[CnC] Forum Restructure

No, that is exactly what you started off with. I'm saying, what is obvious to you may not be obvious to others. I said I personally think making the forum smaller makes it more organized which helps people navigate and participate.

I also said: There's no reason to not readjust the forum if it could be beneficial.
and: Hopefully something can/will be done eventually if the change is perfected and wanted.

Meaning, to the majority. Not to me, not to just five people. The majority. You aren't putting in any reason, you're simply saying that the forum doesn't need changing. Yes, I personally think it could use some. No, that doesn't make it any more strong than your point, but you aren't using any reasoning. You seem to just be stubborn to me more than anything else. Give a good reason, not just that past changes haven't been improvements. Who's to say the past changes haven't been overall improvements? You? That, again, is you using opinion as fact.

 

I'm going to use this as an example SuF



The general discussion decreased in activity over the years, what was the cause?

Here are some practical reasons:

1. Less active users.
2. Active members being banned.
3. Less topics to discuss.

Can this not by said about any other forum that has decreased in activity as well?

But let's say general discussion wasn't a very ideal forum to begin with. Do you remove it because it's not attaining the same numbers it had in prior years, exempting it's potential? Or do you keep it to have it there in case there are new topics to be discussed? There is a self gratification when removing forums on this site. I've witnessed it for years. It's the same thing with forum restructuring. There is no visible change that renders the structure impractical , it's just that we feel it's obsolete. In effect, it's a placebo we give ourselves. We all know that there is a forum decline, so in efforts to change it, we do whatever we think helps it. The thing is, it doesn't help it at all. There is an unnecessary panic element to this all.

I'm providing statistics. Look at dates of when a forum restructure occurred, and tell me if it helped the forum. If the market does good, the site does good, if the market does bad, the whole site does bad.

 

General discussion is a catch all that will never run out of topics nor out of people who want to talk about them. Not sure if that makes the best example because removing it will never make sense.

 

"But let's say general discussion wasn't a very ideal forum to begin with."

I was hypothetically speaking. It does make sense when you apply the cause and effect to other forums with less activity than it used to have.

 

I think it's a good idea to do a forum restructure but maybe try to come up with a few different potential structures and possibly vote on it? I personally think some sections need to be removed and rules need to be loosened to promote discussion in areas such as the spam forum,

viral threads in spam forum is pretty gay and makes this site look like the owner enjoys dog porn
report a scammer appears twice
maybe put runescape cheating as a subsection under rs 3 and rs 07 cheating
graphics marketplace appears twice
feedback and community input are the same thing to be honest

The forum will have to change slowly from Runescape to a new niche but you can't make such a radical change at once.

Also in my opinion market tools should appear before the market because we should promote safe trading measures before problems occur, the market tools section currently provides information regarding middleman services, safe trading measures, price checks, and report a scammer could remain at the bottom of the page like it currently does since it gives a bad image being right at the top. This site won't move away from being a market to a gaming discussion forum but it can atleast promote safe measures to ensure those users stay longer by not getting scammed so quickly.

If you want general discussion to be active merge it with something for all it's not like there's any intellectual discussions going on in half the threads in SFA at the moment anyways. Right now all of the rules in SFA discourage discussion because it promotes a standard many are afraid they cannot actively participate in without getting infracted.

 

The first RaSc is a redirect (not sure if you noticed that)

I like the market tools moving (Y)

 

If the "majority" can provide any form of data that supports the redesign of the forum being effective, then I will apologize to anyone who felt offended by my unoffensive demeanor, and support the cause.

 

But I reject that premise because it makes no sense. . I'd be more happy to remove more specific forums than I would to remove more general ones.

 

SFA is not moderated at all right now, or at least not up to a good standard.

 

Almost all of the stuff discussed in SFA can be discussed in general discussion can't it? I mean the people who post something irrelevant will still be infracted it just makes the SFA forum have the appeal of intellectual discussion when it really doesn't play that role anymore. There's currently 1875 "intelligent" posts in SFA is it really that different from what could be discussed in general forums. I'm sure these topics would promote a lot more discussion if there wasn't a quarter of a page of rules to abide by

 

I'll agree with you there.

 

Yea it could but I enjoy the structured discussion.

 

I stopped cleaning SFA because I figured unintelligent responses were better than none It would be fine merged but it's kinda Richard's section that I wouldn't change without his saying so

 

I think that has the opposite effect.

Edit:

SFA averages 39.0656 posts / thread
Gen Discussion averages 18.95161 post / thread

 

It's most likely due to the fact that the discussions are far more interesting but threads like this: http://www.sythe.org/something-all/...tion-read-before-posting-avoid-forum-ban.html would make it seem like it's better not to post in that section. I've been on here for 4 years and posted 20x more times in general than SFA.

You have to remember a lot of SFA is back and forth between 2-3 members. The rules in general can be edited and made a little stricter to promote some intellectual discussion but by separating the two you're essentially segregating the community into intellectual and dumb.

 

Richard has always wanted the rules to be very strict. There is a lot of back and forth between a few people but plenty of people post in there in spurts. I'll go in and post in there for a few days or something and then not for awhile. It's nice to be able to have somewhere that is longer lived that can be started back up at any time.

 

That's a good point but we shouldn't focus on increasing general discussion then because those interesting topics which everyone wants to get involved in will remain in SFA. Either we can focus on being a market or a community but trying to achieve both is fairly difficult and won't be possible solely through a forum restructuring, to build a community everyone needs to feel included. We've been here fairly long and wouldn't be intimidated by that wall of rules but a new member who finds a topic interesting may decide against posting their opinion because they might feel it could be seen as irrelevant.

 

The direction of this thread went a 720.

 

Sometimes a discussion has to go back and forth between ideas in a different light to come to a conclusion. I know you're against removing sections but cleaning up the structure can promote activity, a clear direction on what this restructuring hopes to achieve would be a better discussion before deciding what to add and what to remove, which is what I feel most of the members on this thread are currently trying to do. We all have different opinions on what will succeed but we should also be able to back up why our claims can promote activity.

If our focus was solely on increasing traffic I would say continue to update viral threads but as we seen none of the members who joined contributed which was quite redundant. If the focus is the market we can promote safe trading measures or focus on new markets, and if the focus is to develop a community then segregating it won't achieve this purpose.

 

The market has always been our blood and the way most people find us. The community used to be amazing and people would stay around because of the people. There was always somewhere to post and someone to talk to. You could find people to play games with and there was always people on to have discussions. A lot has contributed to the destruction of this and we can gain traffic and use that to rebuild our community. I think that is completely doable.