Attempt #2: Australian forum

Post #1 » by **blkout** » Fri Nov 4, 2011 7:10 am

So we tried this once before and it was rejected, I think we've had enough time to try again.

As you know we had the OT Australia thread created as a compromise for us not receiving an Australian forum (much like the Canadian forum) and it's been pretty successful, it is the second most active thread on the Off Topic Board behind the RTT threads and I forget the exact numbers but I remember a few months back since its inception our OT Australia threads have been more active than a huge chunk of the forums on RealGM, including the entire Canadian forum.

There's been one RealGM Off Topic Australia meet-up in Queensland and we're in the midst of planning one in Melbourne for early next year. There is also an Australian sports thread on the Bucks forum which is on its 109th page despite the fact that there's only 2 of our 5 main sports being predominantly discussed in there.

What I'm proposing is basically a replica of the Off Topic Canada forum. That way we (and other Australians) would have a place to discuss all of our relevant national issues without having to try to do it in one single thread. I understand that there's a CA board and Other Sports forums etc we could do that at but lets be realistic the CA board is dominated by American issues and not the most welcoming forum and no one posts on the other sports boards. If nothing else this could be done on a trial basis, if it fails we (Aussies) accept it and move on and if it succeeds then great.

It would take some time but I (and I'm assuming others) would be willing to put in work to make other Australians on RealGM aware of its existence, I know a lot of them are either unaware of the OT Australia thread or don't feel as though they can contribute to single thread discussions amongst people who all know each other and have for a long time already.

Post #2 » by **kingkirk** » Fri Nov 4, 2011 7:12 am

I support this 100% and will do anything it takes to help the mod team get this done.

Im passionate about getting this board.

RIPskaterdude · Post #3 » by **RIPskaterdude** » Fri Nov 4, 2011 7:13 am

YEAH! WHAT HE SAID! :usa:

walchy · Post #4 » by **walchy** » Fri Nov 4, 2011 7:23 am

Why, I'M AUSTRALIAN!

BC_ · Post #5 » by **BC_** » Fri Nov 4, 2011 7:30 am

Will contribute.

Jugs · Post #6 » by **Jugs** » Fri Nov 4, 2011 7:47 am

KingCuban wrote:I support this 100% and will do anything it takes to help the mod team get this done.

Im passionate about getting this board.

Me too.

It's hard to keep all discussions that are "Australian" in one thread. Being asked to do that is, to be quite honest, ridiculous and not fair at all.

Post #7 » by **Gremz** » Fri Nov 4, 2011 7:58 am

WON'T MOD!!!

Dupp · Post #8 » by **Dupp** » Fri Nov 4, 2011 8:01 am

Me too. It is pretty hard to keep good conversations about certain topics in the one thread because it just gets lost in the clutter. This would be great if we could get the support. Theres alot of aussie posters around.

Post #9 » by **TheLowlySquire** » Fri Nov 4, 2011 8:46 am

I know it's not a preferable route, but you guys can first start posting about the AFL and other Aussie leagues in the General Other Sports Board. HoMass has created new boards when a topic gets a lot of activity, so an Aussie Sports board can easily come up. In that board you guys can talk Aussie sports, but if the mods and admins are fine with it, I don't see any reason why you couldn't just make a lot of OT threads on it as well. All constructive of course.

raff · Post #10 » by **raff** » Fri Nov 4, 2011 9:30 am

I'll throw my support behind this. I don't have too much more to say that hasn't already been said.

Post #11 » by **blkout** » Fri Nov 4, 2011 10:59 am

TheLowlySquire wrote:I know it's not a preferable route, but you guys can first start posting about the AFL and other Aussie leagues in the General Other Sports Board. HoMass has created new boards when a topic gets a lot of activity, so an Aussie Sports board can easily come up

The issue with that is the forum wouldn't just be about sport, our thread is far more active than the other sports board and as it stands right now our two biggest sports are in their off season so theres really not a great deal to discuss about them. It's really difficult talking about politics, music, entertainment, news etc in one thread and I think that difficulty is why there's been a lot less actual discussion and more general chatter because it gets too confusing. Also I'm fairly sure we were told not to make australian specific threads on the otb because they exclude the majority from participating.

I guess the way I'm looking at it is there's over 50 Australians on Real GM and maybe only six of us post regularly on the OTB but despite that our one Aussie thread has been more active in the time since the first one was created than the entire Off Topic Canada forum. If six of us can create that much activity I think opening up a forum where people can make threads and discuss things a lot easier where it will be less cliquey will be really active

Rasho Brezec · Post #12 » by **Rasho Brezec** » Fri Nov 4, 2011 11:45 am

I support this like my fellow Australians.

BC_ · Post #13 » by **BC_** » Fri Nov 4, 2011 12:15 pm

blkout wrote:The issue with that is the forum wouldn't just be about sport, our thread is far more active than the other sports board and as it stands right now our two biggest sports are in their off season so theres really not a great deal to discuss about them. It's really difficult talking about politics, music, entertainment, news etc in one thread and I think that difficulty is why there's been a lot less actual discussion and more general chatter because it gets too confusing. Also I'm fairly sure we were told not to make australian specific threads on the otb because they exclude the majority from participating.

I guess the way I'm looking at it is there's over 50 Australians on Real GM and maybe only six of us post regularly on the OTB but despite that our one Aussie thread has been more active in the time since the first one was created than the entire Off Topic Canada forum. If six of us can create that much activity I think opening up a forum where people can make threads and discuss things a lot easier where it will be less cliquey will be really active

Exactly. The two threads i post in the most are both australia-related OT threads on separate boards. Putting all the Aussies together makes sense.
You could even call it Australian Sports and Off Topic, there's a lot of non-aussies that are interested in our sports.

