Save the Movie/TV & Music Subforums., Protect the minority! Do not combine! Options

[NoSex]

If you are going to vote here, I am requesting that you please, in the very least, read most of this post. I also encourage you to investigate the happenings in the "feedback" forums. The man is changing this place up; let your informed voice be heard. Thank you.

Hello,

I am an art enthusiast (sort of). When I first became involved in CreateBlog, many years ago, I was very excited to be a part of a large and vibrant community. However, I soon found that the sizable stature of the site had its disadvantages as well as its advantages. Sometimes forums moved too fast and worthwhile topics would be buried and lost (nearly forever) under a barrage of "drive-by" style posts asking non-stimulating, and (ultimately) uninteresting questions ("What is your favorite color?"). As a sort of art-enthusiast, as I became more involved in the community here, I began to campaign for what is now the "Art" subforum under "Interests." (I also became more vocal about what I felt could be the future of CreateBlog's community center).

The campaign for the "Art" subforum was inspired by what I saw as a systematic, and nearly unstoppable, drowning of certain unpopular topics. There was a good handful of people that cared to talk about art more seriously, but, of course, there was an even greater handful that did not. And, since there was no immediately appropriate place to put topics concerning more technical discussion on art, nearly all the topics designed for such discussion disappeared under the far more populated topics in "The Lounge" and "Entertainment." A minority did fight for their "Art" forum, and we got it.

Admittingly, we sort of neglected the subforum. However, a small group of people made it their home for a short period of time. And, no one who cared to notice, was hurt in the process. We made a few people happy. It felt sort of good. Like, change could happen even for the little guy. But, the story of the "Art" subforum is only a vehicle at which I hope to bring us to my true concern:

In the initial plan for reorganization of the forums (happening right now), the "General Entertainment," "Movies/TV," and "Music" subforums will be combined to form a single forum (which will be placed on the front page). The argument is that "Movies/TV" and "Music" just are not popular enough to mandate separate forums and that, by combing them with "General Entertainment" and placing the new forum on the front page, there will be an increase in traffic.

When we first separated these threads it was in oder to add an emphasis to topical discussion, decrease traffic so that less popular threads weren't immediately buried under more popular ones, and in the hope of encouraging more quality posting. I believe the separation was successful, however, some people seem to be suggesting that the separation is not generally liked. I don't know if I believe that.

It has been suggested that clicking into a subforum in order to talk about movies or music has been an issue for some people. I can understand, to an extent, that frustration. However, I would hope to appeal to everyone's reason here: If you're frustrated with clicking into a subforum, you'll be a hundred times more frustrated when you have to search through pages just to find yesterday's topics.

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. Now, instead of having to click into a subforum, you might have to skim pages of threads just to find one topic that doesn't happen to be as popular as all the rest. This is needless and counter-intuitive to the ideal of accessibility.

I like both movies and music, but, by separating them I can more easily focus on, find, and enjoy topical discussion. Threads aren't lost, and I know exactly where I can go to find the sort of discussion I want. If we aspire to combine these supposedly unpopular forums with a more popular one, we have to realize that those people who are immediately interested or concerned with movies and music will have a harder time getting their topics read, replied to, or on the front page for more than a few days (given their respective popularities).

In "Feedback," Micron said this to me:

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.

Who else would you cater to, concerning these subforums, other than the people who care most and have the most interest in them? If you resolve to combine the forums, you will not be helping "the people," you will only be hurting a certain group of people. We all know where the subforums are and how to get to them. You're insulting "the people," when you suggest that they are so lazy that they cannot navigate the forums. And, you're hurting the community when you value traffic and quantity so highly above quality. We don't just want our threads read, we want them meaningfully considered.

If you care about the quality of these boards, and you want to show Micron what "the people" truly want, show him that we care about the little guys. We want the "Art" subforum, just as much as we want the "Movie/TV" and "Music" subforums. Even if we don't use them excessively. Even if they aren't the most popular forums on the site. We want our voices heard by the people that care to listen. We do not want our voices stomped on by the many who don't care for our muses on Immortal Technique and Wes Anderson. Through distinction our voices can truly be heard... if we homogenize now, these cries may fall only on deaf ears.

I DON'T WANT TO READ v.1.0:

1. Combination bad.
2. Separation good.

Vote "No" on Recombination!

[pandora]

I understand the concept of quality over quantity. But honestly, if the quality of such a topic isn't so great, then I would imagine people would stop visiting it. It's up to you guys to create quality content. The organization of the forums really has nothing to do with the quality of the discussion. I didn't make the aforementioned threads, and neither did Jusun. One of you guys did. I'm not going to apologize for something someone else did. Make sense?

[NoSex]

I didn't make the aforementioned threads, and neither did Jusun. One of you guys did. I'm not going to apologize for something someone else did.

But you're not doing anything to encourage quality posting. By combining subforums you're making it more difficult to locate people with a shared and or common interest. It's like holding a Star Wars convention in the same building as a Star Trek, Battlestar Galactica, and Stargate convention - it's detrimental to a focus. The noise (all those Chewbacca impersonators) makes it more difficult to find out where to go if all you care about is hyper-speed. Suddenly, the Stargate and Battlestar geeks are being pushed out of the building because there are way too many Trekies and Star Wars nerds.

We have to cater to certain interests so things are actually organized and convenient for everyone. It might be fine for someone who doesn't care about any of those Sci-fi shows to waltz into the convention building to take a piss. And, it might to entirely piss off a Star Wars fan - they largely out-number all other convention goers. But, the less popular kids (how much less popular can you be, right?) might get tired of being pushed out of the very same convention they invested in...

Do you know what a compromise is? Let all of the Sci-fi geeks have their own individual (and specific) buildings for their own convention! The people who actually care to get to the convention won't ever have a problem, and the cool kids who don't care either way won't know the difference. This makes everyone happy. The Star Wars kids might have a larger turn-out than the Stargate dweebs, but at least the Stargate dweebs have a place to call their own (and they're probably happy with that).

Alright, I really ran away with this analogy (isn't it funny to think about?), but... when you say that it's entirely up to us to create worthwhile content, you're being entirely unfair to those of us who do create good content, only for it to be lost and misplaced in the shuffle of far more popular threads. To promote quality posting, keep the subforums separated so that people can more easily find exactly what they're looking for, and know that those people who will actually take the time to look in the same place, might actually care to read what they have to say.

Cause, it can't be fun being the only Quantum Leap fan at a Trekie convention.