Articles in the Forums section is Redundant & Bothersome

[edfunderburk]

I simply don’t understand why the articles (some good - most blah) have to be included here in the FORUMS section of the BrewerFanatic website. It truly makes no sense. All someone has to do to read these articles is click on the NEWS tab beside the FORUM tab. It is bothersome to have to scroll past tons of these redundant articles to find an actual topic to review that is related to current Brewers baseball. I miss the “old” forum … this is not a good change. Am I the only one who has this opinion?

[TURBO]

I am 100% with you on this.  I haven't said anything because I figured I was the only one that didn't like this, but it has been bothering me for months.

I don't even bother clicking on any of the article posts anymore.

They generate little discussion, and like you, I just find them in the way.

Please re-think this decision for the good of the board.

[edfunderburk]

I would propose that Brock Beauchamp & his team conduct a simple poll & ask:

Should Articles be included in the Forum section? Yes or No

I’d gladly accept whatever decision is made by the board. 

[MrTPlush]

1 hour ago, TURBO said:

 

They generate little discussion, and like you, I just find them in the way.

 

That honestly isn’t accurate at all. One quick glance and it appears most of the popular discussions are articles, not posted threads.

[brooks_quichenick]

100% agree. Almost the entire front page here now is "ARTICLE: ...", and I've just stopped clicking on them pretty much.

[edfunderburk]

19 minutes ago, MrTPlush said:

That honestly isn’t accurate at all. One quick glance and it appears most of the popular discussions are articles, not posted threads.

It’s lazy to have the duplication … 

If people want to read the articles - great! Click on the NEWS thread & read away. 

While articles may be read in the FORUM section, they are redundant … unnecessarily so.

[edfunderburk]

32 minutes ago, MrTPlush said:

That honestly isn’t accurate at all. One quick glance and it appears most of the popular discussions are articles, not posted threads.

The main reason this is accurate is because there are so many articles … 

I believe they could be commented on in the NEWS section too

Keep the articles … just remove them from the FORUM thread

[TURBO]

3 hours ago, MrTPlush said:

That honestly isn’t accurate at all. One quick glance and it appears most of the popular discussions are articles, not posted threads.

Because there is nothing else to click on, the articles have taken over, especially in the slow part of the year.

 

[Outlander]

Exactly, because this place would be dead without them, especially now. Really don't understand the complaint. If people actually had topics to post about and actually start threads instead of complain, the articles would go to the bottom. Do something about it if you don't like it.

[edfunderburk]

1 hour ago, Outlander said:

Exactly, because this place would be dead without them, especially now. Really don't understand the complaint. If people actually had topics to post about and actually start threads instead of complain, the articles would go to the bottom. Do something about it if you don't like it.

This site was excellent for many years without the articles cluttering the FORUM section. 

I’m still hopeful for a poll - excluding the votes of those who write the articles. 

[CheeseheadInQC]

I have no real problem with it. You have to be aware that there is a saturation point, but I don’t think it’s gone past that. It is just more obvious now because we are in the pre-Spring Training dead zone.

I have one complaint, and this might have either been fixed or not be possible, I haven’t checked lately. I wish comments could be merged so there aren’t parallel discussions.

[82brewcrew82]

I agree with the articles.  Whey not just have a separate section for the articles? 

[brewerfan82]

The articles are written by members of the forum. They're basically new topics with long, well thought out first posts. I have no problem with those being included in the forums the way they are. If you don't want to read an article as an introduction to a topic for discussion, they're clearly marked and you can ignore them.

[Fear The Chorizo]

Would there be an option to have 'Articles' or 'Forum Member Articles' as its own Forum group instead of grouping them all into the 'Brewers Talk' Forum?  They appear to have the most posting activity on the forum board because there seems to be 2-3 new articles per day slapped on the Brewers Talk forum and there are no new topics this time of year 

[zurch1818]

I don't have a problem with as long as duplicate topics get merged.  I just remember last season a thread would be started when something happened and then 1 or 2 days later, there would be an "article:" that regurgitated everything that was already said and it added nothing.  Either these topics should be merged or simply whoever wrote the article should just post it in the thread that already exists.

