What to do when MITM ends...

admin

Retired Administrator
I would like to start up an open debate on what to do with the forums when MITM end. My fear is that we will have nothing new to talk about, we will get fewer new members and hence conversations will die and the forums will become a wasteland.

I do not want this to happen, and I feel that the best way to avoid it is to diversify into something else. Suggestions on this would be good. We have a massive database of members here, and we need to find out what else we have incommon, a television programme, sport, hobby etc - I notice we all enjoy learning about each others "way of living" the cultural differences between the many different countries we have here - perhaps that is something to think about, also we all enjoy many other programmes, Law and Order, The Simpsons etc for example get mentioned quite a lot.

I do not want to go down the road of one programme again, since we may end up with a cliques situtation, or worse have a forum for 2 "dead" programmes! :D

My suggestions include opening it up to mulitple programmes, for example programmes on the FOX network (24, Family Guy, Simpsons etc all popular etc) or perhaps something else, more general we could have TV / Movies / PC Games etc. These are only suggestions I really need everyones opinions on what we should do after MITM ends.

My opinion is that if we have other things to "attract" people here then the MITM sections will remain relatively lively with discussion, it will also act as a gluing agent to our older members.

I have many suggestions as to what we can do, but I want to here everyone elses first, it is your community as much as mine and I want to create something everyone will come back to and talk about.
 

Dabney

Deutscher Moderator
After MITM ends people will tend to post much more off-topic than MITM-related stuff anyways, so I think it's a good idea to open the forums up for other topics. We should still keep one special area for Malcolm, though, because i do think that there will be plenty of new post, although the show is over.
I can't think of any special new topic right now. Maybe everyone should post his Top 3 of things he likes and is interested in...
So you can see which topics are the most important to all the users.
 

Wildcat

Retired Moderator
Good idea David. We definintely will need to keep the forum fresh to keep people interested. Only I dont' know what types of things we all share in common. I'm not really a huge Simspons fan. In fact, the only Fox show I really watch is Malcolm. The other shows I watch are mainly dramas like Law and Order, CSI and Lost. Not much into games or sports either. Sorry, I'm not being a whole lot of help here. :D

I would still come here even if you decided to change the forum to something other than Malcolm (whether I watchwhatever it is or not) simply because I've gotten to know people here and I enjoy reading their thoughts and ideas. Like Dabney said, there will always be OT stuff to talk about. I also agree that there should always be a section dedicated to only MITM.
 

admin

Retired Administrator
Wildcat said:
Good idea David. We definintely will need to keep the forum fresh to keep people interested. Only I dont' know what types of things we all share in common. I'm not really a huge Simspons fan. In fact, the only Fox show I really watch is Malcolm. The other shows I watch are mainly dramas like Law and Order, CSI and Lost. Not much into games or sports either. Sorry, I'm not being a whole lot of help here. :D

I would still come here even if you decided to change the forum to something other than Malcolm (whether I watchwhatever it is or not) simply because I've gotten to know people here and I enjoy reading their thoughts and ideas. Like Dabney said, there will always be OT stuff to talk about. I also agree that there should always be a section dedicated to only MITM.

I can assure everyone now that whatever happense the MITM sections will be preserved, I am not going to delete anything at all! :D

Its good to hear your opinoins guys, i think dabney's idea is a good one too, if everyone can list things they enjoy thats good.

Also what you inadvertenly suggested Wildcat is good, we still come here because we like talking to each other, I've always enjoyed the conversations we've had about each others schooling systems, tv, etc. Its always interesting to see how others live in the same "position" as us. Maybe we could convert in to some form of "student" forum! :D
 
Personally, I feel that too much diversification is detremental; although the memberbase will perhaps be higher, it will be far less specific, therefore I think there'd be fewer regular posters. This is the onyl forum I am a member of, mainly because you know you'll get good threads, good posts and feedback within a couple of days. Its also easy to post and find exactly what you're looking for. Forums with too many 'sub-forums' as it were are a tad too confusing and it is far less likely that posts will be responded to. I actually think the forum will remain as popular as it always was, bear in mind in Europe there are still 2 more years of 'new' MITM, new people keep discovering the program through the repeats. The forum will probably change to a more 'cult' type thing, in the sense it will be slightly more retrospective, however during the summer there were no new eppisodes being shown and from what I saw a minority of threads and posts were on the forthcoming season. It is possible that the Tiki Lounge section should be changed slightly in order to accomodate for the more general posts, as previously mentioned; perhaps raising the profile of the TV section (Reese's Apartment). I don't know, this is just my theory.
 

