PROPOSAL

introduction
the lounge
-vip lounge
pictures
music / tv / movies
relationships
academia
-books
-debate
-school
-news
entertainment
-anime
-humor
-sandbox
-sports
interests
-art
-writing
-food
-technology
lifestyle
-boys locker
-girls locker
-health
-fashion

ok. before you go berserk, here's my reasons for the reoganization proposal. looking at how the forums are currently organized, some of the more popular forums are subforums, and some of the less popular ones are top level forums. so while i was working on the reoganization (with trish, although she may or may not be for it), i wanted to emphasize organization and popularity equally. i think its important to have popular forums as top level forums for the sake of ease of use; people dont like navigating 3243242 pages just to get to the page they want. on the other end, we dont want to waste pricey real estate on forums that are seldom active. i should note that when i say "popular" i do not mean how vocal a handful of members may be for a forum, but by the amount of the forum's topics / posts - they are the best indicators of how truly popular each forum is.


POINT BY POINT

vip lounge: i think the vip lounge best fits under the lounge because, frankly, its not that popular. i know that previously there were some complaints that having the vip lounge as a subforum meant that you dont see the last post info. i think this is a moot point as you can browse the lounge while keeping an eye at the vip lounge (they are, afterall, both lounge's). and once again, it is simply not popular enough to warrant wasting real estate space.

music / tv / movies: i did two things here, combined these forums into one and made it a top level forum. i remember saying this and i will say again: people who are intersted in music are also intersted in tv and movies. in another words, these forums go hand in hand. this is pretty evident when you look at how they are currently organized (separated), and music and movies / tv has a paltry 400 topics, combined. the reason why this combined forum is a top level forum is because of its popularity.

relationships: relationship is a top level forum once again because of its sheer popularity. 6,881 topics / 144,468 replies says a lot. and it would be quite a tedious task to have to navigate several pages to get to it, when it is obviously one of the most popular communiy center forums.

academia: here's a new forum catagory containing books, debate, school, and news. i should note that debate is moved here because, quite frankly, debate isn't popular (as much as some of you say it is). if you dont beleive me, look at the number of topics (149) and number of posts (6,312), and compare that to other top level forums and you'll see there's an oddity here. whats unfortunate is the "handful" who actually go there are very vocal members, making the debate forums seem more popular than it actually is. the number of topics / replies says all, and there is no reason why it should be a top level forum. plus, and it fits better here.

entertainment: this catagory contain forums that you watch (anime, sports), and well as forums that are fun (sandbox, humor).

intersts: art, writing, food and tech go here. i dont know what else to say.

lifestyle: lifestyle is essentially the same except relationships is moved to a top level forum, and school is moved to academia.


WHY DO IT?
so, why do it? the main reason is to make it easier to access the forums that are visited more oten, and thereby improve the overal forum experience for all (or the majority). at its current organization, its sad that some of the popular forums are pushed aside as sub forums (relationships / entertainment), forcing memebrs to navigate several pages between each one. with this new proposed organization, the more visted forums will be at the tip of your fingertips.

the reoganization isnt to revitalize teh community, its to make it easier to navigate to the more popular forums. and for consistency. i find the current organization rather disorganized.


SOME STATS
ive decided to make a little script to counter those who say that the debate topics are "viewed" more often (ie the total topic / posts counts are inaccurate).

http://www.createblog.com/forums.php?sort=views

if you go down to row 10, you'll see that the debate forum has 1148277 views - that's all of its topic views added up. this may be significant, but lets compare them with other top level forums (as proposed by this topic).

The Lounge: 8708936
Pictures: 7078437
General Entertainment: 4732072*
Relationships: 3145658

*excluding the other forums that have been separated (ie movies / tv / etc, that will be combined once again)

here you can see that the debate forum is indeed rather small (in terms of posts, topics, and views). to get another perspective, the fashion forum has 1267173 views, 100,000 more views than the debate forum. sandbox and boy's locker gets twice as much traffic with 1966236 and 2069196 views respectively, and the girls locker tree times with 3336441 total views. fashion, sandbox, boys locker, and girls locker are all subforums under the newly proposed organization.

if you look at the hard numbers, i think it is somewhat silly to suggest that debate be a top level forum. if that was the case, how about fashion? sandbox? boys locker? girls locker? they all recieve more traffic, in terms of posts, topics, and views.

also, for those who like the current organization, i wonder if you browse each and every forum daily. it gets rather annoying to have to go through several pages to get to the forums you want, the way its organized now..


