Proposal: Forum Reorganization

[monster]

I've heard of light novels, though never been interested in knowing what it actually is. I've also heard something called a photonovel, in relation to Gundam.

So, is there a problem in naming the section as Novels (instead of just Light Novels) to include all such more text-driven literature than manga?

[Irenicus]

Originally Posted by relentlessflame

Anime-Related Topics

• Manga
• Light Novels
  
• Thank the heavens! This is long overdue. Further splits might be considered, i.e. manga into manga + other comics (manwha, manhua, Western, whatever), but for now keep it binary. This will greatly help with the awkward duplicate threads and spoiler traps at least.
• Games
• Music
• Fan Creations
• General Anime Topics
  • News, Events, and Conventions
    
  • Keep it events and conventions, IMO. "News" doesn't fit. The death of Satoshi Kon is a very different kind of topic from Anime Expo 201X.
  • Merchandise, Sales, and Ratings
    
  • Sales and merchandise may actually fit better with events and conventions. Think of them as "transactional/logistical" topics. People go there to do things that translate more into "real life" actions, shopping, going places, auctioning. Call the section Events, Conventions, and Merchandise. Ratings threads meanwhile aren't that numerous and fit in just fine with old General Anime.
  • Notable Companies, Staff, and Actors
    
  • Sounds like classic old General Anime discussion topics to me. Too much fragmentation, IMO.
  • Suggestions, Recommendations and Identification
    
  • Good idea to mix in identifications -- currently it's orphaned in a sticky thread, and people don't read stickies -- also good to open it up for recommendations.
  • Likes, Dislikes, Contests, and Favourites
    
  • This, however, is a nice split since it dominates the current subforum to the detriment of other topics of discussion.
  • Other Anime-related Discussion Topics
    
  • Call this one "General" rather than "Other" so people get the continuity and let news topics, companies/staff/actors go there, IMO. It's not that busy when the annoying I-hate-fujoshianime threads get thrown into their own private cesspool. Unless Triple_R starts ten new anime philosophy topics all at once, we won't have a congestion problem. XP
• Fansubs
  • Fansub Groups
  • Download Help
  • Playback Help
  • Torrent Submissions
  • Resharing Requests

General

• General Chat
  • News and Current Events
    
  • Okay.
  • Sports
    
  • There's like two threads or something, and the only actually active one is the Association Football one. I don't think we need this.
  • Arts and Science
    
  • It's too specific, again. Put this one in "Others." Well, create an "Others" section to put all that stuff in, since there isn't one. Note that Science is particular has an ambiguity -- a lot of discussions are in the Science news thread. That...is news. And Arts, what Arts? Nobody here will talk with me about Rembrandt and Tchaikovsky, you philistines.
  • Entertainment
    
  • Good for James and his movie topics! Put Sports in here if you want to encourage more sports thread to be made comfortably. "Entertainment & Sports."
  • Hobbies and Fun
    
  • There are not that many "Hobbies" topics being used. There are, however, quite a few "fun" threads like the "A Day" threads and the regular conversations General Chat frequenters have. Am I to assume that this subforum is the slightly more laissez-faire area for chatty people that some of my fellow users seem to want? 8)
• Tech Support
• Forum & Site Feedback

[...]

So anyway, that's the idea as it stands now. Any comments/suggestions/recommendations?

Comments in red.

Originally Posted by Westlo

Manga and Light Novels getting split is long overdue.

Originally Posted by relentlessflame

Yeah, that much is clear. In fact, even if we didn't do the rest of the changes, we'd probably still do this anyway.

Yes, please.

[TheFluff]

nuke the fansub groups forum or make it read-only, it has absolutely no activity and no reason for existing anymore (fansubbing is dead, no point in trying to animate the corpse)
it gets like one post a month outside the "help wanted" and "plz2sub this obscure 70's show" threads (that nobody even reads these days), and that post is usually retarded

or you could make it to a posting thunderdome with no mods and no masters and let me reenact the flamewars of ages past

[NoemiChan]

Manga
Light Novels
Games
Music

These four could also have these sub categories:

News, Events, and Conventions
Merchandise, Sales, and Ratings
Notable Companies, Staff, and Actors
Suggestions, Recommendations
Likes, Dislikes, Contests, and Favourites
Other ______ Discussion Topics

....and Identification

We already have the General Question Thread...

[Triple_R]

Originally Posted by GenjiChan

Manga
Light Novels
Games
Music

These four could also have these sub categories:

News, Events, and Conventions
Merchandise, Sales, and Ratings
Notable Companies, Staff, and Actors
Suggestions, Recommendations
Likes, Dislikes, Contests, and Favourites
Other ______ Discussion Topics

I'm not a fan of this idea. If this idea was implemented, then we are indeed looking at significant forum format bloat, imo.

At the end of the day, AnimeSuki is about anime. That's why it's AnimeSuki, and not MangaSuki or GameSuki. Manga, Games, and Light Novels are all "Sister Mediums" to Anime, at least in Japan. Yes, there's substantial overlap between the four, and Otakus tend to be into all of them to at least some degree. And that's why it's good that AnimeSuki has sections recognizing these Sister Mediums, which gives AS members a place to talk about them.

