Forum Suggestion

[MattTuck]

I know many suggestions are met with equal parts skepticism and preference for the status quo, but figured I'd throw this out there to see if I'm the only one who thinks this way.

The Bike Fit sub-forum seems to get a fraction of the traffic that the General Discussion forum gets, and it is pretty consistent. I pulled this screen grab just now.

I feel like a better solution would be to steer more bike fit questions toward the General Discussion forum to maximize the eyes on these questions, and benefit from the great knowledge base of the members here. I have 3 proposals to advance the general goal of getting more exposure to bike fit threads.

1. End the Bike Fit subforum and merge it with the GD forum.
2. (My preferred approach) Encourage people to post in the GD forum with a tag (similar to "OT:" for off topic) like [Bike Fit] or BF, and then have an automated way to move those threads into the Bike Fit forum for archiving, and search-ability.
3. Not sure if this is technically possible, but if the software allows it, keep both forums going, but cross-post all threads that are started in Bike Fit into GD also, so that the post resides in Bike Fit, but gets eyes as if on GD.

Anyway, I've been around here for a while and have a suspicion I may have made this suggestion before, or at least thought about making it before. I just feel like the bike fit portion is a great legacy from the earlier incarnations of this forum, and would like to see it get utilized more.

Thanks for listening. Agree, disagree?

[rnhood]

I like the separate bike for forum and prefer it to stay this way. It's a specialized activity and seemingly easier to search on than the gen forum. Doing it with the "OT" in the gen forum would work, but since fit is a continual activity that gets specialized attention, I think it's best to have a sub forum for it.

[dustyrider]

What's in the fit sub-forum?

Upon review: I'm still not sure...guess I'm the kind of person that makes changes without the judgement of others. If something hurts or doesn't fit, and can be changed, I change it. Maybe I'm overthinking something here.

[Bruce K]

It was originally created for a sub-group of members to discuss fitting topics and receive/ answer fit specific questions from membership.

It was never, in my memory, a high traffic areaof our forum.

It did seem to be a fairly specialized section of bicycle conversation.

I understand what you say, Matt. I wonder what we actually gain or lose?

I know that having to relocate, blend, or otherwise create work for the moderator team will have at least a little inertia associated with it.:cool:

BK

[MattTuck]

Bruce, I hear you. One of my initial thoughts was to mark each thread with a certain tag, and then have a mod move it after a couple weeks to the Bike Fit forum... which would be a ton of work, and I tried to respect that, and not include it as an option.

It would only work if it were something automated and easy. I think perhaps the easiest way (if the forum software allows it) is to list threads posted in Bike Fit also in the GD forum. Seems easiest to hit all the criteria: maintains the existing knowledge base in segregated area, easy to search, gets more eyes on the threads.

Anyway, if it can work out, I think it would be a net positive for the forum. If not, no big deal. I'll add one other point that is relevant. The GD forum regularly has fit related questions that get answered there. It seems that if the bike fit sub-forum is an ongoing part of the forum, then we should actively try to steer bike fit questions out of the GD and into the Bike Fit area; conversely, if the bike fit forum is just an oxbow lake from past times, perhaps we just close it to new posts and thus have fit stuff discussed in the GD?

[OtayBW]

My vote: Keep it as is. Perhaps the number of viewers is not high, but I think the visibility of posts related to bike fit will be higher in its own sub-forum, and that's what counts. Placing some kind of tag on a bike fit post in the General Discussion area (which might well be forgotten) will likely cause things to get lost and soon pushed back, nowhere to be heard from again.

So, I personally like it just fine the way it is. :beer:

[Bruce K]

I'll mention the idea that we need to be a bit more proactive in moving threads that are Obviously and only fit related. That shouldn't be too hard.

We've been a bit focused on a higher need lately but I think we're (hopefully) getting a handle on it.

BK

[Climb01742]

My vote: Keep it as is. Perhaps the number of viewers is not high, but I think the visibility of posts related to bike fit will be higher in its own sub-forum, and that's what counts. Placing some kind of tag on a bike fit post in the General Discussion area (which might well be forgotten) will likely cause things to get lost and soon pushed back, nowhere to be heard from again.