LAST NOTES
subforums will be directly linked from the forum index, ie instead of forum descreptions, we'll have links to the subforums. this will help improve visibility and members will be able to directly "jump" to the subforums without having to go through the forum catagory first.

this is pretty much a copy and paste from the discussion i had on backstage, please excuse my organization, grammar, spelling.

Lol. lots of typos there Jusun, but anyways. Statistics doesn't really speak much imo though. I still think Debate should get it's own subforum and Fashion also. I could say Sports, also, but rarely anyone are into sports.

I think Debate is getting more interest currently though maybe, as we all get older or interest sways a bit. I mean those statistics could be added up when we were still a little younger, and everyone participated in the other forums more then.

^ sorry, i think i orginally wrote that in the wee hours of the morning and didnt check for grammer, spelling.

when you say "its own subforum", do you mean top level forum (ie, visible in the forum index?)

I can see putting music/movies/tv together, but it doesn't make much sense to keep the entertainment forum and not have them in it. I mean, that's pretty quintessential entertainment.

You could more or less just change around the current positioning, put the VIP lounge back in the lounge (and change the damn name!), and it'd be equally as effective, I would think.

Hmm, I C WUT U DID THAR.

Okay sorry about that.

Hmm, the way you organized it makes sense, but somehow I feel that anime should just be removed as a subforum and put into the "tv/music/film" top level forum. It's because hardly anyone visits it, so I feel that it should just be combined anyways, since it's technically television along with film. But then again, there are "manga" threads (Japanese comic books) which would belong in books then?

Now that I think about it, maybe that just makes it more confusing? Regardless, I still feel like the anime subforum isn't really that popular, so maybe it should just be incorporated into something bigger, that is all.

So is this only for the Community Center, and the Resource center remain, "as is"?

I like the proposal.

But we JUST reorganized.

I said it Backstage, and I'll say it again, what's the point of having Entertainment when there are lackluster forums under it? Sports and Anime could be moved under Interests, or Anime could be moved to Music/TV. And then Humor and Sandbox could be merged, somehow.

I agree with Spencer. We've JUST reorg-ed. And just gotten used to where everything is. Personally, I really do like VIP Lounge having its own subforum. Regular members can't see it anyways...so does it really have to be placed into the Lounge?

i think more than anything, music / movies / tv needs to be a top level forum simply because of its popularity, but i see your point here. ill mull over this during sleep and see if theres a better way to organize, or perhaps change the new "entertainment" forum catagory to something else to avoid confusion.



i dont think anime should be removed and dumped into music / movies /tv because it has its own subculture.. and so deserves its own forum.



yes, only the community center. the rresource center will stay as is.



sorry, i think saying "reorganized" is a misnomer. we JUST disorganized, maybe.

Please, no.

It isn't hard to navigate these as two separate subforums (as it is already), and combining them would just be counterproductive to what separating them was intended to do in the first place. The popularity of the forum itself, I feel, is a deterrent to more meaningful and thoughtful discussion (I am often discouraged to post in the lounge because good threads are so quickly buried by bad ones and people rarely put thought into their posts). By combining these threads you have another burial of threads and further deemphasis on meaningful topical discussion. Ideas get lost in the shuffle, and, trying to look for a thread you enjoyed is a lot more bothersome (believe you me) than looking for the subforums (that was never hard).

There is no good reason that we should combine these threads. It's just going to result in more drive-by posting and less of a focus. If I'm looking to talk about music, I like going to the music thread. If I'm looking to talk cinema, movies/tv worked. But, combining them isn't like... "great! It's all I wanted in the same place!" It's more like, "f**k! why would anyone do this?!"

