We (the staff) have been discussing (on and off) renaming the Academia forum to something less...stiff-sounding. The current contenders for the new name are Humanities and Serious Fun. Let us know what you think of those names, or suggest other ones if you have any good ideas.

"the forums that no one visit"

If anything then i vote Humanities.

I think that Humanities would sound all right.

I think Humanities is very fitting.

beat me to it.

HA!

Humanities sounds....boring.

I've always found it weird that the News forum was in Academia. That being said, I think News and School should be broken off, and the forum renamed to "Fine Art."

Humanities sounds uninteresting. I like the irony in Serious Fun.
I vote that.

How is Humanities any better than Academia? Just as stuffy. Maybe even more so. If we want to lure people in, then "Serious Fun" would be the contender, if anything.

Also, I'm sure this has been brought up before or even settled already, but why is Debate not a part of Academia?

"kool kids klub"

seconded

should be the name to replace staff alumni

I support the Klan

The goal isn't so much to "lure people in" as it is to find a better label, since Academia's subforums -- art and writing in particular -- are hobbies and interests that can and are pursued outside of an academic setting.

(I don't really think people need to be "lured" into a forum -- if you're interested, you'll check it out, if you're not, then you won't.)

i have THE DOPEST name!

VIP LOUNGE

I think Humanities is a great name. If not, then I suggest a major re-categorizing. I think its hard to name because there are categories that don't go together all mashed up.

This is a suggestion:

Introductions
The lounge - lounge, vip lounge, news, sports, humor, forum games
Liberal - art, music, photography, reading (books), writing
Production - movies, tv, video, anime
Life - relationships, school, fashion, food, health, boy's locker room, girl's locker room
Technology
Debate

How come there's no work section? Not everyone goes to school =/.

^ I like the idea of the Liberal forum.

I agree. It's hard to come up with a name for Academia that actually links them together and doesn't sound stuffy. The forum is kinda of a mish mash of things.

A while ago we decided to let Debate be it's own forum because no one was posting in it. Found the Feedback thread. I don't think the lame name thing is keeping people from posting in those subforums, but I do think they need more traffic. I'm not against re-organizing those forums, either, to find a better fit... as long as it doesn't get messy and never gets done.

If we keep things the same, though, Serious Fun would be a better a contender. I don't really care for either, though.

I like Michel's categorization, but one of the reasons why Art, Writing, and Books were moved to Academia in the first place was because there were too many subforums for Interests, right?

All I could think of was "melting pot." But that's lame too.

I like the structure Michel posted, though I admit that another re-structuring gives me the wiggins.

Joanne, if memory serves, that is the biggest reason why things were moved around. I've never liked "Interests" as a name though. It's too vague.

Yeah, I think I was the one who moved those other forums into Academia... there were 7 subforums in Interest and only 2 in Academia. It wasn't very balanced, and I think 7 subforums is too much, regardless if it's in Interests or not.

No doubt, no doubt.

The only thing about calling a forum "Liberal" is that liberal is generally used as an adjective, whereas every other forum is a noun. "Liberal" can be used as a noun to refer to a person of leftist political beliefs or a member of the Liberal Party, but that's not the case here.

Fine Arts? Ha, I just couldn't come up with a better name.

Fine Arts would be okay, although in terms of perceived "stuffiness", I think it's more or less the same as Humanities.

The only possible problem is that it's still a bit of a misnomer, as Fine Arts is generally used to denote visual arts. (Strictly speaking, "fine arts" refers to writing, etc., but it has a connotation of applying mostly to visual arts.)

The Arts? I think thats nice, fitting right under The Lounge. Thats my last card. I got nothing else

reorganization would be good, but last time we spent all that time doing it and jusun came back and basically said the staff and community were wrong and changed it.

I don't like serious fun cause it doesn't make sense or describe it to me. but I dont think people pay attention to the names really anyway. academic just sucks cause it doesn't make much sense

Subtle bump.

So far it looks like "Humanities" is the safest name. Any other suggestions?

MIND ENHANCMENT

This doesn't sound too bad. I'm inclined to go with "Mind Enhancement" or "Humanities".

Of the two I like Humanities more

agree

i say we name it huge manatee...it'd get more hits.

Work would be in the LIFE section

Alrighty, trying to bring this discussion up again for a final decision.

Humanities seems to be the frontrunner. I'd also like to submit Mind Fodder as a replacement idea for the somewhat-popular-but-not-popular-enough Mind Enhancement. Finally, I've been considering Liberal Arts, in an attempt to incorporate Michel's idea. Thoughts?

I like Liberal Arts best so far.

Man, both Liberal Arts and Humanities seem like stuffy names to me, though if I were to pick from those two, I'd prefer Liberal Arts. Mind Fodder is really cute, but sort of a novelty name.

So from those pickins', Liberal Arts.

Yeah; I'd totally go for it if the other forums were named in a similar vein, but I fear it'd feel a bit out of place. Like when you were a little kid, and you were given a picture of an orange, a lemon, an apple, and a pterodactyl, and you had to pick which one didn't belong -- I feel like Mind Fodder would be the pterodactyl of CreateBlog.

Libertad!

My girlfriend's cousin's middle name is Libertad.

That reminds me, about a week ago I saw a guy wearing a Che shirt get out of an F350 superduty adorned with Rebel flags, bald eagles, and pictures of white-tailed deer skulls.

I was amused.