Too many soccer threads?

[BoyBrumby]

I wouldn't have an issue with a seperate forum for football and/or sport, personally.

There's clearly an interest on CW; the football WC forum had more posts than the 2003 cricket WC forum did.

It is interesting that it's mainly the AFL-affliated Aussies who have an issue with the preponderence of football threads, whereas the League followers are either pro-football or at worst indifferent.

 

[The Baconator]

personally i think the fantasy thread's could be merged, as could the FM/CM ones, the french one will dissapear soon and the CW football ones will when that goes to a new forum so you'd be left with 4, the A League, the English Dom, the fantasy one and the fm one which only appears once a month anyway.

Yeah, I don't really have a problem with most of them, but the seperate fantasy ones seems a bit excessive, especially when a fair deal of the posts are just Brumby or whoever posting the scores.

 

[James]

I'm getting the feeling that I'm damned if I do, damned if I don't.

 

[Kweek]

don't

like it as it is.

 

[Loony BoB]

You can always put it up on a one-month trial basis and see how it goes. If it doesn't work, merge back.

Again, though, I think a more fitting poll would be "Do you think there should be a seperate forum for sports discussion?" as the existing poll doesn't reflect that. More people would probably be pro-change in a poll than those that would say "OH THEY ARE RUINING EVERYTHING."

 

[James]

It's notable that I'm in the 60% that say they aren't ruining Off Topic. If it was a poll saying "Should sports (or just football) threads have their own forum?" then I'd have voted in favour of the new forum. I don't think Off Topic is being ruined, but I think it would be better off if the sports threads had their own forum. It makes sense in a cricket forum anyway!

I'm confident that you would get more threads in each of Off Topic and a General Sports Forum than you would in, say, Rugby Union World Cup 2003 (33 threads would easily be beaten by all the sports threads we could come up with), Attock Cricket Club (why not have a single thread?), Cricket Mail (why not put it in Site Discussion?) and possibly even Backyard Cricket (Cricket Chat?). I'm not saying these forums shouldn't be there, but I'm saying there's just as much justification, if not more, to have a sports forum than there is to have those forums.

EDIT: It might also encourage people to come up with some more interesting topics in Off Topic, too.

Some valid points there. You could say the same about the Fantasy Cricket forum, but the reason they're seperate is mainly for promotional reasons.

Cricket Humour and Cricket Backyard could well be moved in yes and the Cricket Clubs forum idea was a bit of a non-event really.

 

[Pratters]

Majority wins for me. So no separate football forum. Sports poll may show different results as Loony Bob said.

 

[Matteh]

Leave as is IMO. The fantasy football threads come up about once a week when scores are posted and are gone again by the end of the day.

 

[James]

You can always put it up on a one-month trial basis and see how it goes. If it doesn't work, merge back.

Again, though, I think a more fitting poll would be "Do you think there should be a seperate forum for sports discussion?" as the existing poll doesn't reflect that. More people would probably be pro-change in a poll than those that would say "OH THEY ARE RUINING EVERYTHING."

Some nice ideas coming out of your keyboard mate

What do you the rest of you think? I'll happily post a forum annoucement if you all feel this is a better question.

 

[BoyBrumby]

I'm getting the feeling that I'm damned if I do, damned if I don't.

Seems about the size of it, yep!

I'm with Kweek, actually, more than happy with the status quo. Others seem not be tho.

 

[Smudge]

Personally, I think too much is made out of having 12, or whatever it is, threads about football. They all serve their purpose, and they're not THAT hard to avoid. I'm on dial-up, but it doesn't take more than 20 seconds or so to get back to page 3 if need be.

 

[grecian]

I'm happy with the status quo, I may not even have come in off-topic, if there wasn't a football thread in it, but its probably a good idea to put all the fantasy comps in one united thread. In fact I advocate getting rid of the one I'm in the relegation zone, altogether.

 

[vic_orthdox]

Leave it as is. I just think that all the different tipping competitions and fantasy competition threads CAN be merged into one. A-League and Premier League, naturally, have to have their own threads. I think superkingdave (just for a change) spoke the most sense... for a week or two, there was an extra abundance of threads relating to soccer. People cry. In two weeks, there'll just be one or two on the front page.

