[Discussion] Archiving SWvST, PSW, PST

[Hotfoot]

One upon a time, these forums were the bread and butter of this website. After all, the website started once as a discussion about the comparison of the two franchises. However, virtually everything of note has already been discussed, the bulk of both franchises canons run over with combs of all shapes and sizes.

Given the relative trickle of details about new information for either franchise, I see little point in having forums dedicated solely to the discussion of either.

In all three of the mentioned forums, posts on the first page span back to last year, showing a marked decline in new content to post. Such a trickle of information and discussion could easily be added to OSF without undue strain on the forum.

My suggestion is to rename OSF to simply "Science Fiction" and to lock and archive the three mentioned forums either as subforums where new users can get information from them as needed.

Any current discussions (posted in within the last two weeks) can be moved to SF as requested by those participating in them, so as not to be cut off.

[Darth Wong]

An interesting idea. I would like to see what everyone else thinks.

[RedImperator]

I was thinking along these lines recently. OSF could definitely handle the traffic, and hopefully the discussions could cross-pollinate each other. You'd have people who, say, never go into PSW who might start participating in SW threads if they're in OSF.

[Lagmonster]

I approve of the idea; it's certainly a reasonable step towards the board's evolution as a discussion forum.

Currently we lump politics, history, and science into catch-all forums; perhaps the membership, with its senior members now entering mid-adulthood and many having completed post-secondary educations, might be interested in seeing a shift to more "adult" subjects (such as law, health care, military action and the economy) at the same time as we close the chapter on the board's original primary focus.

[Mr Bean]

I support this notion. Those forums get rare traffic as it is normally related only to new movies or books.

[Ghost Rider]

Can't hurt and in fact it'd likely have the effect of at least looking at the two series rather then SW being about Traviss/why the franchise died and it would have more to Trek wouldn't be "Chuck's review corner". As for SWvST, it's so very long dead barring the people who still want their side to win.

[Thanas]

I would be in favor of archiving SWvST. I would be against archiving PSW - of the three, it is by far the most active forum and can still hold its own. Plus, I think as stardestroyer.net, people expect a seperate PSW forum. I know I certainly do and would hate to see it gone.

I'd also be aganst closing the PST forum, but for the simple reason that I'd like to see ST stuff being posted in one place due to easy access. If we still archive that, I'd like to see a stickie named "Chuck's reviews thread".

So my opinion is along the lines of:
- closing SWvST: in favor of it
- Closing PST: depends
- closing PSW: against

If we move forums around, I'd like to see the History forum changed out of OT to someplace else - maybe as a subforum to News and Politics, SLAM or its own forum.

[Hotfoot]

Another benefit, pointed out to me by Knife, is that it would simplify moderation duties and allow for reassignment to areas that have higher traffic and the like.

As far as being gone, it wouldn't be gone per se, just on display. We already have Star Wars and Star Trek threads in OSF, just from vs. threads that included them. Beyond style, I can't see a real reason for segregation.

[fgalkin]

I don't even remember the last time I visited STvsSW or PSW. PST, I was in when the new movie came out, and that's about it. I support this whole-heartedly.

Have a very nice day.
-fgalkin

[Bounty]

I'm all in favour of reshuffling the SF boards. STvSW can definitely go; there hasn't been useful discussion in that forum for ages. PST probably won't see a major boost until the next movie comes out, although I can't help but think that with less lethargic moderation it would be a lot more active. PSW, however, I think, might just be in a lull; I understand there's a new live action series due soon, and that might cause an influx of interest.

As far as actually reshuffling the forums goes, I'm in favour of folding the three top forums into OSF. However, I'd also suggest making a second forum (or subforum?) specifically for versus threads and their assorted tech analyes. They pop up frequently enough in OSF to warrant isolating them, it would maintain the link to the main board, and it would keep the versus crowd tryhards that have taken over STvSW in their own safe playpen.

