https://du4.democraticunderground.com/?com=forum&id=1016

That's not a bad idea... we could call it "Editorials & Other Articles"

Okay let me lay this out as I see it now. The root of this is that I would like more people to use the topic forums on DU4. We have a few forums that are really vibrant and fun, and a few forums which have some solid back-and-forth debates about issues, and they demonstrate the potential for community building in these smaller forums. But then we have this long-ass list of forums that are out of date or barely used. I want to give that section of the site a fresh start.

So I was considering Editorials & Other Articles to be partly responsible for taking attention away from the topic forums, because it's another "general" area of the site, so people are more likely to congregate there, causing them to ignore the other forums.

But, that's wrong for a couple of reasons. First, if people are more likely to congregate in a particular forum, I probably shouldn't kick them out of it and tell them to go elsewhere. That's not smart. Second, the topic forums don't actually serve as a good replacement for Editorials & Other Articles anyway -- they're two different things.

Many of the threads in Editorials could easily find a place in the Topic Forums, but many others are about pure politics, or other issues that don't fit neatly into a "topic," and which wouldn't have a meaningful home in any of the currently-existing Topic Forums.

AND there is value in having a one-stop-shop to find this kind of discussion. I get that you don't want to go searching through all the Topic Forums. The Topic Forums are for people who know what they're looking for, whereas the Editorials forum is for people who want to be surprised by something interesting from a large range of possible subjects (within the political sphere).

So all that said, I think that means we need to find a solution that involves keeping Editorials & Other Articles alive in some form (which might mean just keeping the forum). I will continue to think on it and am happy to receive further input.

that in essence allows a poster to choose to indicate with a check or other button that the item is a 'long read' article (or similar title), so that the OP can be made in whatever appropriate forum, but the tag applied so users can access such tagged articles by another subscribe or other means?

...to sort it in a way that will still allow those of us who like that format to find it and enjoy it here on DU.

As far as Topic fora are concerned, I do remember in some dim misty past y'all looked over the list and said "pruning time, any topic that hasn't had a post in (specified time) will be put on a list for archiving, convince us otherwise by (date)" or something like that.

And some got replaced with newer versions. Maybe we need some new ones? F'rinstance, in the Issues we have "Economy" but not "Economics".... they're different yanno. Dunno if we have enough econ geeks to make a whole different forum viable but maybe combine? Economy and Economics?

We have (had? Not seeing "Groups" in DU4....?) "American History" and "History of Feminism" groups... but how about a general "History" topic?

Stuff like that, anyways.

Some might be consolidatable.

Not in the religion ones, of course.

Also, will we still have (read-only, but searchable) access to "retired" fora?

helpfully,
Bright

I'm with Tygr! Editorials is my favorite non-breaking news forum and I too look for the long reads I might have missed.

Why? I mean why try to change user behavior? I don’t much care for topic forums either, and if I think about it, it’s probably because you’re dealing with self-selected much smaller groups and limited-scope discussions. I prefer a thousand times over the more general forums with a huge range of topics and opinions. It’s like the difference between undergrad school, where you can sample ideas from many disciplines, and grad school, where you’re funneled into specialized areas of a single road subject.

I remember years back when we were encouraged not to dump everything in GD, where posts can easily sink, when one day can fill three pages.

I and others therefore choose to post in the Editorial sourced stories.

There is also an issue with the Advanced Search. I always go there first to see if a story was already posted. Previously the default was Main that included all the big forums from the left column: Announcements, LBN, Editorials, Videos, GD, Lounge and Community help.

With this system a search word will not include Editorial. I will have to search for it separately… or just duplicate posting.

Or group or whatever it's called.

I've done it a few times by posting something in the "Pennsylvania" forum and then again in "General Discussion."

It helps to notify that I'm cross-posting from another forum, but I don't think anyone really cares.

Long story short : I do like the Editorials forum and I think it has its own purpose. I'd prefer to keep "Editorials" open.

Since there seems to be quite a bit of love for Editorials & Other Articles I'm now thinking we should keep it. I think everyone is pretty much on the same page as to what the forum is and should be about.

There is no longer a "top-level" spot for the forum though, so it will have to go into a category. The most obvious fit would be Issue Forums.

The Statement of Purpose for the forum would be a revised version of the DU3 SOP, something like:

While there's no top-level placement for the forum, I would include it in the "Related" section at the top of General Discussion and Latest Breaking News.

Now here's my question: Would a different name help the forum to fit a little better into the Issues Forum category? If so, the name would have to be at least as good/descriptive as Editorials & Other Articles otherwise there's no point in changing it. I'm not sure I've been able to do better so far. "Extended Reading" maybe?

Any thoughts?

Just my opinion.

What you're describing - if I understand it correctly it's just re-taxonomizing it in the "Issues" group (which works, because, yeah, all the posts in the forum are about SOME issue, it's not a funny memes place or a here's-what-happened-to-me place), and then ALSO adding links in the LBN and GD which are the only remaining "top level" fora on the taxonomy, should work fine. It gives people lots of ways to find it. "Regulars" can subscribe, or navigate directly from GB/LBN.

I think it fits just fine in the "Issues" taxonomy with the name "Editorials and Other Articles", but that's just me.

responsively,
Bright

Like I said, changing the name would require that a new name be better than the old one, and I tried for a while but I couldn't think of anything better.

If you had to change to name Long Reads preserves the purpose/intent. Long is a relative terms of course.

I'm glad to hear Editorials are likely staying. I love reading those, and it's a nice spot to find good commentary and long read/serious articles that might get missed by cycling through GD too quickly.