AndyCapps

How is Book Talk a flaw in my argument?

My argument is that the line has to be drawn somewhere. Who's to say it wasn't drawn just past Book Talk?

Book Talk has had 84 active threads in the last 30 days. Most of those threads would sink like a rock in Other. On the other hand, the sports threads seem to have been doing pretty well for themselves in Other lately.

BoatDrinks

Well...

I couldn't care less whether there was a Sports Forum or not, so my opinion isn't colored one way or another, but I see some problems with the idea.

My thoughts are:

Where is the line drawn? Everyone barking about how many sports threads are on the first page right now are not mentioning that this always happens at the start of a sports season - MLB, the NCAA Tourney - or during playoffs. The other time I have never felt there was influx of sports threads. What comes next? Mature Forum? Political Forum? Advice Forum?

Also, who decides which threads are sports threads? Where does a thread about an athlete getting busted for drugs or murder go? And if smeone is looking for that thread doesn't 2 forums mean more searching?

This "Book Talk" as an argument for a Sports Forum? I don't get this? Isn't that just like saying, "There should be a Food Forum because there's a Book forum!"

Lastly, I see people talking about the vast number of members in these Sports threads. But when I look it appears to me as the same dozen or so members just going back and forth all the time. Note: This is just a generalization - maybe I'm wrong?

That all being said... if Geoff wants to create a Sports Forum, more power to him!

Remember, it's HIS site that he is allowing us to use. It is not OUR site that we have him run.

AndyCapps

That opens up a whole other can of worms. There would have to be some sort of list of what goes in Sports and what doesn't. Some people would argue that professional wrestling would go in Other because while it is "sports entertainment", is something a sport when the outcome is predetermined(certain figureskating competitons, boxing matches, and NCAA Men's Championship BB games excluded)? I'm sure many people would be quick to say it's a sport simply because they want it out of Other. If NASCAR is a sport, what about radio control car racing or my drive into work? If I want to talk about the game of basketball I played in my driveway, do I do it in Other or Sports?

Some kind of FAQ could be maintained listing what belongs in Sports. If a question about adding something comes up, it could be put to a majority vote. Moderating a Sports Forum could be kind of fun.

AgtFox

You are delving into the inane. The majority of threads would be about MLB, NBA, NHL, NCAA, NFL and wrestling more than likely. If this is the big argument, it's a poor one in my opinion. I don't think we need to worry about what is and isn't a sport at this time. And Wrestling is a sport...it is done in college, it is just that pro wrestling is pre-determined. However, Pro Wrestling has defined and expanded PPV, which many sports have now done. Pro Wrestling also gets a good number of threads in both TV and Other...and that's the problem, no one knows truly where to put these Wrestling threads. I want to talk about Wrestling, but they get tanked in Other and little to no discussion in the TV forum, so why bother?

I think you'll get a lot of people to open up more if there was a Sports Forum by itself. This is just my opinion though.

BoatDrinks

Here's another question... how long after the Sports Forum is created will there be a debate over needing a Football Forum or Fantasy Forum or NBA Forum or Wrestling Forum?

broadwayblue

pro-wrestling should be discussed in the tv forum. it is entertainment (not sport) and shouldn't even be discussed in the Other.

AndyCapps

I'm a Moderator for Other, delving into the inane is my job.

You may think it's a poor argument, but you don't have to deal with the "shouldn't this be in sports" or "why was this moved when this wasn't" posts and emails that could fill up your mailbox.

Again, all of this is my opinion. I wouldn't mind a Sports Forum. But right now the Book Talk card gets thrown around, next it would be the Sports Forum card. I'm pretty sure we get more activity with Political Debate and World Events threads than there is in Book Talk, so they might be next.

AndyCapps

Ahh, but what about when you go to a house show that is not televised? Professional Wrestling exists outside of television. If you throw it in TV Talk, you could throw sports there as well.

Dead

Right, which is why we need a sports forum... so things like this really have a place that they "belong"!

einTier

Like I said earlier, I don't like the separation. I understand that some like it because everything's in it's special place, and you don't have to dig for what you want -- and that's a very valid point.

However, it's been my experience that the more fragmented a forum gets, the further it gets away from it's intended goal, and the more forums that don't get visited.

