..my 75 pound greyhound?

At any rate, its that time of year, and since I hate cleaning IRL, I choose virtual cleaning. Let me just get one thing out of the way first to answer any questions.

Nothing will be deleted. Just rearranged.

The topics I'm looking at are ones that haven't had any activity in a few months. TV topics that haven't been used will get tossed into "other television talk" - on the flip side, are there shows that get a lot of use that need their own topics?

Another thing that we'd like to do is make the forum more organized with sub-threads. Its something a lot of other boards do (twop, the ibforums). The way it works is on the main page you have a topic, beneath that topic are sub-topics, and inside the sub-topics there are threads. Lets use buffy for an example. We could have on the main page:

Buffy. Click on Buffy and get "Episode discussion" "In-depth character discussion" and maybe "Non-US air dates". Clicking on Episode Discussion would lead you to threads about various episodes. In-depth character, discussion about how Buffy, Willow or whomever. Etc. Does that make sense? Obviously these would not the actual titles, we'd think of good things to put there. That would then enable "Other Television Talk" to have its own sub-topics for each of the different shows and make things easier to find.

Overall I think it would give us a bit more of a polished look, and we wouldn't have such a long scroll down to see all of the topics. Things could be 'neater' in my minds eye. If I sound like an eager child with a new toy..I totally am. But I don't want to be a snot and make y'all suffer if you're totally stuck on how it is now and aren't for the organizing.

Yes thats babbely and no I'm not entirely sure it made sense either. Please ask questions if confused.

I'm all for tidying away long-disused topics. But I like not having to click several levels in to get to the actual threads. I don't think we have so many different ones active at any one time in any one topic that just letting the new ones bubble to the top isn't enough organization. It's sorta a vote for laziness, here.

Exactly what Claudia said. I'm all for shifting around (yes, sigh, it is time to take "Undeclared" off to Other TV Talk, I don't mind). Maybe "Alias" would warrant its own topic? It gets as much traffic as "Six Feet Under" (which is to say, not much).

But I like keeping things simple in one folder, all easily accessible. Your ideas are great in themselves, but I think they'd work better on a higher-traffic board. For low-traffic, simple is the way to go.

A spring clean is definately needed, that's for sure.

Sometimes it takes me a while to find the thread I'm looking for in topics with lots of threads, like Buffy, so a level of sub topics may not be a bad idea. But I also agree with Claudia and ejg!

Well, we do have the choice of having sub-topics only in high-traffic topics. Like Six Feet Under would have none, because its small and not hard to find things. But others like buffy could have it.

I think most of this is that I'm keen to not have the scrolling down the page when there are so many fillter topics that are unused (games, comics, music) but I don't necessarily want rid of them. And yet, they can't fit under movies, books or famous people, either.

Yes, but the most-used topics are the ones where having to sort through levels of folders would be the most inconvenient on a daily basis.

We only actually use four or five "Buffy" or "Angel" topics at a time — and that's an outside maxiumum — so they're always at the top anyway. Wouldn't want to have to search through levels to find them.

The only reason I wouldn't like sub-levels is that I tend to just click on "Show New Posts" since my last visit and sometimes I'm not sure by the title where the thread came from. A glance to the left, showing where the thread resides takes care of that. If it was a topic that went through a couple of levels would that affect my knowing that piece of information?

Sometimes I feel like we should keep the threads more specific and less general, but that's probably just my anal tendencies coming out rather than any risk of actual confusion. I don't really mind how you have them Nal, it's a good idea to tidy up and as ever thanks again for your efforts!

I feel the same way. The 10+ page threads with lots of different discussions about a similar topic have always bothered me. I think it makes the board especially unwelcoming to new people. For example, say I invited my friend who loves books to our board. She might come and see all these 10 page topics and it would be too overwhelming to just jump right in. Whereas, if there was a thread about say... Stephen King, and she was into Stephen King books it would be easier to read a few pages and join in. You know?

But then, with a smaller community, you sometimes feel funny about opening a topic which ends up with just two people posting in it or only three posts. I don't know why, really.

