We have to many forums, and it is killing GQ.

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#1

In what way is Serena Williams’ “catsuit” disprespectful of the game?

This thread isn’t about tennis. It’s about sexism or racism or maybe an official randomly punishing a player/employee. It’s only related to sports in that the company involved is the French Tennis Federation. It could have been about almost any corporation.

So why was it banished to the Game Room?

In general, I’m not terribly happy with how the different forums are used these days. Anything involving edibles, literature, art, film or music gets moved to the Cafe. Anything involving a politician gets whisked into Elections (no election needs be involved). All threads even mentioning sports and games go into the Game Room.

General Questions has been gutted.

I think we need to take a look at redefining what is a General Question, and what really needs to be moved into a specialized forum.

To me, “When was Monopoly invented?” would be GQ, but “Let’s play online Monopoly” should be Game Room. “How was Serena’s outfit disrespectful?” is GQ, “How do I score bowling?” is the Game Room.

“Soaking lentils and beans” is a fine question for GQ. I’d actually totally get rid of Cafe Society. Everything in it could fit into other forums, like GQ or MPSIMS or IMHO.

And I’d limit Elections to actual election based questions, not everything political.

Part of the joy of GQ has always been the variety of topics I might find. Stuff I didn’t even think to ask about. Now? It’s almost dead. RIP GQ, I miss the liveliness you used to have.

#2

49 of the 51 most-recently-posted-to threads in GQ had posts today or yesterday. That’s far more active threads than any other forum on the SDMB.

#3

A strange example to pick. If the Serena Williams thread were not in Game Room, surely it should be IMHO or GD? I don’t see how it’s a GQ, what is the factual answer?

#4

“How was Seren’a outfit disrespectful” is IMHO OR Game Room. I can see an argument for either. GD would be pushing it unless you tied it to some larger issue. It is not GQ because there is no unambiguous factual answer possible. It is all just opinion.

ETA: I see Riemann got there well before I did, but I’ll leave this one for emphasis. GQ is not for debates or matters of opinion.

#5

Hunh. I’m a GQ mod and I haven’t noticed any difference.

Given that Cafe Society has been around for 17 years, and The Game Room for 10, and I’ve used exactly the same criteria for thread moves from GQ to those and other forums for the last 11 years, it sure is taking a long time for those forums to kill GQ.:wink:

Let’s look at some numbers.

There have been 122 threads active in GQ in the last week, not counting deleted spam.

5 threads, mostly asking for advice, were moved from GQ to IMHO.
2 threads, one asking about a specific comedy sketch and one on Teppanaki restaurants, were moved to CS
No threads were moved to the Game Room or to other forums.

By far the most common thread move is from GQ to IMHO. But it’s been that way since IMHO was started. The number of threads moved from GQ to CS and the Game Room is trivial.

That thread wasn’t in GQ. It was originally posted to IMHO. Asimovian moved it to the Game Room.

That’s not a factual question, in any way shape or form. It certainly doesn’t belong in GQ. It could have stayed in IMHO, perhaps, but since the issue was in the context of the game of tennis a move to the Game Room was appropriate.

#6

Could just relabel elections to politics.

#7

It is a well known fact that the entire board has been declining precipitously ever since it was established in 1999.* :slight_smile:

*At least, someone has posted that the board used to be a lot better about once a month ever since I joined, so it must be so.

#8

I’ll just add that the real culprits here are changing social media mores and wikipedia et al. Message boards are a slow dying medium and highly detailed/obscure information is vastly easier to find now than it was in 2003 when you first joined.

Of course there are a lot fewer interesting questions than there used to be. Fewer people come here for answers.

#9

Probably but I think most everyone (OP excluded) is comfortable with the way it’s settled in. IIRC Elections started out as a temp forum though I’m glad it stayed. Politics needs its own forum.

#10

Elections could be a subforum of politics.