If we move forums around, I'd like to see the History forum changed out of OT to someplace else - maybe as a subforum to News and Politics, SLAM or its own forum.

I can understand asking for it to become its own forum, but I don't see what you'd achieve by a move to SLAM or, god forbid, N&P (what, we're only supposed to discuss ancient politics now?).

[Mr Bean]

If we don't want to archive them as that is a point of contention is anyone against the first point? That Other Sci-Fi be renamed Science fiction and Pure SW, Pure ST and SW VS ST all be made subforums off the new Science Fiction Forum?

If everyone agrees to the moves but not the archiving we can move the archiving as a separate issue.

[Thanas]

I'm all in favour of reshuffling the SF boards. STvSW can definitely go; there hasn't been useful discussion in that forum for ages. PST probably won't see a major boost until the next movie comes out, although I can't help but think that with less lethargic moderation it would be a lot more active. PSW, however, I think, might just be in a lull; I understand there's a new live action series due soon, and that might cause an influx of interest.

That is an excellent point. I think we should wait and see how that goes.

Remember when the cartoon first aired? There was a huge influx of speculation and technical analysis (the one about the Malevolence being just one example).

If we move forums around, I'd like to see the History forum changed out of OT to someplace else - maybe as a subforum to News and Politics, SLAM or its own forum.

I can understand asking for it to become its own forum, but I don't see what you'd achieve by a move to SLAM or, god forbid, N&P (what, we're only supposed to discuss ancient politics now?).

SLAM because of supposedly higher standards and because Off Topic seems a bit of a wrong place for a forum that has a specific general topic and very narrowly defined thread topics. N&P was my second choice due to a lot of history being political or military history on this board.

My preferred option would be having it as its seperate forum, but I can understand if people say it is not ready for that yet due to its only having about ~4600 posts. Though that is already a fifth of all OT discussion and the History Forum has only been around for a little more than one year, so I'd say that it already is very large for its short history.

If we don't want to archive them as that is a point of contention is anyone against the first point? That Other Sci-Fi be renamed Science fiction and Pure SW, Pure ST and SW VS ST all be made subforums off the new Science Fiction Forum?

No, I would be okay with that. However, if we arrive at this point, is there any reason for not having a seperate Stargate, Warhammer etc. forum? I'd fear this compartmentalization if this would come to pass would blead OSF dry.

[fgalkin]

SLAM because of supposedly higher standards and because Off Topic seems a bit of a wrong place for a forum that has a specific general topic and very narrowly defined thread topics. N&P was my second choice due to a lot of history being political or military history on this board.

Moving it to SLAM would be my preference, too. It's standards are far higher than those of OT, higher than those of SLAM, even.

My preferred option would be having it as its seperate forum, but I can understand if people say it is not ready for that yet due to its only having about ~4600 posts. Though that is already a fifth of all OT discussion and the History Forum has only been around for a little more than one year, so I'd say that it already is very large for its short history.

1/5 of all OT discussion? Wha?


Have a very nice day.
-fgalkin

[Thanas]

Sorry, ~1/12th. My mistake.

[fgalkin]

More like 1/120th, if I'm not making a massive brainfart somewhere.

Anyways, I note that it's got threads from June still on the first page- that's a level activity comparable to PST (and higher than both PSW and STvsSW, which got threads from 2008(!) on the front page). Since this thread is about archiving these forums for lack of activity, you can see why History is not yet ready to become it's own forum.

Have a very nice day.
-fgalkin

[Thanas]

Yeah, that is what I figured. Still, worth a try I guess.

[Stuart]

I would concur that the maintenance of seperate Star Trek, Star Wars and St vs SW forums seems now to be superfluous. I think it's most unlikely that any massive new amount of data (say from another full-length film) is going to arrive on Star Wars. That might not be true for Star Trek since it appears that the franchise is being rebooted and some of the issues there might be readdressed. So, merging those forums or archiving two and keeping the third as a general catch-all for SW/ST topics might make a lot of sense. Of course, if there was to be a major addition to the SW canon, then that situation changes,

[Thanas]

There will be one soon - the live action series.

