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

[El Diablo]

k,

I would split the current OOT into two forums, not three. Obviously, they would be called OOT North and OOT South.

[Blarg]

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mat,

there is much less of a problem with posts/threads being buried than the vocal whiners would have you believe.

darwinism kids!

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Actually, any high-volume forum will have good posts buried as a matter of course.

In OOT's case, I wouldn't call it darwinism so much as survival of the fartest.

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How long have you been waiting to use that one?

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It just came up. I did wait almost 20 years to tell one joke, though. "I know how to spell banana, but I don't know when to stop." Best line ever invented, at least once every 20 years or so.

[El Diablo]

shemp,

SF Pirate Store

[pryor15]

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Mat,

I see OOT currently as something like this:

Arts & Entertainment
Food/Drink/Restaurants/Bars
Relationships/Love Advice
Style/Clothing/Fashion
Hot Girls/nsfw/etc
Jokes/Web links/Video clips/Funny stuff
Education/Career/Business
Other

If I were you, I'd probably break this up into two forums, something like:

Arts & Entertainment
Food/Drink/Restaurants/Bars
Style/Clothing/Fashion
Education/Career/Business

Relationships/Love Advice

Hot Girls/nsfw/etc
Jokes/Web links/Video clips/Funny stuff
Other

I suspect there's a big overlap between stuff that most OOT users would not care about being removed from OOT and the stuff that some non-OOT users don't care to wade through in OOT. I think a good case could be made for putting the Relationships/Love Advice stuff in either forum.

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someone's gonna ask this, so let's get it out of the way:

and the difference between this and what you've been against the whole thread is what exactly? seems like the same thing, only bigger.

not that i don't agree with you, i'm just curious how one is good, while the other brings certain doom.

[Dids]

I almost see El D's suggestion as mirroring what I've seen on other boards.

One forum is a "life" forum. One is simply a "other other topics". It doesn't exactly fit, but something like that.

[elwoodblues]

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I suspect you do not have any experience on the business side of high volume content/discussion sites, is that correct?

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I suspect that I probably have the most experience with this (at least in terms of content, not discussion.) I work for a company that provides on-line legal research service (well over 20,000 databases --- more information that the library of congress digitized.) I worked for several years developing our interface. Whether my gut reaction to the potential split is correct doesn't change the fact that it doesn't sound to me like the right things are being thought about by those proposing the split.

[raisins]

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how about, if it's an 'a&e' topic, put 'A&E: " in the title, like we do with 'OT' in non-ot forums

then those that don't like OOT can just scan for A&E: or even do a title search for threads with 'A&E:' in the title...

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best idea in the thread

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Did everyone read this? Just checking.

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I'd like to hear someone tell me why this wouldn't work.

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Why have only two people commented on this idea when it is clearly the best idea in a thread of rock-em-sock-'em punditry and a valid compromise for people who a) think that their threads get knocked down too far (use the search for A&E -re:...that's what it's for) and b) people who are too scared to go to OOT can tiptoe through the peepee and poopoo to find the A&E.

Let's just do this as a compromise and maybe tone down the poop/NSFW.

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The reason this hasn't gotten more than a couple of comments, all by opponents of the split, is that it's a poor idea that serves no one. The issue here isn't just the creation of a new forum but a change in the demographics. OOT because of the youth of the crowd that hangs out there, is going to be receptive to a given range of discussion on A&E topics. The most popular topics in any forum are going to be those that appeal to the largest denominator. If an A&E forum starts up it changes the crowd and that is what will lead to "clearer, more focused discussions" and to threads not being bumped off as quickly. I'm not going to guess about Sports but I would bet that Politics and SMP both have a higher average age than OOT did at the time of their split. El Diablo made the comment that he might well prefer it if OOT was to be 25 and up. This is a round about way of doing that, or at least getting that effect for discussion of A&E stuff. The other side of the coin is that when those topics are removed from the realm of the OOT crowd there will be a shift in that population as well. It will most likely get smaller.

Titling posts "A&E" is useless. You can tell by the listing of a thread whether it has anything to do with entertainment. Movie titles, band names, and "book club" in the title are strong hints for the more discerniing OOTiots.

raisins

[Nicholasp27]

what it does is allow people who won't click on 'Other Other Topics' to simply search for threads with 'A&E:' in them; then they can browse through the results, thus never entering the part of OOT that they are scared of

and we are arguing that there is a balance in OOT now and it shouldn't be disturbed...so a compromise for those who wanna find their A&E threads is titles for searching purposes

[edtost]

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Mat,

I see OOT currently as something like this:

Arts & Entertainment
Food/Drink/Restaurants/Bars
Relationships/Love Advice
Style/Clothing/Fashion
Hot Girls/nsfw/etc
Jokes/Web links/Video clips/Funny stuff
Education/Career/Business
Other

If I were you, I'd probably break this up into two forums, something like:

Arts & Entertainment
Food/Drink/Restaurants/Bars
Style/Clothing/Fashion
Education/Career/Business

Relationships/Love Advice

Hot Girls/nsfw/etc
Jokes/Web links/Video clips/Funny stuff
Other

I suspect there's a big overlap between stuff that most OOT users would not care about being removed from OOT and the stuff that some non-OOT users don't care to wade through in OOT. I think a good case could be made for putting the Relationships/Love Advice stuff in either forum.

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someone's gonna ask this, so let's get it out of the way:

and the difference between this and what you've been against the whole thread is what exactly? seems like the same thing, only bigger.

not that i don't agree with you, i'm just curious how one is good, while the other brings certain doom.

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a split such as the one el d suggests avoids the pitfall of breaking up the

Arts & Entertainment
Food/Drink/Restaurants/Bars
Style/Clothing/Fashion
Education/Career/Business

grouping, which provides most of the threads lots of posters are interested in. when you start breaking up that group, you run the risk of the one forum being taken over by the

Hot Girls/nsfw/etc
Jokes/Web links/Video clips/Funny stuff
Other

crowd, and losing the traffic that would have gone into discussing

Food/Drink/Restaurants/Bars
Style/Clothing/Fashion
Education/Career/Business

and you also avoid making a large group of posters look at more than one forum to see what interests them, while also shielding them from what they don't want to bother with.

[bobbyi]

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how about you read the posts I have made and comment on the reasoning I have explained in detail based on my experience with online businesses.

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Would you have (or did you) apply the same reasoning when sports was separated from OOT? If not, how is this different? If so, why did that split not have the sort of dire consequences that you predict for this one?