This forum needs a makeover

[B00T]

great idea with posting the current lines

[DinkinFlicka]

Maybe the traffic isn't so high because people come here and don't come back. Set it up so it's organized to promote the higher traffic. Serious bettors are usually segmented in the way they bet. I am personally an NBA Totals bettor, that is my specialty. I don't know too many bettors who can just bet on any event and/or style of bet intelligently.

I am not saying everything has to be broken down into sub categories of sub categories, but at least by sport. You can sticky 1 thread per NFL game each week. Things will be much smoother. Put a little blurb on the main 2+2 page that the Sports Betting section is new and improved and the traffic will increase and people will be more likely to keep coming back because they can find what they want quickly.

I don't understand why the amount of traffic should determine if the forum needs to be segmented. Shouldn't the nature of the bets do that like it does for poker? If you build it they will come. Imagine going to the NL Holdem forum and having to dodge 10 PLO threads, 4 Limit HE threads, and some pineapple threads. That's basically what's it's like in Sports betting, because it is not segmented there is going to be a high percentage of irrelevant material to navigate around for almost everyone.

The way the board is set up now it doesn't lend itself to encouraging new users to return as much as it could. Don't take it personally that I'm saying this, I don't mean to have a knowitall tone or anything like that. I'm just saying that organization and segmentation is a good thing in regards to sports betting. Why not try it out?

[Performify]

Not taking it personal in the slightest. [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

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Why not try it out?

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The changes you're suggesting are actually incredibly hard to make happen.

I don't own this place. I'm just an unpaid volunteer who runs one small section of the site within the rules and guidance handed down from above and according to the will of the people.

We're maybe the 10th-15th largest forum on the board from the last numbers I've seen, and there's a huge fall-off from the top five or so. When the largest forum wanted to split off one additional forum, it took several weeks of discussion to make it happen.

I can certainly propose that we create a whole host of subforums. But i really don't think its going to be well received. You're talking about a fundamental change from the way the rest of the site is run.

I've personally been involved with building and monetizing forums and web properties for a long time. "Build it and they will come" is a very common misconception with forums.

People don't use forums because they look pretty or they are organized well or any of that. They use forums for the community and the content. Its one of the huge dangers of segmenting a forum -- forum value is defined by the network effect, which is to say that the value is exponential to the number of users. A forum with 1000 users is exponentially (not linearly) more valuable than a forum with 100 users as long as its well moderated and well run.

I'm certainly interested and open to suggestions to improve things. If there's an overwhelming consensus of people proposing and supporting this sort of massive split and segmentation, we can carry it forward. But "why not try it out" isn't going to fly. [img]/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img]

Sporting Events makes this fly with significantly more traffic and only a single place to discuss all sports. I think we can make the forum fly with one forum for all sports betting. Again, if there were a ton of posts per day I could see fighting for segmenetation -- but there are only one or two total pages worth of active threads per day. You should be able to scan at least the active topics for the day in 5 minutes or less and only head in to the NFL or NBA or whatever threads you're interested in. Especially so if we consolodate the total number of threads with this "official whatevertime whateversport whateverdate" thread concept.

-P

[BennettBrauer]

Like the new thread idea. Try it for a month and see what sticks. Plus, you can always consolidate Sunday into 1 thread. But I think, later in season, having Thu, Sat, Sun, Sun nite, Mon nite will be better.

[Thremp]

Quality > Quantity

Hooray I'm again 1-0 on the year on my posted picks... Perhaps I should post all picks to guarantee winnerz or just bet double down after I post?

Granted sample size is like 5 picks I've made in like 10 months since I took a short retirement.

[Jazzy3113]

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B00T, how long has that been there?????

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I gots no clue what you are talkin about [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

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That piece of sand in your vag.

Seriously, though I like the way the threads are totally spread out. Each individual game requires its own thread for analysis and discussion. If you put every nfl game in one thread how the hell can any coherent discussion go on.

If you dont like people making their own threads about rand picks, dont open thread or block posts from that user. Please dont make it a rule to talk about nfl games in one thread as I think that will hurt producitivty and especially in depth discussion

P.S. I for one do NOT want higher traffic. Search other forums and see what type of posters sports betting gathers. Its worse than NVG sometimes. A few people who watch football alot and like to help each other out or at least debate lines is much better than a million people simply posting nonsense.