If you're organizing by popularity, whatever. But to combine subforums, in-order to make a single popular forum, just seems counter-intuitive.

P.S. I don't think a complete overhaul is necessary anyways. I like the academia idea. Move VIP, sure. But, revamping everything is just needless.

Can we please leave the VIP Lounge where it is? Only 50 people TOPS can see it.

Did we all just forget the reasons we organized this the way we did in the first place?

Because certain people wanted to make the forum structure their way?

There was discussion about this a week ago in chat, and I can say a majority of people LIKED the way it was before.

sorry, i must have missed your psot backstage. sandbox actually recieves a lot of traffic (2x debate in terms of hits) and humor is right behind. i think i went with a new catagory instead of dumping these forums in interests catagory to keep subforums low, so that we can list and link them in hte forum index in place of the description.







hi,

i understand your position, but i think youre in the minority here. i think for most people, they will be more motivated to post in more popular forums, as it ensures the post being read more. this is why you see music and movies / tv topics still in "general entertainment" (Whatever taht's supposed to mean), simply because by posting htere rather than in their respective individual forums, you get more response.

also, if you look at the little stats script(here), the separated Movies/TV has a measly 262896 hits, and music not doing any better with 157372 hits. not to mention most of this traffic (and topics) where made previous to the organization and separation of the previously combined "entertainment" forum. in another words, after the separation, these two newly formed forums recived almost no traffic at all.

Agreed, and I also agree with Tung, on the Fashion forum front. The VIP is fine, because it is always the same people posting in it so I don't see the need to move it. I think the problem is down where the lifestyle section is. I remember when I cam here back in November, the locker rooms were constantly active. When it got revamped and they made the lifestyle section, the locker rooms lost ground to the other places.

I like the Academia idea.

As for the Entertainment structure. I'm not don't really have a problem with how it's set up now other than the fact that it's more clicks. And when I'm lazy, I don't bother clicking around all the forums. I kind of liked having everything in one convenient location.

I'm going to try and sum up what I said backstage days ago when this was first proposed. I was originally against this change. Personally I like the way the forums are organized at the moment. I had thought we'd received really great feedback from our members about the changes we made and any qualms they DID have with the structure, we tried to fix to their liking. But Jusun said something to me on AIM when we working this out together that night. This "good feedback" we were getting only came from a small percentage of the forum's population.

The last reorganization was meant to meet the demands/needs of the people who have posted in feedback various times. We put the VIP Lounge as its own forum for you guys because there was such a demand for it here. We gave Debate its own forum for the same reason.

So here is where we went wrong: there's only a handful of you guys posting in feedback with various complaints and demands. But look how many people there actually are on cB. Maybe the other members aren't as vocal or active, but I'm going to blame that on the fact that they get scared away by our more "popular" members. Or maybe they just don't feel the need to complain about every little thing that goes on around here. Who knows? Who cares? The changes we make should reflect the needs of everyone on this forum... not just a handful of members who happen to be more vocal.

THANK YOU.

i think whats really unfortunate here is that a few (handful really) very very vocal members made hell about "reorganizing" when it didnt remotely correlate with the statistics of what really is popular and what is not. otherwise, relationship, music / tv/ music would never been pushed aside as subforums.

Can I suggest that the people that are vocal about this are the ones that it actually affects?

I actually liked Relationships as its own forum before. In fact, I hardly visit it now, which is why I understand why you wouldn't want it there as a subforum.

I just feel sorry for the anime forum, as it's kind of just sitting there, probably receiving the least amount of traffic, even if it's considered its own "subculture". :/

I don't think it should have ever been reorganized in the first place. It was fine the way it was for years.

i agree that the locker rooms lost traction after the "reoganization". another classic example of how the "organization" actually stifled activity.

ideally, id like to have the locker rooms back as top level forums. but first, id like to test out how linking them directly in hte forum index will affect their popularity.

So you're saying we should only try and please you guys, but just ignore the rest of the population that visits this forum? A bit self centered of you guys, if you ask me. The way we organize the forums should encourage members to post more. So far people AREN'T posting any more than they used to. The debate forum still doesn't get as many hits. It rarely gets posted in. And I haven't actually confirmed this, but I'm willing to bet the Relationships forum hasn't been getting as many hits as it used to now that its a subforum.

