Combine JE and GE.

[Ausaudriel]

I would rather ditch the clubs forum and have all of their respective subjects be placed into their own forums. :P

[droomph]

And take it like this - 4th Gen has both D/P and HG/SS. It's not so bad - both prefixes get equal amounts of activity, and everything seems to be working out as of now.

[Curious.]

Originally Posted by Ausaudriel

I would rather ditch the clubs forum and have all of their respective subjects be placed into their own forums. :P

I personally like the current organisation of clubs. I think keeping them together and separated into two sub-categories (Other Clubs and Pokemon Clubs), would really help keep them organised and easy to find!

But then again, I can see where you're coming from, I suppose the clubs would have their own other board they'd fit into, and it'd give that board a bit more activity.

[Ausaudriel]

Yeah, activity theft from other forums is really the biggest problem with clubs. Clubs are really just DCC threads for a specific topic, and I think those kinds of things make much more sense being placed into the forums that already exist for those topics.

We've talked about this before (months ago) and never came to a decision though. :/

[Captain Fabio]

Originally Posted by Mr Cat Dog

Yay, let's let out all the HQ dirty laundry! :D

Yay for public discussion! :D

Originally Posted by Patchisou Yutohru

Except Video Games is the most active entertainment forum...

*Hip thrust*

ANYWAY! I am on the fence over this one, because it is a pretty difficult situation, in my eyes. I know JE has been on the decline for a while, due to the actual JE community on PC dwindling; it just doesn't seem to be as popular any more and I have seen that trend happen off PC too.

However, it isn't a 'dead' board, it does get activity and I think we should get Digi's opinion on it, since it is his board. Maybe he can give us his opinion on how it is going and what it was like a while back.

[Shining Raichu]

Audy, if you take my clubs I will take your face. You're far too pretty to meet such a fate.

[Abnegation]

I personally see no reason for General Entertainment and Japanese Entertainment to be segregated based on the country of origin anyway. It seems pointless to me. It would be like having two different sections to discuss general chat and then chat related to Canada, or Wales, or any other country. So I agree with combining them.

I also think that the only reason "Other Clubs" remains is because there's a sign-up sheet at the start of every club and people find themselves somewhat privileged to be a member of a club. Personally I think that's the only difference between a club discussing a topic, and the same interest topic posted in GE or JE. Clubs is a fairly pointless section when it boils down to it, the same sort of discussion happens in aforementioned sections, and there's no reason why people can't drive it there.

However in saying that, being a member of a club discussing a topic, and entering a thread and posting about that topic are two different things. As I say, it's more the concept of a club in which drives them, than the topic at hand. The reason clubs are popular is because a lot of them have a hierarchy, sign-up sheet, and they also host a nice little spot in which to meet peers interested in the same topics.

So to be completely honest, I feel there needs to be a reformation of clubs, to make them "Interest Groups". Instead of having "The Desperate Housewives Club", or clubs in which are simply just based on TV shows/movies and so forth, there should be more clubs like LGBT, Atheist Alliance, and for example interest groups surrounding more broad things such as animals, sports, fitness, musicianship and so on.

To summarize in a short sentence; merge GE & JE. Re-purpose Other Clubs, name it "Interest Groups", allow more broad aspects involving culture rather than interest, and deny the ability to make groups based on individual bands, TV shows, Movies, Games and so on. Keep all specific franchise topics for General Entertainment. Or something along the lines of this paragraph.

[Razor Leaf]

No from me. I've always seen GE as a place where the people here who don't care about a ton of Japanese things can talk about, well, other entertainment. Imo the split between them was very well-warranted and doesn't cause total alienation to people who either only like Japanese things or people who only like non-Japanese things in one section. Keep them split - especially on PC, Japanese culture and entertainment is a world apart from the sort of things discussed in GE.

Think of this too - should we merge Other Clubs with Pokémon Clubs? No, because on this forum they're a world apart from each other despite both containing clubs. It's a similar thing; one section for something specific and massively popular with our memberbase (i.e. Japanese Entertainment) and another to catch all the rest (i.e. General Entertainment).

[Patchisou Yutohru]

Originally Posted by Razor Leaf

No from me. I've always seen GE as a place where the people here who don't care about a ton of Japanese things can talk about, well, other entertainment. Imo the split between them was very well-warranted and doesn't cause total alienation to people who either only like Japanese things or people who only like non-Japanese things in one section. Keep them split - especially on PC, Japanese culture and entertainment is a world apart from the sort of things discussed in GE.

