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Condense the media forum

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Why not just merge all three sections under the title 'multimedia'? There isn't really enough activity to divide them into two sections as Roary suggested, audio and visual; having 3 sections is even more meh in terms of activity.
 
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.

Let me ask you this, because I don't think activity will change regardless if there is no sub sections, 2 sub sections, or even 5 sub sections. Why is forum activity imperative for these type of forums? These sort of categories are a necessity to any website with a forum. There will be moments where there is no discussion, and moments when there are. This is a market oriented site. We're lucky to have the current amount of community participants (even though most are vading) posting around keeping discussions going. The media forum is one of the more active forums in my eyes, and the sub sections that go along with it don't do bad, so I fail to see the need to change anything. People will never be satisfied with the structure of the forum.
 
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Why not just merge all three sections under the title 'multimedia'? There isn't really enough activity to divide them into two sections as Roary suggested, audio and visual; having 3 sections is even more meh in terms of activity.

That's exactly what I am saying.

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

I want to keep shit contained.

Let me ask you this, because I don't think activity will change regardless if there is no sub sections, 2 sub sections, or even 5 sub sections. Why is forum activity imperative for these type of forums? These sort of categories are a necessity to any website with a forum. There will be moments where there is no discussion, and moments when there are. This is a market oriented site. We're lucky to have the current amount of community participants (even though most are vading) posting around keeping discussions going. The media forum is one of the more active forums in my eyes, and the sub sections that go along with it don't do bad, so I fail to see the need to change anything. People will never be satisfied with the structure of the forum.

So your argument is activity doesn't matter? So have zero posts on the entire forum for the last year is perfectly ok? I'm going to dismiss your argument because it would destroy the site. I'm not sure if you want that or are just being dense but whatever.
 
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I would rather it be one forum, with subforums. Simple and organized.

The fuck does that even mean? I don't think you even read the OP.
 
That's exactly what I am saying.



I want to keep shit contained.



So your argument is activity doesn't matter? So have zero posts on the entire forum for the last year is perfectly ok? I'm going to dismiss your argument because it would destroy the site. I'm not sure if you want that or are just being dense but whatever.

I'm saying you shouldn't expect high end activity in those type of forums because you won't get it. The site won't die because media isn't receiving a lot of activity. I'd argue that it's just behind general discussion in activity.
 
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I don't get your argument Ghast. Just because sythe.org is a market based site we shouldn't bother trying to promote discussion? There is no expectations or anything like that, it's just trying to optimize the section. There's no harm in doing it and then if it's not ideal, adding sub-sections where necessary.

I'm still firmly in agreeance with SuF in removing all of the sub-sections.
 
I don't get your argument Ghast. Just because sythe.org is a market based site we shouldn't bother trying to promote discussion? There is no expectations or anything like that, it's just trying to optimize the section. There's no harm in doing it and then if it's not ideal, adding sub-sections where necessary.

I'm still firmly in agreeance with SuF in removing all of the sub-sections.

Activity is dependent on the user, not the forum. Condensing sub forums accomplishes nothing. I'm saying this isn't a community orientated site, so community participants who aren't vading are limited. We can't force users to post in forums they don't want to post in, so collapsing sub forums does nothing useful. How do you promote the section by taking parts of it down? Maybe I'm the only one who sees this as counter productive. If you want to tackle forums that generate little to no activity, target cryptocurrency.

Edit: I'd also like to add that I'm not going to lose sleep or complain if by some way an unnecessary change were to happen. This isn't my forum, and all that matters is my perspective on the issue is shown.
 
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Don't tarnish my beloved Music section you schlags.
 
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Activity is dependent on the user, not the forum. Condensing sub forums accomplishes nothing. I'm saying this isn't a community orientated site, so community participants who aren't vading are limited. We can't force users to post in forums they don't want to post in, so collapsing sub forums does nothing useful. How do you promote the section by taking parts of it down? Maybe I'm the only one who sees this as counter productive. If you want to tackle forums that generate little to no activity, target cryptocurrency.

Edit: I'd also like to add that I'm not going to lose sleep or complain if by some way an unnecessary change were to happen. This isn't my forum, and all that matters is my perspective on the issue is shown.

I don't know, from personal experience I usually can't be bothered going into the sub-forums so extended periods of time will go on without me venturing into those depths
 
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bump. @Sythe, oh wait that doesn't work.
 
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I think music and movies should be separate; however, movies and video clips should of course be combined.
 
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I'd keep them all separate like they are for now. They are all different enough not to warrant a merge IMO
 
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I'd keep them all separate like they are for now. They are all different enough not to warrant a merge IMO

Personally I think Video Clips and Movies/TV aren't different enough to warrant keeping them as separate sections, they would fit quite nicely together. Music of course can stay separate as that's completely different but there's a lot of overlap between the two other subsections.
 
Personally I think Video Clips and Movies/TV aren't different enough to warrant keeping them as separate sections, they would fit quite nicely together. Music of course can stay separate as that's completely different but there's a lot of overlap between the two other subsections.

I mean how aren't they different? Unless the video clips are movie/tv specific, then they are entirely different.
 
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I mean how aren't they different? Unless the video clips are movie/tv specific, then they are entirely different.

I agree that they are different, however if I were to pick 2 subforums in the media section to be condensed then the fact that there is a potential for overlap for these 2 means to me that they should be the ones chosen, at least considering the level of activity in both of those subforums. To answer your question about why forum activity is imperative for these types of subforums, it just makes sense to only split subforums when the activity level warrants it - for example we wouldn't be putting all Runescape gold transactions in one large subforum. There's simply too many threads to be made to have it like that. However, we can afford to have private server gold, items, and misc. all in the same subforum because of the fact that the activity doesn't warrant splitting it up into Ikov gold sales, Ikov gold buying, RSPSPK gold sales and buying, etc. Just my 2 cents.
 
I agree that they are different, however if I were to pick 2 subforums in the media section to be condensed then the fact that there is a potential for overlap for these 2 means to me that they should be the ones chosen, at least considering the level of activity in both of those subforums. To answer your question about why forum activity is imperative for these types of subforums, it just makes sense to only split subforums when the activity level warrants it - for example we wouldn't be putting all Runescape gold transactions in one large subforum. There's simply too many threads to be made to have it like that. However, we can afford to have private server gold, items, and misc. all in the same subforum because of the fact that the activity doesn't warrant splitting it up into Ikov gold sales, Ikov gold buying, RSPSPK gold sales and buying, etc. Just my 2 cents.

I ask you this. Is there a need for anything to be condensed? I think that's the biggest question here. Keeping it separate has more benefit than condensing the two. Comparing a market forum to a non-market forum doesn't make much sense.
 
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I ask you this. Is there a need for anything to be condensed? I think that's the biggest question here. Keeping it separate has more benefit than condensing the two. Comparing a market forum to a non-market forum doesn't make much sense.

In that case why isn't Sports, Health and Fitness split up into subforums of 1. Sports, and 2. Health and Fitness? Or Cryptocurrency, Finance, & Gambling Discussion split up into 1. Cryptocurrency discussion, 2. Finance discussion and 3. Gambling discussion?
 
In that case why isn't Sports, Health and Fitness split up into subforums of 1. Sports, and 2. Health and Fitness? Or Cryptocurrency, Finance, & Gambling Discussion split up into 1. Cryptocurrency discussion, 2. Finance discussion and 3. Gambling discussion?

Sports, Health, and Fitness are all interchangeable. Cryptocurrency, Finance, and Gambling are all interchangeable.

Music, Movies/Television, and Video Clips are not.
 
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