The topic of forum reorganization has come up many times in this forum, and it's something that's been discussed quite a bit in the mod forum over the last few months.
The main idea of this reorganization is to help the forums thrive by ensuring each one has sufficient traffic to make for good discussions, and to reduce confusion for members/visitors (especially new ones) when trying to find the right forum to post in, and/or topics of interest. Or, as Mat succinctly put it:
Quote:
what i want to see is a less confusing place for new users and an improved experience for existing users.
To this point, we certainly haven't arrived at consensus on all possible changes, and I never expected we would. However, I think some great ideas have come forward and been incorporated into the overall plan, now in its fourth revision.
While discussion of most forums is on the table, I'll mention a few things to keep in mind. We have a number of forums that are related to different 2+2 commercial interests that may not be high-traffic, but we will want to keep on their own anyway. Things like the 2+2 Magazine & Bonus forums, for example. Commercial Marketplace, Coaching, etc. That's not to say they couldn't be changed as well, of course, just that there will be more considerations than how busy they are. And in general, not every slow forum needs to be merged/killed/what have you. Some may serve a purpose even if they aren't very busy, that wouldn't work well within another forum. We don't want to break up communities and drive people away.
We've actually already made quite a few changes in our strategy forums after consultation with moderators and the forum members. We started with Limit, then No Limit, and earlier today made some changes in the Tournament forums. The final thing we'll be looking at are the Other Poker forums.
There are a few changes that have been made but not incorporated into the sidebar yet, as that's a separate process - primarily the Tournament forum changes and the merging of Classified Listings into the Commercial Marketplace.
So, on to the possible plan as it looks at this point.
Now, a few things to note:
Only the strategy forum categories appear in this list rather than the individual forums, as those changes are mostly complete, and are happening in consultation directly with those communities.
Student Life and The Studio are missing, as they will likely be closed/merged.
Other forums to close/merge - at this point, I don't think there are any others being given serious consideration. Two that came up, but have been clearly vetoed by management, are TWSS and History.
International Forums are missing as any changes there would be strictly a management decision.
You'll notice the list starts with a "Popular Forums" category, the idea being to have the forums people look for most be the easiest to find. These forums would still appear in their relevant categories.
Other ideas that have come forward but not been incorporated into the plan at this time:
- TWSS in Communities rather than Poker News and Discussion.
- Merging some Community forums (this comes from another ATF thread).
- Merging Live Casino Poker sub-forums Communities and Poker Venues and then making the resulting Poker Venues forum a top-level forum instead of a sub-forum. At the same time, rename LCP something like Rules & Etiquette.
Anything and everything is open for discussion and suggestions. And the plan doesn't necessarily end here - it could be that we decide on some changes, make them, and then look at more in the future.