Should we Re-merge the ex-players forum into football chat?

[Silvio Dante]

As per title really - the ex players forum was set up for a trial period on a suck it and see basis. There aren’t any measurements of success/failure so now it’s been running for a while would seem good to gauge the forums opinion on whether it’s required or not, as there appears to be a groundswell towards binning it as can be seen on the LJ threads.

NB - this poll is not intended as a knock on the mods who put the forum in following a couple of requests. However, if it is re-merged into the main forum it should hopefully reduce their workload which is carried out well and on a voluntary basis.

[One Team]

Basic sub forums work well, e.g all the non Bristol City stuff. Other than that things can get lost, a good example to the other extreme is the Liverpool forum Red & White Kop. I’ve little to know interest in Liverpool, but having been shown links there from time to time it’s a good example of how sun forums can get out of hand. 

Edited December 31, 2023 by One Team

[Colemanballs]

While we're at it, can we please move the loan thread back into the main forum? The move to the transfer sub forum has effectively killed off what was a useful and informative thread.

[zippycar]

Cast my vote and back to the top, as it was slipping down and I almost missed it.

[italian dave]

9 minutes ago, zippycar said:

Cast my vote and back to the top, as it was slipping down and I almost missed it.

Cast mine too. The reason it slips down so quickly that you almost miss it is because the top 10 threads currently include two about LJ, one about NP, one about Bolasie, one about Alex Scott!

You can probably guess from that how I voted!

I Don’t really get the problem with it being a sub-thread. Surely if you want to see all the sub threads at the same time you just set the view to show all 5??

[Nogbad the Bad]

2 hours ago, italian dave said:

Cast mine too. The reason it slips down so quickly that you almost miss it is because the top 10 threads currently include two about LJ, one about NP, one about Bolasie, one about Alex Scott!

You can probably guess from that how I voted!

I Don’t really get the problem with it being a sub-thread. Surely if you want to see all the sub threads at the same time you just set the view to show all 5??

All those threads fall into 'football chat', the title and point of the main forum and the Nige and Scott threads are among the most popular in terms of recent views and replies.

Can't see a Bolasie thread so it must have been moved elsewhere for some reason.

You can probably guess how I voted too!

[Middlesbrough Robin]

I've voted for sub thread, simply for the reason that it gets boring when you get the obligatory 'why are we taking about ex-players/managers' post.

I like following the progress of ex-players. Either with a bit of pride or a bit of 'we got to see the best of them and they're rubbish now'.

[italian dave]

1 hour ago, Nogbad the Bad said:

All those threads fall into 'football chat', the title and point of the main forum and the Nige and Scott threads are among the most popular in terms of recent views and replies.

Can't see a Bolasie thread so it must have been moved elsewhere for some reason.

You can probably guess how I voted too!

Oh, don’t get me wrong: I am one of those that follows the progress former players and managers and I’m all in favour of the treads about them.

I find the Lee Johnson and the Nigel Pearson ones a bit tedious: the former seem to be mostly to gloat when he’s sacked! The latter just because of the sheer quantity all of which are now going over the same ground again and again.

But generally, I’m more than happy to read those threads.

But some clearly aren’t. And it just seems like it works for both groups to have a sub forum. If you don’t want to read about them you can exclude that sub-forum from your view. And if you do want to read them then you include them and they appear along with all the other football ones. 

PS - the Bolasie ones still there on page 1. Joined by Tyreeq Bakinson now!

Edited December 31, 2023 by italian dave

[Silvio Dante]

5 minutes ago, italian dave said:

Oh, don’t get me wrong: I am one of those that follows the progress former players and managers and I’m all in favour of the treads about them.

I find the Lee Johnson and the Nigel Pearson ones a bit tedious: the former seem to be mostly to gloat when he’s sacked! The latter just because of the sheer quantity all of which are now going over the same ground again and again.

But generally, I’m more than happy to read those threads.

But some clearly aren’t. And it just seems like it works for both groups to have a sub forum. If you don’t want to read about them you can exclude that sub-forum from your view. And if you do want to read them then you include them and they appear along with all the other football ones. 

PS - the Bolasie ones still there on page 1. Joined by Tyreeq Bakinson now!

I think the issue is Dave the following things:

- The sub forum was started with no consultation. It was requested by one or two and was something that took threads off the main forum and more difficult to find 

- Your point about top threads is because of how you view the forum (latest activity across forums). I’d wager 90% of people look at football chat, and don’t want to see (for example) the General Chat

- It does have less engagement. And people don’t look there first. People wanting to engage on ex players threads miss out and it makes the forum worse

- Tyreeq Bakinson thread is actually on the transfer forum which people do engage with!

At the time of writing, there are over 100 votes and only 20% express a desire to keep the sub forum. That’s not even 52:48 and I’d suggest it’s pretty conclusive.

