Most message boards have quite a few more forums than this one. Why not have a sports forum, enertainment forum, parenting forum, beauty forum etc.
Just a suggestion.
No reason to. A parenting forum might only get one new thread a day. Creating a bunch of specialized forums would be pointless.
Seems like we have entertainment and sports covered. Other than that, yes, we’ve been reluctant to overspecialize. We don’t want to break things up too much. The topics you mentioned can all be discussed within the forums we already have, and there’s not much benefit to giving every topic its own forum.
Well there’s certain threads I am not interested in and they are pretty much all lumped into one forum. If the forum was more specialized it would be easier to find threads that really interest you.
But how do you know whether you’re interested, if you haven’t seen it? I’ve often found very interesting threads that I wouldn’t have known to go looking for. To make sure I don’t miss these, I hit the New Posts button and then scan through everything. The forum is just part of the information that I use when deciding which threads to read.
Thanks for the info. I didn’t see the new posts button.
Yeah, I never surf the board by forum. I exclusively use the New Post sorter. Occasionally I’ll search by threads with posts by AClockworkMelon so I’ll only see threads that I’ve participated in.
Funny, I never search by New Posts. Ever. I roll through the forums in order, looking for topics of interest. New forums would be a pain. There are a couple we could ditch of the ones we have. The “Comments” forums could be combined, for example.
I wholeheartedly recommend the creation of a beauty forum, where my countenance can finally receive its just praise. I volunteer to moderate that forum when it is created.
And you think CSR is a slow forum…
I think that in the early dad of the SDMB, the intent was to have boards devoted not to specific topics, but to types of discussion (factual, debate, casual conversation, polling, and flaming).
That still appears to be how the forum is organized, although there are multiple subforums for a few of those categories.
Ha ha. The green-eyed monster of envy strikes again, I see.
elmwood is correct. TubaDiva, C K Dexter Haven or LynnBodoni could give a better answer, but on the old AOL boards that preceded straightdope.com (and which I never visited), there was pretty much two types of discussion, from what I hear:
General Questions
Everything Else
When The Straight Dope left AOl and straightdope.com was originally set up using vBulletin forum software, the forums were:
About This Message Board, aka ATMB
Comments on Cecil’s Columns / Comments on Staff Reports
General Questions, aka GQ
Mundane Pointless Stuff I Must Share, aka MPSIMS (the forum title comes from the name of a discussion thread at the AOL board)
Then The BBQ Pit made an appearance to confine the fights to one forum
After that Great Debates, aka GD due to popular demand
then In My Humble Opinion (aka IMHO), again due to popular demand (the half-way point between GQ and GD)
The first “subject-based” forum was Cafe Society, which was a departure to the way the forums were divided before. Now any type of discussion (be it GQ, GD or IMHO) about the arts was supposed to be in that forum.
After that came The Game Room for all those WoW / Mafia / Sports lovers.
The board owner added Straight Dope Chicago for his new column about Chicago.
2010 U.S. Election was created as an experiment to placate people tired of seeing political discussions in GD, and finally Marketplace was added, again due to popular demand.
Too many forums! Wasn’t like that in the old days! Next thing you know we’ll be allowing avatars!
Whippersnappers!
I’ve always used the RSS feed to see new posts, so until I read the post, I’ve no idea what forum it is in. As others have said, that way I come across interesting threads that I might have otherwise never seen.
Arnold’s quick forum history (Post #14 above) is essentially correct. My only correction is that in the beginning, Cecil only saw the need for two forums: Comments of Cecil’s Columns, and Everything Else (which became “General Questions.”) OK, he’s an eccentric genius, but sometimes his ego gets in the way of reality.
Early on, when that was obviously not the way the MBs were inclining, the decision was made by Ed with moderator input, to organize based on types of discussions. Even with the questions Cecil gets asked, the traditional academic divisions (sociology, geology, physics, history, etc) weren’t going to handle the caloric count of semen or kamikaze pilots wearing helmets. Many of the questions we get asked transcend academic categories, or would involve two or three. Hence, the decision to divide forums different from every other message board: by type of discussion. Question/factual answer: GQ. Ongoing debate with no real “answer”: Great Debates. Sharing personal information: MPSIMS. Flaming others: BBQ Pit.
It hit a point when we felt the need to break off at least one topic area (entertainment) because GQ was flooded with TV, Movie, etc questions. So Cafe Society was born. THen, more recently, Cafe Society was flooded with gaming questions, so a second forum was created for Gaming. THose are the only two specialized forums; the others are based on the type of discussion rather than subject matter. And we like that, a lot. It’s different from the other boards.
The “Chicago” forum was added as an experiment, to see if there was enough interest. There was (still is) some hope of spinning off other city-related forums, but I’m not sure where that stands. And Newest “by subject matter” are, of course, the Marketplace forum – an experiment, limited to paid subscribers.
So, no, most of us like thumbing through a lot of topics. That way (at least for me) I often learn new stuff, and find interesting new reading that I might not have chosen if I were just browsing traditional genres.
(snipped, obviously)
Weird question then - I’m a newbie and just a guest, but I can see and reply to Marketplace threads. I can’t post new threads, but I’m still able to participate in the forum itself - is that the way it’s supposed to be?
From your comment I’m wondering now if that is a glitch.
Not a glitch, they want you to buy the services/products being advertised. It’s the posting a new thread there that is members only.
Oh, damn. If only there was a forum on here where I could find beauty tips on accenting my green eyes of envy!