Look at the numbers; they don't lie.

actually no. if we look as the stats, you are a very very small minority. even though ideally, we'd like to accomodate everyone, we cant accomodate the teeeny minority at the expense of the overwhelming majority.

in washington, you know them as "Sepcial interest groups". heard of them before?

You welcome.

I remember when the proposal was brought up, and me and Elba I believed wanted the forums to be just they way they were for the past few years. Who's idea exactly was it to change it anyways couple months ago?

in washington, you know them as "Sepcial interest groups". heard of them before?

i think it was a lot of peoples idea. people didn't like that all of our left-over subforums were getting pushed into Interests. Interests had so many subforums in it that everyone just got lost in there. I still think that was the case, so we decided to have more top level forums and tried to organize the subforums that used to be in Interests into smaller groups so that they were easier to browse.

people wanted the debate forum to have more of a spotlight to encourage more thoughtful posting/thinking, so we gave them that.

we put vip lounge in the lounge because it didnt have that many posts in it and we didnt think it deserved to be a top level forum, but then we got bitched out for it so we put it back to where it is now.

1. Isn't it counter-intuitive to combine "unpopular" forums to make them "popular?" You're just arbitrarily increasing the number of posts, etc. etc.
2. A popular forum is not necessarily a good forum. When will this community adopt quality over quantity?
3. Just because a thread has more posts and more views doesn't mean it's actually being read... in fact, I would argue, in more cases than not, it means it's not being read.
4. Crazy, again, but, when I post a topic I want appropriate and meaningful replies... quality over quantity. I don't post a topic to get a million replies - I would take ten good replies any day.
5. "General entertainment," is for all that bullshit that I don't want, even further, burying good and thoughtful topics.



If most of the traffic was from before the reorganization, how could you possibly say that having them together again will actually (in any meaningful way) increase the traffic? Further, I have noted, personally, an increase in the quality of discussion in these subforums, given the separation. You're argument that fewer posts is bad 1) does not really demonstrate that music/movies/tv have actually become unpopular by being separated (if they were "popular" together, they're going to be less popular apart, but that doesn't mean that the separation has actually seriously altered their normal traffic streams), 2) does not encourage improvement of the community, and 3) makes an unfair (and may a say foolish) evaluation of quantity as the highest value.

Again, you're just arbitrarily adding two moderately popular subforums, in order to make a supposedly "popular" top forum. What's the point? All you're going to do is create more worthless posts and bury more meaningful ones. If your point is accessibility, you can't possibly argue that adding these forums together is a good idea: more time will be spent searching the forum for topics made yesterday!

Wait. So we're going back to the way it was originally? It's really late right now, and I'm just not reading well.

we're going to organize it to how jusun has outlined in his first post.

"We're"? But I thought you're not on staff anymore. Or is this a general "we"? Just wondering.

I think what Steven was saying was that most people who don't care much for the forums, don't love or hate what they're doing here... aren't going to take notice to these sorts of changes. They might click a few more links, but, in reality this isn't going to improve the community (I could argue the exact opposite, actually). In a similar sense, those people that truly care to put in some semblance of an effort for an improved community, might be a bit more particular and a bit more vocal - it only makes sense.

Trust me, the majority of people probably don't have any serious feelings one way or the other. Are those the people you are supposedly catering to here?



I will still argue that this mentality is this communities primary folly.

Ban visible post counts!

