Need feedback from you guys -- IMPORTANT

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Need feedback from you guys -- IMPORTANT
Topic Started: Oct 11 2009, 12:59 AM (171 Views)
*Anaconda*	Oct 11 2009, 12:59 AM Post #1
Divine wrath shalt smite the sinner who bears the seal Posts: 2,373 Group: Captain Member #1 Joined: Jan 19, 2008 Blog Eda of black lagoon =O	I've been a little buggy about this in admin HQ and after giving it some time (with a lack of responses) I think it's better to just bring it up front to the public sections where it gets more feedback. I've given this a lot of thought because there are changes I want to make to the board, but they're changes I want to get serious feedback on because they'll have far reaching effects on the forum as a whole. I don't however want to make these changes without giving you guys the opportunity to put forth your own thoughts on the issue. Not only have many of you been with the old forum longer than me, but some of you guys know how the forum was structured better than I do. To the point; the forum is lacking activity, and this is due to a myriad of reasons; including that I'm inexperienced with administering a large community, and have barely any marketing prowess to attract new members. First off I'd like to propose a complete restructuring of the forum layout, and this is probably the most radical change I have in mind. I don't think that having a dedicated forum for every anime series is practical especially with the forum barely making it near 100 posts per day at this poin (many of which are by enlarge within the confines of baka land). I'd like to propose restructuring the dedicated sections into one for ongoing series, and one for finished series. I'd move all the threads from these sections into one of those two forums, and keep maybe to five (5) MOST ACTIVE dedicated forums around but located inside one of these new sections depending on whether thay're ongoing or finished. So the forum structure for specific anime would be as follows: Ongoing series Sub forums: ----- Bleach ----- Inuyasha ----- Darker than black Main section: Topics relating to current series Finished series Sub forums: ----- Sailor moon ----- Ranma Main section: Topics relating to finished series -------------------------------------------------------------- For the rest of the forum: Main -----Help Wanted -----Contact Staff -----Introductions --------Hiatus --------Returning Members Community (Non Anime) -----Neo AC lounge --------Advice Corner/Encouragement --------Entertainment --------Gaming --------School Main Section below subforums: General topics -----Current Events/debate -----Baka Land --------Fan Clubs --------Forum Games ------Tech section --------Graphic Design --------Website showcase Arts --------Fan art --------Fan Fction --------Roleplay -------------(Roleplay sub forum) Brainstorming Anime & Manga Community -----Ongoing Anime Series --------- selected active subforums Main discussion underneath in the main section ------Finished Series --------- selected active subforums Main discussion underneath in the main section -----Manga Discussions -----Anime/Manga debates/reviews I would make the community section member's only and the anime sections public. As is apparent I want to remove most of the individual anime sections if possible in favor of a more generalized discussion platform. I know that such a decision may be unpopular but the present setup which I kept to make this forum similar to the old one isn't healthy for the board because is spreads activity so thinly that even during the most active periods it made the forum look INactive, and the idea behind reducing them is to give a bit better breath to the board. But it's not a decision I take lightly. This is the big fish I need your feedback on -- WHOEVER is active and can give me even to smallest feedback. I need it. I want to do what's best for the forum, and making such a decision as this is something that 's NOT to be done without considering the opinions of the people the changes affect. Oh, and... Perverts union will NOT be removed... I wanted to get that out of the way... All private forums will remain as is in this plan. Also forum themes and graphics are on the roster but I won't have time to work on these until December. So I'll bring to those attention at a later point. So again these are my first ideas. Does ANYONE want to suggest modifications to this proposal? If so, it's a wide open park. Again.... I know some of the decisions I want to make are unpopular, but I'd like to make the forum more accommodating and I don't think it's possible to do that without cleaning the clutter, and I'm more than willing to work with everyone to make some compromises in order to make a move to improve things.



SawBone	Oct 11 2009, 12:00 PM Post #2
Posts: 4,513 Group: Musubi Member #25 Joined: Aug 1, 2008 Preferred Internet Browser Firefox	I agree with those changes. I suppose the "on-going" and "finished" series you gave were just examples.. i suggest making a contest of some sort to decide which anime gets to have its own board in each of their respective sub forums. Regarding activity on AC as a whole, I think what made the old AC's success is the partnership with all of the animechains network sites, InuYasha World in particular. However, offering partnership with some popular anime website will be tough in our current situation since we don't have much to offer them in return.



Slan	Oct 11 2009, 12:24 PM Post #3
Seinen manga fan Posts: 9,852 Group: God Hand Member #39 Joined: Aug 24, 2008 Blog Manga nonsense	those seem fine to me but of course your forgetting the old ac had alot of fan sites in its network as well trigun,inuyasha,hxh,cowboy bebop,etc. which this forum does not have.



