Forum - View topicA Modest Proposal -2: Forums
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Alan45
 Village Elder Posts: 10032 Location: Virginia |
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Again this is posted for consideration and comment.
I think we need a Contests forum. The Anime Character Guessing Game and its earlier clones are the single most popular thread on all the forums. It really needs its own home. Also it could be used as a place to link the contests from the front page for those who access the forums directly. As a secondary consideration. Because it is so popular, it tends to be the most recent post when ever the main forums page is reviewed. Because of this it tends to hide the presence of other active threads in the Anime Forum. I also think we could a Surveys Forum. As noted above there are a fair number of people who access ANN directly to the forums page and follow the news and reviews through their Feedback threads. This would allow a link to surveys posted on the front page. It could also serve as a place for comments on surveys and a place to post results. I note that there have been prior requests to combine the Manga and Novels forums and even a poll on the subject. I would like to bring this up for consideration again before the update of the forums software. If it can't be done at this time, perhaps it would be possible to lift the Novels forum in the list to just below the Manga forum. A few forums have essentially died and should be reconsidered. The Polls forum has had only a few posts this year, mostly necroposts for polls from 2013. The Collection Spotlight forum for subscribers hasn't had a post in three years. The Personal Sales forum has dwindled down to hosting a link to an Ebay store. I think such posts would be better accommodated in the Retail forum. No matter if you are buying or selling, the more participants the better. For consideration. |
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Blood-
Bargain Hunter Posts: 24171 |
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All good suggestions. I particularly second removing the Anime Character Guessing Game out of its current home into a Contests Forum for exactly the reason you've identified.
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Errinundra
Moderator
 Posts: 6587 Location: Melbourne, Oz |
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There'll be no reason left for anyone to visit the anime forum.
(A bit of self-interest there. I want people to go there to see my thread.) |
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Blood-
Bargain Hunter Posts: 24171 |
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And your thread deserves to be read, Errinundra. It's an ANN treasure. However, the anime character guessing thread may be inadvertantly restricting viewership. That thread, I believe, is frequented by mostly the same, relatively small group of people who I am sure are already familiar with your thread. As Alan45 says, because the guessing thread is so frequently the thing you see when you view the overall forums page, newer folks may be under the impression that not much else is going on there. Also, your thread title doesn't show up on the overall page as much as it would if the guessing thread wasn't in the same forum.
But regardless of what happens, I'm trying to think of ways to heighten awareness of your Fighting Girls survey. It needs to be seen by as many people as possible. |
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Errinundra
Moderator
Posts: 6587 Location: Melbourne, Oz |
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That's really sweet, Blood-. You've just made my day.
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Alan45
Village Elder Posts: 10032 Location: Virginia |
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Blood- said what I was getting at. Your fighting girls thread is the jewel of the anime forum. It deserves to be seen more. The popularity of the contest thread tends to obscure that.
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Blood-
Bargain Hunter Posts: 24171 |
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For those of you who may not know what thread we are talking about, please do yourself a massive favour and click on this:
Errinundra's Beautiful Fighting Girl Thread This thread is helpful on two fronts. 1) It collects all of Errinundra's astute reviews in one place (with an Index!) and 2) It is home to a massive survey on certain types of anime female protagonists that began almost four years ago and is still going strong. You will learn a ton! Please spread the word to any anime friends you may have. |
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Redbeard 101
Oscar the Grouch
Forums Superstar  Posts: 16963 |
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I personally think the Anime Character Guessing Game, and similar, should stay where they are. The "Anime" section was split from the Series area for the purpose of splitting generalized and series specific discussion. To me the games are "general" anime territory. While popular, I don't think we should have sections designed just for a few threads. Then the forum gets bogged down by too many sections. Plus we already have inactive, or barely active, sections as is. So my vote is they stay where they are. Perhaps create 1 or 2 more similar threads to pump up activity. Maybe dust off the ole tournament idea we used to have. Those were always fun. Perhaps I can take that on as they are not that hard to do, just a bit time consuming keeping the spreadsheets up to date. Plus errinundra's thread is a very well done thread and anyone who has interest in typing up their own reviews in a thread (not simply linking to some outside source, youtube channel, etc.) should view his for how to do one.
As for merging the Manga and Novels sections together, I am entirely in favor of this. They both are not super active and could benefit from being combined. Plus they are similar enough that merging them would not create a bigger convoluted section. So my vote on that is a yes. |
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Tempest
 I Run this place.ANN Publisher  Posts: 10461 Location: Do not message me for support. |
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The Personal Sales forum has dwindled down to hosting a link to an Ebay store. I think such posts would be better accommodated in the Retail forum. No matter if you are buying or selling, the more participants the better.[/quote] Merging personal sales and Retail is an interesting idea. We would just need to make sure that the rules of personal sales are abided by people posting personal sales to that forum. |
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Redbeard 101
Oscar the Grouch
Forums Superstar Posts: 16963 |
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I'll be the first to admit as a mod I never check that section out unless there's a report or bootleg links or something of that nature. Assuming we do this and activity picks up we'll just have to make sure we're giving the section a once over to make sure everything is on the up and up. I do think moving the Collection Spotlight thread to the general forum is a nice idea. Might get more activity. Probably would do best in the general Anime section over Retail for that.
Maybe once the forum upgrade is done see where everything stands? Just a thought.
I think this would work better than a whole section for them. I doubt those threads would get enough discussion to warrant a whole section. Especially when we're already discussing combing other low activity sections together as is. I think the survey articles would work best is treated like say an "Interest" article. Have be linked to the Talkback section. I sort of see that section now as the collective "Current" news area myself. Having Contests be separate makes much more sense as you really want to make sure they don't get lost in stream of things.
I think to help combat the possible issue with this anyone starting a survey should be held to the same standards as starting a new topic in another section. They need to provide some actual in depth discussion and reasoning to kick it off. Not just make a list post or 1 sentence and have the rest of the people do the work for them. |
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Calathan
Subscriber Posts: 9113 |
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The Anime Character Guessing Game is one of my main activities at ANN, and the main way I interact with the community here (while I read lots of the articles and reviews, I don't often respond to them in the forums). I like the idea of a separate forum for games and contests in theory, but one concern I've had for a while now is that the main Anime forum doesn't get much traffic. After all the series discussions were moved to a sub-forum, it seemed like traffic really died down. I'm worried that now that the games are in their own forum, they'll get even less traffic and will die off (the quote guessing game already died off a while ago). My main concern is that no one will find their way to the contest and games forum unless they already know it is there. For comparison, I don't think I even knew we had a forum specifically for polls until I just went looking at the forum structure right now.
My suggestion on how to get more traffic to forums like polls and games is to just provide a more obvious link to them. Right now, if I click on "forums" at the top of the page, it brings up a menu with forum categories and some individual forums. In order to find things like polls and the new contests and games forum, I have to click on either "general" or "forums...", neither of which is something I would necessarily expect to contain forums for polls, games, and other "just for fun" activities. It would be great if links to these forums could be fit into the menu there directly. If that isn't possible, it would be good if there was at least some additional text making it clear that the "general" category includes things like polls and games. |
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Alan45
Village Elder Posts: 10032 Location: Virginia |
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It would probably help if the contests and games forum were moved to or near the top of the General section. At that place it would be visible to someone just opening the forums page.
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