 

[dontcloseyoureyes]

I don't care tbh. Doesn't bother me.

 

[pasag]

Sub-forum imo.

 

[FaaipDeOiad]

It is interesting that it's mainly the AFL-affliated Aussies who have an issue with the preponderence of football threads, whereas the League followers are either pro-football or at worst indifferent.

It's worth noting though that we pretty much keep all our business in one thread, and there's plenty of AFL fans on the forum. Indeed, the AFL thread has been there for a couple of seasons now and has around 5,000 posts or something, and nobody's felt the need to spawn a bunch more to discuss, say, who will win the Brownlow, trades, a range of fantasy comps etc, or even the new season.

I don't really care about the number of threads on any topic to be honest, but I don't see the problem with limiting discussion to as few threads as possible, and I think if there were 10 different AFL threads people would probably complain about that too. Hell, someone made an international rules thread and it got closed.

 

[Loony BoB]

Why would people complain if there were ten different threads to do with AFL? People don't exactly complain about the thousands of threads about cricket we have in these forums. If there are enough AFL fans then I'm sure they too can talk about things in more specific threads, with a general thread for the main league much like there are general threads for each cricket series.

Of course, there's more than just AFL that would go into a sports forum, too. Rugby games, football (soccer) games, rugby league, F1GP, Bathurst, badminton...

 

[BoyBrumby]

It's worth noting though that we pretty much keep all our business in one thread, and there's plenty of AFL fans on the forum. Indeed, the AFL thread has been there for a couple of seasons now and has around 5,000 posts or something, and nobody's felt the need to spawn a bunch more to discuss, say, who will win the Brownlow, trades, a range of fantasy comps etc, or even the new season.

I don't really care about the number of threads on any topic to be honest, but I don't see the problem with limiting discussion to as few threads as possible, and I think if there were 10 different AFL threads people would probably complain about that too. Hell, someone made an international rules thread and it got closed.

TBF you can't really compare Association Football to AFL in terms of popularity. Even the A-League down there seems to be doing ok for itself now & I bet not one Englishman could name an English Aussie Rules team without looking it up. Even if Aussies (or Indians, Pakistanis or West Indians) dislike football they are at least aware of it; AFL is a matter of supreme indifference up here &, I'm sure, in the sub-continent and the West Indies too.

I wouldn't have an issue with a dozen AFL threads myself either, someone started one for the West Coast Eagles after their win IIRC & I cared not a jot. I can't see why the International Rules thread was closed, either. Burpey may've started it in a fit of pique, but I'd say it serves more purpose than 90% of Off Topic threads; hell, I even posted in it!

 

[Matteh]

TBF you can't really compare Association Football to AFL in terms of popularity. Even the A-League down there seems to be doing ok for itself now & I bet not one Englishman could name an English Aussie Rules team without looking it up. Even if Aussies (or Indians, Pakistanis or West Indians) dislike football they are at least aware of it; AFL is a matter of supreme indifference up here &, I'm sure, in the sub-continent and the West Indies too.

I wouldn't have an issue with a dozen AFL threads myself either, someone started one for the West Coast Eagles after their win IIRC & I cared not a jot. I can't see why the International Rules thread was closed, either. Burpey may've started it in a fit of pique, but I'd say it serves more purpose than 90% of Off Topic threads; hell, I even posted in it!

Melbourne Demons?

There was also the AFL/NRL finals tipping thread by Archie Mac to contend with.

 

[GIMH]

Why would people complain if there were ten different threads to do with AFL? People don't exactly complain about the thousands of threads about cricket we have in these forums. If there are enough AFL fans then I'm sure they too can talk about things in more specific threads, with a general thread for the main league much like there are general threads for each cricket series.

Of course, there's more than just AFL that would go into a sports forum, too. Rugby games, football (soccer) games, rugby league, F1GP, Bathurst, badminton...

Well, it is a Cricket forum!!!