Post #14 » by **LittleOzzy** » Fri Nov 4, 2011 2:05 pm

blkout wrote:
I guess the way I'm looking at it is there's over 50 Australians on Real GM and maybe only six of us post regularly on the OTB but despite that our one Aussie thread has been more active in the time since the first one was created than the entire Off Topic Canada forum. If six of us can create that much activity I think opening up a forum where people can make threads and discuss things a lot easier where it will be less cliquey will be really active

I support the idea, but creating a forum for just 50 people doesn't really make sense to me.

OT Canada was created because of the overwhelming number of OT topics being discussed on the Raptors forum. It was needed because of the crazy number of Canadians on RealGM, I just don't think we will ever see the same number of Aussie's on the board.

I think in the future it's something RealGM should consider but not just for 50 people.

I would fully support a trial run though to prove me wrong. It can't been any worse than the Hockey forums, Haha.

Post #15 » by **blkout** » Fri Nov 4, 2011 2:30 pm

Yeah but if there's more than 50 Canadians why is the OT Canada board less active than our single OT Australia thread? Activity is more important than numbers IMO. That said I do think we need more than just the people who post in the OT Australia thread to participate.

Post #16 » by **Howard Mass** » Fri Nov 4, 2011 3:13 pm

blkout and Others,

Thank you for the question.

We currently have no plans to add any new Off-Topic Forums. I will not rule it out but it is unlikely.

OT Canada was created before I was in charge of the forums and is grandfathered in. I will not close the door on anything although it is unlikely another Off-Topic Forum will be added.

However, if an Australian Sports Forum got enough interest, it could be a future addition to our "Other Sports Section".

viewforum.php?f=255

I have made some changes to the section recently with the closing of the "Motor Sports", "Golf" and "Other Sports Archive" Forums.

In addition, "The Olympics" Forum will be seasonal only.

All of these topics can be discussed on the "General Other Sports Forum".

That leaves us with three strong forums "Boxing and MMA", "Pro Wrestling" and "Soccer" along with one forum I decided to keep around "Tennis" and of course, "General Other Sports".

If "Australian Sports" or a particular sport gains enough traction on our "General Other Sports Forum", it will become a candidate for it's own forum in the "Other Sports" section.

Please let me know if this answers your question.

BC_ · Post #17 » by **BC_** » Fri Nov 4, 2011 3:15 pm

LittleOzzy wrote:I would fully support a trial run though to prove me wrong. It can't been any worse than the Hockey forums, Haha.

Awesome, thanks Ozzy

BC_ · Post #18 » by **BC_** » Fri Nov 4, 2011 3:19 pm

Howard Mass wrote:blkout and Others,

Thank you for the question.

We currently have no plans to add any new Off-Topic Forums. I will not rule it out but it is unlikely.

OT Canada was created before I was in charge of the forums and is grandfathered in. I will not close the door on anything although it is unlikely another Off-Topic Forum will be added.

However, if an Australian Sports Forum got enough interest, it could be a future addition to our "Other Sports Section".

viewforum.php?f=255

I have made some changes to the section recently with the closing of the "Motor Sports", "Golf" and "Other Sports Archive" Forums.

In addition, "The Olympics" Forum will be seasonal only.

All of these topics can be discussed on the "General Other Sports Forum".

That leaves us with three strong forums "Boxing and MMA", "Pro Wrestling" and "Soccer" along with one forum I decided to keep around "Tennis" and of course, "General Other Sports".

If "Australian Sports" or a particular sport gains enough traction on our "General Other Sports Forum", it will become a candidate for it's own forum in the "Other Sports" section.

Please let me know if this answers your question.

Could the Off Topic Australia Thread currently in the off topic forum be moved to the australian sports forum? Or would that be a question for the new mods of that forum?

Post #19 » by **Howard Mass** » Fri Nov 4, 2011 3:22 pm

If "Australian Sports" get enough interest on the "General Other Sports Forum" and it does become it's own forum, the issue would be something that would be discussed if Australian Sports got their own forum.

Post #20 » by **blkout** » Fri Nov 4, 2011 3:33 pm

Howard Mass wrote:If "Australian Sports" or a particular sport gains enough traction on our "General Other Sports Forum", it will become a candidate for it's own forum in the "Other Sports" section.

Please let me know if this answers your question.

Thanks for answering Howard. While I don't understand the reluctance to create a new forum given the amount of activity compared to others I accept it, though I'm a bit confused by the sports forum suggestion (TLS made a similar one) as we're not really crying out for one and sports don't make up a huge part of our OT Australia threads. Maybe it's seemed lately like our threads are being dominated by sports discussion but that's only because our two biggest sports both had their finals series at the same time (which recently ended) and those were the biggest topics in the country in that month and a half.

I'm not trying to speak on behalf of anyone else but I have a feeling that while if we had an all encompassing Australian forum we could absolutely make it active as it would give us a "home" on RealGM for lack of a better term, but if the Bucks board sports thread was locked and moved and we were told to take sports discussion to Other Sports instead of the OTA threads we'd probably just stop talking about sports.

Those discussions were generated as a matter of convenience imo (a lot of Australians congregate on the Bucks board, similarly there's a lot on the Off Topic board) I think if people wanted to talk about sports that badly they would've utilized the Other Sports board already.

Either way, I appreciate the response.