Bartertown.com

With Infinity really starting to come into its own here in the US, I'd like to propose an Infinity Subforum in the Futuristic section. More and more people are trading off WH40K and Warmachine/Hordes for Infinity stuff and it'd be nice to be able to find those ads without poking through all of the other random little games out there. I think Infinity is big enough now to warrant it's own forum.

Is there any way we can get this done? Thanks for your time and consideration.

I'd second this as a 40k collector looking into infinity pretty heavily

insidius wrote:<SNIP>
Is there any way we can get this done? Thanks for your time and consideration.

Tons of sacrifice and blood shed.

Oh and asking an admin.

I agree though, it has become pretty big.

Ryan

Doesn't have to be Plarz. Any Admin can create Forums.
There are 2 issues with this:
1) We'd need to look at the quantity of Infinity being posted in the generic Sci-Fi forum to see if it really warrants it's own subforum. Being popular in the US is a small consideration if there isn't a ton of ads being placed here. Generally speaking, we only give something a forum by itself if we're getting so many ads that the game clogs other games out of the forum.

2) When we make changes without a 'warning" period, Bartertown has a tendency to react... unhappily. So, even if we decide to consider implementing it, there's a week or two period for member opinions before it happens.

Eric

It seems to me if Infinity had its own section, people would naturally adapt to posting it in its own section.

Anyway, just an idea. If it happens great, if not, no big deal.

You're right, of course. They would.
It's a matter of streamlining.
Compare it to the 40K forum. Posts on page 1 go back about 2 days, typically. that demonstrates how prevalent it is on the site.
Compare that to the Misc Futuristic. page one there (as of right now) goes back to 5/25 - Six days. In and of itself, that amount of posts SEEMS to indicate that another forum isn't warranted. There are so few Misc Fut. trade ads that page 1 goes back 3x as far as the 40K forum. Like I said, though... "SEEMS." What we need to do now is look at how many of them are solely Infinity related. If there are so many that they overwhelm the other products for that forum, then it increases the likelihood, as it means there's a much larger audience. That is the reason 40K was spun off into its' own forum, rather than leaving it with the rest of the futuristic games in the first place.
In all honestly, my inclination is to suspect that, since we can go back 6 days on page 1 of that forum, there's probably NOT a need for it... but I wouldn't discount the possibility based soleley on my suspicions.

Eric

MagickalMemories wrote:.
Compare that to the Misc Futuristic. page one there (as of right now) goes back to 5/25 - Six days.
Eric

Ummm........Another math fail.

I'm sorry, but making comparisons to 40k with any game is always going to come up short. It's like comparing apples to Orangutans. Why aren't comic books and RPG books lumped into one category? That's basically what's happening in the futuristic category. Infinity needs its own subforum. It by far makes up the bulk of the futuristic forum as it is. I mean we have a paintball forum. Paintball. That forum has been empty forever.

Is it a forum clutter issue? If so, I can see lots of ways to reduce the number of forums we have and make the boards more efficient. As it stands, digging through a pile of threads where people refer to Infinity as anything from "INF" to "{insert faction name here}" to "N3" and you begin to see what a hassle it is to find what you're looking for. You can't even use the search function or you'll miss loads.

Anyway, that's my case. If that's not enough to warrant a subforum, it's out of my hands. I've said all I can about it.

*jazz hands and disappears*

jason1977 wrote:

MagickalMemories wrote:.
Compare that to the Misc Futuristic. page one there (as of right now) goes back to 5/25 - Six days.
Eric

Ummm........Another math fail.

No. A typo and an elaboration fail.
Six days since the post date:
4/26
4/27
4/28
4/29
4/30
5/1

I'm sorry, but making comparisons to 40k with any game is always going to come up short.

I'm not comparing the games. I'm comparing the forums. When looking at a total post count, it's apples vs. apples.

Why aren't comic books and RPG books lumped into one category?

Because comics are more akin to a book than a game. RPG's, while primarily composed of books, are actually types of games. At the time that forum was created, there were a LOT of RPG ads being posted, and they drowned out the other items in the same forum.

Is it a forum clutter issue? If so, I can see lots of ways to reduce the number of forums we have and make the boards more efficient.

it's not about clutter, so much as it is about necessity. Why clutter the forums without necessity?
I haven't counted, and feel free to consider this a rhetorical question or one to answer just to yourself:
How many ads are on page 1 of that forum? how many of those list Infinity? How many wouldn't be there if infinity had its' own forum?
Typically, what we see is that a majority of ads, even those containing Infinity, contain other game systems from the same category. So, even if it's posted in an Infinity forum, it's still going to be posted in that forum. This makes the Infinity forum unnecessary for THAT ad, as it's still visible in a similar -low traffic- forum. By removing all of the Infinity (only) ads, how many ads do we lost from the misc forum? TOO large a number, and is risks making the misc. forum underutilized. That's inefficient, as well.