General. Yanlin did say "So we're going..." Since my post was a response to hers, you can deduce that I am referencing the same "we" that she was talking about.

hi,

before you say anything further please study this carefully:

http://www.createblog.com/forums.php?sort=views

i think you misunderstood when i said we're combining music / tv / movies into one forum again and make it a top level forum. currently they are separated into three forums, "General Entertainment", "Movies/TV", "Music". Had you looked at the stats script more closely you would have realized that "General Entertainment" is the fourth mostly viewed forum (in terms of hits). So im not proposing to combine "unpopular" forums to make it "popular". Im recombining these three forums into one again because "Movies/TV" and "Music", the two separeted forums, recieve no traffic at all. most of the topics / posts were made before they were separeted, hence theres little reason why we need three when one will do.

when you say, and i quote: "'General entertainment,' is for all that bullshit that I don't want, even further, burying good and thoughtful topics.", you represent the very few minority who think that (again, look at the stats). so much bias and i have to wonder why you go through the tedious process of debate when you dont care about it in the first place? whats it to you anyway? its only one top level forum to ignore.

about quality of quantity: i generally agree with this, and createblog's quality layouts reflect this. did you know we'd have over 20k layouts if we indescriminately accepted all our layouts? but from the beginning, we accepted only layouts we precieved to be of generally higher quality. however, like so many things in life, you have to take this concept in moderation. taken to the extreme, this concept can be counter intuitive, as you see in these forums (entertainment and relationship ranked #3 and #5 in terms of traffic for community forums, are subforums). you have to understand that the majority of the forum members come here to have fun, want to relax and unwind, not to have heated conflicts, intellectional stimulation, or divulge themselves into a good debate. and when you consider that, you have to compromise and hopefully, god willing, go with the majority. in this case, the "majority" isn't the handful of dissenting voices, the "majority" is what the statistics portray.

this is when i wish i was better in english. i dont think im saying this right so i will give you another example. long time ago, cb used to be the #1 myspace layout site. but over the course of its history, there was a point when we only accepted div overlay layouts because we percieved it to be of "generally higher quality". how did this affect us? today, we're still struggling to get up there as the top providers of myspace layouts, because although div overlays have much more technical merit, the majority of the users are looking for standard layouts that they can simply copy and paste, and not fiddle around with the code.

so the lession here is: quality over quantity, ofcourse, but never alientate the majority at the expense of the minority.

once again, if you wish to reply to this, please please study the stats script so that you do not make another wrongly held assumption:

http://www.createblog.com/forums.php?sort=views

Holy f**k! That's even worse! f**k me! f**k me!

If those two subforums aren't popular you're just going to drown all the topics associated with them with the more popular "General entertainment!" That's a f**king dreadful idea! To anyone that has any care at all for these specific subforums - you're being a jerk. You're neglecting the minority who actually care for these subforums. Now, we will all be doomed to searching for our "measly" (you used that word a lot, right?) topics buried under a bombastic barrage of "Britney SPEARSs LOL GAgs LOLSs" and "Fav celeb haircutssz."

Don't you get it, you big jerk!? That thread was separated in the first place because topics with any sort of focus on music and or movies we're pushed out from the front page all the time (and this is far more a frustrating experience than clicking on a link... twice). All this "minority" "majority" mumbo jumbo doesn't really mean much, (watch me rephrase my argument now) given that attaching two unpopular subforums to a popular one, won't make the unpopular ones anymore popular... all it will do is bury the topics associated with those less popular subforums.

You're not helping the "majority" (or hurting them really) by combining these threads (other than by reducing the number of clicks one may need to discuss their "fav celev babi"). But, what you are most certainly doing is hurting the "minority" (the people who go to the music subforum because they care about music) by diluting their topics with a bunch of ideas they probably don't even really care for. Do the people a favor, and leave their threads alone. You're only hurting the community by combining these shits like this.

What would happen to the Anime subforum if you combined it with the Lounge? It would definitely become more popular.



I care. Who said I didn't care? I care, mother f**ker!

I don't see why you guys are trying to make forums that aren't popular BE popular. If they aren't popular oh wells. As for the stats. I want to know if the forum reorganization had an affect for the total traffic of cB itself. Did the reorganization lower the traffic or not? And I'm not talking about the lowered traffic of certain subforums. I'm talking overall.

hi,

this will be my last reply to you, as obviously you didnt thoroughly read or digest what i said earlier. not to mention your blatant disrespect for me.

here's my response: im sorry, but i dont cater to special interest groups. im here for the people, and im here for change, change that you can believe in.

Dude, someone call him out! a-hole!