Let's remember that originally, this is a dvdtalk site. I don't typically use it as one, but I feel thankful that Geoff has provided such a nice place to hang that I don't feel compelled to talk about DVDs and I still get good, intelligent conversation. However, as much as I like cars, and I'd love to have a "Car Talk" forum (and I can think of 100 subdivisions) with me and RandyC as moderators, I know that Car Talk is not the focus of this board, and though there is a fair amount of car threads in Otter, if I want to talk cars most of the day, I need to find a car forum. And, I have, I currently read two car forums in addittion to this forum.

Besides, even though I love music, I don't go into Music Talk very often, just because I don't think about it, and there's almost never anything new in there that I'm interested in. Whereas, if it were still a part of other, I'd be forced to at least look at the titles and perhaps say "hey, look, a cool thread about Pink Floyd lyrics!" I don't go into book talk because there's about one new thread a week. I've seen a thread of mine I posted last year routinely bubble back up onto the first page. Once you start fragmenting things, less people will see the threads, and the less likely your question will be answered or a debate will start -- how many computer questions have seen in other started with "I know this belongs in the computer forum, but I need an answer right away." ?

As much as I can see a benefit of splitting off the sports threads (and I do like sports and talking about sports), I don't think it should be done. For those who just want to talk sports, go find a sports forum.

AgtFox

I would bet on never on any legitimate (i.e. not a joke) debate for those sub-forums. I think everyone can handle a straight Sports Forum and not move into sub-forums.

You could argue this in many forums here. DVDTalk Forum, why not have an Action, Drama, Romance, etc. subforum for DVDTalk? That's a pretty big forum that runs the gamut of every genre...do you see where I'm going?

How about Video Game Talk. Why don't we have a PS2, DC, X-Box, GC and PC sub-forum in it? Sure, this doesn't get hit as much as DVDTalk or Other, but an argument could be made for it there as well.

But you see, everyone can handle an all-encompassing DVDTalk Forum and Video Game Talk, so why wouldn't everyone be able to handle an all-encompassing Sports Forum?

Maybe everyone is just afraid that if a Sports Forum is made that it would destroy the fabric of Other. Maybe you're afraid some people will leave Other and go elsewhere. Well, I'm sorry to say, but I spend more time in other forums than I do in Other, yet I still contribute here and there.

As for Book Talk. From my understanding, Book Talk had a good idea behind it when it began, but no one ran with the ball. I know a "Book of the Month" club thing had been talked about, but no one really wanted to do it. So Book Talk was made and no one really posts to it. I even try to get discussion going, but nothing really happens. However, Book Talk (much like Sports) really doesn't have a place in Other and the lack of discussion in it would point to the fact that if Books were back in Other that they would fall way down in the pages and no one would see it.

I think the point das was trying to make was that Book Talk has little to no discussion and seems like a dead forum. It was a good idea gone horribly wrong. Sports may duplicate the failure, but I doubt it. Many more people talk about Sports than books in my opinion around here.

As for the moderator comments. I'm a moderator at a couple other boards. It is difficult to decide what fits and what doesn't, but that is why you make a foundation about what a specific forum will contain and then you let the users dictate what will be added to that foundation. It is still ultimately up to the moderators whether something will be included in the foundation or not, but user interaction can sway quite easily.

Instead of saying what belongs and what doesn't right now, we should first decide if a Sports Forum is going to be made and then we build the foundation of what it will contain. However it is not a static foundation and can be built upon. You start small and grow. There are many valid sports out there and many can be argued to be included or excluded...but the users and moderator(s) have to have good, solid discussions about it.

I think that's all...I've written more than enough in this post

AgtFox

And then you run the risk of losing them as DVD Talk Forum people. Yes, people can be on multiple forums, but it seems a lot of the pro-Sports Forum people spend a lot of time on DVD Talk's forum around here. That's just my opinion though. I'd rather have a forum where I can talk to people I know and can be friends with than go somewhere totally new where my opinions and ideas may not matter to the users of that forum.

I want to talk more about Sports. I spend most of my time here in DVDTalk (barely post there), Video Game forum (post there), TV forum (post there), Movie forum (barely post there), Book forum (try to post there) and finally Other. Sports would be great to add to that list. Once again, this is all my opinion.

twikoff

ok.. one thing I want to point out..

i would still want there to be a 4/3 MLB Thread, 4/4 MLB Thread,
4/3 NBA Thread, etc.. for each of the sports
i think having 15 seperate game threads would be a bit silly

but i meant individual bigger games (tournament, playoffs, championships, etc..)

i could see alot more sports related polls popping up
more memoribilia discussion
more fantasy league banter
a broader range of sports discussed (golf, tennis, wrestling, nascar, womens gymnastics *cman*, etc..)
injury reports
more individual team discussions (but trying to keep discussions specific to individual teams in single threads)
and so on...

if it comes about,, i would also like to volunteer to help lay out some guidelines for this forum

BearFan

yeah, polls and sports go together like poles and pr0n

TaTTooD

mmmmmmmm......pr0n

einTier

That's true... and it can be taken to an extreme. I left one forum where I was a moderator and a very strong asset because all they wanted to talk about was cars -- nothing else. I love cars very dearly, but I can' t talk about them 24/7, and I don't like thinking of my online friends as such one-diminsional people.

