Music forum restructuring

[albummaster]

Based on a discussion a while ago ( http://www.besteveralbums.com/phpBB2/vi...p;start=40 ) and again raised this week, I just wanted to vote on whether to re-structure the Music forum or not. The poll will run for a week, and if there is no clear majority nothing will happen.

I can see both sides to this, but on the plus side it might freshen things up a bit and lead to more detailed discussion in the different areas. On the minus side, people might have to think about which forum they are posting into, and it might make the forum more spread out.

The proposed new structure would be as follows (only affects the Music forum):

Best Ever Albums
- Announcements
- Suggestions

Music
- General
- Albums
- Songs
- Artists
- Genres
- Charts
- [Music]*

Off-Topic
- Lounge
- Games
- Politics & Religion

(*Once everything has been moved, the music sub-forum will be empty and can then be deleted.)

[19loveless91]

I'm generally opposed to this, as I don't think we have that much discussion on the forums. It might make things more confusing. I wouldn't mind (and I think I proposed this in the older thread) to see a sort of tagging, but where you could then have an option to filter the threads according to a tag

[albummaster]

I don't mind either way, but I'm more in favour than not. It's not because I think the forums are overly busy, because obviously they're not (even though there are double the number of posts this year compared to last). It's more because I think dividing it up might help to generate more ideas for threads. Things seem quite static at the moment, and I think a shake-up might help to freshen things up. With all the topics in one forum, threads seem to be stuck around the same themes. I think subcategories might help to broaden the types of topics that are posted, and that might lead to an increase in activity.

[40footwolf]

But I think it also runs the risk of creating some ghost-towns, which in my experience tends to make people want to post less often. Mostly I think it would just make things overly cumbersome. But let the poll run for a while so we can see what people think, it's really too close to call right now.
_________________
I love all music. It makes you feel like living. Silence is death.

-John Cassavettes

[RFNAPLES]

I'd like to see only Album of the day and Chart of the day in their own subtopics, leaving everything else in the general Music topic. This will let those who want to follow those subtopics do so with ease while allowing the other topics under Music to stand out a bit more. It is difficult to post about an artist without mentioning their albums and songs. Often genre brings up the topics of artist, albums and songs too.
_________________
Top 100 Greatest Music Albums by RFNAPLES
Bubbling Under The Top 100 Greatest Mus...y RFNAPLES

[Guest]

If the music forums are to be split up a bit, I don't think it needs 7 subtopics. Just the two RFNaples suggested plus general music would be fine.

Concerning ways to increase activity, I'm sure there are better ideas. Maybe adding more daily posts... like a Random Poll of the Day, where each day the thread creator comes up with a new creative question with creative answers added to the poll. It's got nothing to do with music, but the threads could draw interest. Put it in the Lounge. Maybe it would need a mod or two to run it?

Or perhaps another subtopic, but different. Like a section for personal reviews on albums the poster recently discovered, but all kept in their own personal thread. For example, I could create my own self-titled thread, each post I make only concerns albums I find and how I feel about them. Other members can post commenting on my reviews, and they can make their own personal review threads where I can visit and comment.

[albummaster]

I'm happy to leave things as they are then because I think having the album/chart of the day in their own forum defeats one of the main purposes of having them, which was to seed some regular discussion and help generate debate. We can maybe look at this again next year, or whenever seems a good time. I just wanted to explore this properly as it had been mentioned a few times, and at least now it has been put to vote.

I did have an idea about posting an 'artist of the day', but it might be overkill to have too many of these types of posts. With regards to reviews and polls, and so forth, I'm happy if anyone wants to do that, but the difficulty is coming up with enough good ideas and making it varied enough that everyone is involved. At the moment, it seems to happen organically, and so I think we just need more people to post.

[Mirek]

[Guest]

[Wombi]

I'm obviously for it and for various reasons (though like all the suggestion forum polls I'll accept whatever the verdict). I do think that a restructruring may help get more people posting (both old and new).