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

[Aloysius]

Bluffthis - Let's define A&E - this would be in my mind film, radio, music, TV, pop culture-related, celebrities.

I think you're right on Politics and Sports, because one can accrue empirical knowledge and have fact-based opinions that signal higher quality posting.

But with "A&E", there's not alot of empirical knowledge that would separate a higher quality poster from a low quality one. For the most part, A&E posts are just opinions on content combined with very basic knowledge anyone can get. So really, the thing that may define a higher quality poster in A&E are things like: 1) do you agree with the poster?; 2) is the poster smart?

It's true there are some experts (for example, PJ comes to mind with TV, turnip for music) - but there are likely very few posters who actually do A&E for a living or have deep domain knowledge, and they just post in OOT anyway.

Because the general public has such a high-level of interest in A&E, the "worse" poster is going to come to the A&E subforum and I don't envision a "sharpening" or "higher level content".

-Al

[stabn]

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pj,

There are too many forums already. That is why I infrequently discuss Sports and Politics on 2+2 now. Once you get rid of a certain amount of quality content critical mass in OOT, people will stop coming here. And if they need to click to other subforums anyway, it's just as easy to go to a forum devoted to the topic rather than a poker forum offshoot. This split would not only hurt OOT, I think it might end up significantly decreasing traffic in forums like the Sports forum as well.

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Didn't the amount of traffic generated by sports-oriented discussions increase as a result of the splitting off of the Sports forum? At the least, it seemed to me that immediately following the split there were more new threads per day created in that forum than there were sports-oriented threads in the old OOT.

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I think far fewer people participate in the sporting forum than used to participate in OOT sports threads. It's now a pretty smallish group.

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I know of several people, including myself, that stopped visiting sports threads when it moved. A forum dedicated to them is just a bit too serious for me. I liked to casually dorp in if one really interested me.

[MicroBob]

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Second point: We're debating about people who don't come into OOT - these are by definition completely unrepresented here. Don't make tons of assumptions. It's best THEY get asked about this too, somehow.

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haven't read the whole thread.

I'm one who doesn't frequent OOT very much partly because it's just so freaking huge and partly because I guess I'm just a prude regarding all that body-fluid talk and what-not.

It's not that I'm 'afraid' to come to OOT and I don't think that represents my thoughts very well at all. Maybe others are 'afraid' but I'm certainly not.


It's just a matter of choosing not to come.
I wish I could have the same discipline about several of the other forums that I waste way too much time in when I should be grinding out an income.


Anyway, I actually am interested in film/music discussions and would probably swing by an A&E forum every once in awhile.

[Blarg]

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Getting rid of the arts and entertainment stuff seems like it's going to leave only stupid sex questions, the occasional restaurant reports, and the occasionally inspired "What color is a tennis ball?" type stuff. I think you lose too much signal this way.

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So do I, and some of the best part of the signal. I think if you lose the A&E, you lose a big part of what makes the rest of OOT bearable. The variety is good. We'd lose a lot of pryor, diebitter, and dominic's posts, for instance, which are some of the ones I like the best. It's good to have something solid in the mix so that not every thread is about some random nut-scratching.

[pryor15]

a question to ponder:

there are a couple of intelligent film people in these parts who occasionally show up in a film discussion (John Cale comes to mind) and i suspect the same can be said for music, art, etc.

would a new forum mean more involvement from them (which would equal higher traffic, etc), or would those ratios stay the same? personally, i haven't a clue.

[BluffTHIS!]

Al,

You make a valid point about the difference between A&E topics and others such as politics/sports, i.e. it is more subject to just personal opinion without a right and wrong being able to be demonstrated. Nonetheless, such topics that are interesting to many just get lost in the avalanche of SIIHP and bathroom humour and other such posts, when they would get much more play and by those interested if they didn't get lost so quickly. Many posters just aren't willing to to look through 10+ pages of threads daily to see if one they've previously posted in or read has had some more, but not a lot, of further replies.

OOT has the most noise of any forum, and fears that it will get less traffic if a split is made are simply unfounded IMO.

[DCopper04]

Don't split it. To put it concisely, the risk is not worth the reward.

RISK: Screwing up OOT, and weaking the most valuable forum on 2+2. El D explained very well how this screw up could occur.

REWARD: Creating another subforum that would benefit a few, select individuals.

I understand why certain people want an A&E forum. I realize its potential benefits. But it's not worth screwing up OOT.

[Blarg]

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Okay, I just want to make a point, again. I used to post the most film reviews here (I think 26-28 in January)

I got tired of them getting buried, so just cut back: what was the point?

Today, I posted one about Kingpin. It had some responses, and then had none for nearly 6 hours. I bumped it, and it got a lot more responses.

IT GOT BURIED REALLY QUICKLY.

You could point out that I posted it at a god-awful time. But I can tell you from experience, if you post them at a busy time, THEY GET IMMEDIATELY BURIED, UNLESS IT'S A MOVIE LOTS OF PEOPLE HAVE SEEN.



I hang around OOT a lot, and I'm tired to trying to do entertainment stuff, just to see it washed away. I'm tired of hearing whines about 'I don't come here to read film reviews' or suchlike.


Does anyone see my point here?


Second point: We're debating about people who don't come into OOT - these are by definition completely unrepresented here. Don't make tons of assumptions. It's best THEY get asked about this too, somehow.

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I've told DB that the reason I don't post my own film reviews is it seems like too much work to do something and then see it insta-buried, especially since the people who do them are often jumped all over in a negative way.

So I see his point.

[MicroBob]

I don't have a clue either.

I know that I don't participate at all...but that I would participate in an A&E forum most likely.

I think there might be others like me who just don't want to wade through everything in OOT just to find the stuff that I might find interesting.


However, I think part of your concerns for A&E might have been previously realized in the sports-events forum to a certain degree. Is there less participation on big sports-events now than there was when they were in OOT?

there appear to still be many OOTers who liked it better when sports-stuff was kept in here.

[Patrick del Poker Grande]

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All,

If A&E were split, which of the others do you split?

Food/Drink/Restaurants/Bars
Relationships/Love Advice
Style/Clothing/Fashion
Hot Girls/nsfw/etc
Jokes/Funny stuff
Other

The first two I think merit splitting just as much as A&E does.

And, what is the critical mass required to keep OOT itself interesting? My contention is that by removing Books/Movies/Music/TV from OOT, you've quite likely already dipped below the critical mass of content necessary to keep people coming to OOT.

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Very well said, El D.

Also, while we're splitting, I recommend a NY/BOS sports forum separate from the rest of Sports.