I see the benefits, but as noted above, I see a lot of drawbacks if we keep splitting things off from Other. However, if we're going for this whole fragmentation thing, can we have a car forum? I'll volunteer to moderate it.

dancinns

I say add a Sports Forum. I look at it this way, most of the segments of entertainment have their own forum (TV, Music, Books, etc) and if I'm not mistaken sports is a big segment of entertainment. It would also take the sports threads out of the Other Forum and make all the wacky/unusual threads more visible.

JMLEWIS1

I'd like to have a sports forum, but I can see why Geoff would be hesitant to add one. The one thing all the forums have in common right now (with the exception of the other) is that they are all media or dvd-related.

Three Day Delay

I hate, hate, hate that my legit post was the last on the page, and was never read.

twikoff

so far.. everyone that has been against it.. has thrown out the arguement, "well if sports deserves its own forum, then why not blah, blah, and blah"
going by thread traffic alone, I think its pretty obvious that sports topics are begging their own forum.. while I dont see any other discussion area that constantly gets as much attention, and would deserves to be seperated.

The Bus

A sports forum will make Other easier to browse w/out looking at 'Brewers: Can they do it this year???' thread.

twikoff

so.. does that mean your in favor of a sports forum, or a fantasy forum?

BearFan

The better analogy here is DVD Bargains. At one time there was a Click for DVDs forum that was spun out of bargains. Why, because there was an abundance of click for threads in bargains, very long "one and only" threads about FreeRide, etc. I believe the thinking was those topics could be discussed in greater detail in it's own forum, plus allow more traditional bargains (coupons, etc) to stay in their own forum.

I realize that Click for DVDs is toast, but that was due to the click sites (freeride, jaboom, etc) going by the wayside.

Similarly, DVD-CLubs (aka Columbia House) has it's own forum. technically you could consider that club a bargain but it is in it's own forum.

I think sports falls in the same category. In Other, I probably would not start a thread about a backup SS being traded to some team for a middle reliever, but in a sports forum, it could lead to a discussion amongst sports fanatics.

As for there just being a lot of sports threads now because of the time of year, I disagree, Sports is year round. In the next few months, we have:

The Masters
NBA Playoffs
NHL Playoffs
NFL Draft
Baseball each and every day
plus events in sports I do not foloow myself .. auto racing comes to mind.

Then in late summer we still have baseball, the other Golf majors, plus Football training camps opening, followed by football season, baseball playoffs, and the NBA and NHL, and college football.


And none of this counts, the NBA draft, trades in every sport, injuries, news about athletes, discussion of fantasy leagues, stadiums/arenas, and probably a lot more.

das Monkey

, BearFan

To add to that, there are so many sports-related topics that I would love to talk about but just don't, because it will get swallowed up into a One and Only thread or get buried in the general Otter madness. So instead of wasting my efforts, I just don't talk about sports. I'll stumble into a thread every once in a while, and mostly when it's a major event and I can be sure the thread will only cover one game or topic. I just ignore the daily threads, because it's impossible to discuss anything of substance.

I'd love to talk about trades or styles of play or any number of smaller sports-related issues, and I'm sure I'm not alone. So when someone says, "there aren't that many sports threads in Otter" that's misleading. There aren't as many sports threads <I>because</I> it's so suffocating to try to introduce a new sports topic.

As I've said many times, I think it's only fair to either have sports threads run rampant through Otter like every other topic or give them their own forum. The latter makes the most sense to me, because it benefits both groups -- sports can flourish, and Otter isn't bombarded with posts many Otters are not interested in -- but I would not object to the former as an inferior but acceptable solution. But the way it is now just doesn't work.

das

AgtFox

Totally agree with you das. I also shy away from Sports topics in Other as they either get pushed down or gulped up into a One and Only thread. I would be much more willing to contribute if there was an actual Sports Forum.