Reorganising the Sportscar & GT Racing Forum

[Akrapovic]

Hello!

So before I post this: thank you to the staff who run this place. I'm aware this request isn't that simple because of the amount of threads involved, but I do think it would improve the situation greatly!

The Sportscar & GT forum is becoming far too cluttered to work. The amount of series active in that one forum means we're cycling through threads too quickly, and active threads are being pushed down 3-4 pages and being lost. So then other threads end up far too off topic and being ruined. Sportscar racing also tends to have limited schedules (5-10 races for most), so sometimes you have a month between races, by which time the thread has disappeared 4 pages back. Just yesterday I was looking for the WEC 2017 thread (the biggest sportscar series in the world, arguably!), and it was on page 4.

Right now we have WEC, ELMS, IMSA, Blancpain, all the regional and national series, and big stand alone events like Bathurst 12hrs, plus all the relevant technology/vehicle threads in one section.

So I'd propose this solution.

-Sportscar & GT Racing Forum
--24 Hours of Le Mans
--ACO Regulated Series (WEC, ELMS, Le Mans Cup, AsLMS, etc)
--North American Racing (IMSA, PWC, etc)
--Prediction Competitions

New subforum for ACO racing, and a new subforum for North American racing. Anything else (Blancpain, Super GT, etc) stays in the default Sportscar & GT Forum.

That way we can keep the areas focused and hopefully have a bit more organisation, because at the moment it's a mess trying to find what is being discussed where - and part of that is not being able to find the relevant thread as it's 3-4 pages away.

Again, I'm aware of the work involved in that, but I think it'd improve the section massively. Thoughts?

[MagnetON]

Many thanks for your suggestion, if anyone else has suggestions or thoughts regarding that forum then please let us know. Please keep this thread to discussions on just the Sportscar & GT Racing forum as I know there is also another thread discussing the merits of Formula E having a separate forum.

[NaBUru38]

As I have written before, I support the changes.

[Aysedasi]

As a mod of the Sportscar & GT Forum, I'd be happy to support Akrapovic's suggestions (and it therefore goes without saying that I'm also happy to migrate threads as necessary).

[Akrapovic]

Originally Posted by Aysedasi

As a mod of the Sportscar & GT Forum, I'd be happy to support Akrapovic's suggestions (and it therefore goes without saying that I'm also happy to migrate threads as necessary).

I considered not posting the suggestion, as I know what a ridiculously massive task it would be to move it all. So even if this doesn't happen, a big thanks to you and anyone else who would be involved.

[Tourer]

Sounds like a good plan - lot of work for the mods and really appreciate the willingness to do it.

Whilst making the changes, I suggest that the Australian GT Champ thread gets moved back to the Australasian section and if needs be removing the "touring cars" from the Australasian section name. That way single-seater threads re Australasian series can go back there too.

I'm a bit torn on whether that should happen IMO for the Bathurst 12 hour as it gets more international interest but it probably makes sense for it to be moved back as well for consistency.

As most of the posters and interest on those threads is from down under & the news relevant to them from down under as well, it makes it way easier to find for we Antipodeans, spot anything new and have the discussion - it also assists in de-cluttering the Sportscar & GT Forum.

[Adam43]

All the topics remain, it's all about whether it'll be easier for us all to find what we want.

I'm in many sub forum anyway so it probably won't make much difference to me. Are others up for it?

Happy to move all the threads around if needed.

[Matt]

I'm all for it, and would happily moderate the IMSA section if needed.

[chernaudi]

This isn't a bad thing (on site or in the real world), but there's so many racing series in road racing, too. You have various GT series, IMSA, the WEC, various professional and pro-am series. It's an amoeba who's tentacles are all over the place.

We also have to view this from Akrapovic's view point. He's now the owner and writer for a motorsports news site. He's about the only guy I can name (other than Marcel and Graham from DSC) who visits here.

Of course, the sportscar area is also full of rumor and speculation discussion threads. Granted, that does fill in the time between races, since there's often sizable gaps between events. It's not like NASCAR where there's a race almost every weekend from Feb-Nov, and F1 that has races every other weekend it seems from March to Nov.

I'd also suggest maybe having a dedicated rumor/speculation sub area, and one for news, though I can see where that might be a problem (too much sub division).

[NaBUru38]

Rather than that, I prefer to have multiple threads per series, like in other forums. Having the new subforums allow the different threads to exist without getting lost.

[deggis]

I wouldn't like this change. It is pretty rare that race weekends overlap and the race threads are always sticky threads. If there's a problem now it is that people don't seem to make new threads e.g. about news stories, instead discussion goes on in the 100-page threads started years ago and topic titles do not always anymore reflect what is being talked. I'm not sure new subforums would would change this behaviour much, so the result is just more "fragmentation".

[NaBUru38]

Threads about sports car racing are too big, it'¿s impossible to read them. We need more threads that are more specific. And that requires having more subforums.

[Adam43]

Thanks all for the feedback, keep it coming. It is clear that whatever solution will be a compromise.

[Aysedasi]

I certainly agree with the comments about some of the very long threads - even as a mod, I can only dip into them and reading threads of that length from the beginning is a bit like War and Peace...... (quite literally, sometimes! )

[Akrapovic]

Originally Posted by Aysedasi

I certainly agree with the comments about some of the very long threads - even as a mod, I can only dip into them and reading threads of that length from the beginning is a bit like War and Peace...... (quite literally, sometimes! )

Sometimes with less peace

Would creating sub forums allow for more, shorter threads? If we start doing more focused but shorter threads with the forum in its current state, wouldn't we lose threads even quicker?