But again, at the end of day, AnimeSuki is primarily about anime. Personally, that's one of the main things I like about AnimeSuki - It puts the anime first. I hope AS never loses that.

[NoemiChan]

Originally Posted by Triple_R

I'm not a fan of this idea. If this idea was implemented, then we are indeed looking at significant forum format bloat, imo.

Animesuki is growing.... Personally I rarely participate to these categories but it can't be help that lot of people here are not only fans of anime

[Triple_R]

Originally Posted by GenjiChan

Animesuki is growing.... Personally I rarely participate to these categories but it can't be help that lot of people here are not only fans of anime

Right now, as we speak, there's...

182 people viewing Current Series, 192 viewing Older Series, 49 viewing Upcoming Series, 8 people viewing Music, 123 people viewing Manga & Light Novels, 28 people viewing Games, and 37 people viewing General Anime.

Current Series, Older Series, and General Anime is All-Anime - That's over 400 viewers for "Anime".

Upcoming is largely anime, but manga/LN/VN fans will naturally be interested in that, so I'll throw them out.

Music, Games, and Manga & Light Novel combined only have 159 viewers. That's less than half of what the All-Anime parts of the forum enjoy. I think it's clear what the majority of AS members/lurkers care about the most.

Yes, AnimeSuki is growing... with anime fans. There's no need to treat Anime's "Sister Mediums" exactly the same way we do Anime.


And really, GenjiChan, given how much activity/viewership Music and Games gets, many of the subdivisions you're suggesting would just lead to dead subforums. Is that really what we want?

[Haiprbim]

Originally Posted by Triple_R

Right now, as we speak, there's...

182 people viewing Current Series, 192 viewing Older Series, 49 viewing Upcoming Series, 8 people viewing Music, 123 people viewing Manga & Light Novels, 28 people viewing Games, and 37 people viewing General Anime.

Current Series, Older Series, and General Anime is All-Anime - That's over 400 viewers for "Anime".

Upcoming is largely anime, but manga/LN/VN fans will naturally be interested in that, so I'll throw them out.

Music, Games, and Manga & Light Novel combined only have 159 viewers. That's less than half of what the All-Anime parts of the forum enjoy. I think it's clear what the majority of AS members/lurkers care about the most.

Yes, AnimeSuki is growing... with anime fans. There's no need to treat Anime's "Sister Mediums" exactly the same way we do Anime.


And really, GenjiChan, given how much activity/viewership Music and Games get, many of the subdivisions you're suggesting would just lead to dead subforums. Is that really what we want?

Due to these being Anime-focused Forums, it is only natural if you ask me.
Even so, 159 is quite a big number for something off that the Forums do not originally stand for.

It is a great way to let us observe what forum sections are more active than others and let us balance them out by summing some up and splitting some apart, looking at the numbers and the source of that forum's section itself.
However, I'm sure that the Staff has already done that, I'm quite in agreement with the 1st post.

[RRW]

not subforum but sticky thread probably better

[Triple_R]

Originally Posted by Haiprbim

Due to these being Anime-focused Forums, it is only natural if you ask me.

Yes, and do we want AnimeSuki to remain AnimeSuki? Personally, I do. There's plenty of other message boards and forums on the net if your main interest is manga or video games. As an anime fan, I like having a forum that actually puts the anime first.

Even so, 159 is quite a big number for something off that the Forums do not originally stand for.

Come on, given the percentage of anime that are adapted from manga, LNs, and VNs, it's only natural that an anime forum of this size would have sections for them, and that those sections would have some people in them at least.

[Haiprbim]

Originally Posted by RRW

not subforum but sticky thread probably better

Woah, for Music and Games together?
No, wait, what are you focusing on here?

[RRW]

Originally Posted by Haiprbim

Woah, for Music and Games together?
No, wait, what are you focusing on here?

no I mean Sticky news thread in Music, Game, Manga, etc

[Triple_R]

Originally Posted by RRW

no I mean Sticky news thread in Music, Game, Manga, etc

That's a good idea. That much makes sense, I agree.

[Haiprbim]

Originally Posted by Triple_R

Yes, and do we want AnimeSuki to remain AnimeSuki? Personally, I do. There's plenty of other message boards and forums on the net if your main interest is manga or video games. As an anime fan, I like having a forum that actually puts the anime first.

I'm in a full agreement with you, that's why I think that we should expand the horizons on Anime-focused forum sections, but sum up some Off-topic (If anime is On-topic) forum sections.

Come on, given the percentage of anime that are adapted from manga, LNs, and VNs, it's only natural that an anime forum of this size would have sections for them, and that those sections would have some people in them at least.

Wasn't focusing on them, not at all, but it looks like you were. Sorry, it seems I understood your post wrong.
I thought that you named Games, Music, ... sections in there, those that have no relation to the Japanese work of Anime/Manga/LNs/VNs/... at all.

[relentlessflame]

Originally Posted by brocko

I'm in favour for the addition of an anime business section alongside a convention and events one (I personally feel like news articles are better defined into the 'general anime' or 'other' section than this one tbh. The two topics just don't fit under the one umbrella to me =/).

