Dude! Where's my thread?!? Forum Guidelines

Discussion in 'USA Men: News & Analysis' started by dark knight, Jun 22, 2007.

  1. TrueCrew

    TrueCrew Member+

    Dec 22, 2003
    Columbus, OH
    Club:
    Columbus Crew
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    So, just to clarify, no more Pre-Match threads in N&A?
     
  2. dark knight

    dark knight Super Moderator
    Staff Member

    Dec 15, 1999
    Club:
    Leicester City FC
    I think we mainly have wanted PBP to be in USA Men, but pre-match should be okay I think. Mods?
     
  3. Crimson Ace

    Crimson Ace Moderator
    Staff Member

    Apr 4, 2003
    McKinney, TX
    Club:
    FC Dallas
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    Agreed. I think the Pre-Match and Post-Match threads are usually right on track with N&A. I have no problem with them in N&A at all. The PBP threads, however, aren't usually filled with anything but quips and one-liners... not much analysis, especially during the bigger matches.

    Pre-Match: N&A
    PBP: USA Men
    Post-Match: N&A
     
  4. rtung

    rtung Member

    Aug 20, 1999
    Chicago, IL, USA
    What happened to the "3-5-2" thread? It was evidently "moved", but I can't find it anywhere.
     
  5. dark knight

    dark knight Super Moderator
    Staff Member

    Dec 15, 1999
    Club:
    Leicester City FC
  6. TimB4Last

    TimB4Last Member+

    May 5, 2006
    Dystopia
  7. bungadiri

    bungadiri Super Moderator
    Staff Member

    Jan 25, 2002
    Acnestia
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
  8. TimB4Last

    TimB4Last Member+

    May 5, 2006
    Dystopia
  9. FirstStar

    FirstStar Hustlin' for the USA

    Fulham Football Club
    Feb 1, 2005
    Time's Arrow
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    Here's an idea for consideration:

    The YA forum largely runs on player-specific threads which, of late, have often devolved into national team discussions about the players (resulting in the binning of a lot of posts). How about a sub-forum here for player-specific threads?

    I've been debating whether we'd really need a new sub-forum for this as we often have player-specific threads in the USMN&A forum. However, there are a lot of players and a lot of other threads in this forum and the player-specific threads easily get lost. The YA forum is pretty much driven by player-specific threads but they are easier to find because that's 90% of the threads that are there, so they don't get lost quite so easily.

    This may be overkill (or a manifestation of my overly-compartmentalized mind), but could open up a new place for discussion of specific players and their national team career/prospects.

    Cheers.
     
  10. dark knight

    dark knight Super Moderator
    Staff Member

    Dec 15, 1999
    Club:
    Leicester City FC
    I'm open to sub fora and this was one idea that was discussed - it's not the worst idea in the world as we get these in N&A occasionally. Not sure how much this would clean up some of the chaos though.
     
  11. bungadiri

    bungadiri Super Moderator
    Staff Member

    Jan 25, 2002
    Acnestia
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    There's a certain logic to the player-specific threads sub-forum that is appealing. As with YA, though, there's the "where do we draw the line?" question, when it comes to who should have a thread and who shouldn't. Most of the time, it's not an issue, but it has been an issue occasionally, even in YA. Any inclusion/exclusion criteria suggestions for this?

    Also, I think if we're going to have a News and Analysis subforum, it needs to be based on something that will attract people to it, first and foremost, with the idea of clearing things up in N and A as almost a secondary benefit. Because otherwise it probably won't work. The number of player specific threads seems to be increasing, which suggests this might be a viable option. Another signficant subset of N and A threads: strategy/tactics/coaching discussions, not keyed to any specific news item (DK, I think you've floated this idea in the past?). That might be another viable basis for a subforum.
     
  12. schrutebuck

    schrutebuck Member+

    Jul 26, 2007
    Suggestion: I think specific transfer news should be kept to the YA or MLS forums. There seems to be a bit of redundancy within the American forums these days.
     
  13. TimB4Last

    TimB4Last Member+

    May 5, 2006
    Dystopia
    You can say that again!
     
  14. FirstStar

    FirstStar Hustlin' for the USA

    Fulham Football Club
    Feb 1, 2005
    Time's Arrow
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    I really was thinking that it will just make reading and using this forum much easier. The thought started by looking at the YA forum and when we introduced the match-day threads sub-forum. It really worked because match-day threads come and go (in great volume) but player specific threads are long-term items (and pretty good stores of information about that player). It was a real mis-match to have both types of threads in the same forum as the high-volume but short-term game-day threads crowded out the player threads and led to a lot of redundant player threads-- we'd get new threads off every news event as people are too lazy to search the forum for the old threads. Now we get 1400 post Michael Bradley at Villa threads, but at least it's only one thread and it's easy to find all the news (or, rather, lack thereof) about Mikey in Europe.

