in fact you'll see that most of the mods who started modding the "generic" forums are now "category mods" with domain over the whole area. The Frisbee forum had support, I dont see why they shouldnt get one either... it may not be your thing but... *shrug*.

Hasselhoff etc ISNT a change of policy for us. Its just that some/most of you havent been here long enough to know that sometimes the admins go a bit ... funny and do things that make us laugh. I think the whole running joke of Monsieur Hasselhoff is a scream and VERY Boards.ie. Ninjas anyone? Kitten Cake? Freemasons? Knights? etc etc etc. Unclench already

Why does the board have to interest you to be allowed to be created? If I'd taken that p.o.v. from the start the only forums here would be Poker and Masturbation.

I've said too much.

DeV.

koneko

DeVore wrote:

Kitten Cake?

I hope you're not suggesting Kittencake was a joke?

galactus

rkm wrote:

David Hasselhoff forum should be sub-forum of Humour.
It is a piss-take? right?

What has David Hasselhoff ever done to you? Leave the poor man alone.

Rew

DeVore wrote:

Xbox and PS were created because both are going online in a big way and more and more games are specific (Halo2 on Nintendo? Over Bill Gates dead body, you cant even play it on PC yet). And if something gets discussed in two places, that isnt a travesty of nature you know...

What about a Handhelds fourm then? We have to major releases coming up. Both are going online and a whole new dimension of random on bus/plane/train LANs to try setup.

Retr0gamer

most of the Games forum regulars are not happy about the split in the games forums. I'm one of them:

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=225882

Sherifu

galactus wrote:

What has David Hasselhoff ever done to you? Leave the poor man alone.

Hes done this

galactus

rkm wrote:

Hes done this

He's brightened your day?

CuLT

DeVore wrote:

Why does the board have to interest you to be allowed to be created? If I'd taken that p.o.v. from the start the only forums here would be Poker and Masturbation.

I've said too much.

DeV.

0_o

...

I call Masturbation forum!

Raphael

You mean Slydice?

Sangre

My objection to an increased number of branch off forums is not the dilution of the boards so much as the isolation of topics and conversations. Certain topics and opinions are shunted off to one board never to stray across the virtual pond and get stuck into a good discussion. Games and Music I think are prime examples. Sports I dont think there would be etc.,
Since the world of games/formats (for example) can be so interchangeable a severance into different areas means that fans of ones and fans of another are separated and split up. No longer do they discuss the respective merits or compare and contrast. Expansive board headings allow topics to evolve more. It also means people will see more topics and learn/discover more about different areas.
I can understand Pc vs Consle but even then people can't find out why a console outplays a Pc or they dont see their option of playing a game and modding it on a PC.

Omg I luvz Blink 182, they rulez. But should i post in punk OR rock....oh dilemmas...

There something I want to say on this arguement that I haven't quite grasped yet but I hope you get the point.

steveland?

Sangre wrote:

Omg I luvz Blink 182, they rulez. But should i post in punk OR rock....oh dilemmas...

I'd have to agree with Sangre here. Me being quite a fan of a lot of music from the "punk era" I took a glance in the new Punk forum but legged it when I saw a topic entitled something like "Are the Stranglers punk?"

It's getting to a point where people don't know where to post things like that. Now, in my humble opinion, I can't STAND genre isolation. I can tolerate it to the point of "Rock/Metal", "Dance", "Jazz/Blues", "Rap/Hip-Hop", "Classical" as these are all fairly well defined musical styles. For instance I have no objection to posting a topic about, say, the Misfits in a different forum to a topic about, say, a Baroque.

But tbh, if I was posting the same post about the Misfits I'd just throw it into the Rock/Metal section. Now I know most people when they think of the Misfits would think "Oh man they're a punk band", but as far as I'm concerned Rock encompases the Punk style of music and I hate when people try to classify certain types of music into certain genres other than the more vague and all encompassing types such as rock/jazz/etc.

It's only a matter of time before you get serious muppet posts in that Punk forum like "Doood get outta here blinkk arnt reel punk!"

Imo the music section should be more generalised and not segregated into sections people have trouble defining.

[/rant]

Asok

Karl Hungus

Sangre wrote:

My objection to an increased number of branch off forums is not the dilution of the boards so much as the isolation of topics and conversations. Certain topics and opinions are shunted off to one board never to stray across the virtual pond and get stuck into a good discussion. Games and Music I think are prime examples. Sports I dont think there would be etc.,
Since the world of games/formats (for example) can be so interchangeable a severance into different areas means that fans of ones and fans of another are separated and split up. No longer do they discuss the respective merits or compare and contrast. Expansive board headings allow topics to evolve more. It also means people will see more topics and learn/discover more about different areas.
I can understand Pc vs Consle but even then people can't find out why a console outplays a Pc or they dont see their option of playing a game and modding it on a PC.

Omg I luvz Blink 182, they rulez. But should i post in punk OR rock....oh dilemmas...

There something I want to say on this arguement that I haven't quite grasped yet but I hope you get the point.

You know, I never thought I'd see it, but there's some semblage of intelligence in your noggin, Sangre. Impressively so, and I think you should let it out a bit more often.

I do indeed get your point, and I agree with all my heart, thrusting forth from my chest. Furthermore, I'd like to add to that. Most of the threads I lock or delete on the rock/metal forum, aside from the obviously illeagal ones, are ones that are pretaining to the notion of +1 post count while carefully sidestepping the need to actually post about something. Threads of the ilk would be "Lets play the band game" where you have to match up the last letter of the name of the band that was just posted, with a band who has the corresponding first letter, and on and on and on post count +++ without end. Of course there's the "What song are you listening to now" thread, which I have the notion if I close it, someone else is just gonna start making more pointless threads.

It's a painfully dull practice, and I think people seem to just want new forums so that they can start their own "What Ragga/Scat/Breakdown song are you listening to now?" threads, and whinge about how they can't post such and such in there, despite being told, they indeedily, CAN post over there about it... But infact, all they want is a board to accomidate their new spam thread. I don't know when the last time I had an actual discussion about music was, and that's just sad. I absolutely loved the film board, and often still do, but I think that the "Last film you watched" thread saps anything interesting out of the board itself, as normally, if you've just seen a film, you might want to talk about it, but now people just say "yeah, I watched this last night" and that's it. Any further discussion would be off topic. I also think that the film reviews board saps interesting discussion from the main film board, as while a review thread certainly proses an opinion, it doesn't really provoke anything interesting as it's a review, not a discussion.

Something I'm shocked about is the fact that on the Fashion/Appearance board, people are actually discussing things, asking for opinions, and generally having something to say. I'm dreading the day a "What pants are you wearing now" thread comes along.

What I'm trying to say is, should we be creating forums that actively encourage the post count +++ ratio above that of content? Indeed, as DeVore says, why not just use the subbed menu, and ignore everything else, but I would disagree entirely that the new boards aren't bothering me, and other users, as it all affects what kinda posting style boards is championing right now. Sure, we've 10,000 more users since last month, but that's 50,000 less topics that actually have anything to say. It's almost coming to the point where the catchphrase should be "Boards - Loads of threads, nobody talking" because it really does make a huge impact on what kind of place boards.ie is.