Thinking of reducing the number of forums

[PTRACER]

I was thinking of removing Racing Circuits and merging with both Modern Motorsport and Racing History depending on the content of the thread.

Also, considering how few active threads there are in Music, Computer Games and Foreign Language, merging that back with the Lounge.

The forum is becoming quieter lately, so this is a reflection of that. I have plans in motion tonadd new content on the near future.

Any objections?

[DoubleFault]

If Foreign language is to be merged back into the Lounge it would get lost very quickly to page 4720305 and never seen again. In my opinion just get rid.

[erwin greven]

Yes, get rid of the foreign language topic. Not really needed here.

[kals]

To make the forum feel busier we've all just got to make an effort to post in multiple threads and respond to other people's posts. Sometimes posts will go unanswered in some threads for many days therefore making the forum feel quiet. We can get rid of sections, move things around, decommission certain threads, downsize, but that won't get rid of the actual problem. And that problem is us members. We've got to make more of an effort. It doesn't take much. At the end of the day we are the forum, we make it live and I for one don't want it to die.

[PTRACER]

You're making more than enough effort kals and even though strad is no longer a moderator, he's making a big effort too.

As I've always said, we have 2000+ members and less than 30 active posters. It upsets me in a way when I look at the current members making an effort and it goes mostly unrewarded. By that, I mean you only get maybe a handful of replies to threads, even the discussion ones.

I want to try and somehow get some of our old members back and I think the forum needs to go in a different direction in order to do that. Or we need to do a little more shameless plugging.

When we first started, crashes and videos were our main thing, discussion was on the side. I like the way that that side is now on a back seat, but we still need to provide something other forums don't.

[kals]

Here's your answer...

90. Take over TBK and complete my global cyber domination

Take it over, turn it off, repoint "some" members over here.

[PTRACER]

Marvin won't like me much for that. Are they really the crowd that we want back here? Besides, they are happy there otherwise they would be here.

[kals]

That is why I said "some" members

[PTRACER]

I'm happier, but I don't want to remove the other forums without the regular users' say so.

[Cheeveer]

I'm against removing the music and computer forums.

[PTRACER]

How is it looking at the moment?

[DoubleFault]

I'm against removing the music and computer forums.

I agree.

[Rainyday]

Removing international forums would be an idea as such, but how about we make it into a "Travel&International"-type of subforum? You can talk in different languages or discuss your latest trip to Spain or take suggestions on whether you should invest on a beach holiday in Edinburgh or a ski holiday in Madrid - or whether both are a bad idea and you should go for a relaxing family visit to the beatiful coast of Somalia instead.

What I mean is that we could discuss the stuff that fills up some of The Lounge currently like, well, travel and international topics, as the name suggests. Also discussion about politics and your national elections would go there along with a new stupid law some idiot politician just made which will worsen YOUR life considerably.

Regarding other topics: Let computer and video games as well as music stay, I personally like racing circuits and I feel that it should be expanded rather than getting rid off. We could make historical racing, it's venues and discussion about it our main pull and discuss obviously modern motorsports as well. We also have many rare items thanks to certain members, which is not a bad thing and always an interesting read. I just feel that people who post the articles don't get enough feedback and discussion, often just seeing their thread having a couple of "any more on that please"-posts and that's it.

What we should do is to aim to keep this forum discussion-oriented with focus on articles and pictures with discussions and speculations about them.

Or we could merge maybe Computers into The Lounge and Games into a Games & Trivia-subsection of the lounge which would have Quizzes, Trivia threads and discussion about games - traditional and modern video games.

I don't know really, This place is good as it is now but maybe lacks some new members - or they find it hard and unrewarding to keep posting here since it's not very active of a forum and thus leave after maybe 10 or 20 posts which is a shame.

But my bottom line is that this is perhaps the best place around to have serious discussions in a friendly environment about motorsport and it's past as well as the future, the drivers, the venues and their pranching horses that took them to fame - or took their life. And that's why you can count me in as an active poster in the future too, and I hope I don't have to start posting alone.

[DoubleFault]

This forum > Other forums

The reason?

If I don't go on my PC for 24 hours I only have to go through 3 pages of news rather than 30 pages to read about 2 bits of news.

[PTRACER]

The idea of reducing the forums was to increase the content in the existing ones and to tidy up and freshen up our look which, looking back, we've had since 2006 at least.

Too many forums and not enough content = an empty looking forum. If there was a great demand for more new forums then I would create more.