[Stark]

What level of activity is 'too much' for a single forum? If you reallocate freed mods to the new 'Science Fiction' forum, I think there would be more mods per new thread-days. Even if PSW does get more attention, is it enough new threads to cause a 'problem' in a single forum?

Please note that in many forums, all the threads on the first page are active. This is not true of any forum on SDN. If you combined the threads posted in in the last few days in all four forums, would it really be 'too much' activity? PST is 80% review threads for fuck's sake.

The idea of reducing it from STvSW/PSW/PST/OSF to ST&SW/OSF (which I believe Stuart is suggesting) is a good middle ground... but I'm pretty sure revisiting the issue a month later would end up combining those two forums, too.

I'd like to add that for those like me who browse the forum by 'new posts', forum arrangement is irrelevant. I almost never manually look into the SW/ST forums, because unless there's a new review thread (or whatever) there is nothing interesting in there. It's not like N&P where you might have missed something interesting.

[Edi]

Rename OSF to Science Fiction and make the PSW, PST and SWvsST its subforums would be an excellent idea. Then if one of them is left open, it can be decided later or they can just be locked as archives.

Moving the History forum to SLAM or promoting it to a full forum instead of just a sub is also something I would wholeheartedly support.

This would clean up the look of the main forum index in a major way and would also better reflect the focus of the board these days.

[CmdrWilkens]

Rename OSF to Science Fiction and make the PSW, PST and SWvsST its subforums would be an excellent idea. Then if one of them is left open, it can be decided later or they can just be locked as archives.

Moving the History forum to SLAM or promoting it to a full forum instead of just a sub is also something I would wholeheartedly support.

This would clean up the look of the main forum index in a major way and would also better reflect the focus of the board these days.

I concur with the first idea and tend to support SLAM over top-level for the second. As sub-forums the foci are still there but submerged within the more dominant theme which shoudl allow for more variety in the SF forum which they would be subs of.

[GrandMasterTerwynn]

Rename OSF to Science Fiction and make the PSW, PST and SWvsST its subforums would be an excellent idea. Then if one of them is left open, it can be decided later or they can just be locked as archives.

Definitely agree on this. PST and PSW still have just enough traffic to be worth keeping open as subforums of the new Science Fiction forum. The bulk of SWvsST's traffic that I can think of offhand is comprised of thread necros, so SWvsST ought to be closed to new posts. Leave it as a sub-forum otherwise.

Moving the History forum to SLAM or promoting it to a full forum instead of just a sub is also something I would wholeheartedly support.

Yes. It's quite jarring to see a serious forum like History be a sub-forum of a place where the most happening discussion are ones about American professional sports. Making History a sub-forum of SLAM would do it far more justice.

Not quite sure I'd support making it a full forum. Though it does have an active and involved moderating staff, it's generating about as much traffic as PST and PSW, and we're discussing making those sub-forums of a renamed OSF. Although it is doing so in spite of being a sub-forum, while PST/PSW are generating that volume of traffic while being full forums.

[LadyTevar]

I agree that PSW and PST still have some life left in them. Making them sub-forums of OSF is probably the best way to go. SWvST could also become a SubForum, but is there really a need for it anymore? (asks the woman who never really bothered with that forum)

I do agree that the History subforum could be moved under SLAM, and I'll support any vote/move towards this.

[Stark]

How does making them subforums change anything? They're still full forums with little activity, they're just nested under another forum.

I maintain that if the 3 ST and SW forums were merged into 'Star Trek and Star Wars', activity would be fine and low enough to eventually merge it into 'Science Fiction' if ti seemed necessary. Shuffling forums around is an inferior solution.

[The Yosemite Bear]

hmmm, sounds interesting Tev.