There is always this debate about quality of posts vs quantity. Some sites push for quality, and to the extent that the moderation is draconian. To me, quantity us fine, but ideally there would be a way to filter out the crap. Out of a million posts, some pct are going to be great, even if the pct is low it's a lot of great content. And ideally the software should facilitate the kinds of things that people want to do. Part of my argument for quantity is that a message board can act synchronously or asynchronously. In synchronous mode, you're in a thread the same time others are, and the thread is like a chat room. Asynchronously, you start a thread and someone else replies hours or even days later. Often it's a mixture of the two in a thread... Some posts are like articles on a news type site, or even quote others' articles in a blog like manner. While vb does let us promote posts to blogs and articles, and it has a CMS, the integration is weak or downright poor. Two other types of content we all likely have created at least once are tables (like stats) and pages like a post with links to good blog sites. vBulletin doesn't handle these well - tables/preformatted text is awkward at best, and stickies and links (like at the top of this forum) get in the way, no? Another kind of content that I can create, but vb limits you all from doing is dynamic content. Our salary pages are one example, as are twitter feeds, RSS feeds, etc. I would personally like to see there be custom software so we can make mock drafts, implement sim leagues, fantasy leagues, construct player pages, etc. Granted, these things may not appeal to everyone, but it seems like not having the options is not the best. In any case, the priority is to provide the tools to enable you all, and to provide the best online experience we can. If that means vb, so be it. For just a message board, it still seems like the best we can do.
I think I'd be less upset than most if something changed, but put me in the HCP category of "if it ends up like O-Live (or even BE), it'll be tough to keep posting as much". That said, I think specific user-interface issues I have are things that are non-Blazer specific. For instance, during the draft there was a Blazers thread, a main page thread, and a couple of "what do you think about our pick" threads in team-specific forums. I'm relatively certain that if, for instance, a poster dropping into the GSW forum during the draft night got into a 200-post thread about the draft (even if it's heavily Blazer-influenced) it'd be better than reading the three posts in the GSW forum, deciding that his opinion wasn't worth the time it took to add to get the little amount of discussion on it, and then he leaves. Or when you're talking about a DEN-POR trade, to have it tagged (if that's the right word) into both forums so that all of the content was in one place...instead of having 100 comments in the Blazer forum and 3 in the Nuggets forum. I'd love game threads to be in a chatroom-style format...seems like they'd go quicker and scrolling back would be easier. And an in-forum repository for things like long articles/blog posts; and if we ever do a gamecast or something, the ability to have that hosted here would be nice. Just my $0.02.
Having "mirrored threads," that exist in two forums simultaneously, is something I've long thought would be cool. So, both forums see the same thread...any additions to the thread, whether from the Portland or Denver forum, are reflected in both forums. A poster could create a thread in each forum and have an option to link them. Or just create the thread once and have an option to "reflect it" into another forum. Obviously, forum mods would have the ability to break links if the feature is being abused, much as they have the ability to close/delete threads that they view as off-topic or spam.
So, what, if someone drops a GSW reference in a Portland/Denver game thread, then all of a sudden the GSW forum has a 200 post game thread they don't give a rip about? If I wanted to talk to the Denver fans about the game, I'd go to the Denver forum.
No. When you post, you can post to more than one forum is all. Drupal is based upon tags, not proper forums/places. So Blazers posts are automatically tagged as Blazers and show up in the Blazers forum, but the thread starter can also say, "tag this as NBA, Game Thread, Nuggets" and it would appear in all those places too.
With 37 no votes and 6 yes votes, it's highly unlikely we're switching. I hope we can at least keep the dialogue going about it and if it makes sense to switch at some point, we can.
I think that just means you need to make a working version that people can really understand. Tagging threads across fan bases seems like a fantastic idea for you guys to grow the site. The single biggest asset (as far as I can see) to SportsTwo may be the Blazers forum. Using that as leverage to grow the others seems like a really smart strategic decision. You just have to do a better job of convincing Blazers faithful that it's also in our interest.
Wouldn't that be kind of a pain in the ass, though? How many people would actually do that more than once? I'm pretty sure if I could make this post also appear in the Nuggets forum by selecting a dropdown or something, I wouldn't bother. barfo
I want Droopy only if it has a teensy-weensy window like O-Live. I want to wear my baseball cap and squint into the Sun.