Yeah, I get that.

It shouldn't. And we're just talking about 1 extra click!

For every single thread!

(edit: the above is to be read as self-mocking hysteria. what mj says below goes for me too)

Nalian-Whatever you want to do is fine with me. If it means an extra click, I'll live even though I'm one lazy mofo when it comes to stuff like that. I was just letting giving you my input. I'll adjust to whatever changes are made. FWIW, I have loved every new incarnation of this board.

Well, for Nalian, I'd suffer through it, but why should we have to suffer? I like the board just the way it is... it's perfect now. Please don't change it anymore, is my plea.

As for the other thing, my overall feeling is that it's good that our threads are more rambly and loose and free — it's no fun to think that someone's going to yell "get on topic" at any moment or to not be able to discuss something because it doesn't fit neatly into one of four related topics. New people seem to have gotten along fine. And Pandrea makes an excellent point: because we're small, it's better to have one topic that's cohesive and active than four topics that are too small and thus wither and die. But, specifically speaking, it's always been easy enough for any individual to start a Stephen King topic if they want to. I say let those things just develop organically.

Actually no - its only on the threads we put it on. I think what we'll likely end up doing is leaving the traffic'd topics alone, and changing the things like books/comics/other media that is unused under a another topic.

Thats the nice flexible thing about this software - we can only do it to specific areas if we want.

Oh! So like leave Buffy alone, but have a granddaddy Other Media topic that included all the lesser-travelled other media topics as folders within it?

I could get into that.

Could we have a yes/no vote on that? I'm still in favor of easy accessibility and having everything to hand.

How am I ever going to work on my dictator skills if you guys keep yelling vote? :(

Well, if we all vote for you.... Wouldn't that work?

She's already too busy serving as provisional leader of Iraq.

I was hoping a consensus would emerge without a vote. But there are only a few of us bothering to comment, so....

I like it the way it is. I'll more than likely like it the way it will be. If I don't I won't complain.

A couple of extra clicks doesn't bother me.

For what it's worth, I pretty much agree with eej, but am basically unfussed. Plus, thanks for running the board, Veda and Nalian!

What Mirren Said.

At the risk of traumatizing eej...

Given it's the start of a new television season, does anyone have any thoughts about doing some re-organizing? I don't have anything in particular in mind at this time - but thought I'd open it up for discussion again?

Since there are three reasonably used Spooks forums, maybe that could be a new separate category. It could replace Smallville (which could go to Other Television) as that doesn't get much use. The Comics & Games sections aren't busy, they could be collapsed together.

Sounds good to me.

And maybe we could start a "Television shows no longer on air that we love" area...

Me like.

I definitely like putting Comics and Games together. It makes sense - why didn't we think of that sooner!

Do you guys think they'd be enough intrest to have episode specific threads about Spooks.

That's one thing that always bugs me about 24 and Six Feet Under. We have an entire section for them, but there's really only 3-4 active threads in each.

Is Six Feet Under still on the air?

I would say no episode threads, just maybe UK, US (MI5) and Aus. threads and then perhaps a Cast in Real Life thread, maybe also one or two for characters if required.

SFU is still on the air, but it has a short season in the spring. There are only like 12 eps/season, like Carnivale or Sex and the City.

Yeah, I doubt Spooks could support episode threads. But I would like having its own topic. A show doesn't need episode threads to deserve a topic... of all our shows, only Buffy and Angel meet that criteria.

I think we still need Six Feet Under. It's just a year-long hiatus.

In terms of other reorganizationy things, I think there are a lot of threads in Misc. and Rant that are in the wrong one of the two... I always have trouble figuring out which of the two certain threads are in. Maybe a Miscellaneous Rants type topic would consolidate the two nicely. Or do people think they should stay separate?

All sound like good ideas. Anyone else have any input?

Good work Veda, thanks. I'm a little touchy about the 'all things geek' but oh well, got to learn to celebrate my geekdom.

You're in good company as a geek.

Yeah, I'm not crazy about being labeled geeky either. I mean, I know, but...

Truth hurts.. :P