[funkytown]

I'm relatively new and I think you're right. I also want to add their should be a three strike and out policy on attacking others. Disagreeing is one thing, but attacking is childish and uncalled for.

[B00T]

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Each individual game requires its own thread for analysis and discussion.

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Please dont make it a rule to talk about nfl games in one thread as I think that will hurt producitivty and especially in depth discussion

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Better off with sand in my vag than in my brain cells.

[DinkinFlicka]

I'm not saying that people will come here because of the look, I am saying they will come here because they will quickly find what they are interested in (specific sports betting content).

There is a core of people here that will always use the sports betting forum no matter what kind of organization it has and they are comfortable with that. However there are lots of users who come here for the poker forums, stop into the sports betting forum and quickly realize that it is not nearly as organized or as useful as the poker forums. This includes a lot of users who aren't represented in your poll.

I know a little bit about websites as well and it is extremely important that the first visit that a user makes to a site be a smooth and productive visit, or else there is a high probability that they will never come back. There are plenty of poker player/sports bettors who come here for poker and go somewhere else for sports, but that doesn't have to remain the case if things are improved.

You are a regular poster on this board, you need to see it from an outsiders point of view. Of course everything is simple to you, it's easy for you to say well just adjust this and there are only 5 pages of posts to read through no big deal.

If you want suggestions on how to improve this forum, the answer is simple. Break it down so users can find what they want quicker. Don't worry about the traffic so much right away, there is plenty of traffic on 2+2 and if you actually make things easier for handicappers to find specific information/discussion in regards to specific sports bets the board will grow. That's the key, the way the board is now it's not going to grow like it could. A lot of people here play poker as well and only have so much time to cruise the boards. The fact is that it's much more productive to use the poker forums. That doesn't mean that is the way that it always has to be. Give it a legit shot, if it doesn't work it doesn't work. It's not going to kill the forum, you already have a core in place that works through the rubble as it is and the traffic of the other forums already here make it certain that gamblers will have exposure to the new segmented forums.

I don't know the specifics of how hard it's going to be from a coding standpont, but I think it will be well worth it to the community as a whole. I understand that you are a volunteer, but you have to pride yourself somewhat on improving the forums when you can. The variety of sports bets is similar to that of poker and they are similar in that a PLO player has little interest in LHE discussion just like an NFL capper doesn't care about UFC and baseball. That's not to say that 1 person can't be interested in everything, it's just that to be a successful sports bettor you have to specialize even moreso than in poker. Accomodate these people and things will fall into place. Do you think the current system in place is ideally how a professional sports bettor wants information organized on a message board system? Is it more important to just keep the masses using this type of system for the sake of real pros?

The distinctions between the many aspects of sports betting will become much more clear, which will promote growth and eduction on the subject as a whole.

As you stated, I hope that you do propose the creation of subforums. I'm interested to see how well received it really is. I don't think it's much of a fundamental change from the way the rest of the site is run. In fact, I think lumping all of sports betting into 1 forum is fundamentally different from the rest of the site. Sports betting has so much variety just like poker.

Of course it's going to create forums that have very little traffic, but you have that in a lot of the poker forums already. It's not a bad thing. That is just the nature of certain games.

[dankhank]

i don't like the idea of sub-forums at all.

i notice you have a registration date on 2+2 from only a couple weeks ago. you might not yet see the degree to which this forum actually does operate in similar ways to the 2+2 poker forums. many threads are started with similar topics. some threads take off due to who the original poster is, or what some early responses say, or timing. others only get a few responses - although in some cases these responses are valuable, and the thread is essentially "complete".

imo this forum is not a segmented, specific, sterile forum like the poker strategy forums (divided by stakes), and it is not a free for all social scene like BBV or NVG either. it is in the middle of these extremes. so maybe the way this forum is organized seems chaotic to you. however you might underestimate the intuitive understanding that a longtime 2+2er will have when they first start to visit this forum.

imo the crowd we should be catering to most is the veteran 2+2er who has lots of gambling experience but not much in the sports betting area. we would do a disservice to those people if we split this forum up and made it harder for them when they wander in here, not really knowing what they are looking for.

(also we very much disagree about whether a succesful sports bettor needs to specialize in only a few sports, rather than bet all the sports, year round. although i may be wrong on this point as my results have been mediocre (but profitable) for two years running now...)