Making the MLP subforum a full forum

[Alsek]

The MLP section has only been around a short time and already it already has over a hundred more posts than the next highest post count sub-forum in the community groups forum,  "Furry Tech Talk,"  And furry tech talk has been around sense 2003.

The other sub-forums in community groups completely pale in comparison when it comes to activity and use... As i mentioned in the news thread i dread the idea of wanting to post something tech related because it would never see the front page for the constant onslaught of pony related posts.  in fact,  usually now i just don't.  Even if someone happend to wonder into the techboard and replied,  their reply would be covered up within 20 minites by the bronies.

Now i'm not trying to say this is a bad thing, i really think it's great that there's a part of the forum that's growing in activity... A whole new subject that wasn't otherwise discussed here before... But i'm thinking maybe it's outgrown it's sub-forum status now.  I mean,  honestly,   even though it has a different name,  the, "Community groups," forum pretty-much IS the my little pony forum now...

And all the other topics are just unfortunate enough to be crammed in there with it.



So... It is a fairly furry related topic.  Talking ponies, dragons, and dogs all count as anthropomorphic animals.  Do you think maybe it would be possible to give this it's own front page forum untill it someday (years from now) starts to quiet down?

It has more activity than the poetry,  web design support,  and photography and video front page forums combined.

Also,  i'm personally not biased in it's favor as i don't frequent that area,  but i highly doubt you'd find any objections from the bronies.  Everyone wins.

[Shim]

I think this is a great idea. It's a board that seems to get as much traffic as the others lately.

[Kobuk]

I'm not sure I can fully explain what I want to say here, so please bear with me and I'll describe as best I can.

You say the MLP sub-forum is getting a lot of activity, right? And the other sub-forums are kinda so-so.  If the MLP community is getting a large amount of traffic, then wouldn't it make sense to leave it where it is as it tends to act as the "anchor" so to speak for the whole Communities forum area? If we leave the MLP sub-forum where it is, then maybe people will take the time to browse/migrate from there to the other community sub-forums.
In other words, MLP tends to act as a sort of "lighthouse" or beacon for members to browse that community. And if members see the MLP community, they might take notice more of the other sub-forum communities like Furry Tech Talk, etc. and start posting there too.

Am I making any sense or did I lose you? Look at it this way. A lot of large shopping malls have what are called "anchor stores". These are large stores like Kohl's, JC Penny, Target, Sears, etc. at strategic places at the mall. And if shoppers browse those stores, then they might decide to stay long enough and continue browsing some of the smaller stores adjacent to the main anchor stores that are in the mall.

[Alexandre]

I understand what you're saying, Kobuk, and I kind of agree with you.  Personally, I don't have much of an opinion either way.

The risk with having it in the communities, though, is that it really does overshadow everything else there.  People have to click on the community groups to see any new posts that aren't in the MLP forum, and that adds an extra layer that makes them much less known.  This is the main issue.

Again, I really don't have much of an opinion.  If enough people wanted it, I'd be in favor of it.  You guys wanna pull other bronies in here to voice their opinions?

[redyoshi49q]

I understand what you're saying, Kobuk, and I kind of agree with you.  Personally, I don't have much of an opinion either way.

The risk with having it in the communities, though, is that it really does overshadow everything else there.  People have to click on the community groups to see any new posts that aren't in the MLP forum, and that adds an extra layer that makes them much less known.  This is the main issue.

I second this.  I don't generally view the Community groups subforum page directly; I usually view all of those subboards directly from the main page.  I imagine that most people would use either the "Last post" links on the side of the main page or the links to specific Community group subforums on the main page as I do.

The MLP subforum probably does have some positive effect on keeping new brony members here, but it also seems to have a negative impact on the other Community groups.  Moving it would fix that.

Again, I really don't have much of an opinion.  If enough people wanted it, I'd be in favor of it.  You guys wanna pull other bronies in here to voice their opinions?

The change is minimal for me personally either way, as I usually view the tech talk subboard directly from the main page if it has unread posts.  Having said that, I think it would be better for the users and potential users of the other community groups in general if the MLP board was moved.  Perhaps their thoughts should be solicited as well?  I think they'd be more affected by this.

[Storm Fox]

Mentioning this because it seems relevant, the text of the name of each sub forum on the main page is in bold when there’s a new post within.

That’s what I always use as a quick reference to know where the new stuff is when viewing things from the main page.

[Avan]

MY vested interest is in being able to talk about tech stuff without it getting moved to the tech forums where it will never be seen. I think that at the current state of things, the whole community subforums things could just be done away with, with stuff like food & tech being things to discuss in off-topic (or perhaps as subforums of off-topic?), and the current position of the community subforums getting replaced by the mlp one.

