Combine the SOM forums?

[bernieh]

Everyone:

For a while now I've had this urge to combine all the various SOM forums that are broken up by "game" (e.g. 200x, ATG, 1986, 70s, 80s, etc.) into one single forum. I can see the obvious arguments against it - it does seem the various communities are somewhat disparate, and you might not want to see topics not pertaining to your favorite player set - but the advantages would include: 1) creating a more "inclusive" environment for SOM Online, 2) expose everyone to other player sets they might not have exposure to otherwise, 3) reduce confusion for the new customer looking for "the community", 4) drastically cut down on the places I need to keep up with, as a company representative, 5) cut down on the places I need to post announcements to (although there's other ways we can improve on this last point). The last 3 points would make my life a lot easier, personally.

An example of why point #4 is important is the fact that since I don't have the time to go clicking on 6 or 7 different forums everyday, I usually end up just going to ATG because I know it usually has the most activity, and I end up not giving the other sub-communities their due attention.

I was wondering what your thoughts were.

Thanks,
Bernie H.
SportingNews.com

[LMBombers]

I don't like this idea and the main reason is exactly what you have stated.....many of the SOM online games have very different communities. The ATG forum seems to have many more posts than the other forums. Many of the ATG guys only play ATG and hate the mystery card games and any other game due to them being used to the huge player pool of ATG. They don't want to see posts about mystery card strategy or please evaluate my 1969 team. And on the other hand a post about any other game could be quickly lost in the sea of ATG posts.

If you want to combine forums I would think you could combine the 70's and 80's forum into one as the mystery card community plays both and is knowledgable in both games generally.

A decision has been made to start creating new games in the ATG game module. Please leave us our individuality in the forums so that we are not completely swept away in the land of ATG.

[Detroit-Tigers]

Check the "throughput" of the forum. One of the potential problems with the individual league forum is that there can be too many posts that push your league off the first page. I am not sure how much gets posted on ATG, but my sense is that it is more than here.

/support 1 general forum
/support 2-3 individual league forums (perhaps keeper, tour, other)

[visick]

I'm for making your job easier Bernie, so I have no problem with combining.

However, while it will cut down on where you need to comment/post, I think customers will be looking for quick replies, seeing that you aren't posting in several areas.

My 2 cents...

If you can keep up with problems/requests etc... quicker, I'm all for it.


visick

[Mean Dean]

As of right now, when you create a new topic, you can give it "tags." I don't currently see, however, how there is any way to search by tag, or to limit your view to messages that have a particular tag (or, honestly, how the tags are accessible at all.)

Perhaps if you exhume and dust off the tag functionality, it would address the problem of having everything "mixed up" in the same forum. People who are only interested in one game could use the tags to see the messages about that game, and filter out the rest.

[ggrover15]

I think it would be better to say have 2 different ones.
1 for atg and 2007(current league)
1 for 70 and 80's

Just an idea...

[ArrylT]

I personally have no problem combining some of the forums. I think it depends on which forums you combine. I can see 3 ways in which you could combine some of the SOM forums without (hopefully) much fuss or likelyhood of angering too many owners.

1 - Remove the Strategy Forum ... have all strategy threads stay in their respective game forums (70/80s, ATG & 200x) ... which is pretty much the case for ATG already - most ATG Strategy posts already seem to be there (in the ATG Forum).

2 - Put all the SOM Tournament forums into 1 seperate heading called TSN/SOM Tournaments.

3 - Merge 70s & 80s together, then merge the single season games (1986 & 1969). You could probably even do away with the Fantasim forum, and let the general & Ind Chat forums handle their load.

Doing that would cut down from 14 SOM Forums to more maneagable 8, and without dislocating many owners, or causing ATG threads to get confused with Mystery Card or 200X threads.

General 200X Som
ATG Som
Tournament Som
Mystery Card (70/80s) Som
Single Season (1969/1986) Som
Ind League Chat
Bullpen
Questions/Suggestions

[LMBombers]

I like ArrylT's suggestion. :D

[packleader]

I find the current system cumbersome and the fewer places to search, the better. I'm for whatever makes Bernie happy. ( will that get me an extra credit?). :D

[keyzick]

[quote:92fe501571="LMBombers"]I like ArrylT's suggestion. :D[/quote:92fe501571]

I third that!