Think of this too - should we merge Other Clubs with Pokémon Clubs? No, because on this forum they're a world apart from each other despite both containing clubs.

How are they a world apart from each other? They're both entertainment-oriented forums. They both discuss music, they both discuss movies, they both discuss reading material, and they both discuss TV shows. It's as if just because those TV shows for one forum are called anime (which are simply animations, when we get down to it made in Japan - we have animations in the western world as well), people think it's so different. The same type of discussions that are in General Entertainment are in Japanese Entertainment; there's general discussions, and there's threads for a sole purpose of discussing a single topic (TV show, movie, book, whatever).

[Razor Leaf]

Originally Posted by Patchisou Yutohru

How are they a world apart from each other? They're both entertainment-oriented forums. They both discuss music, they both discuss movies, they both discuss reading material, and they both discuss TV shows. It's as if just because those TV shows for one forum are called anime (which are simply animations, when we get down to it made in Japan - we have animations in the western world as well), people think it's so different.

In the same way that Pokémon Clubs and Other Clubs are a world apart as I said in the second part of my post, or in the way that tbh any of the Pokémon sections are apart - all discuss Pokémon but each discusses a different aspect of it. It's the same thing here. Both sections discuss entertainment but both sections have fanbases different from each other because they're very differently viewed by the community. If you won't take it from me then look at the posters - a lot of regular posters in GE do not regularly post in JE because they're so far apart. It's like how you wouldn't expect anyone to be happy merging Black and White with Battle Centre; they're both about Pokémon games but very different aspects of it. I don't really know how else to put it. I just don't think the two topics are compatible enough to justify a forum merge.

[Patchisou Yutohru]

Originally Posted by Razor Leaf

In the same way that Pokémon Clubs and Other Clubs are a world apart as I said in the second part of my post, or in the way that tbh any of the Pokémon sections are apart - all discuss Pokémon but each discusses a different aspect of it. It's the same thing here. Both sections discuss entertainment but both sections have fanbases different from each other because they're very differently viewed by the community. If you won't take it from me then look at the posters - a lot of regular posters in GE do not regularly post in JE because they're so far apart. It's like how you wouldn't expect anyone to be happy merging Black and White with Battle Centre; they're both about Pokémon games but very different aspects of it. I don't really know how else to put it. I just don't think the two topics are compatible enough to justify a forum merge.

...except the only reason Japanese Entertainment isn't merged with General Entertainment is because they contents within are made in Japan. That is literally the only difference between Japanese Entertainment and General Entertainment. Korean music is posted in General Entertainment, even though its like a brother to Japanese music. I would understand if it was Asian-oriented as a whole, but it's only Japanese. And with the amount of activity in there, it just seems like common sense to merge the two. Using the Pokémon forums as an example here doesn't really seem like something that's contributing to the argument, because this is a Pokémon forum - so it makes sense to keep generation gaming separate from things like oriented gaming, like competitive battling. Pokémon Clubs and Other Clubs are worlds apart, though, because Pokémon Clubs deal with Pokémon Clubs and Other Clubs deals with... every single thing imaginable outside of Pokémon. So I'm not sure how that correlates to Japanese Entertainment and General Entertainment, because the only thing separating the two is the country of origin.

[SwiftSign]

I think the title 'Japanese Entertainment' is a bit... broad. Perhaps just an Anime & Manga subsection of General Entertainment would suffice.

[~Kawaii~]

I'm just going to come in here and make it quite clear first off that I don't post in either Japanese Entertainment or General Entertainment. But that isn't important, the fact is that one of the main reasons people want this merge, from what I've read, is because of activity. Why, please answer me this, does it matter if they're going to be more active if they're together? Why don't we just merge Tabletop Games in while we're at it, there are sections that are less active than both Japanese and General entertainment and we're not looking to merge them left right and centre.
I personally am against the merge, the culture of General Entertainment and the culture of Japanese Entertainment are different and it doesn't make sense, yes, Anime is just Japanese animation and Manga is very similar to Western comics they're not the same, and as anyone who reads Manga and watches Anime can tell you the dimensions of them are completely different and warrant completely different discussion, it doesn't make sense to merge two sections which people haven't really had an issue with being standalone, and looking at this thread a lot of people are on the fence with this or against it.

