tell me what you think of splitting 'a&e' into a separate forum

[El Diablo]

db,

I have been involved as a founder, investor, advisor, or board member of over 20 Internet startups over the past 10 years. The majority of those were venture-capital funded startups, a handful of them have become leading sites in their market segment. A number of those involve content creation and aggregation, some via message forums, others via traditional editorial, others via blog networks, etc. Other businesses I'm involved with that have similar network effect considerations have included social networking sites, auction sites, and online expert answer sites. I have sat in numerous boardrooms discussing this same challenge across all these businesses - how do you expand the business without diluting the value of the brand and risking the critical mass in areas where you have achieved a key level of success? The general rule is quite simple. The further you are experimenting with change in areas where you branch away from your core competency, the higher the chance of failure when making the change.

I will not discuss specific companies I've worked with in this forum, but am happy to do so privately.

You don't need to get this info from me, though. It is easy to identify a number of sites that have dealt with these exact issues and discuss the challenges of expanding beyond the site's core area of expertise with administrators at those sites.

[egocidal]

I don't even understand how this is an issue. I am pretty sure of two things:

1) OOT brings the most traffic. As is. We use the forums the most, and bring in probably the most new posters. I think.

2) 70% of OOT, (and it appears whoemever else was linked to the poll) don't want change. 70% percent!

......How can a split be implemented, other than the fact that reviewers don't like their reviews falling to the back pages? To be honest, the people who support the split want to do so for two reasons:

A) They don't like their reviews being ignored because (gasp!) they might be on a sucky subject.
B) They don't like the fact that their eyes have to gaze over a thread with the words "stripper", "poop", "trip report", or "NSFW".

These are not reasons to create a new forum.

[MCS]

I like the idea for the same reasons that others do, mostly that OOT is so high-traffic that good threads can get buried quickly.

[Sniper]

[ QUOTE ]
Sniper,

"Finally, I will say that even with those splits, OOT is still running strong at #1... and despite all the defensive territorial protection posts... there is no reason to believe that the overall page views across 2+2 will be harmed by yet another spinoff of a major category getting lost in OOT, but that has a clear champion in diebitter to ensure its success as a seperate forum! "

The fact that OOT is #1 is exactly why it would be silly to do make a move that could significantly impact the viability of that forum.

[/ QUOTE ]

ElD, I enjoy reading your posts because they are usually much more thought out and well reasoned than this. In this case, you are just lobbing up a softball...

There is no reason to believe that OOT will be harmed by breaking out content areas, specifically when those content areas can be championed much better in their own forum.

More from my mod forum posts...

OOT right now is like a messy file room, with no folders... cleaning it up and putting stuff into folders and filing them, is only going to make 2+2 more useful; as people will find it much easier to find what they are looking for.

Additionally, having a mod (diebitter) with a clear desire to see the reach and usefulness of this topic expand, can only be beneficial... as diebitter himself will champion this new forum to success!

[diebitter]

-- El D.

lol!

I knew it was a bait argument, which is why I avoided it for a while. Yep, you got me good on that hook [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

nice one, El D.

[tuq]

[ QUOTE ]
-- El D.

lol!

I knew it was a bait argument, which is why I avoided it for a while. Yep, you got me good on that hook [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

nice one, El D.

[/ QUOTE ]
What happened to you going to bed? Is it tomorrow already? My watch must have stopped, and the sun suspended itself in the air. Goddamned sun, always playing tricks on me.

[El Diablo]

ego,

If I were running this site and trying to maximize non-poker traffic, I would find out what the key elements of OOT are that keep more people from participating (strippers, poop, NSFW, whatever) and ban those topics from OOT.

[junglewarfare]

the fact that this thread is almost 500 posts is really retarded. el d and others laid out the reasons why it is a bad idea pretty clearly a while ago.

[Sniper]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
-- El D.

lol!

I knew it was a bait argument, which is why I avoided it for a while. Yep, you got me good on that hook [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

nice one, El D.

[/ QUOTE ]
What happened to you going to bed? Is it tomorrow already? My watch must have stopped, and the sun suspended itself in the air. Goddamned sun, always playing tricks on me.

[/ QUOTE ]

diebitter is sooo excited by the prospect of this actually happening, that he's not going to be able to sleep for 2 weeks! [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

I understand that he's actually considered chartering a plane to bring Chuck a laptop to make the changes sooner [img]/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img]

[daveymck]

Is another option to make a review or opinions forum where everything from the latest movies to the cool new gadgets, tvs etc could be posted.

This would take out some of the repetitive recommend me a tv, is xbox 360 worth getting, should I get a Honda car etc threads, while keeping alot of the more active A&E content eg Lost Threads in the main OOT section.