[Fordy62]

We need to merge them back. 

[italian dave]

1 hour ago, Silvio Dante said:

I think the issue is Dave the following things:

- The sub forum was started with no consultation. It was requested by one or two and was something that took threads off the main forum and more difficult to find 

- Your point about top threads is because of how you view the forum (latest activity across forums). I’d wager 90% of people look at football chat, and don’t want to see (for example) the General Chat

- It does have less engagement. And people don’t look there first. People wanting to engage on ex players threads miss out and it makes the forum worse

- Tyreeq Bakinson thread is actually on the transfer forum which people do engage with!

At the time of writing, there are over 100 votes and only 20% express a desire to keep the sub forum. That’s not even 52:48 and I’d suggest it’s pretty conclusive.

On that second point: no, my default is to view by “football chat”. And I can choose to include (or not) all of the four sub forums in one view.

But if I really didn’t want to see the former players bit, then I just exclude that from my view.

Which is my point: leaving it as it is gives both options to people. Either view it along with the rest of the football forum. Or untick it and it’s no longer there. 

And maybe it is only 20%, but giving them that option needn’t affect the 80%. Unlike certain 52/48 votes

As I said, I’m one of those that wants to read about former players and managers, so makes no difference to me personally!

Happy New Year! 

[Sir Geoff]

I completely forgot the sub forum was there . If it's on the main forum then it's easy to skip past if you have no interest in ex players etc.

[Northern Red]

2 hours ago, Sir Geoff said:

I completely forgot the sub forum was there . If it's on the main forum then it's easy to skip past if you have no interest in ex players etc.

You'd think so, wouldn't you? Yet quite a few posters seem to struggle with it.

[bcfc4ever]

Pretty conclusive. Let’s hope the mods don’t just stick to their own agenda on this one. 

[Kingswood Robin]

On 31/12/2023 at 12:02, Silvio Dante said:

As per title really - the ex players forum was set up for a trial period on a suck it and see basis. There aren’t any measurements of success/failure so now it’s been running for a while would seem good to gauge the forums opinion on whether it’s required or not, as there appears to be a groundswell towards binning it as can be seen on the LJ threads.

NB - this poll is not intended as a knock on the mods who put the forum in following a couple of requests. However, if it is re-merged into the main forum it should hopefully reduce their workload which is carried out well and on a voluntary basis.

I've never really taken much notice of the ex players/managers forum until your post today on Steve Cotterill got moved there !

It wasn't something specific about him, it was some comments from him on our game today and football in general. I would have thought that qualified as Football Chat. 

[Colemanballs]

4 hours ago, Kingswood Robin said:

I've never really taken much notice of the ex players/managers forum until your post today on Steve Cotterill got moved there !

It wasn't something specific about him, it was some comments from him on our game today and football in general. I would have thought that qualified as Football Chat. 

The move of the Nige thread, which was talking about the way the club is run, was equally baffling.

[Colemanballs]

So, are the mods just ignoring this in the hope it'll go away?

[Silvio Dante]

1 minute ago, Colemanballs said:

So, are the mods just ignoring this in the hope it'll go away?

It’d probably be good to get an answer either way. I think the poll has been up long enough to gauge opinion so confirming if it is/isn’t being merged and why seems pretty reasonable.

[phantom]

On 31/12/2023 at 12:57, Colemanballs said:

While we're at it, can we please move the loan thread back into the main forum? 

I'll answer a few questions and no doubt be on the end of some stick.. 

So here goes 

This thread was moved bec it was asked to be pinned so stayed at the top 

We then got comments from people saying they missed it as it was pinned among many others 

It was then suggested to move to the transfer forum. 

On 31/12/2023 at 15:23, italian dave said:

Cast mine too. The reason it slips down so quickly that you almost miss it is because the top 10 threads currently include two about LJ, one about NP, one about Bolasie, one about Alex Scott!

You can probably guess from that how I voted!

I Don’t really get the problem with it being a sub-thread. Surely if you want to see all the sub threads at the same time you just set the view to show all 5??

This was part of a problem, that so many people would start another thread discussing an ex player when there were already threads on that player and often already discussing the same thing 

So an idea was to put these all in the same place to make easier to find 

On 31/12/2023 at 19:48, italian dave said:

... just seems like it works for both groups to have a sub forum. If you don’t want to read about them you can exclude that sub-forum from your view. And if you do want to read them then you include them and they appear along with all the other football ones.

Personally I'm not sure what the problem is, the threads don't get that much activity so actually make it easier to find and reply to 

There are a number of other sub forums on here that work well 

20 hours ago, bcfc4ever said:

Pretty conclusive. Let’s hope the mods don’t just stick to their own agenda on this one. 