admin

Retired Administrator
Deweyrules! said:
Personally, I feel that too much diversification is detremental; although the memberbase will perhaps be higher, it will be far less specific, therefore I think there'd be fewer regular posters. This is the onyl forum I am a member of, mainly because you know you'll get good threads, good posts and feedback within a couple of days. Its also easy to post and find exactly what you're looking for. Forums with too many 'sub-forums' as it were are a tad too confusing and it is far less likely that posts will be responded to. I actually think the forum will remain as popular as it always was, bear in mind in Europe there are still 2 more years of 'new' MITM, new people keep discovering the program through the repeats. The forum will probably change to a more 'cult' type thing, in the sense it will be slightly more retrospective, however during the summer there were no new eppisodes being shown and from what I saw a minority of threads and posts were on the forthcoming season. It is possible that the Tiki Lounge section should be changed slightly in order to accomodate for the more general posts, as previously mentioned; perhaps raising the profile of the TV section (Reese's Apartment). I don't know, this is just my theory.

I quite agree, we do not want to many sub forums, infact I was considering not increasing the number at all, perhaps the best thing to do would be infact to reverse the roles of the forums, putting the MITM specific ones in the place of tiki lounge, renaming tiki lounge and making it hte main forum. There will be the cult aspect and as the biggest MITM forum we will no doubt retain our status.

I agree that we will also get "newly discovered" or just new members from both the US and other places, but my concern is that the current memberbase will have nothign MITM to talk about, many members will remember the deadness of the forums last summer when we had nothing to talk about, suddenly it perked up for a while then it went completely dead again in september until the new episodes started.
 
I joined in June last year and thought it was pretty busy, the onyl really reason for my lack of appearance through Autumn (Fall) was school. I don't know though, obviously, being the first member and creator you'd have the knowledge. Perhaps trail a few of the best ideas to see how they work out?
 

tjpeople

Site Administrator
Staff member
I agree too much diversificaition is killer. Personally to be a sucess i think we need to find a niche. MITM had no real good english based forum the only competion was the offical and that iaint compertiton :D

Now i would be surprised if the Simpson for example didnt have a huge very well dug in forum and to attempt to do a form like that would be a waste of time.

Unlike wildcat mitm is the main reason i vist the forums - sorry it not primarily for the people. If mitm dicussion stopped (even if old post where here and dicussion stopped) and we talked about Law and Order (for example) i would not visit.

However for referance i think if we would need to find a show - and at the end of the day not everyone is gunna like it then it would need to be a untapped source.

I am a fan of

24 (im dying on the edge of my seat about new season right now....)
Invasion (its new so it wouldnt have an established forum - but im not big enought of a fan of it to visit a forum based on it atm)

However at the end of the day i think that i would be a bad idea. we are a MITM forum!!! and we should stay that way. Im my view we should maybe open up the unrelated mitm talk sections maybe into different shows, as mentioned before. But never change the primary focus of mitm, and not aim to compete on a forum level with oh shows eg simpsoms. If as wqe know david you wanted to make a simpsons forum do so but complete separate to this one.

anyway there my thought.
 

admin

Retired Administrator
Thanks for that tj. I don't plan on changing the theme of the forum, as you say we have a good niche here, my plan is to encourage others to visit, but definately not discourage our current memberbase. As I've mentioned previously we will definately not losing the MITM section of the site.

Too much diversification will kill the forums off anyway, and none of us like to see forums that have 0 posts in!

Currently I'm going to take the "if it ain't broke don't fix it" approach.

I wouldn't be adding new boards per show anyhow, unless they are deemed necessary by sheer popularity of a show.
 

simon_4420

New member
admin said:
Thanks for that tj. I don't plan on changing the theme of the forum, as you say we have a good niche here, my plan is to encourage others to visit, but definately not discourage our current memberbase. As I've mentioned previously we will definately not losing the MITM section of the site.

Too much diversification will kill the forums off anyway, and none of us like to see forums that have 0 posts in!

Currently I'm going to take the "if it ain't broke don't fix it" approach.

