ATF,
As one of the regs of the
wrestling thread in OOT, I would like to request a sub-forum devoted to wrestling/MMA/fighting (boxing perhaps as well?) in the sports section. I only care about the wrestling, but certainly MMA and its variants has a constantly increasing following that would spawn a lot of threads and chatter as well.
Reasons for a Sub-forum of this Kind:
1. OOT Hates Us
Granted that part of me is amused by how many people are pissed about our threadzilla being perpetually bumped to the front page of OOT, but in general I do think it's better to practice containment if a topic is pervasive enough that it's causing a significant annoyance in the community. We have run drafts as well in OOT, which doubles our visibility and the venom we receive. Considering the vitriol and the fact that, while I'm kind of a prick, I still believe in overall politeness...I think it would be best if our long-running conversation were moved to another sub-forum on 2p2.
2. The Traffic Justifies It
47,000+ posts in OOT doesn't lie. By comparison, a sub-forum such as
Pool, Snooker, and Billiards appears to have just reached the 2500 post mark in its 15.5 months of existence. Basically, that's just one sub-forum I picked at random that would likely be low on traffic...it gets an average of 5.3 posts per day. The wrestling thread, around since March '08, has reached its large total of posts by registering ~35 posts per day. As mentioned in point #1, we are perpetually bumped to the front of OOT, and the interest level is not going to die out. And that only speaks to wrestling; put MMA in the mix and that number would undoubtedly be higher. Others can speak better than I can to its level of interest on 2p2 since I am not really an MMA guy. Regardless, it looks like wrestling content alone would provide 6-7 times the amount of traffic that another of your sub-forums does. A quick gander at some other forums indicates to me that I didn't just randomly pick one that we generate more posts than, either...but those in charge of a decision like this would know better than me as to which forums get hits and which don't.
3. We Are a Community
We keep the talk to wrestling as much as possible, but despite some long-running feuds amongst us we basically get along at almost all times and we tend to not want to ONLY talk about wrestling. We would require very little moderation and I think we could have a pretty enjoyable LC thread along with the wrestling threads. It would at least give ItsRainingMen somewhere to post his non-sequitirs until his inevitable perma-ban. But in all seriousness, the community aspect both speaks to how traffic has steadily increased over time and also speaks to a need for somewhere to put the overflow conversation.
4. Far Better Reading/Posting/Navigability For Us
Individual threads for the PPVs. Threads devoted to the weekly episodes.
Threads that are containment for spoilers/rumors. That last one is pretty key because those who choose to avoid plot spoilers/rumors can't fully avoid them by reading our current thread. Even though people ARE good about sticking to spoiler tags to cover things up, the mere existence of these little tangents ends up hinting at something to those who are trying to avoid finding things out. I think the individual threads have a lot of potential to make for a better posting experience for the legion of us who religiously post about this stuff (regardless of what you think of our childish hobby). Believe it or not, there are a lot of different layers to talking wrestling, past and present and speculation about the future, etc., and to clump it all into one thread doesn't make for the easiest following.
Not only those of us regs in the wrestling thread but many, many posters in OOT will thank you for finally exiling us to another place on this site if you choose to grant our request. Thank you for your consideration.
Two Plus Two
Linear Mode
