kipper

There's now discussion in OMNI about an OMNI/Sports forum, and I'd like TalkBoard to consider creating a subforum of OMNI called OMNI/Sports (or something similar), where all sport-related threads would live. This would include threads about Olympics, football, baseball, etc.

The OP:
I do think this is a good idea, and follows the logic used in creating an OMNI/Games forum. There are 13 sports-related threads on the first page of OMNI right now.

tcook052

Yes, almost all due to the Olympics. MHO is we do not need another OMNI channel any more than we would need another channel to house only political topics as they are currently dominating the OMNI PR forum.

SkiAdcock

As a regular FTer, I'm inclined to agree w/ tcook052.

Certain times of the year(s) we get an increase in a particular type of thread, whether it be sports around the Olympics or political threads around election years. After the events have passed, there are very few threads re: the topics. It's been that way for the 10 years I've been on FT.

But if you feel strongly enough about it kipper, I encourage you to do what we ask other FTers to do when creating a forum, which is make a case for it.

The following are qualitative criteria that the TalkBoard believes are useful to consider when evaluating proposals to create, close, split, or move forums. Whenever a forum change is discussed on the TalkBoard Topics, the TalkBoard encourages posters to fully address these criteria in addition to any other reasons supporting or opposing the change.

1. Will the forum be (or is it now) beneficial to FlyerTalk?

2. Will the new forum benefit a relationship with FlyerTalk? E.g., does the forum provide value for FT members, such as a friendly ear highly placed in the company

3. Is FT the best place to discuss this subject?

4. Is there a passionate following? This is essential in order to provide dedicated expert helpers to get questions answered.

5. Is a critical mass of posts and readers anticipated or existing? We need adequate traffic to keep everyone visiting frequently. One living forum is more valuable than two mostly dead ones.

6. Is this the best place on FlyerTalk for this subject? This is the classification issue. The answer depends primarily on achieving and maintaining critical mass. It also depends on whether or where the discussion might (or does) occur in the absence of the forum.

7. For proposals to split a forum, is the split expected to improve the signal to noise ratio? Why?

Cheers.

nerd

It's a silly idea.

The world's largest sporting event is going on now. There's a major college scandal going on in the U.S. We just had Wimbledon, the UEFA Cup, and the Tour. Of course there is a lot of discussion on the topic of sport.

Mary2e

Normally there are 2-4 threads that contain posts about a particular sport - not individual threads about each game, etc.

Right now there are many threads about the Olympics which will go away with the Olympics.

I don't think there's a need to further breakdown Omni any more than it is.

kipper

I'll work on that later today, unless someone else wants to tackle that.
There are usually at least a few threads discussing sports on the front page of OMNI, whether or not the Olympics are taking place or not.

While it may not seem like many to most people, I do ask that everyone remember that an OMNI/Games forum was created not long ago, even though there were typically only 2-3 game threads on the front page of OMNI at any given time. Why should the standards be different for that? Likewise, why were the questions listed above not asked and answered for that forum?

kipper

Consistency, Mary, consistency. We split the games threads into their own forum, even though there were usually 2-4 game threads on the front page of OMNI. Why not do it with sports too?

Mary2e

Since sports are, technically, games, why don't the sports threads just get moved there? There isn't too much activity in it, and almost no new threads posted at the last I looked in there.

Cholula

One of the main reasons we created an OMNI Games sub-forum was for a place to put games that required little to no human interaction and thus were not deemed worthy of post count credit.

Some games are still in regular OMNI as they combine fun and/or some sort of interaction with their posts.

Posts get counted in OMNI and OMNI/PR. They don't get counted in OMNI/Games.

As to yet another sub-forum for OMNI/Sports, I'm currently neutral on the idea. If someone could point to some solid benefits for creating the sub-forum, I might be convinced to support it.

kipper

That could probably work too, although that's probably more of a moderator action?

kipper

I'm working on it, but that's not going to happen until at least tonight.

I do have to ask why the OMNI/Games forum wasn't held to the same standard, by having those questions answered before it was created?

SkiAdcock

I'm not seeing the games as quite the equivalent of the sports thing. The games threads continually bounced up on the first page because the people posting in those threads were well - playing games, such as counting, etc, and the game posts were considered by some not to bring any value to FT (outside of those playing).

The # of sports threads (outside of big sporting events) aren't very many & don't get bumped up like the games threads did, just as outside election years there aren't as many political topics/threads in Omni PR.

I'm not seeing enough of a problem w/ sports threads to justify a separate sub-forum. Heck, if we base it only on 1-2 types of threads per topic, we'd have separate sub-forums for workplace topics, real estate topics, which also get separate threads & can be displayed on the same page.

Cheers.

Mary2e

All the mods have to do is move the threads into the games forum, as well as any future misplaced threads.

But I really don't think it's necessary. I hate to see the living room broken out into more rooms. It's the off-topic area and should be a catch-all.

kipper

During football season, there's usually a college football thread, a Washington Redskins thread, and the fantasy football thread at a minimum. Add to it baseball playoffs, and then hockey, and that's probably 4-5 that get bumped at least weekly, if not 3-4 times/week just to discuss games.

Again, I ask the question of why was the OMNI/Games forum not held to the same standard? Did anyone answer the questions you asked me to answer about it?
Yes, it should be a catch-all, but then why is it broken into 3 subforums now?

Mary2e

Cholula explained it above.