Cougar, on 09 December 2009 - 09:48 AM, said:
Mezla PigDog, on 09 December 2009 - 09:56 AM, said:
Sombra, on 09 December 2009 - 09:35 AM, said:
Then may I suggest part of the problem is actually Post Content, not Forum Structure?
If people go to a fan site and find most of the traffic is in Off-Topic, and after perusing the actual book forums they feel they either have nothing to contribute, or it just doesn't work for them, then there's little we can do to change that? What I think you're saying is there's too much traffic in the off-topic section that is exclusive by nature, relative to the rest of the forum, especially the parts that are ostensibly the reason for its' existence. The Inn is not the first thing you see when you check the forum main page, you have to scroll down. Maybe by inverting the book forums so GotM is on top and the new stuff down the bottom may help. I honestly don't get the point about there being a watered down version of the book forums that are general in nature. People not wanting spoilers will get hit with them unless half this section has spoiler tags. What fascinating reading that would be.
It's very simple, you cannot do it by degrees, lest you go mad. You either don't mind spoilers, or you do. And then you read in an appropriate fashion. We can't make that decision for other people. We can put up all sorts of signage and even have an Abyss special "SPOILERS EAT YOUR BRAINNZZZ ROT YOUR TEETH DON'T GROW UP TO BE BIG AND STRONG SPOILERZZ" etc warning in the confirmation email, Braven Tooths, plus the heading to each book forum, but people will still click away how they want to. And then come to their own decision.
As for redressing the traffic balance by sections - how the hell do we do that? People go through stages, and if you've been around long enough like me you come here precisely FOR the community, and not so much the excellent on-topic discussions. This forum does not get as much traffic as other series I could mention for 2 very good reasons: sales and profile. When you get gargantuan sales and profile like aSoIaF, WoT, SoT and other impressive acronyms, the disparity between the different sections of the community is less immediately obvious because of the sheer volume of traffic. It's like any community, things are more obvious when it's a small town. Everyone knows everyone else, newcomers feel a little left out unless it's a warm reception and eventually - as has happened time and time again - some stay for a while, some for longer, some lurk eternally too afraid to risk poking their nose in and some just bugger off at the first opportunity. We can't change that, it's basic human social dynamics.
We can't really raze the town and rebuild it. We can renovate and upgrade though. How?
So we break this down into what steps related to the above we CAN do. As far as being more welcoming/inclusive and redressing where the focal point of our town should be ... well, I have no idea, sorry but that's the truth.
But I do know that the heart of a small town is the social centres, not so much the libraries. If the POINT of the town is that it's a "University" town, where the education and the social aspects are inseperable, maybe we should be looking at what Cambridge Town Council gets up to?
Eh, sorry if the above makes absolutely no sense or is just downright repellent and wrong. It's just the way I see it.
EDIT:
Just saw Cougars' comment about the Boys Club and the stats involved. I really don't know about this. Maybe start with some self-moderation in behaviour on the part of some of the prime offenders, and i very much include myself here. I guess I got so much into the social/clique thing I forgot how comments like those I could be considered known for could seem to a new person. I DO partially blame my home culture though on this one - we are incredibly irreverent shit stirrers by nature and sometimes it needs a real prod for us to realise how off-putting that can be to others. Mea Culpa, sorry.
But then again, while the numbers of general fandom may be more balanced, I'm fairly sure male geeks (for want of a better word) tend to generate disproportionately more social traffic than the ladies. Maybe it's a domination by increment thing, as many females withdraw slightly from the more boisterous nature of the sandpit, leaving those who don't mind it, along with all us silly shouting males?
So how to redress that? Hmmm ... are there any handy essays on this topic? Someone with great google-fu should maybe get onto that, plus my previous questions. I'm sure they have come up before somewhere else and someone blogged or did their PhD on it. Seriously, online social dynamics as a representation or extension of real world social dynamics is probably an entire field of sociology or even anthropology now.
Steven Erikson to the rescue maybe?
This post has been edited by Sombra: 09 December 2009 - 10:52 AM