#11

Actually, it should be “Current Affairs” because the way it sits now in MPSIMS doesn’t work. I’d also allow some slack regarding snark. Not to turn it into pit style insults but taking a pot shot at e.g. PETA in a developing news story shouldn’t get a mod note or warning.
Then put “Politics” as a subforum and “Elections” as a subsubforum.
That way, anything topical goes into current affairs, whereas a discussion of a more ideological nature goes into GD.

#12

For what it’s worth, I was a little torn about potentially leaving the thread at issue in IMHO. But the OP of that thread specifically asks whether and how a tennis player’s outfit was impacting the sport of tennis, as the French Tennis Federation President so idiotically stated.

I thought, and still think, that it is better suited to the Game Room as the forums are currently defined. While I don’t think any great harm would have come to the board if the thread had remained in IMHO, I try to apply the categorization that best fits each thread that comes to my attention.

#13

Another reason is that lots of interesting questions have already been answered on this board already. People google and find the answer that way, so they don’t need to start another thread with the question. That’s not to say we don’t get repeated questions, but I’m sure it suppresses quite few of them.

#14

[EDIT]

Never mind. I originally had a mod note about politics/elections discussion being a hijack, but upon considering the OP further I can see how a general discussion of forums and divisions of such is on topic. If you saw the original mod note, please disregard.

#15

My vote: Ditch Games and Elections. Merge IMHO and MPSIMS.

I see no reason why a GQ on the Mathematics of Chess, for example, should be banished to a forum where football is discussed. Puzzles/games and sports are entirely unrelated things.

#16

That’s not how we have been moderating GQ for many years now, since long before I became a mod.

Let’s take your Monopoly example, just because I happen to know a bit about the game’s history and where a question about it might lead so it’s a great example. Sure, when was Monopoly invented seems like a straightforward factual question, but the answer is that Monopoly evolved out of a thing called The Landlord’s Game, and while similar, this game was slightly different. This could lead to a discussion about gameplay and what is different, when houses (cardboard, originally) were added to the game, and whether the original version was better or worse, etc. In other words, simple factual questions can lead to lengthy discussions about gameplay. Also, after the question has been answered factually, folks will often want to discuss the game in question. This is why it makes sense to move these types of questions to the Game Room right from the start.

(Note - let’s not have an actual discussion of Monopoly here, this is just being used as an example. If anyone really wants to discuss this in more detail, post in the Game Room)

Similarly, questions about songs or movies, even factual questions like “what’s the name of this song?” tend to lead to discussions of the art involved, so it makes sense to move the question to Cafe Society. You may not like Cafe Society, but I personally think it serves a very useful purpose.

As Colibri said, “How was Serena’s outfit disrespectful?” isn’t a factual GQ question. I can see an argument for putting it in IMHO, but I would tend to favor the Game Room as for where it should be placed. Questions about football uniforms go in the Game Room. Questions about baseball uniforms go in the Game Room. This is a question about what a player of a game is required to wear, and while the topic might indeed involve sexism, male chauvinism, etc. it’s still about what a player is required to do to participate in a game. Again, if the focus was on sexism in general I can see an argument for IMHO or maybe even GD, but as it stands there’s nothing wrong with moving it to the Game Room.

GQ has been my favorite forum since I joined back in 2001. While the SDMB has declined in general in recent years, along with every other message board on the internet, I don’t see it as anywhere near a dead forum.

#17

Admittedly there is an argument for splitting the Game Room into two, but the main argument against doing so is that if you split the forums too much, the various sub-forums don’t get enough traffic to remain sustainable.

#18

Seriously?
Do I have to start a thread about this, because that would be really meta?

Are you actually saying that re-naming ‘elections’ to ‘politics’ in a thread about GQ, where others are making suggestions about the fora, “comes across as either a hijack or just an attempt to stir up folks who have strong opinions about the elections forum.”

Really?
And worthy of a mod note?

#19

I already edited the mod note out before you posted this.

It looked to me on first read like snfaulkner was just trying to stir up the pot. After re-reading the OP and thinking about it a bit, I realized that the post was actually on-topic and removed the note.

#20

OK.

I was going through a search about “elections” in ATMB, so it took some time between starting the reply and hitting submit.

No harm no foul on either side, I hope.