Hexus.Question Time . . . what to do...?

[Revilgo]

Hexus Question Time? What's that?

Merge it.

[Blastuk]

Prince of Tennis

[TeePee]

I like Question Time.

I pledge to start six interesting, insightful and challenging topics in the Question Time forum over the next year. Who will join me in this campaign?

[emzallan]

I think merging is the best option, I don't really understand the difference between the two forums, as many posts that I would have put in question time seem to be in general discussion. I think perhaps having the more serious debates in general discussion rather than question time will get more people involved, and less intimidated, as to respond in question time I always feel a really detailed answer is required, or some in depth academic knowledge!

[jim]

I imagine that half of the Hexus subforums could be canned and nobody would really notice.

I'd rather have a few forums with a range of topics discussed intensely than loads of forums with very specific topics that nobody notices.

[MadduckUK]

I think merging is the best option, I don't really understand the difference between the two forums, as many posts that I would have put in question time seem to be in general discussion. I think perhaps having the more serious debates in general discussion rather than question time will get more people involved, and less intimidated, as to respond in question time I always feel a really detailed answer is required, or some in depth academic knowledge!

don't we need a place like that though? for when you really want a thread to be serious business and not at the mercy of the great unwashed?

[Funkstar]

snootyjim is probably right.

Although as I just use "New Posts" I don't really care that much

The only time I go into a specific forum is to find a specific thread or to post in that forum.

[Bunjiweb]

I would never personally look directly through "Question Time" and often use the "New Posts" button, or visit my favourite few forums.

I think that Hexus has progressed positively enough to think that the members are mature enough to handle the kind of topics covered in "Question Time" to be viewed as General Discussion.

I say merge!

[merdat]

Merge it.

[emzallan]

don't we need a place like that though? for when you really want a thread to be serious business and not at the mercy of the great unwashed?

I don't know if your post is serious or just poking fun at me/ my overuse of italics, nevertheless I think that any comments apart from things that would not be allowed under the rules anyway, should be encouraged. Not everyone is an expert in every field but can still comment and add to the debate

[kalniel]

This poll is asking a leading question!

[Main]

If having split forums means some threads get less views even though people might be inclined to post in them if they actually saw them, what about tagging the threads in a single forum?

At the moment that's essentially what the sub-forums are doing, tagging threads to different major topics, except that they're split up into discrete sections when you browse the forum.

What if Question Time remained a seperate sub-forum for browsing purposes but the threads were also visible in General Discussion, but tagged (e.g. as suggested, maybe [serious business] )? Would that get more people involved?

[Saracen]

I think merging is the best option, I don't really understand the difference between the two forums, as many posts that I would have put in question time seem to be in general discussion. I think perhaps having the more serious debates in general discussion rather than question time will get more people involved, and less intimidated, as to respond in question time I always feel a really detailed answer is required, or some in depth academic knowledge!

That last bit may be part of the problem, emzallan.

QT isn't really supposed to be like that. Posts don't have to be long, detailed or particularly academic, but they should be reasonably serious. The idea was to discuss relatively serious topics, because back in the days when it was introduced, there was a lot of what I, as one of the resident old farts, would have described as meaningless drivel in GD. There's still some, but to be honest, not much. The overall tone of GD has gone up a LOT in the last few years.

So, GD had a lot of activity, much of it with a fairly low content ratio, and as a result, serious threads sank line stones. So those of us that wanted a proper discussion took it out of GD. It was, at that time, worth doing.

Now, though, serious discussions do quite well in GD. And I think it's precisely because they do that we don't really need QT any more, and that it doesn't get much activity. Personally, I still want to be able to have a good, solid debate when the urge takes me, but I don't much care which forum it's in. If QT was given a new lease of life, that suits me. If we merge, that suits me. But QT sitting there with minimal activity, and sometimes days, or upwards of week go by with no posts. I've been watching this for months and wondering, and got prompted to ask the question a few days ago.

[SiM]

Rename it to banter...

Let SiM make threads...

Everyone's a winner

Hehe... I remember the great banter threads

[MadduckUK]

Hehe... I remember the great banter threads

they were all great thats why they killed it - too popular!

they tried to stifle it by stopping posts counting, but no, people were having more than the acceptable level of fun

[Funkstar]

The overall tone of GD has gone up a LOT in the last few years.

But traffic has decreased generally as well. There simply isn't the same number of regulars posting as much as there used to be.

Logging in at work in the morning it no longer takes all morning to completely catch up with things. I used to hit New Posts, get up to 8 pages if i hadn't been on late the night before, that would take me until about 10:30 to go through. Another New Posts click and I get another page and a half to go through, then another half page and a bunch of threads that grew very quickly.

Now I can have the whole thing read by 9:40 and I move onto another forum.

Doesn't gell with DR's goals: http://forums.hexus.net/general-disc...push-guys.html