Condense the media forum

This was talked about in a previous thread and it had support. It would simply involve removing the subforums of the media section. Video clips has threads as old as october on the first page. Movies only has three that have been posted on today while music has four. I'd also argue that there is massive overlap between those three subforums, like music awards where you might post a Youtube link to a live performance that you saw on TV. Fits all of the categories and users browsing any of those categories may be interested in that content and we should make it easy for them to find it, view it, and contribute to it.

 

Support, I think it would for sure make it more active.

 

I agree. The movie section won't ever get more active unless there are somehow a dozen great TV shows out at the same time and enough people wants to discuss about it on Sythe. I don't visit the other sub sections but it seems like Music is on the same boat.

 

Isn't this so if the sections are separated? Just for easy access, I would prefer it if the sections were as they are, but i'm not fussed either way.

 

People generally only visit a few forums on each visit so it is less likely for them to see a thread since they will more likely than not only visit one of the subsections.

 

I agree with Donald. It's divided for convenience. That's like me going into a supermarket and there are no descriptive headings for each isle. This also keeps the forum in order, and does it rightfully so. Unless there is an underlying issue of concern with the forum, I think it should stay as it is.

 

I think it keeps the forum well structured to have these sections divided, it will keep things in order and more specific, even if some of these sections are fairly dead.

 

There is an underlying concern which is that all three sections are basically completely dead and combining them will help with that.

We can add structure with tags if it is really needed but since the sections are so closely related I don't think that it will be that big of a deal.

 

How about down to two subsections; audio and visual? If not, I see no problems with it and would be happy to make the change ASAP if there isn't much disagreement.

 

If all three sections are "completely dead", how does collapsing the forum make it "undead"?

 

That would essentially just merge the video clips and TV / Movies into one forum. I have suggested that before: http://www.sythe.org/denied-suggestions/986002-off-topic-forum-revisits.html and it was turned down because of the inherit differences in the forums and the fact that they were both at least someone active.

I addressed that in my OP but I can give the long version. It is abundantly clear that adding subsections for topics does nothing to increase the discussion of that topic unless there was so much preexisting activity that it became hard for users to filter out the threads for that topic from threads about other topics in some more general forum. The idea that adding forums for specific topics to encourage posts about that topic has been tried over and over again and has not generally worked. Look at the sports section which has been added and removed multiple times and although it has had great amounts of support, it has never been extremely active.

Why is the case? Well without very specific log data and A/B testing it is impossible to truly know. However with a bit of thought I believe we can figure it out. Users are not going to spend all that much time on Sythe unless there is content they wish to consume and discuss. Web users have very short attention spans which is why things such as bounce rate matter as much as they do. Uers are going to click on forums that they believe have content that they wish to see. If a section is active there will be a lot of content that they will want to view and they will stay on Sythe for a longer amount of time. In addition, since they found the content they wanted to it is going to condition them to return to that specific forum in the future. If they click on a forum that interests them but is inactive and has very little new or relevant content, they may still be satisfied with their visit. However, if they return and no new content is there, it is likely that they will be put off and conditioned to not visit that specific forum again.

In addition, it is likely that users will only click on forums that they already feel like they will like and it is less likely that they will click on a forum that they do not already feel like they will like. By merging two similar forums, the user will see more content that they would have otherwise not seen with the added benefit of it being content that is similar to content they already like.

By merging the sections you get more activity out of that section because there are more threads and more topics that are relevant to that section. However, you also get the added benefit of exposing users that like similar content to content they would not have otherwise seen which increases the likelihood of them adding their own content. Merging the forums also reduces the number of clicks that users have to do in order to get the content they want in front of them. If they click on a few forums that they want to see content for and all of them have no new content for them they are likely to get dissuaded from clicking on the next forum that may have new content that they would have otherwise enjoyed.

Obviously if a section is too active, it becomes hard for users to find the content that they are interested in. In this case this would drive overall activity down since users would find less content they would contribute to. This is when subforums are optimal so that users can more easily find the content that they want. With sections that combined only would have only a handful or two of threads that were posted on in a day it is unlikely that a user would miss any content that they would have liked to contribute to.

 

Not a very good argument for not doing it IMO

Another idea is to have media (main section for TV/movies/music) and a sub off that for video clips?

I think one section for all 3 would be a bit of a mess.

 

I find the Media sub-sections to just be cumbersome and hide things since the amount of threads we actually have are all hidden under a multitude of sub sections which leads to them not seeing the light. In terms of stickied threads, quite a few can be un-stickied to prevent a backlog.

There's not really the sheer amount of threads that any sub-sections are needed.

I think we should proceed by collapsing it all and then if it becomes a mess (doubtful), they can be reinstated as necessary without trying to predict which will be needed beforehand

 

There has been literally 73 threads posted on in the Video Clips section last year. It should have been completely removed years ago. I don't think whether to remove that section or can really be discussed. It is completely inactive and I see no value from keeping it. I am just assuming that it is going away and thus I think the best place for users to put threads that used to go in that section would be in the combined media section instead of off topic.

 

Or could go in off-topic, to be honest, if there's discussion to come from it

 

Majority of the threads I've seen have just been "look at this lol", they don't illicit much discussion generally so I'd rather them be in Media

 

That is one reason I would rather keep it in its own section.

 

You mean not have it's own section @SuF?

 

No? ..

 

They dont illicit much discussion other than "lol" seems to be more of an argument for them not having an entire section of their own, to me any way