So, I personally like it just fine the way it is. :beer:

This is my inclination as well. An advantage of having Fit as a sub-forum is that when you look at the Forum 'homepage' view, you see a thread topic for each sub-forum, Fit included. For me, that acts as a teaser or reminder of sorts, and if that thread topic piques my interest, I'll check it out. For me, that helps draw views to Fit. As part of GD they may be over easily overlooked.

[Bruce K]

Not trying to start an argument

Serious question if we are going to try to move threads from GD to Fit....

Is the Cinelli stem thread a GD or a Fit related thread? Where should it go and how should we, the mods, decide? Is slamming a stem a technical question? One if esthetics? Or is it a fit issue?

This would be the kind of issues we would face if we were to try and do this.

BK

[cadence90]

My vote: Keep it as is. Perhaps the number of viewers is not high, but I think the visibility of posts related to bike fit will be higher in its own sub-forum, and that's what counts. Placing some kind of tag on a bike fit post in the General Discussion area (which might well be forgotten) will likely cause things to get lost and soon pushed back, nowhere to be heard from again.

So, I personally like it just fine the way it is. :beer:
+2 on this.

If the mods were going to do a bunch of extra work, I would far prefer that their time be used to sub-divide the Classifieds section into 3 sub-forums:
FS
WTB
PSA
.
.

[OtayBW]

Not trying to start an argument

Serious question if we are going to try to move threads from GD to Fit....

Is the Cinelli stem thread a GD or a Fit related thread? Where should it go and how should we, the mods, decide? Is slamming a stem a technical question? One if esthetics? Or is it a fit issue?

This would be the kind of issues we would face if we were to try and do this.

BK
I don't see it as a 'fit related thread' per se. Still more of a general interest/query about a component, and not necessarily a human-to-machine kind of a thing.
I don't know that we need to re-categorize threads after they're posted unless they're just really out of place or something. I appreciate the effort that you all are willing to do, but if it ain't broke....

[MattTuck]

This is my inclination as well. An advantage of having Fit as a sub-forum is that when you look at the Forum 'homepage' view, you see a thread topic for each sub-forum, Fit included. For me, that acts as a teaser or reminder of sorts, and if that thread topic piques my interest, I'll check it out. For me, that helps draw views to Fit. As part of GD they may be over easily overlooked.

Perhaps, but unlikely. Take this thread on setback (http://forums.thepaceline.net/showthread.php?t=205059) as an example. 60 responses and over 2400 views. Way more than the vast majority of threads in the dedicated fit section.


Not trying to start an argument

Serious question if we are going to try to move threads from GD to Fit....

Is the Cinelli stem thread a GD or a Fit related thread? Where should it go and how should we, the mods, decide? Is slamming a stem a technical question? One if esthetics? Or is it a fit issue?

This would be the kind of issues we would face if we were to try and do this.

BK

Bruce, this is the crux of the issue. Right now, people self select into which area they post. I think for most people, they default to posting in the GD, even if it is a fit question.... and my guess is they get more responses and views due to the fact GD gets more traffic in general.

I do think some people are aware of the fit section and utilize that, but it seems to be a minority. I could go back and do some actual analysis to try to quantify this. As a quick test, I searched for "Saddle setback" in both GD and Bike Fit, and got 14 results and 7 results, respectively.

My point isn't so much that we should move threads out of GD initially, because I think the GD threads get more views, responses and with fit issues sometimes it is the one hint someone gives that can really help out, so having as many eye balls on a given question is preferable (IMO).

Having a separate section is great for searching and archiving, but my main concern is that this comes at a cost of reduced traffic and fewer responses for the new threads posted there.

Really to me, the best option (if the software allows it) is that all posts in Bike Fit get cross posted into GD so they get the eyeballs, but are archived in Bike Fit for posterity. Best of both worlds.

[Bruce K]

I'll ask Keith to take a look at options.

BK

[William]

I'll ask Keith to take a look at options.

BK

I think there is a way to cross post so things show up in multiple sections but as Bruce said that's ultimately a Keith question.

It's not a bad idea, but one that does require some more thought.






William