I realize the whole point of it is to drive clicks for advertising dollars but I am already a caretaker and just find the site to be cumbersome to navigate.

[Team Canada]

56 minutes ago, zurch1818 said:

I don't have a problem with as long as duplicate topics get merged.  I just remember last season a thread would be started when something happened and then 1 or 2 days later, there would be an "article:" that regurgitated everything that was already said and it added nothing.  Either these topics should be merged or simply whoever wrote the article should just post it in the thread that already exists.

I agree with this. Well thought out articles are perfectly fine for generating discussion, but we really don't need to write up every transaction when there's already a thread about it.

[CheeseheadInQC]

6 hours ago, Team Canada said:

I agree with this. Well thought out articles are perfectly fine for generating discussion, but we really don't need to write up every transaction when there's already a thread about it.

The articles are fine if they go in depth on the transaction, but instead of posting a new thread for them, I'd just suggest having a "Join the discussion" link to the existing thread at the end of the article and then posting a link to the article in the thread to let people know of its existence if they go straight to the forum.

[True Blue Brew Crew]

Careful who you hand the company pen to. Especially when the writer has a tendency to write absurd things and craves attention. Knew it was just a matter of time before this (justified) complaint came.

[Jopal78]

It’s all about generating clicks. More clicks equals more money.

[True Blue Brew Crew]

10 minutes ago, Jopal78 said:

It’s all about generating clicks. More clicks equals more money.

How does that work out in the long run? Honest question. If the visitor clicks and then finds the content ridiculous or even substandard, do they stick around? Personally I find myself spending less time here than before.

[Frisbee Slider]

I think we are all a little stir crazy waiting for opening day.

[edfunderburk]

10 hours ago, Fear The Chorizo said:

Would there be an option to have 'Articles' or 'Forum Member Articles' as its own Forum group instead of grouping them all into the 'Brewers Talk' Forum?  They appear to have the most posting activity on the forum board because there seems to be 2-3 new articles per day slapped on the Brewers Talk forum and there are no new topics this time of year 

This is a great suggestion! I just want them moved from this forum. Place them anywhere other than here. 🤓

[edfunderburk]

10 hours ago, zurch1818 said:

I realize the whole point of it is to drive clicks for advertising dollars but I am already a caretaker and just find the site to be cumbersome to navigate.

True & me too

[edfunderburk]

1 hour ago, Jopal78 said:

It’s all about generating clicks. More clicks equals more money.

I wonder if this would change if more people became Caretakers.

I’m happy to pay $60 per year to support this site. That said, I would depart today if there was another quality online FORUM that was only discussion with no articles cluttering the feed. I’m here by default - no other options. I literally despise the articles in this forum.

[Brock Beauchamp]

1 hour ago, Jopal78 said:

It’s all about generating clicks. More clicks equals more money.

It's not solely about clicks. Forum clicks actually earn us very little money.

The goal is users. I'm open to reducing the number of article threads and I'll start moving more of the less-conversation-starting pieces to a separate forum but even with Article threads populating this forum (and getting a lot of conversation), the Brewers forum has a week of topics on the first page alone. If I reduce that a bit, we'd still have 10+ day old threads on the first page of the forums.

That's... not great. It's not terrible but it's not great, either. Ideally from a user perspective, the first page of a forum should be revolving pretty quickly with lots of *specific* topics that generate conversation. That's how we bring in new users and get them active on the board. We're getting new posters on a pretty regular basis right now, which is the goal. When we took over the site about a year ago, its traffic levels were about 50% of what they were just three years prior. Now the site is back to 2019 user levels but we need to increase engagement, drawing in new users who contribute to the forums.

It's a grinding process and we're playing out a long-term strategy here.

With that said, I will begin picking and choosing some article threads to move outside the Brewers forum to reach a compromise point.