    I think this could be much the same here-- the game review and analysis, who should we call up, and what tactics we should play, etc. etc. threads tend to be relatively short lasting, one-off discussions (much like YA game day threads) while the player threads are more last, or (at least) would be if they weren't so hard to find back in the back-pages of the forum. Because we tend to talk about players here when specific news items happen (the "news" half of N&A), we usually just create a new "Landon Donovan has Blue Toe Lint" thread instead of folding it into an existing thread discussing everything about Landon's national team career, including the fact that his blue toe lint matches Everton's uniforms and that could be a big boost to his confidence when playing for the USA. Ultimately, I think we'd see more continuance in the discussion of players (since we'd have far fewer threads) and less clutter in the forum. Of course, there'd be more clutter in the threads, but clutter has to go somewhere- you tell me whether you prefer it in the forum or in the threads.

    Or perhaps such discussion can be kept to the player-specific threads in that sub-forum. See discussion above.

    Cheers.
     
  15. dark knight

    dark knight Super Moderator
    Staff Member

    Dec 15, 1999
    Club:
    Leicester City FC
    What about game day forum here too?
     
  16. FirstStar

    FirstStar Hustlin' for the USA

    Fulham Football Club
    Feb 1, 2005
    Time's Arrow
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    I feel like I'm monopolizing on the discussion, but I don't think we need a game-day forum here because US matches are too infrequent. My opinion is that this forum works fine for pre- and post- game threads as we usually have something completely new we want to discuss about the team after we see them play. The games are when we erase the whiteboard and start all over again. (I'm laughing at all of us (myself included) right now- we are a fickle lot).
     
  17. dark knight

    dark knight Super Moderator
    Staff Member

    Dec 15, 1999
    Club:
    Leicester City FC
    [timb4last]I'm not sure I agree.[/timb4last]
     
  18. TimB4Last

    TimB4Last Member+

    May 5, 2006
    Dystopia
    And that's on a good day - on a bad day, watch out! ;)

    After I have time to mull over any proposed changes, I'll come back and comment, but it's important to recognize that you can't please everyone.

    My first impression is that I would like to have longitudinal player threads in N&A, because I like those threads in YA and - as every mod here knows - whenever one of our YAs plays well or poorly, gets hurt, transfers, makes the bench, fails to make the bench, changes position - any news at all, really, and often no real news - many posters want to discuss what it all means in a USMNT context, only to be told that YA is not for MNT discussion.

    Threads that don't carry their own weight won't last long, so there's not much harm in trying.
     
  19. FirstStar

    FirstStar Hustlin' for the USA

    Fulham Football Club
    Feb 1, 2005
    Time's Arrow
    Nat'l Team:
    United States


    Damn straight. And the USMN&A forum is not for theoretical forum and thread administrations, so please take this conversation to the Forum Administration and Moderation forum.

    [ducks]

    :D
     
  20. dark knight

    dark knight Super Moderator
    Staff Member

    Dec 15, 1999
    Club:
    Leicester City FC
    By the way - I believe we mods a while back had decided that club news should go into one massive player pool news thread but I think someone didn't turn in the paperwork to get that implemented.
     
  21. bungadiri

    bungadiri Super Moderator
    Staff Member

    Jan 25, 2002
    Acnestia
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    Actually, I did start that thread a while back (can a brother get a gold star sticker?) and I bumped it yesterday. We might want to consider sticking it to the top of the forum, though.
     
  22. FirstStar

    FirstStar Hustlin' for the USA

    Fulham Football Club
    Feb 1, 2005
    Time's Arrow
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    Good for news, but not discussion-- the Bradley "news" thread in YA has 1400 posts. People are going to want to discuss transfers, club form, etc. etc. all through the lens of the national team. Seriously, half of the posts in the YA player threads deal with USMNT implications.
     
  23. bungadiri

    bungadiri Super Moderator
    Staff Member

    Jan 25, 2002
    Acnestia
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    Yeah, in a players thread sub-forum--should we go that way--my recommendation would be that we reduce the scope of that thread to updates, only, and sticky it, so that it can act as an easy reference and then leave the discussion work to other threads. However, if that's the case, then it's got to involve somebody who's less forgetful than I am to take care of it.
     
  24. dark knight

    dark knight Super Moderator
    Staff Member

    Dec 15, 1999
    Club:
    Leicester City FC
    I think that's more a YA problem though - not a USA N&A not providing a proper outlet problem.
     
  25. MiamiNative0722

    MiamiNative0722 Member+

    May 25, 2013
    Club:
    Real Madrid
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    I'm over 70 posts and I don't see how I can even make threads -_-
     

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