Re:
rian said:
There is nothing wrong with multiple threads. It helps to deal with specialised subjects separately from the idle chatter. But maybe we could group like threads together a little better than we currently do?
It seems to me that some of the changes that have been made institutionalise rather than cure the problem.
I'm entirely supportive of the decision to merge the "Yuuka Nanri" and "Nanri Yuuka" threads. That's common sense.
But I was not actually arguing for the merger of threads. Rather I was arguing for theads about the same musician or vocalist to be grouped together in the same sub-section of the forum. That should effectively stop the needless prolifieration of threads.
Musicians work with other musicians who in their turn work with other musicians. There tend not to be clear boundaries between works and often no clear boundaries between projects. There are clear boundaries between musicians/vocalists, each of whom has a discrete body of work to their credit. Compartmentalisation does not promote meaningful discussion and does not work without clear boundaries between the compartments. I don't think you can do meaningful compartmentalistion of the basis of projects and works.
Returning to Kaori Oda as example, suppose I want to make a post about the "Calling" single. I might want to say "Calling is absolutley brilliant but the b-side is excruciating". Given the current structure, I have to post the first half of that sentence in "Everything Yuki" ("Calling" is a Kajiura work) and the second half of the sentence in Otakuland (because the b-side isn't by Yuki). That's nonsense.
The minimalist structure of this forum is an asset. It helps to maintain a cozy, friendly atmosphere. The paradox is that friendly forums tend to grow. Eventually that growth poses the question 'does our structure now need to become slightly less minimalist?'. But 'slightly less minimalist' is a very different thing to rigid compartmentalisation.
It seems that Kaori fans now have to maintain a minimum of three compartmentalised threads. One thread for her Yuki works, another thread [awkwardly entitled
Kaori Oda non-Yuki solo + collabs (non-Sound Horizon)] for her non-Yuki work and a third thread for her Sound Horizon work, since discussion of this is now apparently excluded from the non-Yuki thread. Where does discussion of "Tsukiakari to Ito Guruma ~Alies ol iok~" go? Both Haruka and Kaori are members of Sound Horizon. The song has the style and structure of a Sound Horizon song but it's not credited to Sound Horizon.
This fragmentation of discussions is artificial and does not work well. It is a cause of confusion, and it is this confusion which leads people to spawn a proliferation of threads.