*Anaconda*	Oct 11 2009, 01:06 PM Post #4
Divine wrath shalt smite the sinner who bears the seal Posts: 2,373 Group: Captain Member #1 Joined: Jan 19, 2008 Blog Eda of black lagoon =O	SawBone Oct 11 2009, 12:00 PM I agree with those changes. I suppose the "on-going" and "finished" series you gave were just examples.. i suggest making a contest of some sort to decide which anime gets to have its own board in each of their respective sub forums. Regarding activity on AC as a whole, I think what made the old AC's success is the partnership with all of the animechains network sites, InuYasha World in particular. However, offering partnership with some popular anime website will be tough in our current situation since we don't have much to offer them in return. The subforums I listed were examples of course, just to give you an idea of what I was talking about doing. I was originally thinking about seeing which ones were the most used and keeping them. The activity issue as I said has a number of causes, although the networking the old forum had was a big difference, it's not the only thing... Right now I'm more concerned with making the forum more breathable for people who are already here and then focus on that. The forum layout is the part that's been bugging me the most since it's the most visible aspect of the forum. I guess I'll wait a while and see what a few others have to say concerning this to get an idea of what the general opinion looks like.



Kouga23	Oct 11 2009, 05:11 PM Post #5
Haunted by Failure Posts: 2,915 Group: Haruhi Suzumiya Member #16 Joined: Jul 11, 2008 Preferred Internet Browser Internet Explorer	Geeze that's all awful big step just to get more people active. But what if you decided that you don't like it yourself? or that it didn't help at all? would you change it back? I'm just saying that its a big descision for just a dead season. People have got school and jobs, they just don't have the time to commit to here like they used too. Wait for Christmas holiday or possibly Thanksgiving Break, I'm sure you'll get the oldies back and active some. So I'm not sure if I'll like it or not, so I'm sorry if my feedback didn't help. Edited by Kouga23, Oct 11 2009, 05:13 PM.



*Anaconda*	Oct 11 2009, 05:53 PM Post #6
Divine wrath shalt smite the sinner who bears the seal Posts: 2,373 Group: Captain Member #1 Joined: Jan 19, 2008 Blog Eda of black lagoon =O	Kouga23 Oct 11 2009, 05:11 PM Geeze that's all awful big step just to get more people active. But what if you decided that you don't like it yourself? or that it didn't help at all? would you change it back? I'm just saying that its a big descision for just a dead season. People have got school and jobs, they just don't have the time to commit to here like they used too. Wait for Christmas holiday or possibly Thanksgiving Break, I'm sure you'll get the oldies back and active some. So I'm not sure if I'll like it or not, so I'm sorry if my feedback didn't help. The change isn't to bring members back. I know that people have priorities to take care of outside of their online lives. That's a given. It's not what I'm trying to address anyway. What I'm trying to address is an issue we've had since before the old forum died; too many individual discussion sections for the amount of activity we get at any given point in time; particularly when it comes to dedicated series sections. The question I wanted to ask, but wasn't sure how to communicate was would people support giving up the subforums that are inactive in favor of something more oriented to a generalized subsection while keeping only the most popular individual sections. I personally think the volume of sections we have hurts things more than it helps, but I'm well aware than not everybody sees it that way. hence why I don't want to make this decision on my own. I wanted to do some of the same cleanup for the community sections but the impact on those would be significantly less since they DON'T pose the same issues that the dedicated series section posses. For the most part those sections could remain untouched.



animedad	Oct 13 2009, 10:17 AM Post #7
Posts: 98 Group: Chuunin Ninja Member #142 Joined: Apr 23, 2009	I know that I am not on here much but I thought I would share my opinion. I think what you are suggesting is a good idea for the most part. I would think that any anime subforum that has not had any new posts for over six months should be removed as this does give the impression that there is little activity on this board. The only down side that I would see would be attracting less new people. When I found the old A/C I was googling for an old series, Elfen Lied or Chobits I beleive, so if you do not have forums for those series you would not be able to attract new members that way. I do however think that the good outweighs the bad as this would hopefully get more people to post in the general anime section if they have questions or comments about series that no longer have their own forums. I also like your idea of making the community forums members only as this would encourage the lurkers to register and get your membership numbers up.



*Anaconda*	Oct 15 2009, 09:57 PM Post #8
Divine wrath shalt smite the sinner who bears the seal Posts: 2,373 Group: Captain Member #1 Joined: Jan 19, 2008 Blog Eda of black lagoon =O	Well... thanks to those who're able to give their feedback so far. I'll give it a couple more days so other people have an opportunity to either suggest changes, or thumbs down the idea. If the feedback to this still looks overall positive by then I'll commit to some of the changes. I'll give a headsup via an announcement a couple days in advance of actually making them. I know sawbone suggested one idea, does anyone else want to put their foot down on the anime section changes too? Like what criteria would be best applied to determining what to keep? I was defaulting to keeping either sections which have at least a full page of topics, recent activity, or a combination thereof, which might add the greatest degree of flexibility (In other words in keeping series which members talk about frequently on a variety of topics) Quote: The only down side that I would see would be attracting less new people. When I found the old A/C I was googling for an old series, Elfen Lied or Chobits I beleive, so if you do not have forums for those series you would not be able to attract new members that way. As it is now, the series specific sections are members only. I had applied this a few months ago. Part of that was because a number of the forums in them were inactive and it made the forum look less active than it was. In a manner of speaking they need to be made public again. Hiding the forums I'm sure didn't help... and I don't want the forums' niche to be what drags it down when I try to fix it again, you know the remaining details already. :)



SawBone	Oct 16 2009, 12:45 AM Post #9
Posts: 4,513 Group: Musubi Member #25 Joined: Aug 1, 2008 Preferred Internet Browser Firefox	The contest idea was just a suggestion. The downside to it is that I think people will possibly tend to vote for their favourite anime, even if they don't intend to be active in the anime's discussions.. which would defeat the purpose of this reorganization.



