Reorganising the Sportscar & GT Racing Forum

[Matt]

22 pages really isnt a lot though.

You can crank through that in like an hour at an extremely slow pace.

[Marcel ten Caat]

Good idea, though one more suggestion.

Next to ACO Regulated Series, consider an SRO Regulated Series subforum

This would group Blancpain, British GT, GT4 and even IGTC in one place, instead of cluttering the default Sportscar & GT Forum.

[Adam43]

Something to consider. Although we do need some series to stay in the general forum.

[Marcel ten Caat]

True, but we'll have plenty of national series and series like VdeV, Creventic, VLN and of course the "generic" stuff.

[Aysedasi]

Originally Posted by Matt

22 pages really isnt a lot though.

You can crank through that in like an hour at an extremely slow pace.

Probably only a very small percentage of our members actually spend an hour at a time on the forum. And does a thread which is 22 pages long catch people's attention sufficiently persuade them to wade through it (and through what has often become historical stuff for the first 10-15 of those pages)?

[JHamilton]

Personally, I like having all the threads in one forum as I read more about items that I wouldn't normally. In my experience, sub-forums tend to become dead zones. For example, I do not enter or read the LeMans sub-forum with the exception of the week of the race... I forget it is there most of the time. It might make Tapatalk more arduous as well.

Just my two cents and against the grain as usual.

[Aysedasi]

Inevitably I'm a big supporter of the LM subforum (and campaigned for it before it existed - a long time ago). The beauty of that subforum is that there are a lot of threads. Yes, there are some long ones, a handful that literally run from one Le Mans to the next (but then start again). But I accept it is a place generally for those who are addicted to the 24 Hours...... (and could hardly be described as a dead zone....)

[Akrapovic]

I don't think Blancpain has enough traffic to support its own forum. However I do think that removing the ACO and NA traffic from the main forum could possibly give a boost to series like Blancpain.

Here's another suggestion. Rather than make it a NA forum, perhaps just IMSA? That might help series like PWC, which get race threads but only two or three people talking in them.

So my two suggestions are -

-Sportscar & GT Racing Forum (Blancpain, Creventic, VLN etc)
--24 Hours of Le Mans
--ACO Regulated Series (WEC, ELMS, Le Mans Cup, AsLMS, etc)
--North American Racing (IMSA, PWC, etc)
--Prediction Competitions

or

-Sportscar & GT Racing Forum (Blancpain, PWC, Creventic, VLN etc)
--24 Hours of Le Mans
--ACO Regulated Series (WEC, ELMS, Le Mans Cup, AsLMS, etc)
--IMSA regulated Racing (WeatherTech, Conti, Prototype Challenge, etc)
--Prediction Competitions

[Matt]

Originally Posted by Akrapovic

I don't think Blancpain has enough traffic to support its own forum. However I do think that removing the ACO and NA traffic from the main forum could possibly give a boost to series like Blancpain.

Here's another suggestion. Rather than make it a NA forum, perhaps just IMSA? That might help series like PWC, which get race threads but only two or three people talking in them.

So my two suggestions are -

-Sportscar & GT Racing Forum (Blancpain, Creventic, VLN etc)
--24 Hours of Le Mans
--ACO Regulated Series (WEC, ELMS, Le Mans Cup, AsLMS, etc)
--North American Racing (IMSA, PWC, etc)
--Prediction Competitions

or

-Sportscar & GT Racing Forum (Blancpain, PWC, Creventic, VLN etc)
--24 Hours of Le Mans
--ACO Regulated Series (WEC, ELMS, Le Mans Cup, AsLMS, etc)
--IMSA regulated Racing (WeatherTech, Conti, Prototype Challenge, etc)
--Prediction Competitions

I'm good with either of these options.

[NaBUru38]

I would prefer a North American subforum.
There's more to North American sports car racing than IMSA and PWC.
Trans-Am, SCCA Runoffs, NASA 25 Hours Thunderhill, MX-5 Cup...

[Akrapovic]

Originally Posted by NaBUru38

I would prefer a North American subforum.
There's more to North American sports car racing than IMSA and PWC.
Trans-Am, SCCA Runoffs, NASA 25 Hours Thunderhill, MX-5 Cup...

I do agree, the problem is these don't really get talked about. Would moving the big things like IMSA and ACO out of the way allow more discussion to happen on the smaller things like the MX-5 Cup?

There is obviously a problem with big threads and series being bumped down too quickly, but you're quite right that the solution needs to assist smaller series too, and I wonder if they'd be best left in the regular forum for added visibility?

[Matt]

No one really cares or watches Trans-Am, the 25hr T'hill, or things like MX-5 Cup.

You could throw those all into a catch-all thread.

I'm telling y'all this as someone who lives in the US. The only big series is IMSA and its support program, with PWC a distant second.

[NaBUru38]

IMSA threads won't overwhelm the North American forum, I think.
The main non-IMSA threads would surely remain in the first page.

[Matt]

They absolutely would.

Full season long MX-5 Cup and Trans-Am threads would MAYBE pull 5 pages total combined.

Hard maybe.

[NaBUru38]

They would be easier to find than in the general sportscar subforum.

[AoB Special Stage]

Nuclear option talk here, but we could even split GT3/GT4 based formulae to a separate forum, depending on the activity numbers.

[MagnetON]

Just to keep everyone up to date, there are continuing discussions with the forum moderators on the best course of action on this. It hasn't been forgotten.

[MagnetON]

The more observant among you may have noticed that two sub-forums have been added. Moderators will start moving recent threads from the main forum accordingly.

[NaBUru38]

Thanks!

[Akrapovic]

Thank you to all the mods giving this a go! And thank you to all the mods who might have to undo it if it all goes belly up. Totally not my fault, I never started this thread.

[Aysedasi]

Well, we all agreed that we should try what was being put forward. Feedback very welcome - and if you spot threads that we ought to move, let us know - although we're only going back three months for now. If older threads get 'resurrected', we'll move them then - otherwise we could be doing it for quite a while!

[Matt]

Excellent. I await my bold name so I can take over race thread duties.

[TheMightyM]

I hate, hate, hate the move to additional subforums. I follow IMSA, the ELMS, WEC, and like to keep up on developments in other series as well. Adding subforums makes this much harder, as I must now scan through three separate forums instead of one. The change makes tentenths less useful to m and will reduce the amount of time I send of its forums.

[Aysedasi]

Oh well, you can't please all the people all of the time......... (although I think your end conclusion is perhaps a tad OTT?)

[Akrapovic]

I think it's worth trying though. If it sees a fall in traffic and posts then for sure it didn't work and should go back. But so far I do like it. For me, it highlighted posts in SuperGT and GT Open a bit more, and I've started a 24H Series thread to see how that goes.

What kind of stats do the mods/admin team have access to? It's been a long time since I used vB and I spent more time breaking things than anything else Are you able to see weekly traffic? Keep a note of how it was before and how it is after?