specific recruiting forums

I think recruiting is its own animal, a wholly separate discussion and passion than watching football. For some they go hand-in-hand, for others recruiting isn't even on their radar.

So I agree with the sentiment being expressed by the recruiting forum fans - unlock those threads, let them live their natural life, and like zoogies says, they'll eventually die off as their football career takes off and talk transfers over to that forum.

 
I disagree 100%....here's why:

  1. Plain and simple, they are no longer recruits. Why would we keep posting under that thread?
  2. As you can see, the main forum has been quite dead over this past week with a few threads being created. Especially during the deadest of dead times, locking threads should get more threads created during that time in the main football forum. Something I believe we need for survival.
  3. Keeping threads open is only helping a few members. It's not like that can't see it anymore, just can't post, post in the main football forum where most of the action is. We have to have turnover in the main football forum to keep people coming back.
  4. Those that look at mainly the recruiting forum will always stay and be there. If I had a dollar for every time someone told me I'm leaving the board if you don't change "xyz" for them to be back the next day I would be a very rich man.
  5. Again, must create turnover in the Main Husker football forum, we aren't Huskermax where he has so many things to bring people back.
  6. By locking these now Huskers, it helps or forces others to look at other recruits and post in other threads in recruiting. Again, helping to keep things fresh and people coming back to see what is or might be posts.
  7. Views =advertising dollars.

Now, with that being said, I'm not going to fight this if a few of you are still against locking these previously recruited player threads. So here's the deal, if just two of you are still for keeping everything open, reply here and after the second has, please, please, please unlock and I will gladly move on.

Please feel free to debate and discuss

 
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I'm still for it, though I also agree with what you say about views and keeping things fresh.

HB's Recruiting has always been cited as a big draw and is an asset to Huskerboard.

Also, when the threads are locked, I'm not sure posts are actually getting redirected. We lose the ability for minor updates in the old threads (i.e, "three years later, a look back at this recruitment, in the context of our original discussion"). Those are posts that might not be getting posted at all, rather than gaining life as new threads. The one time I've seen it actually happen is here.

I think we're running the risk of confusing everyone here, especially the members who work to keep the Recruiting section of the site in great shape. That has always been entirely volunteer driven. They may not always have strictly the best ideas, but we need their continued efforts, so we can try to work around what they want while still achieving our goals.

Let's at least keep threads open through National Signing Day. Right now, it's especially confusing because updates for most of the class are still going on in the recruiting forum, but a small fraction of the commit threads are locked a month in advance. After NSD then, copy posts with important information to new threads in Husker Football. The new Nebraska social media initiative is putting their own renewed efforts into staying relevant during the offseason - we can lean on that as a source for new threads, as well.

Most importantly perhaps, send the signal to the members who are working on (or are here because of) the Recruiting Section, that we believe in their efforts. And maybe we could have the best of both worlds.

 
I agree with both of you - and I figured adding my thoughts can't hurt...

Like every board, we have several types of members. I break them out this way:

1. The Regulars - these are the people that spend a lot of time on the board, post a lot.

2. The Occasionals - these are folks that come to the board every so often. They post and vanish for a while. Not bad members, just don't stick around all the time.

3. The Lurkers - these are folks that come to the board, read what they want, but don't really participate.

4. The Guests - virtually indistinguishable from the Lurkers, for all intent and purpose.

5. The Specialists - these are folks that come for a particular purposes. It could be to talk about just a particular subject, or visit a particular forum - Daily Skin, the BS forum, Recruiting, etc.

I couldn't agree more with Eric - we HAVE to keep the main Football Forum fresh. But I think we need to consider FOR WHOM we do that. It's not the regulars - they come to post and discuss. In fact, in a way, they are our lifeblood. As much as we can try to keep content fresh - and we should - it's the Regulars that do a lot of that. We need to encourage them and help them out - keep threads going. Also, we don't need fresh content for the Specialists - they have their area that keeps them involved, and they are going to do so regardless of the main page. They post in their area. That means we want fresh content for the rest. We want to keep it fresh in the hope they become Regulars. We need to make sure that when they come to the board there's something new in the hopes that SOMETHING keeps them coming back or gets them to become more involved.

It seems to me that the Recruiting forum is a Specialists forum. Mavric does a helluva job in there - keeps it organized, etc. But we also have a core group of people that contribute and do so a LOT. We need to keep them happy. They want to hit the board, jump into the Recruiting forum, read and post. We need to keep them happy to keep them interested and posting news.

So, here's my idea. What if we keep Recruiting as it is so it remains one of our big draws, but also promote it? If we post a new topic every few days from there in the main forum with either a link to the Recruiting forum or to the specific topic, and LOCK AND PIN IT, we keep the Specialists happy, we keep the Recruiting forum vital, and we can maybe grad the interest of the Occassionals, Lurkers, and Guests. The pinned topic stays up until the next one goes up. Keeps the content fresh, allows Specialists to continue posting updates years later, the works.

 
I agree with AR and like that idea.

I think he hit on a great point with the Specialists idea - and Regulars to a point. The people who are interested in the new Huskers are going to go find that content wherever it is. It's good to have fresh content for the other groups but I don't think locking the recruiting threads is doing that. Apparently I'm not skilled enough with the Search function to check for sure but I recall very few posts about Lee or Anderson in the main forum in the last week or so. Instead of any content being moved from the Recruiting forum to the main forum, it is simply not being posted - or there simply isn't anything new to be posted. Either it's not really helping or could even be hurting the amount of new posts.

 
Lets go with it. I'll unlock those recruiting threads.

Frank, can you post the first one and pin it to provide an example of exactly what you are looking for? Then the rest of us can always post int he future when we need to.

 
Eric the Red said:
locking threads should get more threads created during that time in the main football forum. Something I believe we need for survival.
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Is this a personal belief or is there forum research somewhere that shows this?

All I can offer is personal anecdotes, but I've been a heavy forum user for 18ish years and I've found that the heavier the hand of the forum, the more users you piss off.

Forums are like parties. In the living room they're drinking beer and talking football. In the den they're drinking margaritas and playing Jenga. In the kitchen they're serving guacamole & talking politics. People naturally gravitate to the conversations that have the most meaning to them. Once they find them, they want them to remain accessible. Relocating the Jenga game to the patio is going to change the dynamic, and some people are going to stop playing. By moving that game you're wagering, without any information from the party-goers, that more people on the patio are going to want to play than those already in the den.

 
How do we want to keep it updated? Just whenever there is something more note-worthy in the Recruiting forum unpin the current thread and pin a new one? Not too often but enough so that it gets people to look?

 
That's exactly the way I envision it. After signing day, it can be any thread from any forum - just something so when someone logs in every few days or every week, there's something to catch their eye.

 
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