Perhaps a good course of action would be to make some sort of poll in both of the sections, find out what the people who post there think of the idea then look to go forward, yes, I admit there are definite pros to a merge but doing it for activity is not one of them, that doesn't matter. The mods of both sections need to be comfortable going ahead with this idea as well, this idea needs to be planned and we need to look at all opinions from all parties involved.

So yeah, no, don't merge them, it's not necessary, the things discussed within them are separate to one another and it should stay like that.

[Drew]

^ Yeah, I would 'Like' that post if I could, because it's my thoughts too. They're not hurting anything at all staying separate, and they seriously are different enough that it would be awkward to merge them.

[digi-kun]

Regarding "The only difference is that they're from different places":
The issue with the merging isn't really a question of where it comes from, it's more of the cultural differences between the two groups. In general, society looks down on otaku, and otaku want the riajuus to stay out of their business. It's like the difference between preps and nerds. Rather, I propose cutting out the nerd section of GE and merging it with JE, calling the section "Comics & Cartoons", or something.

Regarding the name "Japanese Entertainment":
The time this name was put in was a point in the timeline that J-Dramas, Tokusatsu, and Jpop had been getting big. Seeing as they didn't fit into "Other Anime and Manga" since it was live action, and would probably not get any activity if posted in elsewhere. Due to this, the name was shifted to Japanese Entertainment. Now that K-pop has gotten bigger, that's definitely an issue.

Originally Posted by Ausaudriel

Yeah, activity theft from other forums is really the biggest problem with clubs. Clubs are really just DCC threads for a specific topic, and I think those kinds of things make much more sense being placed into the forums that already exist for those topics.

This too. I see 10/29 relevant active threads split across GE and JE topics, 18/29 including video games. While the JE section doesn't get much activity, there's often a good 5-10 relevant threads in the clubs section that are fairly active at said time.

[droomph]

Perhaps changing the name of the forum? I literally had no idea that you could also talk about Korean and other stuff until you just said so.

Maybe if you make it a bit more obvious that other east-Asian countries can be discusses more activity would come your way.

[digi-kun]

Originally Posted by droomph

Perhaps changing the name of the forum? I literally had no idea that you could also talk about Korean and other stuff until you just said so.

Maybe if you make it a bit more obvious that other east-Asian countries can be discusses more activity would come your way.

That's mostly because the K-pop side is pretty close to Japanese side. It's only been maybe 1-3 years since hype started and it got bigger recently cuz of gangnam.

Unfortunately, that's actually pretty unlikely. I can only immediately think of maybe two to three topics tops coming out of adding them, and they'd probably die pretty quickly: being K-dramas, Bollywood, and K-pop. However, it probably wouldn't hurt too badly.

[Patchisou Yutohru]

Originally Posted by digi-kun

Regarding "The only difference is that they're from different places":
The issue with the merging isn't really a question of where it comes from, it's more of the cultural differences between the two groups. In general, society looks down on otaku, and otaku want the riajuus to stay out of their business. It's like the difference between preps and nerds. Rather, I propose cutting out the nerd section of GE and merging it with JE, calling the section "Comics & Cartoons", or something.

That... makes a lot more sense then the people who say things like "the culture in the two forums are different!!!" So thank you for giving an example on how exactly they're different, because I am definitely someone who can relate to the example that you gave. But considering I'm someone who relates to the "riajuus" and I'm suggesting a merge, I'm not sure of the effectiveness of that, because to me, logically, it makes the most sense to keep the TV shows of any kinds, reading materials of any kind, music of any kind together.

Also, to the people suggesting to merge other forums with General Entertainment seem to be neglecting the fact that General Entertainment and Japense Entertainment, although their cultures are different, are still forums with the same orientation and basis for existing, where Video Games and Toptable Games exist for entirely different purposes; one is for video games, and the other is for card games, which aren't similar in any other way than being forums of entertainment (which is why they're in the entertainment category).

[digi-kun]

Originally Posted by Patchisou Yutohru

That... makes a lot more sense then the people who say things like "the culture in the two forums are different!!!" So thank you for giving an example on how exactly they're different, because I am definitely someone who can relate to the example that you gave. But considering I'm someone who relates to the "riajuus" and I'm suggesting a merge, I'm not sure of the effectiveness of that, because to me, logically, it makes the most sense to keep the TV shows of any kinds, reading materials of any kind, music of any kind together.

Also, to the people suggesting to merge other forums with General Entertainment seem to be neglecting the fact that General Entertainment and Japense Entertainment, although their cultures are different, are still forums with the same orientation and basis for existing, where Video Games and Toptable Games exist for entirely different purposes; one is for video games, and the other is for card games, which aren't similar in any other way than being forums of entertainment (which is why they're in the entertainment category).