REQUEST: If I can prove that the Movie/TV and Music forums are actually very popular (without being combined to anything), can we keep them separated?

The minority we're talking about seems to already be pretty invested in the forum. I don't think it's necessary to get this worked up about a few minor changes to the site's layout. If you really want to continue posting here, I am sure you will find a way to accept/get used to the new set up. What we're saying here is that the majority of the population here may not be so invested as you guys are, and we'd like to encourage them to post more, and maybe become as active as you guys. Doesn't it get boring talking to the same 10 people on a forum where there are actually usually about over 1000 people signed on?

No! If they aren't invested, I don't care to talk to them. I want to discuss topics with people who are actually interested in those said topics and, further, care about what they say (concerning those topics) and how they say it.

Quality over quantity.

I'm not sure I follow you completely. I understand that you want to talk to people with the same interests as you; people who care about the same things you care about, or at least care about what they say. I'm not sure exactly how this change stops you from doing that...


edit:// At the risk of sounding like a kiss-ass, let's all please try to remain respectful to Jusun. I feel like sometimes we all take advantage of his hospitality. I doubt he is making these changes just to spite you guys or come off like a jerk. Anything he does is for the betterment of the site. I don't think we appreciate him enough, and it's a shame. But maybe you all have to realize that he can, at any time, decide to shut down these boards if they don't get as much traffic as we'd like. Why would he spend money on a dead site? Again, I was originally against this proposal. But if the way the forums are organized isn't the most efficient, then I'm open to change. Let's all just give it a shot.

It buries topics. My main argument is that if this is about accessibility, the forums should remain separated so that people who care to talk about those specific topics don't have to search pages-worth of threads in order to find yesterday's posts.

Clicking into a subforum might be frustrating for some (I never had a problem with it...), but I ensure you that trying to find a lost thread, buried under a bunch of crap you could careless for, is a lot more discouraging and lot more frustrating.

That's really only a temporary problem, isn't it? Eventually enough people bump the topics you're referring to or make new topics, and that problem goes away. I'm not sure that sacrificing a good change for the future because of a couple potential days of inconvenience is the best strategy.

Ok I guess I know why you guys may be so negative about this. This change is for the benefit of less active people. This isnt to benefit you guys. We get it. You might be pissed. It feels like we're neglecting you. (I say 'we' because I took a part in this plan before I stepped down.)

But on the other hand I really hope that you active people have enough faith in the site to come back even though some changes have been made. I hope to god that your dedication to the site, the amount of time you've already spent on this site, and your contributions to the forum aren't all going to goto waste because you didn't like a few changes and one or two minor and entirely temporary inconveniences. You'll get used to the new set up. Why not just give it a chance? In the process, we might earn a few more active members such as yourself. You might find more people that care about the things you care about and care about what they say. Isn't that all for the better?

I hope we're not expecting too much of you guys. Believe me your contributions thus far have not gone unappreciated. We value every member here. EVERY member. Not just you, and not just the person that posted above or below you.

That's a lot easier when you know exactly where to go to find people that care about exactly what you care about (say, oh, I don't know... movies, music, and television).

I agree with you in principle, bust I sincerely beg you, reconsider on combination.

P.S. Bumping doesn't work, nor is it fun.
P.P.S. If it ain't broke... don't fix it.

Alright, well I guess that at some point we all have to agree to disagree. I doubt anything that Jusun or I say will make you change your mind. I think that Jusun has listened to all your feedback, and believe me this isn't the last time that the subject will be revisited by the staff before any changes are made (or at least I hope not.)

P.S. Due to the lag of moving threads to their new respective homes (after the first reorganization) a majority of the movie, tv, and music related topics never were taken out of their original combined forum (which is now "General Entertainment"). So, you're wrong. Just check out some of the later pages inside "General Entertainment." - nearly all of them are concerning either music, movies, or television. The threads that are making "General Entertainment" so popular, actually belong in "Movies/TV" and "Music."

I completely and utterly refute one of Jusun's most basic premises (that "Movie/TV" and "Music" are unpopular) and all you have to say is "we have to agree to disagree?" Oh, come on!



Look at the threads!