Suggestions- Revamp of Cricket Forum

[Satan666]

Its obvious this section has been experiencing very low activity in recent times. I am suggesting the removal of the team sub-forums to encourage more threads being generated, this may come across as clustering the boards but at this point in time this is exactly what we need to avoid segregation of members posting only in their team sub forums.

Also it paints a bleak picture having already completed International Tour Threads staying PINNED. Suggesting, perhaps a new moderator to take charge of the Cricket Forum, last I knew @StinkyBoHoon had this task he has since been inactive for several months now and made average 10 posts for the last year.

I chose to post this here and not the Mod Forum in order to get ideas from fellow members as to the way forward or if there is a need at all to revamp this forum.

DISCLAIMER: Its with a HEAVY HEART I opened this thread, everyone knows how important this section is to me lets get pass egos and make Planet Cricket better!

 

[Targaryen]

I completely agree with revamping idea. We recently witnessed the revival of Mafia games forum. Though the Cricket Discussion is not completely inactive, members have stopped posting in the main forums and have been posting in sub forums like International Tours, Twenty20 Leagues etc.. The main reason behind inactivity in the forums is that many members have moved on to the Twenty20 Leagues forum as it is the IPL season and there is no international game/tour for a month or any interesting topic to discuss.

I have few suggestions to make it better:

• Make the Cricket Quiz competition official: Some of the members were quite active and were posting regularly in the competition. Though it was unofficial competition, it was fun to participate. We gain more knowledge by participating in such competitions. My suggestion is simple, make that competition official like the PCGMC and say we have 10 rounds. Members are rewarded with points for their answers in each round and the member with highest points will be declared the winner and will be awarded some vCash. This will attract more members to participate. We do have some great members in the staff who can run such competition namely VC the Slogger, Aislabie, CaptainCremer etc.. who are very resourceful.
• Team threads to be open only during ICC events: When the individual team threads were created during WC2015, all the posts got divided among the threads and thus the activity started fading away due to members not interested to discuss the news of other teams. So closing these threads during regular season and opening them during ICC events will surely help in revamping this forums.

@Untouchables666 suggestion on adding moderators in the forums is quite good, atleast for the Cricket Discussion forums. We can't always mention(tag) the staff member or report the thread that needs to be pinned/unpinned. There has been more posts that needed moderation after the active staff like Icy or StinkyBoHoon got inactive. But that's not my priority either. The main aim is to revamp another forum in this 'revival era' (or that is what I call it).

All the things that I mentioned above is just a suggestion and not anything else by any means. It is left to the admins if they find it useful or convincing. And whether they want to consider it or not.

Thanks.

 

[Fake Passport]

My main suggestion would be stop with the Megathreads.
Personally, megathreads for everything are really annoying, effectively there can be only one conversation happening at a time and its not overly fleshed out properly before everyone is onto the next thing. I don't mind the team discussion threads, but I personally think that having whole tours (Aus v Ind, whole IPL etc) in one post is really limiting. To me, megathreads work in general (What movie, listening etc) but a cricket series has so much more nuance, and this is a cricket forum. Take Aus v Ind for example, you had the matches themselves, Smith looking to the stands, Tense relationships between teams, selection issues, pitch issues etc etc all that could be so much more active if people who find that interesting could post about it properly and get into full on convos about it with a bit more specificity. It also makes it a lot easier if you ever want to search for an article or find something again in the future.

Just my $0.02 and I realise Im probably in the minority.

Id also be happy to do more "You are the umpire" or laws quiz type things if people want them. Though hopeless at sportsbook so cant have prizes.

 

[asprin]

My main suggestion would be stop with the Megathreads.
Personally, megathreads for everything are really annoying, effectively there can be only one conversation happening at a time and its not overly fleshed out properly before everyone is onto the next thing. I don't mind the team discussion threads, but I personally think that having whole tours (Aus v Ind, whole IPL etc) in one post is really limiting. To me, megathreads work in general (What movie, listening etc) but a cricket series has so much more nuance, and this is a cricket forum. Take Aus v Ind for example, you had the matches themselves, Smith looking to the stands, Tense relationships between teams, selection issues, pitch issues etc etc all that could be so much more active if people who find that interesting could post about it properly and get into full on convos about it with a bit more specificity. It also makes it a lot easier if you ever want to search for an article or find something again in the future.

If I got this right, are you suggesting that instead of having a single thread for the entire series, we split it into match based threads, i.e. Ind v Aus 1st Test, Ind v Aus 2nd Test..and so on?

 

[zwarrior]

Yes. I agree. It is very inactive. And I kind of agree with countump and asprin on some points.

