Clutch is making some changes, obviously, This forum will be for Astros and possibly general baseball. There will be a few changes to some of the usual [Official] threads. Because this will be a specific forum for baseball and the Astros, there will not be [Official] Off Season/draft etc. threads. We will still have series threads for the Astros. the playoffs will also have series threads stickied. Off season moves can now be put into their threads, since we no longer have to separate it from the Texans and Dynamo information. general baseball threads that have normally gone in the Hangout will now go in here.
That is being worked on. this one just got finished first. There will be separate forums for Texans, and then Dynamo will go into a conglomerate forum for other sports.
I never liked idea of making new forum for football and now the Astros because the hangout will now have less content and that's my favorite part of CF.
I guess Clutch chose a year where there is low traffic in the baseball area as sort of a soft opening. DD
Yep -- <a href="http://bbs.clutchfans.net/showthread.php?t=194355">almost a year</a> for the football forum. The Astros have been separated from the Hangout for about 10 years or so. "Other Sports" will pull from the Hangout though. I'm not sure yet if general baseball will go in this forum. The Texans most definitely will have their own forum. I was reading through the Texans-Saints game thread and saw probably 6 pieces of news that should have been discussed on individual threads. The thread was being treated like it was a Texans forum. I know the Astros suck these days and a dedicated forum will be slow... that's just the way it is right now. The Astros are an interest of mine and historically there has been a lot interest from our community.
I like it - I'd rather have an all-football subforum, seems silly having to hit 4 separate ones to do so. Rockets are the only one that needed to be distinct from NBA as a whole and other basketball.
Thanks for the comments emjohn. I didn't understand the 4 separate ones thing. Right now it's Texans and football, or am I misunderstanding? It's easier for me to combine forums than split them... so right now I'm trying to break out past topics. If we all feel the need later to combine Texans and football (for example) into one forum, we can. My personal thoughts are that two forums for Texans and football are fine and will grow. Football is king in Houston -- both college and professional. Combining Astros and baseball ... pulling "other sports" out of the Hangout ... those are tougher questions.
To address some of this: 1) Part of the reasoning behind the football forum was that it was causing confusion for where stuff should be posted. We at one time had the same thread in 3 different places. 2) As far as traffic, it is a bad time for the Astros but splitting out the off season and other baseball talk will increase traffic. There will be playoff threads for each series, and there will not be one central thread for all off season talk. This should increase the thread volume and hopefully keep some good, interesting points from being lost in a 200 page thread. 3) Some of the logistics are still being worked on by Clutch. This may end up being solely Astros with other baseball going elsewhere. Just know that the changes aren't meant to single any entity out, but are intended to increase interest/traffic for the board and make the board better.
I like it too. As a fan of all Houston sport teams, I find this is more convenient to find info on the Astros and the Texans, respectively. It just feels a little more organized. Thanks Clutch.
This is a great and much needed change. Looking forward to the increased Texans and NFL talk that will follow with a centralized and dedicated location.
I think for football, you need two sub-forums, College and NFL. I think HS can be lumped in with other sports. The Astros can be in one MLB forum. The rest of MLB isn't popular enough I think to deserve its own subforum.
I think these two sum it up as to the purpose of the change. If/When the Astros again become relevant this forum will most likely be much more active.
Let's hope that is sooner than later, I don't know if I can take too many more seasons where they are this bad.....I mean this is just the pits. DD
This is a good idea. This place has become my go-to for Houston Sports news. It has the best signal-to-noise ratio of any internet source. I know that the forum will be dead for while, but whenever the Astros start making a move, it'll be great.