Should EDF and The Lounge be merged?

[El Diablo]

Thought this might be a better place for mods to respond rather than in ATF.

Al's post:

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EDF and The Lounge have the exact same "charter" and purpose: mature, in-depth, deeper content posting. I understand The Lounge has its own "community" but it's what, and let's be honest here, 10 regular posters at most?

I think rolling these 2 forums up into 1 makes alot of sense. They are basically cannibalizing each other right now. The introduction and assimilation of the regular Lounge posters to EDF, or vice versa, would make for a more robust, entertaining single forum, imo.
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My response:

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I don't think that's all that unreasonable a suggestion, though currently I see at least two things that would have to be changed to make it work in a way that I think makes sense for a number of experienced 2+2 users:

a) Game/list type threads like "Post a picture of your favorite DVD" or "Post a funny picture of a dog" would have to be moved to POG or LoL or someplace.

b) There were no restrictions/editing of people simply for tone/aggressiveness in heated discussions, as long as they were staying on topic and not being personally insulting or over-the-top offensive/antagonistic.

As I see it right now, the forums are like this:

EDF is OOT for people who have been around a while and are not interested in wading through tons of stuff, but instead want to check out a relatively small number of high-quality threads/posts with pretty much no restrictions on content.

Lounge is OOT for people who want a kinder, gentler, friendlier place to post whatever and play fun games and stuff. A safe haven for people who feel intimidated or turned off by the discussion on OOT.

BBV4L is OOT for people who want to focus on topics that are generally more of interest to younger people, is generally more focused on fun rather than serious discussion, and is very receptive to somewhat raunchier content.

I think the nature of the forums might be a little more different than you realize. Since the tug regime was put in place, the Lounge consistently has more posts than EDF. On the other hand, EDF consistently has more viewers than the Lounge. I think that speaks to the difference in nature between the forums and their respective groups of users.
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