The fewer new forums the better. Too many sub-groups destroys the cross-talk of different people that makes this place so educational.
The English pluralizations are both acceptable and not pretentious douchebaggery, so it’s a win-win. Not sure why “forums” sounds wrong to you; as pointed out upthread does a record collection consist of “albums” or “alba”?
Forums, penises, cactuses; always use English pluralizations all the time and you’ll always be using an acceptable method and they’ll start looking more and more correct over time.
Note that the M-W entry for “fora” is linked with “also.” That’s M-W’s conjunctive to indicate the secondary usage is much less common. If the secondary usage is very common, it is linked with “or.”
And I agree. There should be some political forum(s) that combine “Great Debates” and “The Pit.”
I don’t know either. Probably I’m not used to hearing the word pluralized at all. It’s kind of funny, since I hate it when people misapply Greek and Latin plurals even as a joke. Ponii, Jesii, it bugs the crap out of me.
Anyway, I do want to hear everybody’s ideas so I’m not going to weigh in on everything I agree or disagree with. But I think the idea of a no rules amnesia/knife fight forum is a really bad one that would drag down the quality of the site.
This is a major shift for the SDMB. I always wanted to see more forums, but I realize that means there would be more subject-related forums; a paradigm shift from the SDMB model that was traditionally based on discussion type; debate, flaming, general chat, query, and so on. With the Cafe Society, and most recently Barn House, we’re seeing the shift away from discussion type to discussion subject. I think it’s good to have a healthy mix of both.
I wouldn’t want to see things too fragmented here, though. Good message board administration practice is to have fewer busy subforums rather than a lot of slow ones. Something Awful can afford to have 60-some subforums, because their member base is much larger than the SDMB; many join SA just to participate in one or two subforums, seldom straying into other areas. SDMB membership is smaller, so it really doesn’t make sense to have subforums dedicated to very niche topics. Also, on the SDMB, members seem more likely to participate in different subforums. Yes, there’s the people that stick to MPSIMS or GQ, but it’s not like they’re socially isolated from the rest of the SDMB community in the same way that they are on SA.
I’m not a sports fan, but it might be a good idea to separate sports away from the Game Room. Looking at the Game Room, it really doesn’t seem sports-friendly; a discussion about the Packers or the Olympics really seems out of place among the threads about video games, Mafia, RPGs, and the like. A science subforum might also be popular here, for general discussion about aeronautics, physics, medicine, geology, engineering, and so on that doesn’t necessarily fit into GQ. If there’s individual subject areas, it might be in keeping with the character and culture of the SDMB to follow academic divisions (arts, science, social sciences, business, political science, PE, philosophy, etc) rather than the hierarchies found on most other general interest sites (relationships, food, cars, politics, books, music, etc.).
This is what I came in to say, except silenus already said it, and better.
I would like to see a new forum for [unlikely forum subject]. I mean, if we can have a forum just for [controversial new forum], why the hell not?? [Additional expression of RO here.]
:: Borderline-insane muttering ::
I want the Knife Fight forum as well–as I outlined it here and expanded on here, the Pit has essentially outgrown its original purpose and migrated into what is actually a better general debate forum and it would be nice to have a wilder and woolier space for the really rude, juvenile and narsty people (like me, f’rinstance) to get horrible in. You know, where all the wussy people don’t have to waste our time and bandwidth to tell us that we’re being all 'orrible and stuff…
A testing four-um. ATMB is a great place to get information and whatnot, but at any time there are multiple test threads that just add visual clutter. A child/sub area would be easy to mod and clean whenever necessary.
I think a computer for-em would bring together a lot of disparate threads from other areas quite helpfully. There are a lot of GQ coding/hardware/help threads, of course. Having them in one place might make it easier to be seen and answered, and lurking in those boards would be an easy place to pick up tips and tricks application-wise (i.e., it won’t necessarily be uber-technical).
Consider, for example, threads on Chrome. At the moment, there are threads in (at least) GQ, GD, IMHO, and the Pit. Maybe the pit thread won’t move per se, but general opinions about it as well as how to customize could go in the same area.
Lastly, how about an Everybody Says Nice Things About Rhythmdvl fer-yum?
Here’s another vote for the “Knife Fight” forum that is basically a forum like the Pit was that whole weekend.
AFAIK, VBulletin allows the admins/mods to create subforums. Perhaps that could be a subforum of the Pit?
30 posts and I’m the first one to say I’d like to see a Penthouse Forum?
Damn, y’all are really disappointing me lately.
Agree.
That said, though, I think a politics forum – or even just a temporary “election 2008” forum – would be nice to clear a lot of the redundancy out of GD/Pit/IMHO cross talk.
Oh yeah? Well, good old american dictionaries like Merriam-Webster allow me to use fora. 
ETA: note to self: read the whole thread before using the Reply button.
Addressing the OP:
I think we have too many fora already. And the “Knife Fight” forum idea is one of the worst ideas I’ve heard in my days here.
How 'bout one for Ed Zotti and his new book?
Sorry. Already have one. 
The admins, not the mods. In the vBulletin admin menu, it’s (Forums & Moderators) > (Add New Forum), and filling in this forum.
There’s also setting forum permissions; will it be a public forum, a mod-only forum, a forum for members of a certain group only, or something else? Setting permissions for a certain group uses a menu that looks like this:
(Yes, the authors of VBulletin are very inconsistent with capitalization.)
Creating new forums isn’t an excruciating ordeal.
First of all, merge IMHO and MPSIMS. I cannot comprehend why those two forums need to be separate. Then, merge Comments of Cecil’s Columns and Comments on Staff Reports. Who cares who wrote them? Those are two of the deadest forums.
Then maybe make a poltics forum and/or election 2008 forum. Knife fight is a dumb idea, sorry.
Agreed. I never understood why there were separate forums for the Cecil columns and the SR columns, and I don’t think a “Knife Fight” forum is a good idea, either.
Perhaps an “all things pets” forum, so that those who don’t want to wade through those threads in MPSIMS don’t get frustrated, and those of us who can’t get enough pet stories and pics have a place to hang