Extra sub-forums

[Key]

I would add that unused sub-forums which have been requested run the risk of being deleted. If you request a sub-forum, then use it or lose it. Any new sub-forums added by member request which have not had at least one thread posted within a week will run the risk of being shut down. After two weeks of zero activity the member who requested the sub-forum(s) will be advised and if there is no improvement after three weeks the sub-forum will be deleted. If this is done, it will not be re-established.

This isn't meant to be a heavy-handed warning, but honestly, if you really need a sub-forum and we oblige, then we expect you to use it. We need to see that there actually is/was a need for such. Take your cue from Mindy/Deepminder: as soon as he got the go-ahead for his IT sub-forum he started creating thread after thread, and now there's no stopping him. That's what we want to see.

As of today, neither the Punk nor the Electronic/Experimental sub-forums, requested yesterday, have seen a single post, never mind a single thread. While of course we realise people are busy and we don't expect you to have been parked outside with a van ready to move in, we would like to see some action in these sub-forums to justify their creation.

To the person who wanted a sub-forum for underwater transport though, we must decline. There is no way we can create a sub sub-forum, sorry.

I just don't see what a sub forum does differently than a "official [insert genre] thread can do just as well. This just seems like it's adding more stuff for you guys to manage for no reason.

[Trollheart]

From my point of view, what it does is provide a place for like-minded people to go, knowing they're going to hear discussion on and music from only that genre, rather than have to either sift through threads on the main forum to get to what they want or constantly create new ones. Also, those threads could have pushed down their own, let's call it "Electronic Music" one, so it might be harder to find. Not only that, but anything like punk or jazz or hip-hop - any musical genre really - can hardly be expected to be contained within the confines of one thread, so you need to be able to create threads within threads, so to speak, and that's what a sub-forum is for I think.

To use concepts you might be more familiar with (and here I'm NOT advocating or inviting the opening of sub-forums, so don't ask!) would you rather have one "games" sub-forum or one divided into say FPS, Strategy, MMMORPGs etc? It's the same with music: I can understand how it's so hard to contain everything about music in the one sub-forum.

To throw another analogy at ya: say you love EDM music and go to a club but they're playing, I don't know, Norwegian Nose Flute Folk Music. Wouldn't you rather have a club you can go to that is guaranteed to play only EDM? So as long as there is a need or desire for it, as long as it can be justified, from my point of view anyway, sub-forums can be the way to go. Not only do they allow the adherents of that music genre a place where they can gather and nerd out, they clear up the main music forum too.

Ironically, this is the absolute reverse of what Guybrush says, but I believe it to be the case. There can of course be TOO many sub-forums, so finding a good balance is what it's about. And no, I won't open a sub-forum for Nowegian Nose Flute Folk Music!

[Key]

There are a lot of cases where that is true. I just wouldn't want the forum to get too cluttered as I will admit, as someone that mostly forums on mobile, it does somewhat look cluttered with all the subforums but maybe that's just my experience. Maybe your idea of removing them is good tho I just hope that doesn't create extra work for you guys.

[Trollheart]

Don't worry: if the sub-forum is not used then it's as simple as a few clicks to get rid of it. All I ask is that if someone requests a sub-forum they use it, as I now see is happening in both the punk and electronic/experimental ones. I'm even posting in the (guess) .... latter. Obviously the last thing we want is a cluttered forum full of ghost sub-forums, but if there's a genuine, pressing need for one or more, we're happy enough to add it or them if it makes it easier for people to chat about what they want to, where they want to.

I guess another advantage of sub-forums is that those who are not interested in the topic will not usually bother going there, unless they want to troll or cause trouble, so a sub-forum dedicated to a specific genre should in theory only be populated by people who are interested in it.