Suggestion For A New Forum

About This Message Board
1

How would a new forum be received by the SBMBers? Reserved for posting topics such as:

Time Machines. What IF? Let’s Supose.
Other similarly oriented topics dealing with fantasy rather than reality.

Call it the “Fantasy Forum” till a better suggestion comes along.

2

How about Theory, Not Reality, where theoretical situations, from the mudane to sci-fi to the outrageous could be discussed with whatever rigor is appropriate.

Vlad/Igor

3

I’ve long been an advocate of not fractionating the Board anymore than absolutely necessary, as diversification tends to, IMHO, sap the vitality of message boards.

Fantasy topics can usually be addressed in either MPSIMS, IMHO or GD.

And this might be better suited to ATMB.

4

One thing I have noticed about a lot fo boards is that there are a hell of a lot of fora. This makes things daunting for newbies (in many ways), but it also creates something of a splintering effect even for those who are accustomed to it.

Frankly, I wouldn’t have a complaint if the Comments fora were merged and if IMHO and MPSIMS were merged.

5

This thread is somewhat poll-ish [sub]snerk[/sub] but given the topic it would fit better in ATMB.
Movin’ it on over…

TVeblen
IMHO mod

6

Sheer curiosity on my part, but what was the original justification for creating IMHO as a separate forum? I know it was a later development than the others (except CS) – but what was the original purpose?

7

Because MPSIMS had turned into a 500-pound gorilla, and a thread had about five minutes on the first page before being shoved off by the torrent of other threads being started.

8

Comments on Cecil’s Column and Comments on Staff Reports are different so that Cecil only needs to read CoCC. He doesn’t spend much time on the Boards, he likes to read about himself and his work, so he can be focused and not read drivel.

The other forums are pretty much organized based on the type of discussion, rather than the content of the discussion. “Theory, not Reality” is sort of content-oriented rather than type-of-discussion oriented, although that’s probably debatable.

My test for whether we “need” a new forum is two-fold:

(1) - Is there a topic/style that is so overwhelming one forum that it needs to be split off? (This is what created Cafe Society, our only topic-oriented forum.) – so, get us a count, how many such threads have there been in the past year or six months? Is there enough need to separate this out? (We are aware that the very act of creating a speciality forum would certainly increase the prevalence of related threads.)

(2) - Does it fit in other forums?

  • “What if I had told my boss what I really thought of her?” probably goes in MPSIMS
  • “What if there really were dilithium crystals that could power faster-than-light speeds?” is probably General Questions.
  • “What if Hitler had won WWII?” is probably Great Debates
  • “What if we made a movie about the Straight Dope, who would we cast?” is Cafe Society.
  • “What if you weren’t such a moron?” is Pit
9

:smack:
I think I just got pitted.