There are a number of ways to reduce the number of forums, if that's what you're referring to by "efficient." If you want to suggest some, we're all ears. Keep in mind, though, that we try to keep like with like" as much as possible. Video and Board games are together only because both are too underrepresented to have their own forums and... because they're games (sad, though it is for that to be a reason). Why does Paintball have a forum to itself? Because paintball is allowed on the forums, and it's not an appropriate addition to any other forum.

I really am open to see any efficiency suggestions you or anyone else has.

Eric

Well hey cool, thanks for considering it.

This went about as far as I expected it to.

So, a week after this topic is ... dropped? concluded? I get a PM asking for an Infinity sub-forum, and linking me here to the discussion on the matter.

Since I don't do anything to the forum without approval (MM, Pork, Lin), and the request came from a member, not one of the other Admins, I wanted to see what was up.

Having read through this, the primary concern seems to be how much of the Sci-Fi general forum is being clogged with Infinity posts. Yet, no one counted. So, I used my $63k Engineering degree and a post-it, and came up with this:

50 posts on the front page of Sci-Fi General
16 posts contain Infinity
3 posts contain ONLY Infinity

So, if we had an Infinity sub-forum, there would be three less posts in the Sci-Fi General forum, and (presumably) 13 duplicates in both the Infinity sub-forum and the Sci-Fi General.

My first thought is: that seems counter productive. 13 duplicate posts? That's a lot of duplication in forums that span 8 days on their front page (5/12-5/8 as of today).

I wanted to put these numbers in some sort of context, so I counted how many posts in Sci-Fi General had 40k/WHFB or PP products in them. 21.
I then looked at how many posts it took to go back 8 days in the 40k/WHFB and PP forum.
40k: ~150 posts, 16 FP posts w/ non-40k
WHFB: ~75 posts, 28 FP posts w/ non-WHFB
PP: ~125 posts, 12 FP posts w/ non-PP

Most of those Front Pages span 2 days, 3 for WHFB. So, really, 13 in 8 days is pitiful compared to the same number in a quarter of the time for everyone else.

So, what does this all mean?

Infinity just doesn't compare to the other games that we've given a dedicated forum to. So, perhaps comparing Infinity to the top two manufacturers in the industry doesn't really tell us if it needs to leave the rest of the General Catch-All category. Let's compare it to what's left in the category.

X-Wing: 8
Dropzone Commander: 4
Infinity: 17
Heavy Gear: 2
Spartan Games: 11
Relic Knights: 1
BFG: 2
malifaux: 11
Warpath: 2

So, at 17 posts compared to the other two top contenders at 11, Infinty is the clear leader, but not by a ton. That said, The four front runners are waaaaaay ahead of the rest of the pack. Infinity, Malifaux, Spartan Games (FSA, FP, DW all combined) and X-Wing are all an order of magnitude more popular than the rest of what's in there.

IMO, if Infinity deserves it's own sub-forum, then Malifaux, X-Wing and Spartan do as well. However, that could cause large amounts of duplication between the various sub-forums, flooding the "View New Posts" view that so many of our members like to use.

I agree that it's tough to find posts about a particular game in the general sub-forum.
I agree that adding sub-forums potentially increases duplication and needs to be worth it. However, I think this is mitigated some by the fact that the additional forums would see posts at 1/4 the speed of the other THREE Major ones.

Thanks for crunching the numbers, Plarz.

You're right, of course. That person shouldn't have sent the request to you. It should've gone to Lin, pork or myself.

We (Admin & Mods) have been discussing this separately in a private forum, and your numbers support my (and others') suspicions: the new forum just isn't a necessity.


Eric

Do we suppose this is a status thing? Has Infinity "made it" if it earns it's own forum? Or is it too good to slum with those OTHER sci-fi games?

--Robert

Well I see the watchman that suggested I PM Plarz about it has since edited his post.

I'm starting to have flashbacks.

I'll just go back into my hole now. Carry on.

MagickalMemories wrote:Thanks for crunching the numbers, Plarz.

You're right, of course. That person shouldn't have sent the request to you. It should've gone to Lin, pork or myself.

We (Admin & Mods) have been discussing this separately in a private forum, and your numbers support my (and others') suspicions: the new forum just isn't a necessity.

I didn't mean to imply that the person shouldn't have PM'd me, I was just surprised that it took a week.