It's not anyone's "agenda" and replies like that are pretty unhelpful and don't do yourself any favours 

128 in favour and 75 no or don't mind isn't conclusive considering how many members use OTIB 

I'm sure to get shot down here, but no offence to the OP but nobody suggested or asked for a poll 

35 minutes ago, Colemanballs said:

So, are the mods just ignoring this in the hope it'll go away?

It's not a case of if a handful of people keep asking anything will change 

On the whole it's less hassle for us merging threads all the time and keeps those rarely updated threads near the top of the page 

30 minutes ago, Silvio Dante said:

It’d probably be good to get an answer either way. I think the poll has been up long enough to gauge opinion so confirming if it is/isn’t being merged and why seems pretty reasonable.

As above feel free to shoot me down, but am only replying as how I see things 

[The Original OTIB]

3 minutes ago, phantom said:

I'll answer a few questions and no doubt be on the end of some stick.. 

So here goes 

This thread was moved bec it was asked to be pinned so stayed at the top 

We then got comments from people saying they missed it as it was pinned among many others 

It was then suggested to move to the transfer forum. 

This was part of a problem, that so many people would start another thread discussing an ex player when there were already threads on that player and often already discussing the same thing 

So an idea was to put these all in the same place to make easier to find 

Personally I'm not sure what the problem is, the threads don't get that much activity so actually make it easier to find and reply to 

There are a number of other sub forums on here that work well 

It's not anyone's "agenda" and replies like that are pretty unhelpful and don't do yourself any favours 

128 in favour and 75 no or don't mind isn't conclusive considering how many members use OTIB 

I'm sure to get shot down here, but no offence to the OP but nobody suggested or asked for a poll 

It's not a case of if a handful of people keep asking anything will change 

On the whole it's less hassle for us merging threads all the time and keeps those rarely updated threads near the top of the page 

As above feel free to shoot me down, but am only replying as how I see things 

Leave as is I say, easy to reference when inclined.

[Silvio Dante]

29 minutes ago, phantom said:

 

I'm sure to get shot down here, but no offence to the OP but nobody suggested or asked for a poll 

 

By the same token, nobody asked for or suggested a sub forum so this is actually the only gauge we have. The sub forum just appeared a couple of months ago and although you’re right to say not universally unpopular only 23% of people asking for it to stay is pretty conclusive.

My strong view is that it was positioned as a trial period. It was asked what success criteria was and that couldn’t be answered. So the most sensible thing is that people were asked after the trial period what they felt - and I reiterate only 23% of people want it to stay!

If the answer is that you just prefer it that way, that’s fine, I have no desire to be a mod. But to dress it up as “nobody asked for a poll” when far more people have responded to this in the negative then made the original request is quite frankly poor form.

And, as has been said, the reason the threads get less views is because they’ve been moved. I’d wager that the Tom Ritchie thread (not moved after two hours) garnered far more attention because of where it was.

[Silvio Dante]

17 minutes ago, Silvio Dante said:

By the same token, nobody asked for or suggested a sub forum so this is actually the only gauge we have. The sub forum just appeared a couple of months ago and although you’re right to say not universally unpopular only 23% of people asking for it to stay is pretty conclusive.

My strong view is that it was positioned as a trial period. It was asked what success criteria was and that couldn’t be answered. So the most sensible thing is that people were asked after the trial period what they felt - and I reiterate only 23% of people want it to stay!

If the answer is that you just prefer it that way, that’s fine, I have no desire to be a mod. But to dress it up as “nobody asked for a poll” when far more people have responded to this in the negative then made the original request is quite frankly poor form.

And, as has been said, the reason the threads get less views is because they’ve been moved. I’d wager that the Tom Ritchie thread (not moved after two hours) garnered far more attention because of where it was.

Just one more question @phantom

If, prior to setting up the sub forum 23% said they wanted it and 63% said they didn’t, what would you have done - ie set it up or not?

[bcfc4ever]

56 minutes ago, phantom said:

I'll answer a few questions and no doubt be on the end of some stick.. 

So here goes 

This thread was moved bec it was asked to be pinned so stayed at the top 

We then got comments from people saying they missed it as it was pinned among many others 

It was then suggested to move to the transfer forum. 

This was part of a problem, that so many people would start another thread discussing an ex player when there were already threads on that player and often already discussing the same thing 

So an idea was to put these all in the same place to make easier to find 

Personally I'm not sure what the problem is, the threads don't get that much activity so actually make it easier to find and reply to 

There are a number of other sub forums on here that work well 

It's not anyone's "agenda" and replies like that are pretty unhelpful and don't do yourself any favours 

128 in favour and 75 no or don't mind isn't conclusive considering how many members use OTIB 

I'm sure to get shot down here, but no offence to the OP but nobody suggested or asked for a poll 

It's not a case of if a handful of people keep asking anything will change 

On the whole it's less hassle for us merging threads all the time and keeps those rarely updated threads near the top of the page 

As above feel free to shoot me down, but am only replying as how I see things 

Yet you’re happy to spend your time moving those threads rather than merging? And we end up with multiple threads on the same topic even more because people don’t check that sub-forum and so don’t know it’s already been posted about.