The problem, however, is the scare factor that comes with it. For something with a wide enough range of topics, what'll usually happen is a sort of "Majority Rules" effect, in which the side with more threads will effectively wipe out the minority, making outside people assume that the section isn't about what they're trying to post, and effectively scaring them away, which is a lot more prominent when regarding conflicting cultures. Examples include how there's little to no individual series discussion in JE and little to no nerdism in GE.

[Ausaudriel]

I think it's a mistake to try and classify anime and manga as just Japanese versions of western equivalents. The biggest problem I have with the argument Nick & company is presenting is that you're grouping all of that media together because the delivery medium is the same (aka, they're all technically "TV shows" or "comic books"), and you're completely ignoring the foundational differences between them. Nobody would look at Adventure Time or Regular Show and say "oh yeah, that's the same genre as Trigun, or Kenshin," because the two types are ENTIRELY different. There are next to zero truly serious cartoons produced in western culture, where as anime stories have actual depth and distinct personalities.

I think one of the other issues is the name of the forums being so similar. It may be called "Japanese Entertainment," but as digi said in previous posts, that was a later change from the original name of "Other Anime & Manga." The forum is still primarily an anime and manga forum, and I can't imagine those topics being placed alongside the other general entertainment topics. Maybe if the JE forum was more inactive, like Tabletop for example, then I would consider merging them. But as it is I believe it still has enough activity to warrant being separate, and I think it would be selling it short if we ditched it.

As for the argument of "well why don't we have a German Entertainment forum, or an Italian Entertainment forum," I think the key difference is the subculture that has developed around anime/manga. It's an undeniably distinct group that other cultures can't compare to, and especially on a forum based around an anime/Japanese video game I believe it has a place.

I saw it mentioned before but I would totally support renaming the forum back to Other Anime & Manga and putting any of those music threads (unless they relate to an anime) or jdrama/whatever else into General Entertainment.

As far as activity goes, I still think it would be a boost to a bunch of forums if we finally got rid of the stupid clubs forum. :/ But I know that's a more involved discussion.

[droomph]

For the "majority rules" factor, we could possibly try the subforum thing?

Originally Posted by Ausaudriel

As far as activity goes, I still think it would be a boost to a bunch of forums if we finally got rid of the stupid clubs forum. :/ But I know that's a more involved discussion.

About that, what about the more "weird" clubs, like the LGBTS club, which doesn't have a forum to go to?

[Ausaudriel]

Originally Posted by droomph

For the "majority rules" factor, we could possibly try the subforum thing?
About that, what about the more "weird" clubs, like the LGBTS club, which doesn't have a forum to go to?

I think if we're talking about ways to help boost a slow forum's activity, hiding it away by making it a subforum isn't the answer.

As far as clubs go, I think all of them have a place. And if they don't, they can go into OC, which is the catch-all forum.

[droomph]

well, Gen IV has a prefix-system, that could also work.

Though really I don't mind...

[Shining Raichu]

I know this thread isn't about clubs so I'm sorry if I'm contributing to the further derailment from topic, but I'm not comfortable operating my clubs within Other Chat, which is where most of mine would go as the "catch-all".

The shelf life of a thread in any section other than a clubs forum is generally negligible, because a clubs forum has rules (or at least the potential for rules) and an environment where dying threads are able to be revived if any member of the club cares enough about them. The sign up sheet at which many scoff is actually the glue that keeps these threads together as people get to feel like they're part of something rather than just another person discussing a topic, and that keeps them coming back.

Also, the culture of Other Chat & Discussions is very different. It is far more of a "discussion and debate" kind of area, which is not what a club is supposed to be. The LGBT Club, for instance, I prefer to think of as the "LGBT DCC" in that we just get to chat about current happenings in the homo-sphere and talk about what's happening in that area of our lives. I think the culture would change drastically in OCD and not for the better.

The Atheist Alliance is slightly more compatible with OCD only because a lot of Christians feel the need to come in and keep us atheists in check as though it's a matter of public service. Even still, I only encourage that to the degree that it fuels discussion rather than outright debate, which previous OCD threads on the topic of religion have told us will invariably happen.

[Ausaudriel]

I can understand that. What if we compromise by having any clubs that CAN fit into another forum be placed there, and keep the Other Clubs forum as an OC-parallel for the clubs that can't fit elsewhere?