ALSO, can we have all future mlp threads get moved to there as general policy? Sort of how like as of right now, tech threads have been dumped into tech talk, but here its to mutual benefit instead of mutual problem-generation. It would consolidate the bronies' stuff for them, while letting me (and others who have no interest in mlp) browse the rest of the forum without tripping over random topical mlp threads. Adblock can block avatars and signatures, but doesn't filter out threads.

[Kobuk]

ALSO, can we have all future mlp threads get moved to there as general policy? Sort of how like as of right now, tech threads have been dumped into tech talk, but here its to mutual benefit instead of mutual problem-generation. It would consolidate the bronies' stuff for them, while letting me (and others who have no interest in mlp) browse the rest of the forum without tripping over random topical mlp threads. Adblock can block avatars and signatures, but doesn't filter out threads.

I don't understand what you mean by this?

[Avan]

Ok, so like right now, if I went to offtopic (general non-furry discussion), and posted a thread about CPUs or something, it would get moved to the tech subforum, where it would have drastically reduced visibility, hence why I want to do away with the whole community subforum system.

However, for MLP (which if sub communities were done away with, or became subforums of general non-furry, would become a full forum [Though would you please keep it at the bottom of the index where it currently is?]), this wouldn't be a problem, because they would be viewing that forum anyways! Furthermore, it would mean that non-mlp people would be able to not have to have random mlp threads lying around.

[Kobuk]

I just recently had an idea. But unfortuneately, I'm off to bed right now as I have early work. I'll post about it more either tomorrow night or on the weekend.

[Hoagiebot]

As one of the more spirited participants in the MLP community group, I would like to chime in and say that I am perfectly fine with how things are right now.  I like how MLP:FiM has its own community sub-board.  Bronies are a community after all, so it makes logical sense that bronies would have their own "community group" sub-forum.  Besides, I almost never go to the main Furtopia page to find recent posts.  Instead, I find out what topics on Furtopia have had recent activity each day by clicking on the "Active Topics" link at the top of every Furtopia page.  That way I rarely miss anything, no matter what topic or sub-forum it is posted in.

I'm sure that I am going to open up a real can of worms here by saying this, but considering the fact that it seems like the majority of the rabble-rousing here is coming from two furs that frequent the "Furry Tech Talk" community group, I have a feeling that the real problem here is not the popularity of the MLP community group nor where the Furry Tech Talk community group is located within the hierarchy of Furtopia's forums.  Instead, I think that the problem here is that the disgruntled Furry Tech Talk members are failing to realize that deep-geek technical talk is too uninteresting and/or too over the heads of the majority of the members here and are using the bronies as a straw man to blame for their lack of sub-forum activity instead.  And this is coming from a guy who both frequently visits and posts in the Furry Tech Talk board as much as anyone else here!  I collect vintage computers as a hobby, I'm a computer programmer, I solder my own electronics, and I have an Amateur Extra-Class amateur radio license-- I am as much the targeted audience for the Furry Tech Talk community group here as anybody!!!

At the same time however, I also have come to the realization over the years that 90+% of the people in this world just aren't extremely enthusiastic about such topics as modifying the key length in GnuPG through altering its source code, whether you prefer to use vi, emacs, or Windows Notepad to author your text-files with, why VLIW-architecture microprocessors never achieved the success in the marketplace that was predicted of them, how to incorporate an op-amp into an analog circuit, what new features were added to the most recent release of the Eclipse IDE, what the future of the Cell processor in Sony products will be, or what new digital transmission modes the FCC just allowed hams to use on the 31m-band.  All but the most geeky of people here in these forums just don't care about these kinds of topics (Furtopia is a "furry" community and not a "tech" community after all), and as a result the members posting in the Furry Tech Talk group shouldn't be suddenly surprised when their posts only garner the attention and replies of the very few furs here that do care.  To further my point, Alsek dug the grave for his own argument in his very first post to this thread-- he stated how the Furry Tech Talk community group has been around since 2003 and yet after less than a year the MLP:FiM community group has buried it in terms of amount of activity.  You know what that proves?  That the Furry Tech Talk community group was *never* that active here relatively speaking, either before the MLP sub-forum was created, or after, and booting the MLP sub-forum out of the community groups section isn't going to somehow miraculously change that fact.

Now don't get me wrong-- I am all for the existence of a Furry Tech Talk community group sub-forum here.  As I mentioned above, I am as active in it as anyone else here generally, and every once in a while it really is nice to have a place to talk about technical things with other furs.  But suddenly blaming the MLP community group for its lack of traffic?  I'm sorry, but that's just sour grapes.