There is a lot that just isn’t logical in your reply, other points Silvio has already articulated well. Considering your posts around the creating of that particular sub-forum and your clearly stated personal preferences on it, it does smack of having an agenda. 

[phantom]

1 hour ago, Silvio Dante said:

By the same token, nobody asked for or suggested a sub forum so this is actually the only gauge we have. 

With all respect you or anyone not part of the admin team don't see PMs etc 

 

37 minutes ago, bcfc4ever said:

Yet you’re happy to spend your time moving those threads rather than merging? And we end up with multiple threads on the same topic even more because people don’t check that sub-forum and so don’t know it’s already been posted about.

There is a lot that just isn’t logical in your reply, other points Silvio has already articulated well. Considering your posts around the creating of that particular sub-forum and your clearly stated personal preferences on it, it does smack of having an agenda. 

Thank you for comments 

As above, I'm responding but feel free to reply like I am the only person on the team 

53 minutes ago, Silvio Dante said:

Just one more question @phantom

If, prior to setting up the sub forum 23% said they wanted it and 63% said they didn’t, what would you have done - ie set it up or not?

At the time many had requested it 

Anyway I've answered questions as were asked, I've got more important things to do this evening. 

Otherwise this will just go round and round in circles 

[Silvio Dante]

18 minutes ago, phantom said:

 

At the time many had requested it 

Anyway I've answered questions as were asked, I've got more important things to do this evening. 

Otherwise this will just go round and round in circles 

Not really answered it though did you?

Nobody knows how “Many” requested it other than yourself and the mods, and crucially, none of you knew at the time how many didn’t want it. Because it wasn’t asked and when it was implemented, one mod (not you) stressed it was a trial period. By nature trials need to be evaluated. That’s all we’re doing here but we can’t do it without reference to facts.

So, to make it simple as you are busy. All you need to do is answer yes or no to the two questions - that shouldn’t take up too much of your valuable.

Was the “many” who requested it more than the number who didn’t want it as per this poll?

And again, if it was 63% didn’t want it and 23% did, would you still have put it in?

Again, the job the mods do is appreciated but the lack of any transparency here is a bit disappointing and you’re coming across as avoiding answering a fairly simple point.

Edited January 2 by Silvio Dante

[lenred]

I’d be very keen for these topics to be moved back to the main forum.  There is no reason for them not to be afaics?  I didn’t even realise it had been done until a few days ago.  Seems to be change for change sake.  I dot see the benefit of the topics being moved other than fornthe sake of it and Mods personal choice? 2 out of 3 users want it done.  Can’t really be any fairer than that can it? 
 

Edit - if possible could you use the response rates of those that actually pay to use the forum to decide.  Just a thought. 

Edited January 2 by lenred

[Silvio Dante]

24 minutes ago, lenred said:

I’d be very keen for these topics to be moved back to the main forum.  There is no reason for them not to be afaics?  I didn’t even realise it had been done until a few days ago.  Seems to be change for change sake.  I dot see the benefit of the topics being moved other than fornthe sake of it and Mods personal choice? 2 out of 3 users want it done.  Can’t really be any fairer than that can it? 
 

Edit - if possible could you use the response rates of those that actually pay to use the forum to decide.  Just a thought. 

I don’t think that’s a bad idea. There is a part of me that feels uncomfortable with supporting the forum and then decisions being made against the majority of forum members wishes for unquantifiable reasons so if the stats were there on OTIB Supporters responses to this, and even if it was a Brexitty 52:48 that’d seem pretty sensible.

[Gazred]

I think Silvio has tried to do this by the rulebook and also invited opinion. When the sub forum was created none of that happened yet still it was created due to an unknown amount of requests. I remember a couple of members asking about it but it then just appeared.

The suggestion to merge back has IMO been done correctly and fairly and should now be actioned by the Mods/Admin.

I will say that i'm sure we all understand that trying to keep the Football Forum tidy is like herding cats sometimes but a sub forum is not going to be a cure-all for that, there will always be a need to merge topics, most people don't look beyond the first page for a topic if they even check beyond half way down!

[REDOXO]

Does OTIB have a rule book?

Blimey I need to stop having a life!

 

Edited January 2 by REDOXO

[Gazred]

3 minutes ago, REDOXO said:

Does OTIB have a rule book?

Blimey I need to stop having a life!

 

Were you not one of the people to request the sub forum?