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

[diebitter]

[ QUOTE ]
BT,

I suspect that what I earlier said to db applies to you as well:

I suspect you do not have any experience on the business side of high volume content/discussion sites, is that correct? Your arguments all center around what you, a specific profile of user whose interests do not seem to coincide with the core demographics of this site, would like to see in a site. That's a reasonable position for you to take, but unlikely to be one that's in the best business interests of 2+2.

[/ QUOTE ]

-- El Diablo
No, I have no experience of this. I bet virtually all speakers here, for and against, don't either. Do you?

I've avoided this because it comes across as nitty, but I guess you keep plugging it, so I'll play it out.

Your argument consists of promoting fear, uncertainty and doubt, presenting the very worst-case scenario coupled with questioning our credentials about judging this.

Again, I'll state, I have no experience of this. I talk anecdotally about what I think will benefit 2+2, and have no statistical/numeric proof or experience in this arena.

Please tell us what experience you have of large-scale discussion fora, and what proofs you have that creating a new forum like this has a reasonable chance of removing a significant part of the user base?

If you can't, then you'e also talking anecdotally and without statistical/numeric/experiential backing, and we resort to plain anecdotal argument again.

If you can, please tell if your experience is direct, or a 'friend-of-a-friend'/urban legend type deal (or tell what the source is).

I'd also appreciate a qualification of failures/successes, for example, does every change mean failure, and if not, waht is the ratio of success/failure in this arena?

If you can't, you're sort of saying any change === failure, which I think most of us would see as a deeply flawed statement.

db

[KDawg]

[ QUOTE ]
2. People find topics in OOT distasteful or scary -- I mentioned it in a previous post. how gay is this? Is somebody's hand trembling on their mouse as they hover their cursor over "Other Other Topics?" do they look at the topic list and gasp because they're so flabbergasted that somebody might have typed the word "sex" on the "world wide web??" Who the hell are these people?

[/ QUOTE ]


euro, I find all of the eugene going on in your av to be very scary. It makes me want to cower in fear in the corner of my room

[El Diablo]

bobby,

"Your constant harping on "the best business interests of 2+2" comes off as disingenuous at best. You said yourself that you perferred OOT when it was a smaller forum with a tight-nit group. I have a hard time believing that your opposition to an A&E forum has anything to do with the fear that somehow this web site's advertising revenue will drop if it is added. "

Please elaborate as to what you don't buy. Use some facts, logic, and reasoning instead of making silly statements like "I have a hard time believing" or other completely unsupported conjecture. Have I even said anywhere in this thread whether I personally would prefer a split or not?

I've had many discussions w/ Astro about how I'd like to see OOT changed. However, I know enough about this business to understand that many of the changes that would make OOT a place that I (and many other posters, including diebitter, I'm sure) would like much more than the current version of OOT would also result in far less traffic to the site.

Most of the issues the "pro-split" camp complains about could be solved simply by making some changes to OOT. However, they couldn't be solved without negatively impacting the traffic, something that a split would also very likely do.

[tuq]

DB -

2 1/2 hours ago you made this post:

[ QUOTE ]
quite right. I'm just repeating myself now, and I think the arguments I've made are reasonably clear and solid, so I'll shove off now.

Pip pip and nighty night, all.

[/ QUOTE ]
And yet you are still forcing your agenda. My question is, don't you think the [censored] rule should be in effect? That is, when you say you're going to bed you should refrain from posting for at least six hours?

I mean, you're my favorite Brit this side of Paul McCartney, but if you say you're going to sleep, then you should stop posting and pretend as such.

[El Diablo]

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.

[diebitter]

Sorry man.

El D. never got a response on that, and I felt he might like to expand on it. I'm going now, okay?

sheesh.


Tell you what, I'll go quiet for the next 6 hours, give you all a chance to catch up [img]/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img]

[Blarg]

[ QUOTE ]
ok, after having waded through the many new responses to this thread, I am still confused about a couple points that seem to be recurring

1. people upset about their (movie review) threads getting "buried" -- are you arguing that the movie reviews you post should remain within the top 5-10 threads actively being bumped in OOT at any given time? are there people that are so lazy that they can't simply view the 2nd, 3rd, 4th and maybe even 5th (!) pages of OOT topics to find your movie reviews?

[/ QUOTE ]

I don't know if this was quick reply or not, but if it was addressed to me, I only did I think two or three reviews and they got plenty of responses. I don't feel in any way bad or that they should have gotten more or fewer responses. Since there is a movie review link list kept active by diebitter, I don't even feel they're gone, really. People can still see them if they want to.

I'm sure that anything that falls off the first page gets way less looks, though. That can happen pretty rapidly, and I don't blame people for not wanting to write reviews in OOT for that reason.

[ QUOTE ]
2. People find topics in OOT distasteful or scary -- I mentioned it in a previous post. how gay is this? Is somebody's hand trembling on their mouse as they hover their cursor over "Other Other Topics?" do they look at the topic list and gasp because they're so flabbergasted that somebody might have typed the word "sex" on the "world wide web??" Who the hell are these people?

[/ QUOTE ]

Beats me. I merely find some topics unpleasant, and when I do, I skip 'em.

[Aloysius]

Question - what has actually been the impact to Sports posts by moving it out of OOT and creating a Sports forum? I only read strat posts until about a year ago, so I have no idea.

The only anecdotal evidence I have is seeing "Ask Nation about the NBA" get a ton of responses, way more than I've seen any other NBA thread get (and way more than it would've gotten in the Sports forum).

-Al

[disjunction]

[ QUOTE ]
El Diablo,
Your constant harping on "the best business interests of 2+2" comes off as disingenuous at best. You said yourself that you perferred OOT when it was a smaller forum with a tight-nit group. I have a hard time believing that your opposition to an A&E forum has anything to do with the fear that somehow this web site's advertising revenue will drop if it is added.

[/ QUOTE ]

That's a little bit of a harsh judgement on 2+2's favorite rhetorical pit-bull. For lots of people who spend enough time on 2+2, it's interesting to think about what affects their profits, even if they don't have a direct interest either way.

[tuq]

[ QUOTE ]
Question - what has actually been the impact to Sports posts by moving it out of OOT and creating a Sports forum? I only read strat posts until about a year ago, so I have no idea.

The only anecdotal evidence I have is seeing "Ask Nation about the NBA" get a ton of responses, way more than I've seen any other NBA thread get (and way more than it would've gotten in the Sports forum).

-Al

[/ QUOTE ]
I wasn't around (though I did lurk for a long time prior to my reg: date) and this answer would be interesting to me too.

Breaking sports off no doubt made perfect sense. As for Nation's superb NBA thread, it's a shame it got moved. It was high traffic and contained thoughtful responses by a lot of OOT'ers who probably never go to the sports forum.

Why this single thread bothered ElD so much that he wanted it to be moved - not sure how much he was the catalyst but that's about when it happened - I have no idea.