Maybe it makes more sense to put the "News" in the "business section"?

Originally Posted by brocko

But when you mention containers, do you mean turning General Anime and adding it as another one of these:

http://forums.animesuki.com/forumdisplay.php?f=1
http://forums.animesuki.com/forumdisplay.php?f=3
http://forums.animesuki.com/forumdisplay.php?f=4

If so I think I more prefer the current General Anime section to be expanded into the series of suggested sub-forums/sub-sections instead. The front page is already big enough as it is, and adding another container doesn't exactly help in that case, while the sub-forums route would offer a more efficient use of space (and perhaps a less drastic layout change? it's up for debate I guess). Another advantage of this, is you won't have to resort to the use of an 'Other Anime Discussion' type label to rename General Anime just because it's being used as the container label.

Well, I'm not too sure if I follow... What I was thinking at first, anyway, was that it would be a container like above, *but* it would show up on the front page the way, for example, you have "Current Series" and then "Sub-Forums" with the list. The only difference is that there wouldn't be anything in the parent, and you'd just choose the sub-topic. In that sense, all five (proposed) sections would be on the same level under the parent (so you're forced to pick a path).

I *think* what you're suggesting instead is that you keep the top-level forum a real forum ("General Anime"), and then sub-forums for specializations. In that sense, I guess it'd be exactly like Current Series/Older Series. And in that scenario, I can see what you mean about keeping the news at the top.

In that scenario, you would have:

General Anime <-- topics that don't fit in a sub-section would go here in the root
- Events and Conventions
- Companies, People, and Metrics
- Suggestions, Recommendations, and Identification
- Likes, Dislikes, Contests, and Favourites

(There are some other proposals for changes to the groupings, but this is sort of as a baseline.)

Originally Posted by Irenicus

There are not that many "Hobbies" topics being used. There are, however, quite a few "fun" threads like the "A Day" threads and the regular conversations General Chat frequenters have. Am I to assume that this subforum is the slightly more laissez-faire area for chatty people that some of my fellow users seem to want? 8)

Yeah, I think that was part of the idea for this one, as with splitting out Likes/Dislikes (etc.).

As for the others under General Chat... I think part of the theory is that we may foster a better community for certain topics if it has a space for it. But you may be right that it's a bit too early for specifics like Sports, or calling out Arts/Science.

If you follow the pattern proposed by brocko above, you could maybe keep General Chat as a usable forum at the header level, and just have sections underneath for "break-outs"/specializations. So it could be like:

General Chat <-- topics that don't fit in a sub-section would go here in the root
- News and Current Events
- Sports and Entertainment
- Hobbies and Fun


Is this getting us closer to the right balance?



As for the proposal about further breaking out manga/novels/games/etc. with sub-forums... I think part of the issue right at this moment is that we don't have the staffing to properly manage that right now. This site is really anime-focused, and these other sections have grown more-or-less as an offshoot of that. If these other sections continue to grow and start to need more division to stay focused, I think we'll need to find some people who are really from that community to help us keep it organized and managed in a way that makes sense for that medium.

This also ties into a point mentioned earlier about whether video games should be split out as a part of General Chat... and the answer is probably "maybe". But again, I don't think we really have the expertise on staff right now to properly manage a gaming section focused more on the mainstream. Our gaming section is popular, but it's sort of understated because the site is still anime focused.

In general, I think we probably want to keep this site primarily anime-focused, while continuing to grow in areas where it makes sense for the community we serve (and to keep attracting some new people, of course).



Thanks to everyone for your comments, by the way!

[Haiprbim]

Originally Posted by RRW

no I mean Sticky news thread in Music, Game, Manga, etc

Sounds interesting and does have a point.

~ Although Music comes in different styles, I think that one thread would be enough to sum the news up.
~ I agree with the Games idea if you would not include every new single update that MMORPGs get, that would be annoying.
~ Well, it could get a little busy on the thread for Manga, but the main idea is for us to test the changes, so yeah, would like to see what happens.

[RRW]

No "Root" please. i want each have individual subforum to make it neater. not like this



-_-

[Haiprbim]

Originally Posted by RRW

No "Root" please. i want each have individual subforum to make it neater. not like this



-_-

Individual Sub-forums?
That would be a total fail in organization, I'm sure that won't happen.

[RRW]

Originally Posted by Haiprbim

Individual Sub-forums?
That would be a total fail in organization, I'm sure that won't happen.

i mean like this

http://forums.animesuki.com/forumdisplay.php?f=1

not like this

http://forums.animesuki.com/forumdisplay.php?f=34

[relentlessflame]

Originally Posted by RRW

i mean like this

http://forums.animesuki.com/forumdisplay.php?f=1

not like this

http://forums.animesuki.com/forumdisplay.php?f=34

Completely personally speaking, that's my preference too. I always found it weird to have a header that contains threads while also having sub-forums (my brain says that there should be an "other" and the header should just be a header). But other people do like that approach and it does have a precedent here. So, my preference aside, I can see both sides.