Re: tell me what you think of splitting \'a&e\' into a separate forum
astro, Mat:
Splitting that out would be a horrible move. From a business perspective, I think you significantly underestimate the possibility that this split would result in a large reduction in traffic.
The A&E stuff is a core part of why many of us come to OOT. This is where, on 2+2, we disucss movies/TV/music/books/etc. Entertainment and food/drink are the two primary reasons why I frequent OOT. However, if I want to have an in-depth discussion or research some specific entertainment topic, I visit one of the countless entertainment-specific forums available.
I don't think people pushing for the A&E split understand the dynamics of what keeps OOT going well enough. A healthy mix of content that people are actually interested in discussing (A&E, food, etc.) plus some personal stuff (gf probs, personal anecdotes, trip reports) plus some silly stuff (tennis ball color, nature of perfect dump, etc) is what keeps OOT working and vibrant. Get rid of enough of the first category and OOT becomes not worth the time, and the place people will go is not the 2+2 A&E forum, it's some other forum. The fact that you can take back the split doesn't matter. Once you lose a forum member, they're likely to stay gone. The fact that A&E content would still be ALLOWED here is irrelevant if there's another 2+2 forum devoted to that discussion.
db, most of your points make little sense imo. There have been vibrant discussions about countless bands, TV shows, etc. here. If people are interested in discussing a movie and a well-written post is made about it, it can easily stay active for a long time.
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