[Avan]

Actually, I'm not blaming MLP per-say, but rather the community sub-forum system*, stemming from the policy of topic-moving.

*And you're right that it was never active to begin with, and that's BECAUSE of the community sub-forum system.

To clarify, I was agreeing with this specific section of alsek's post: "i dread the idea of wanting to post something tech related because it would never see the front page" - the ONLY community subforum that ever took off was the mlp one, and that was because people were already talking about mlp stuff all over the place and it was making a mess, so it all got centralized for everyone's convenience.

[Kobuk]

I think Hoagiebot kinda has a point. Particuarly with this item:

I like how MLP:FiM has its own community sub-board.  Bronies are a community after all, so it makes logical sense that bronies would have their own "community group" sub-forum.

In a small way, MLP fandom is part of the Furry fandom. BUT........It's a smaller part, or rather "sub-set" or "offshoot" of the furry fandom since it has anthropomorphic ponies and dragons in it. MLP is by all means, a different "community" as Hoagiebot said. Hence why it is in the Community Groups section as a "sub-forum". While the MLP fandom/community has been growing on the Net as well as across the US and elsewhere, I actually see MLP as a passing fad. Sure, it's popular now because it's new to a much younger generation who never saw or grew up with MLP back in the 1980's/90's. But after awhile, the interest and fandom will subside and decline like most other cartoon or toy fandoms and communities. Therefor, I really don't see the need to bring MLP out of the Community Groups section and have it as a "full fledged forum" so to speak.

[Ickyrus]

I never did like the Sub-Forum set up. Ever notice how there's barely ever any newer members in the community groups? Are they intimidated or do they just not see them?

Something really needs to be done with all these, they've never worked as they are.

[Kobuk]

First of all, To anybody who is suggesting we get rid of and delete forums, we don't do that here. Furtopia keeps everything for historical/reference purposes. So getting rid of any Community groups sub-forums is out of the question. If a community sub-forum has not been active for a long time per the guidelines here: http://forums.furtopia.org/index.php?topic=42302.0
.........then the staff will move it into the Archive section here:
http://forums.furtopia.org/index.php?board=104.0
.
The only option I can think of for re-organising the Community section and making the sub-forums there more visible is the following:

Currently:

SUB-FORUM SECTION:

artists, authors, and musicians
Child Boards: Old Rabbit

community groups
Child Boards: Foodie Furs, Furry Tech Talk, Anime, MLP (My Little Pony)

Proposal:

SUB-FORUM SECTION:

Foodie Furs Forum
Tech Talk Forum
Anime Forum
MLP Forum

Notice in the Proposal option there is no "Community Groups" or "Child Board" wording. Those 4 sub-forums would be brought out and no longer considered "child boards", but they are still classified as sub-forums nonetheless because they are smaller groups as Hoagiebot tried to explain.

As for Artists, Authors, & Musicians, and Old Rabbit's child board, there is no concern about that. I will discuss that with Old Rabbit personally.

[Alsek]

That would completely solve the problem.    :3

[Kobuk]

That would completely solve the problem.    :3

So I'm guessing what is proposed in quote would be acceptable to you?

[Alsek]

Absolutely.  ^_^

[Kobuk]

I'll leave this thread open for a few more days for other members to give opinions, then by the middle of the week, the staff will discuss privately on any forum edits or moving/adding changes.

[Ziel]

I'm fine with it either way, but I don't really see much difference for my personal use of those. I just check those boards directly when I see them go bold in the list.

But if it might increase activity in any/all of those boards, go for it. It isn't going to hurt any of them at all.

[Avan]

That's fine.

[Shim]

Works for me

[Landrav]

Smart solution.  I don't particularly have a stake because I use the "Show unread posts..." link, but after reading the opinions on both sides I think this one addresses most, if not all, concerns.

[Alsek]

Smart solution.  I don't particularly have a stake because I use the "Show unread posts..." link, but after reading the opinions on both sides I think this one addresses most, if not all, concerns.

I use the show unread posts link and it affects me when i want to post in the tech forum or food forum because most people don't use that link.  ^^;

[Kobuk]

There are numerous ways of checking posts and threads in a forum.

1. At the top of the main forum page should be an "Active Topics" link to click on.

2. At the bottom of the main forum page in the Forum Stats section is a "View the most recent posts on the forum" link.

3. Clicking the large paw print symbol to the left of the forum title on the main forum page.

4. Click a forum title, then you'll enter that forum. Look over on the right where it says "Last post by....".  If on the right it says "Today at (Insert time)", then you know that was the last post made in that thread. Or.......on the extreme far right, there is what appears to be a paper and arrow symbol. Click on that and you'll be taken to the last post in the thread.