Thread: Should Brain Stew get its own section?

As the former think tank mod I know what the Brain Stew section is like, I think it's a great section and very lively but I want to see bigger things for Brain Stew. Right now more of the threads are about politics, war, religion, and general life things. If we made Brain Stew into its own section(like Area 51, Think Tank, Help,etc) of the forum we could expand things alot.

Brain Stew will be the name of the overall section and in it you could have something like 'Serious Discussion', 'Serious Film Discussion', 'Serious Music Discussion', and 'Serious Art Discussion.' Most the old threads from Brain Stew would now be in Serious Discussion which i think you can plainly say is where various assorted threads will all fit in and serious art discussion would be anything artistic that isn't movie or music related.

I like the idea of having a subsection just for movie lovers where there could be threads like what you would see in the forums of KG or cinematik. No 'rate the last movie you saw threads' threads, only high quality replies allowed.

I know there will be questions and issues will be brought up, all of it I will try to answer. I'm thinking long term potential here of making brain stew bigger and more organized plus encouraging more threads.

Yes!

+1

I totally agree, as some really good discussions about "off topic" lately drown in the mentioned section because of a lot of spam threads. Which is fine, as the posts aren't counted anyways, but it's pretty sad for the good threads in there.

In a Brain Stew section this wouldn't happen so fast because of the healthy quality management enforced in there :)

So a clear YES from me!

zealot

well my concern is as zealot mention the spam that goes on in the off topic area will find its way into the brainstew section as not you are moving the movie, music and art threads there so it will by burdensome for the moderators having to now police another section.

I personally dont really see the need for a separate forum for Brain stew, there is nothing stopping anyone starting a thread based on films or another subject. As for the comment made by SB, I have to agree with him, I think it would draw spam into that section which in turn would make more work for the mods and section mods. I just don't feel that there is enough subjects to be discussed at length to warrant a new forum - sorry.

But in the interest of fair play - why doesn't someone start a thread in brain stew about films/art or another subject and see how it goes.

Originally Posted by shadowbuild

well my concern is as zealot mention the spam that goes on in the off topic area will find its way into the brainstew section as not you are moving the movie, music and art threads there so it will by burdensome for the moderators having to now police another section.

No I'm not talking about moving the Offtopic movie, music, and art sections there. That could certainly could be done, but my first idea was to keep the offtopic sections alone and make whole new 'Serious Discussion' rules sections for movie, music, and arts.

---------- Post added at 10:30 PM ---------- Previous post was at 10:22 PM ----------

Originally Posted by TankGirl

I personally dont really see the need for a separate forum for Brain stew, there is nothing stopping anyone starting a thread based on films or another subject. As for the comment made by SB, I have to agree with him, I think it would draw spam into that section which in turn would make more work for the mods and section mods. I just don't feel that there is enough subjects to be discussed at length to warrant a new forum - sorry.

But in the interest of fair play - why doesn't someone start a thread in brain stew about films/art or another subject and see how it goes.

I already addressed his concern. There would not be spam, just like there is very little to no spam currently in Brain Stew. The point of the section is that it would be heavily moderated so only quality posting would be allowed, and I don't think it would be more work for staff. I always found Brain Stew one of the easiest sub-sections to moderate because people who hang out in Brain Stew are smart enough to know the rules there and usually make pretty good posts. If you needed help to staff the new Brain Stew section I would certainly be willing to volunteer my time.

And I don't think your understanding the point. Yes brain stew is fine as it currently is, except for the the range of topics that discussed there are a little limited and it can be hard to find what your looking for since things aren't organized. Thats what I intend to address by making Brain Stew bigger and breaking it off into separate categories. This is supposed to encourage new threads and more activity. Obviously members already use Brain Stew but if nobody uses the Serious Film Discussion, Serious Music Discussion, and Serious Art Discussion subforums after awhile you could deem it a failed idea. You can't say that yet, it would need a little time like any experiment to get off its feet.

Which is why I suggested a test thread, and I'm not missing the point. Create a section in which people get credited for their posts and you end up with spam (people do it to progress to the next level). Creating sections based around films, art etc will just draw people there to spam because their post count will go up unlike posting in off topic.

I still do not believe that they are enough subjects to warrant a separate forum for Brain Stew - how many points can you discuss about a film?, besides having a bunch of people agreeing that yes it was good, the cast was great and the plot had you on a knife edge - bear in mind that we are not a movie tracker, nor a games tracker - I just seeing ending up more like a reviews section than an actual discussion point.

Also remember that if you are looking for people to debate topics, there is the sister site to TI - The Big Debate.

Originally Posted by TankGirl

Which is why I suggested a test thread, and I'm not missing the point. Create a section in which people get credited for their posts and you end up with spam (people do it to progress to the next level). Creating sections based around films, art etc will just draw people there to spam because their post count will go up unlike posting in off topic.

Thats why I think it should have its own set of standards and dealing with spam in there can only be as hard as dealing with spam in any other section. Once you deal with the spammers once they tend to get the point after you delete their post and send them a pm. I could make stickied threads there clearly explaining the rules for the section, what the intended purpose of the section is, and that you shouldn't post if you are just looking to boost your postcount with non-contributive posts.

I still do not believe that they are enough subjects to warrant a separate forum for Brain Stew - how many points can you discuss about a film?, besides having a bunch of people agreeing that yes it was good, the cast was great and the plot had you on a knife edge - bear in mind that we are not a movie tracker, nor a games tracker - I just seeing ending up more like a reviews section than an actual discussion point.

I don't see why this couldn't be active. If you don't think you can discuss films please look at the forums of KG, cinematik, or retroflix. True we are not a movie tracker, but many of our members probably belong to movie trackers and they watch a lot of cinema. I think as a group we can think of more things to talk about than just if 'it is good.' Look at Brain Stew already - it has some of the most thought provoking threads here imo.

Originally Posted by gamesover

I don't see why this couldn't be active. If you don't think you can discuss films please look at the forums of KG, cinematik, or retroflix. True we are not a movie tracker, but many of our members probably belong to movie trackers and they watch a lot of cinema.

Which is exactly the point I was making - we are NOT a movie tracker, nor are we a games tracker, we are an invite forum. I'm not saying that the members here are incapable of having a serious discussion, what I am saying people primarily come here for invites, not to have a serious discussion about films, games or art. People that want to have those types of discussions tend to (as you quite rightly point out) be a member of a movie tracker, where the discussion is usually linked to a review.

The other thing to think about, is the presented topics/categories. People tend to comment more when all threads are visible in one section under one banner rather that those that are in a category view. By this I mean, you can have one forum with a million threads in it all jumbled up and you are more likely to get more people commenting in them than you would say having 6 different subheadings with specific content. The reason being is people will comment on something they wouldn't normally do if its in front of their face. Hide it behind another subheading chances are they are not even gonna bother to click and explore.

As I suggested before - make several test threads and see what people comment in, you will then see the types of comments you would get and you would get a rough idea for how successful the subforum would be.