Why not men's forum?

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41

What if we went the other way with this. You know how they say, “if everyone is special, then no one is”?

What if we made ALL the forums private forums? So to view a forum, you would have to be part of a group that is permitted to see it. Membership in the group would NOT require moderator approval - you just click and (presto) you are member of the IP Forum Group so now you see the IP forum whenever you log in. Or you join the Women’s group, the Parenting Group, the Pets and Animals Group.

Think of it as “myForumosa” - maybe we can have a “General Population” group which can see ALL the forums. You can leave the Gen Pop group and elect to only view the Forums that YOU want. Also, when we get Group PMing going, you may be able to send PMs just to members of your group - or you may be able to PM entire memberships of groups, and not bother whole other group memberships.
But this would lead to PM Spam, which is a whole other matter, and probably an unpopular one

Now, since my best indicator for how Forumosa is doing is monitoring Logins, I would like this because you’d have to login to see “yourForumosa”

Just thinking outlound

42

Btw, searches (like the last 24 hours of posts search) are limited to only the forums you are allowed to see

43

Gus,

The women forum requires special permissions which are not available to men. How would that work? Would you need special permissions to join each forum? If I can just join by clicking a few options, then what’s the difference if compared with what we have now only with added useless settings?

Personally, I couldn’t care less about women having their own forum. Besides, whatever I’m not willing to share with women, I wouldn’t share with men either so it makes no difference to me. When is the last time any of you guys read a post of mine in the dating and relationship forum for example? But that’s just me.

I’m not sure I understand your idea to be honest, sounds like it would be complicated and a lot more work for little results.

Forumosa is the biggest and most popular website in Taiwan. There’s a reason for that. I would not try to fix something that isn’t broken. Besides, if males have serious concerns about their health, their sex lives, etc, there are plenty of other forums out there dedicated to that where they can get all the advice they need while being completely anonymous.

Or you can do like Derek, put aside your vanity and post away. It worked for him and it was interesting for many regulars and lurkers I’m sure.

bobepine

44

What I am suggesting is not specifically about a men’s forum. The reason why we aren’t crazy about there being a women’s forum is because an “exclusive forum” runs against what we would like Forumosa to be: a place on the web that welcomes as many people as possible (that is, that is NOT exclusive). So an exclusive men’s forum seems to move away from that goal.

What I have proposed is something else - allowing people to create their “own” Forumosa (to a degree). Say you spend 90% of your time in 3 forums - the Pets, Healthcare and the Temporary forum. Perhaps this is what forumosa is really about for you. So to reduce the clutter, you can limit your Forumosa to those 3 forums. If you ever wanted to look into the Legal forums, you simply join the legal group, and (ta-da!) there are Legal forums for you to look at. When you are done with them, unsubscribe from the Legal group, and your back to your focused view.

When you search - you limit your search to the forums you use - so theoretically, these would be faster and more meaningful to you. In such a setup, your searches would have the results from your chosen forums, plus the latest Forumosafied ads.

Now, to make this happen, everyone would automatically be part of the “All Forums Group”. So you wouldn’t notice any difference in the beginning. If you want to limit your view of the forums, you first select the forums you want to keep track of, and then exit the All Forums Group. I don’t expect everyone to do this - most people probably won’t bother. But some people limit themselves to a few forums anyway, so may appreciate having the choice.

The people who may lose out are those who never log into Forumosa - people who never sign up. When they come to the website, they are going to see a “cover view” made up of the Login box, the latest Forumosafied Ads, the latest blog posts and articles on Taiwanease.com

Sign up is (and always will be) free of charge, so there is more incentive for them to sign up, login and check auto-login, too.

PLS NOTE: this is not an imminent change. Before proceeding with something like this, we’re going to test a few things, seek feedback from trusted friends and read your views. Besides, there is an awful lot of other things we are working on over on the Taiwanease side of the server that we want to get done before embarking on a change like this.

For now, I hope to see your thoughts on how this could work for you, and reasons why this is not a good idea

45

I don’t know, Goose Egg… Although it might speed searches a little and reduce clutter a bit, I have a feeling it would reduce overall posting. Let’s say I rarely post in Taiwan Politics, so I don’t join it. The occasional thread title which might have caught my attention in the current system wouldn’t even be seen in that version, so I’d be less likely to venture into rarely frequented fora than I am now. Like Bobepine, I think that the current organization works well, and I don’t think it would be worth the effort in this case. Plus, you’d really piss RichardM off big-time! :laughing: :wink:

46

Richard who? :wink:

If we switched, you (and Richardwhatsisname) probably would not leave the All Forums Group. [url=http://tw.forumosa.com/t/the-ignore-function-keeps-posts-from-designated-posters-hidden/4058/31 Matchstick_man might[/url] - and select all the forums EXCEPT for the IP forum

In other words, the change would not affect you. But it would be meaningful for some

47

I know you’re just joking, Goose Egg. Joke away about “segregation now, segregration forever!” The whole problem with the women’s forum is the exact opposite - people are complaining because they CAN’T see everything, not because they want to segregrate everything into little Balkanizations and be able to ignore 95% of the rest of the site.

48

I think you may have misread something here ML. GE wrote this:[quote]Now, to make this happen, everyone would automatically be part of the “All Forums Group”. So you wouldn’t notice any difference in the beginning. If you want to limit your view of the forums, you first select the forums you want to keep track of, and then exit the All Forums Group.[/quote]

The good thing about changes like this is it’s not like it can’t be changed again if the result isn’t positive.(I think) It could be worth a try but like DB said, I don’t think I would use it because while some forums are not very interesting to me, the odd thread does get my attention.

bobepine