Poll - Dr. Dan's question - Which forums do you read?

[der_kluge]

As an extension of the question Dr. Dan asked here http://www.enworld.org/forums/showthread.php?t=66599 I wanted to create a poll to just kind of track which forums are more widely read than others.

Obviously, General does get far more audience than the others do. I personally don't read all of them, and am of the (perhaps blasphemous opinion) that there are just far too many threads. I hope that this thread might spark some intelligent debate as to whether we need as many forums as we do, and maybe by combining some together, people will be more encouraged to read more of the board, and thus generate more messages in the process. Case in point, I often post questions to "Plots, Places..." and have to wait as long as a day to get any kind of feedback, whereas if I posted the same question to General, I could get feedback in a matter of minutes. By staying true to the forums presented, I needlessly delay any responses to my query.

My suggestions, in case you're asking:
- combine "D&D Rules" and "House Rules". Why is there a delineation? Seems like if you visit one, you are likely to visit the other anyway.

- combine "Open Calls & Job Vacancies" with "D20 & Open Gaming Publishers" The publishers are the ones with job vacancies, and anyone looking for open calls is probably already keeping track of what the publishers are doing, so these could be combined.

-combine "Talking the Talk" and "Playing the Game" and "Fight Club" into just "online games and discussions". Seems like to me, and I could be way out of line here, but if I'm "playing a game", I've got to go into a different forum to talk about it. And "Fight Club" only has two active threads, so moving that into the same forum isn't exactly going to clog it up any.

-combine "D20 System & OGL Games" and "D20 Modern". Given the relatively low number of posts in D20 Modern, it ain't exactly going to flood "D20 System and OGL Games". Besides that, seems to me that "D20 Modern" is redundant to the other one anyway.

-combine "Plots, Places and Rat Bastardly Brainstorming" and "Rogues Gallery". I see a lot of similarities in those posts, anyway. I think there are some synergies between them. Just rename it "Plots, Places, and People."

-All of the publishing forums could be rolled into one. "The Planar Cosmography: Netbook of the Planes" (which hasn't seen any activity in a long time), "Creature Catalog Forums", "e-Publishing", "Conversions" and "E.N. Publishing". When you look at the number of threads in each of these forums, the total number is no where near the number that some threads get.

-I don't even know what 13 Kingdoms is, but shouldn't it belong under "Hosted D&D Settings and d20 Games"?

There. That should clean things up a bit.

Oh, and I didn't post this in Meta, because no one ever goes there!!

And I don't intend these to be stepping on anyone's toes. If you feel like I'm out of line here, fine, but these are just my opinions, and I would like to hear others' thoughts on this as well.

But according to my own workings, that boils the number of threads down from 27 (on the main page, not counting sub-forums) to 17.

 

[BiggusGeekus]

I read General like a madman, even when I'm in a lurking mood, but I branch out to the other forums about 10% of the time.

 

[Thresher]

General, D&D Rules, House Rules & D20 System is about all I bother with, I used to post a bit in Art but it was hard to get anything critical or useful out of artwork I put up so I dont bother anymore.
Which is odd for a messageboard, usually theres always someone ready to club you for damn near anything
(hmm maybe I just sucked so bad even the trolls felt sorry for me... )

 

[fusangite]

Aside from General, I only read a forum when I have posted something there seeking a response. So, I occasionally read D&D Rules, House Rule and Plots & Places but in an entirely self-centred way.

EDIT: I'm also finding it quite annoying that there is a new vigilance on the part of the moderators to take things out of General in some kind of attempt to make us use all the forums. I half expect this thread to be exiled to Meta.

 

[Olive]

I guess the problem is that everyone will say general, because general is where they would have to be to read the poll.

 

[Rashak Mani]

I dont like the way they spread out stuff into several "specialized" forums... I dont have time to switch to other forums all the time... I feel I am missing on art, comics, films and other topics...

 

[Piratecat]

I half expect this thread to be exiled to Meta.

You mean, where it technically belongs?

I gave some thought to moving it, but we'd like as much information as possible. This is good feedback. We'll move it over eventually, but it's fine in General for now. Curtis, some of your suggestions strike me as really good, and some I don't like at all (combining Rules & House Rules in particular.)

Rashak, you have a perfect catch-22. You don't want to go to other forums to see art and comic threads. Unfortunately, many people don't page past the 1st page of threads in a foorum listing, and if all that stuff was in here it would get quickly buried AND you'd never be able to keep track of it. Multiple forums is a byproduct of growth. That being said, as moderators we hate the idea of too many forums, so we try to keep it as compact as possible. This is a fine line to walk, and the only way we know if we're doing it correctly is if you guys talk to us.

Fusangite, we've never had much tolerance for threads in the wrong forum. Other than shutting down some extraneous OT threads I don't think I've seen an unusual number of threads being moved recently, but we have been reiterating that threads should be posted in the correct forum.

If you don't want to read about a subject then there's no reason for you to go forum-jumping, but if you do you should probably head to where that subject is being discussed; use only the forums that interest you. That's just common sense. I'm a little amused by your worry that the moderators are trying to get you to use all the forums. Heck, we don't!

Anyways, give us feedback, folks. The more, the better.

 

[Creamsteak]

-combine "Talking the Talk" and "Playing the Game" and "Fight Club" into just "online games and discussions". Seems like to me, and I could be way out of line here, but if I'm "playing a game", I've got to go into a different forum to talk about it. And "Fight Club" only has two active threads, so moving that into the same forum isn't exactly going to clog it up any.

Trust me, although fight club isn't too popular anymore, the Playing the Game and Talking the Talk forums had to be divided because their so busy all the time. Threads drop in Playing the Game as fast as they do in General, because theres always someone bumping or posting their current game for their players. We have about 60 active games (not including Living EN World), and I think only 25 are viewable on the front page at a time. That is a lot of movement.

And to give you some numbers to look at, there are 119843 posts between Talking the Talk and Playing the Game. That's more than any other single forum except General Discussion and Rules.

 

[Pbartender]

What about making some of those forums "sub-forums" of other forums?

To take the PbP forums as an example, the Living EN World PbP games have their own sub-forum within Playing the Game. It would make sense to merge Playing the Game with Talking the Talk and Fight Club. However, when the PbP forums first began, OOC threads and game threads were all within one forum, and it was a big mess distinguishing between them. Talking the Talk and Fight Club, though, could be made into sub-forums of Playing the Game. After all, I'd suspect that there's no one who reads or posts in the OOC threads who doesn't also read or post in an In-Game thread.

The other Forums could be consolidated in a similar manner, while still keeping the sub-categories distinct.


Edited... Because for a moment there I didn't make nearly as much sense as I should have.

 

[Creamsteak]

I'd agree with that. Theres a lot of sub-foruming that could go on around here, quite legitimately. Archives as a sub-forum of meta, for example.



Edit: If they wanted to merge the rogues galler, plot and places, and rat bastards into one forum... I could probably pluck all the rogues gallery play by post threads and have they become a sub-forum of talking the talk.