My suggestions for this forum:

[invision]

I'm sorry, but I don't really think whoever made this board has a lot of experience with managing or administrating forums, because we have... way, way too many of them, to be honest. :/

A message board's goal is to have a lot of active forums. If you have too many boards, or overlapping ones, or unnecessary ones, you take away from the perceived activity (and you always want a forum to seem active).

So, in this spirit, I have some pretentious suggestions!

1. Remove the grammar forum. Make it a part of 'Literature' - maybe just name it the 'Engilsh' forum, or something. It doesn't really get enough activity to justify ... existing. Hell, we could practically just have a grammar thread for what's in that forum.

2. Remove the 'Quirks of the Armadillos' forum. Maybe make it part of an overall 'English' forum, like what I suggested above, or just move all posts in it to the 'Other' forum and delete the board entirely.

Its existence overlaps one or two forums, and it's just... a completely unnecessary thing, really.

3. Fandoms, movies, and music are not forums that need to exist. They can all go into the 'other' forum. If that gives the 'other' forum too much activity (because one forum can have too much activity), then they can all be merged into one 'media' forum.

4. Make a 'site news' forum. Add introductions to that forum as a subforum, so everyone who joins knows exactly where it is. Add the rules to it, at least as a pinned thread, so everyone can see that the forum has a concrete set of rules, as well as a set of forum staff.

I'm not sure if this forum even has rules, but if it doesn't, it definitely should.

Here is a good example of forum rules (although, please don't just copy and paste, plagiarize, or otherwise steal them - I know the people who made that, and they put a lot of work into it, and I don't really think it would be proper to rip them off.).

5. Delete the 'comments and suggestions' board. Make it a (pinned) thread in a 'site news and announcements' forum. This is not a huge forum where you'll get a huge amount of traffic for people in need of help - this is a fairly small forum where you're not going to get a ton of traffic in here, and it doesn't exactly justify a forum.

6. Make sure there is a well-organized staff to make sure that the rules are followed. Right now, sure, all of the policing can be done by the administrators (if it's even necessary), but if the forum gets larger, policing will be necessary.

Always make sure you have enough moderators, adminsitrators, etcetera, to keep the forum running.

Make sure there is a forum that only the staff can see, for staff-only discussions (once you get more than, say, three or four staff members).

When hiring staff, or changing the forum, or anything like that, make a thread in that forum so the staff can discuss it.

That's all I have to say, I guess. *shrug* Sorry for the criticism. Heh. I feel like I should say something positive (you guys didn't screw a lot up in the creation of this board), but... Well, you haven't done a lot of positive things with it, either.

Heh. Sorry.

James

[cyanea]

I like the Quirks forum. English major quirks are one of the main themes of posts on the blog alongside lit and grammar and writing...this isn't just a writing or literature forum, but embraces everything about being a literature major. "Quirks" aren't just an "Other" or offtopic topic in this case.

[Dodger Thirteen]

I would second the Media forum, rather than the separate Music/Movies forum, as that allows for discussion of television shows, comics, etc. as well.

Also, the forum rules should be established fairly quickly (if you want help, I'm willing to as I've run forums in the past myself).

I would also second the deletion of the Suggestions board and, instead, making it a global sticky/pinned announcement. You might want to consider going through and deleting those that have been taken care of as well.

[onlyaworkingtitle]

Jun 9, 2011 22:48:09 GMT -5 invision said:

That's all I have to say, I guess. *shrug* Sorry for the criticism. Heh. I feel like I should say something positive (you guys didn't screw a lot up in the creation of this board), but... Well, you haven't done a lot of positive things with it, either.

Heh. Sorry.

Don't apologize unless you mean it.

You say "sorry" several times in this post, and considering nearly all of them are accompanied by "heh" (a fairly sarcastic laughter onomatopoeia, as they go), I (and most other readers, I assume) won't believe the accompanying sentiment to be honest or respectful. The irony of the situation is that the example guidelines you recommended the mods examine lists as the first rule of conduct "All members must behave civilly and respectfully when using this board."

And some honesty from me? Dishonest and/or disrespectful apologies are significantly more offensive than none at all. I mean, I got offended on the mods' behalf, just reading this.