*Anaconda*	Oct 16 2009, 08:01 PM Post #10
Divine wrath shalt smite the sinner who bears the seal Posts: 2,373 Group: Captain Member #1 Joined: Jan 19, 2008 Blog Eda of black lagoon =O	Yeah I know... I've already had a look through the series sections and I'm eying just about anything that hasn't seen activity since August, which is about 24 individual series forums. It looks like that'll leave a number of good candidates for the general sections. And the older threads from the inactive sections will populate the general forum area.



Snow	Oct 21 2009, 08:42 AM Post #11
ゆき Posts: 1,768 Group: ふぶき (snow) Member #6 Joined: Feb 17, 2008 Preferred Internet Browser Opera 10 / Mini Blog Please insert the title of your blog	I can find no fault, but losing the traditional AC layout is sad :(



*Anaconda*	Oct 24 2009, 04:13 PM Post #12
Divine wrath shalt smite the sinner who bears the seal Posts: 2,373 Group: Captain Member #1 Joined: Jan 19, 2008 Blog Eda of black lagoon =O	I've made the first set of (minor) changes which sets the anime series specific areas visible to guests again except those sections which are inactive. I've already gotten a list of the sections that'll be pruned and their threads moved to general anime. The list may be subject to some changes before I actually do it, but I'll post an announcement in the next day or so. Edited by Anaconda, Oct 24 2009, 04:13 PM.



*Genkai_chan*	Oct 25 2009, 06:21 AM Post #13
Ohime Mod Posts: 8,137 Group: CSI Vice Captain Member #15 Joined: Jul 8, 2008 Preferred Internet Browser Internet Explorer	So is this why visitors can't see anime forums? It defeats the purpose...is there a note someplace that says they can have full access once they join cause if I was visitor I wouldn't be interested as much if I didn't see what ALL was offered.



*Anaconda*	Oct 25 2009, 07:46 AM Post #14
Divine wrath shalt smite the sinner who bears the seal Posts: 2,373 Group: Captain Member #1 Joined: Jan 19, 2008 Blog Eda of black lagoon =O	Um, it's a policy I'm reversing entirely (it was a bad policy), the entire point of the change was to make the anime sections fully accessible again... I just didn't see much point in restoring the permissions to those forums I'm planning on pruning. At the moment the criteria is if they haven't seen any activity whatsoever since June or earlier they're going. if anything changes in their status i'll switch them back on as i go through the prune....



Snow	Nov 25 2009, 04:50 AM Post #15
ゆき Posts: 1,768 Group: ふぶき (snow) Member #6 Joined: Feb 17, 2008 Preferred Internet Browser Opera 10 / Mini Blog Please insert the title of your blog	Good call. That would've been silly. And um, maybe it's just me, but the forum doesn't look any different after Ana's changes. Then again, I'm purely an NAD lurker -''_-



*Anaconda*	Nov 25 2009, 11:32 PM Post #16
Divine wrath shalt smite the sinner who bears the seal Posts: 2,373 Group: Captain Member #1 Joined: Jan 19, 2008 Blog Eda of black lagoon =O	Snow Nov 25 2009, 04:50 AM Good call. That would've been silly. And um, maybe it's just me, but the forum doesn't look any different after Ana's changes. Then again, I'm purely an NAD lurker -''_- I haven't screwed around with the non-anime sections much yet because I'm still wrestling with how best to do it. I started it a couple weeks ago but I was concerned about how much on the non-anime sections to bring to the main index. I'd like to make it them more accessible; but I also don't want to clutter the main forum index with everything. I'll probably go for an in-between.



Snow	Dec 1 2009, 12:08 AM Post #17
ゆき Posts: 1,768 Group: ふぶき (snow) Member #6 Joined: Feb 17, 2008 Preferred Internet Browser Opera 10 / Mini Blog Please insert the title of your blog	Aye, and there's some "odd" content in the NAD forum. Stuff a certain feminist group would love to get their claws on XD



*Anaconda*	Today, 2:49 PM Post #18
Divine wrath shalt smite the sinner who bears the seal Posts: 2,373 Group: Captain Member #1 Joined: Jan 19, 2008 Blog Eda of black lagoon =O	no not really... it was the quantity of forums on the index. Although, with the private sections I see more than guests and regulars do to begin with :D I looked back over the arrangement I outlined and think it'll work fine though. I'm done with the bulk of my work and think I can do the last thing today :)



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