I wouldn't want to merge all the threads and make it into big one thread. It won't be properly organized. For example, when there is an ongoing series, there should be a thread which is dedicated for that. Yes, maybe we can split the series into different threads for each match. I like that idea too.

But I didn't like the idea of closing the team threads. But If you are closing it, close it once for all. Why should it be opened again during ICC events ?

 

[Targaryen]

But I didn't like the idea of closing the team threads. But If you are closing it, close it once for all. Why should it be opened again during ICC events ?

I'll explain you this with an example. When there is a series between say England and Australia, the members supporting these teams will also be joined by other members from other countries. But that is not the case during ICC events. All the members support their respective nations and in some cases they post in other team threads just to make some post regarding a particular incident like Imran Tahir takiing hattrick against Australia. He will be appreciated not only by proteas but also by other members. They don't bother much for a regular game. So team threads during ICC games for members to discuss about their teams and closing it when the members get divided during neutral team games will make sense.

 

[zwarrior]

I'll explain you this with an example. When there is a series between say England and Australia, the members supporting these teams will also be joined by other members from other countries. But that is not the case during ICC events. All the members support their respective nations and in some cases they post in other team threads just to make some post regarding a particular incident like Imran Tahir takiing hattrick against Australia. He will be appreciated not only by proteas but also by other members. They don't bother much for a regular game. So team threads during ICC games for members to discuss about their teams and closing it when the members get divided during neutral team games will make sense.

That is a good point.

 

[Fake Passport]

If I got this right, are you suggesting that instead of having a single thread for the entire series, we split it into match based threads, i.e. Ind v Aus 1st Test, Ind v Aus 2nd Test..and so on?

To me, having a game thread is fine, and the forum making you aware if there are new posts when replying is really conducive to that. But to me, for a cricket forum, that's still really limiting if that's all you have.
To be honest - For major tours, I would trial a dedicated sub forum. By all means have match threads for ball-by-ball type stuff, but then have room for threads on other happenings.

Off the top of my head, Id set it up like:

• Cricket Discussion
  • India v Aus
  • Sth Africa v England
  • Pakistan v NZ
  • IPL 2017
  • Other Cricket
  • Your Cricket
  • Archives

Then the base level is a general forum where you have team threads, ICC musings, Quizzes.
So really, not too different to now, but just allowing for more expanded and nuanced discussion. That also provides a nice balance between structure and organic user-determination. Successful and growing forums are ones that have a scale-able structure bu aren't dictatorial in the way that they manage them and I think something like this provides a good foundation. (I've been doing this for a while, I set up what became the worlds largest site and forum for another sport before I sold it to the world governing body - Forum management is much like business management)

So I suppose that makes that $0.04

 

[Targaryen]

To me, having a game thread is fine, and the forum making you aware if there are new posts when replying is really conducive to that. But to me, for a cricket forum, that's still really limiting if that's all you have.
To be honest - For major tours, I would trial a dedicated sub forum. By all means have match threads for ball-by-ball type stuff, but then have room for threads on other happenings.

Off the top of my head, Id set it up like:

• Cricket Discussion
  • India v Aus
  • Sth Africa v England
  • Pakistan v NZ
  • IPL 2017
  • Other Cricket
  • Your Cricket
  • Archives

Then the base level is a general forum where you have team threads, ICC musings, Quizzes.
So really, not too different to now, but just allowing for more expanded and nuanced discussion. That also provides a nice balance between structure and organic user-determination. Successful and growing forums are ones that have a scale-able structure bu aren't dictatorial in the way that they manage them and I think something like this provides a good foundation. (I've been doing this for a while, I set up what became the worlds largest site and forum for another sport before I sold it to the world governing body - Forum management is much like business management)

So I suppose that makes that $0.04

That will surely create a lot of mess TBH. Match thread is good at some point but whole new forum for each series will surely be a waste of time as it needs to be setup manually in the admin CP and needs to be given some specific permissions to the usergroups which is very time consuming.

 

[Fake Passport]

That will surely create a lot of mess TBH. Match thread is good at some point but whole new forum for each series will surely be a waste of time as it needs to be setup manually in the admin CP and needs to be given some specific permissions to the usergroups which is very time consuming.

This is where I'm lacking in knowledge of the PC platform, I'm used to VB and a bit of stuff I coded myself, Ive never used Xenforo (tho want to, it looks really nice). What I did in VB was mass dump all the threads into the archive and just rename the subforum, in the customised phpbb it was just pressing 'duplicate' (or vice versa). If those sorts of things arent available then Yea it could be a pain in the ass.

Regardless, it's worth thinking of what the owners want the forum to be and planning for that, better off being proactive now will be better than reactivate in the future...

That said, there's more than one way to skin a cat and what I suggest is not the be all and end all. Just my opinion

$0.06