Having these opinions is fine. Stating them is fine. Stating them in the way you have is somewhat less than fine.




And now, for the actual content of the suggestions:

1 and 2, I think, should be shelved until we see how much traffic the forum gets once it's in full swing. There are several thousand followers of the tumblr, and more of them make there way here every day -- we should wait to see where traffic is heaviest until the influx slows.

I agree with 3, to a point. I do think that Movies and Music (and perhaps Fandoms) should be merged into "Media," but not under Other -- the whole point of Other is that it is, well, other. It's for all the stuff that doesn't fit elsewhere, and if something fits as Media, obviously it isn't Other.

I wholeheartedly support all of points 4 and 5. A "Site News" forum, with introductions, rules, and suggestions would definitely be helpful.

Point 6 -- a well-organized staff with its own hidden forum -- is entirely valid. Perhaps there could be an electoral process for the raising of new mods? No taxation without representation, or something to that effect? Imagine that I'm waving signs and being an activist, instead of sitting on my bum typing tentative suggestions.

And... I've run out of points. And I've already discussed my disgruntlement over the last couple paragraphs, so I won't again, except to say "Jeez, invision, you got me all flustered and now I need to raid my chocolate stash!"

Oh, and I'll bring up again the idea of a Safe Space forum or subforum. Those gender/sexuality threads I started really should go there, as well as maybe the Rant thread, but a Safe Space forum doesn't exist (yet?). This continues to worry me (probably unduly) because I don't want people to censor themselves or their opinions based on political correctness or what they think the Fez will approve of, and having a non-judgmental place to discuss and vent is valuable. That, or we could declare the whole forum a Safe Space. Rainbow triangles for all, and all that jazz.

Aaaaaand I've (really this time) run out of things to say. Hope this was helpful!

[cyanea]

I mean, I got offended on the mods' behalf, just reading this.

I did as well. It was also three in the morning where I was and couldn't sum up my thoughts in a way better than a string of cursewords. You put it better than I could.

As far as the "well-organized staff with hidden forum" goes, how do we know that they don't have one already? As far as I know, the forums mods are the same as the blog mods. They know each other outside the Fez, so I imagine they already communicate enough.

As far as the "Site News" forum, it's interesting that you call for deletion of certain forums because of non-use, and then call for the creation of one. The forums are less than a month old...I'm sure once news gets announced, the mods will place it in a spot that is visible to all.

Keep the Quirk board around, as I mentioned above. I do agree with you about the Media board, however.

[Olive]

I admitted on FYEMA, before this all started, that I had no experience starting/running a forum. Tori said that she did, and she created these boards with specific goals in mind. Everything FYEMA related is Tori's baby, so I'm not going to make any drastic changes for her. I'm still feeling this whole thing out and, as they've pointed out, it's just started. Cyanea is right: the admins here are the three mods of the forum. We've got our ways of communicating.

I'll point Tori towards this, and see what she thinks.

(And thank you guys for getting offended on our behalf. I'm glad to know that my initial reaction was not totally unwarranted.)

[Fuck Yeah Dion]

Please please please please don't dissolve the grammar forum into the literature forum. I have very little interest in grammar and don't want to have to dig through topics about oxford commas when I'm trying to discuss literature. Grammar and literature are two completely different things and should have two different forums.

Also, the quirks board needs to be separate as well. Literature and grammar are subjects. The quirks are more for the subculture that comes with studying those subjects. I'm begging that these boards remain separate.

I second the establishment of "forum rules" and getting rid of the fandom, music, and movies boards and merging them.

[Tori]

As Olive said, I made the boards that I did for a reason. I think the number of boards and categories is entirely reasonable. To me, this appears to be working well. I'm not deleting any boards just because one or two people think it looks cluttered.

However, if there are enough people who want a NEW board, I will add it.

[formerlyanon]

Perhaps there should be a section for plays and performances? There could be threads devoted to theater, whether it is discussing specific works, performances that an Armadillo recently saw, or authors in general. Most older works are designed to be performed, not merely read. They're a valuable part of literature, and should be treated as such, while still acknowledged as their own art form.

I support melding Music and Movies into one Media section. That area could also contain plays.