I wouldn't be adding new boards per show anyhow, unless they are deemed necessary by sheer popularity of a show.

I'm glad that you are going to keep the forum based around MITM!:D I think that it is a good idea to encourage new users, but I haven't any different ideas as to how.... I do like the idea that we talk about other shows, for example 24. I watched the first 2 seasons, and then stopped, so I have alot of catching up to do...
 

Amigo22

Super Moderator
My ideas aren't much different to threads / discusisons we already have -PC/PS games, TV Shows/Movies, Music, perhaps one for school-related discussion since that topic often comes up.

And another suggestion, the forums may need to be renamed from just MITM which could help in attracting more members if they knew we discussed more shows / other things too. I have no idea what an alternative name would be but it's just a suggestion.
 

tony_montana

Semper Fidelis
Hmm..this is a very good idea if you ask me!
Let's do Family Guy, as that is my second favorite Fox show. What does everyone think?
Also, we need to decide wether to keep the name of the site(MITM Voting Community) or change it. I say keep the name.
 

samboo1

New member
It's great that your not touching the MITM bit David :D

amigo22 said:
renamed from just MITM which could help in attracting more members
Good idea...although you would have to make it so that on google...whatever the person types in, would be in your face....EG, when you type in malcolm in the middle (well perhaps not that, ill check later) then the MITMVC are at the top and make it noticeable...what im tryna say is that even if you make it something popular to search for (i dunno why i am talking about search engines, but they do find members of the forums a lot) you want it to be a high result...but dont ask me...:confused: ;)
I think that would be good though.
 

admin

Retired Administrator
I think the best thing you guys can do, from reading your replies and suggestions is to start positing more in Reese' Apartment about other programs you enjoy. TJ I like Invasion, while tony I've only just disocvered My Family and American Dad a few weeks ago but I do enjoy them!

Keep you posting up in the MITM sections as usual, but instead of my diversing the forums we can incrase the amount of posting in Reese' Apartment and the Tiki Lounge.

Hows that sound? :D
 

tony_montana

Semper Fidelis
admin said:
I think the best thing you guys can do, from reading your replies and suggestions is to start positing more in Reese' Apartment about other programs you enjoy. TJ I like Invasion, while tony I've only just disocvered My Family and American Dad a few weeks ago but I do enjoy them!

Keep you posting up in the MITM sections as usual, but instead of my diversing the forums we can incrase the amount of posting in Reese' Apartment and the Tiki Lounge.

Hows that sound? :D

Sounds good to me! But umm....what's "My Family"? I was talking about Family Guy.:D
 

Amigo22

Super Moderator
www.tv.com /my-family/show/2687/summary.html (minus the space after .com) has info & episode guide.

I also just typed in 'family' at TV.com and it comes up with several pages of program matches, that being one of them.

Speaking of family TV shows, did any of you guys watch Grounded for Life? From the episode guide it looked similar to MITM - a major similarity being sex - typical :rolleyes:
 

Dabney

Deutscher Moderator
Yeah, grounded for life is a fantastic show, I love it. My favorite character is (uncle) Eddie, he's just so funny.
 

Kratos

New member
Its been talked about already, but I agree, and think that if you design more forums/areas etc for other topics, maybe an area for music, or debating general issues etc.

Naturally it can create conflict with different beliefs, but sometimes that is a good way to make you question your own, and the rules are fairly clear about respecting other members. ;)

My only "moan" (this time lol) is that I really hope you dont define the forum into another show, to be blunt if I wanted to talk about another show in massive detail then I'd join a forum tottaly about that programe.
 

vinnymonster

New member
To be honest, I came here for MITM, but there is a god diversity of topics and personalities here to keep an old fart like me coming back for ages, whatever you decide to do, I'll still be mooching around in some dark corner, waiting for an unsuspecting victim, mwuhahahahahahahaaaaaaa! :D

And what about that 70s show?
 

tony_montana

Semper Fidelis
vinnymonster said:
To be honest, I came here for MITM, but there is a god diversity of topics and personalities here to keep an old fart like me coming back for ages, whatever you decide to do, I'll still be mooching around in some dark corner, waiting for an unsuspecting victim, mwuhahahahahahahaaaaaaa! :D

And what about that 70s show?

Actually, vinny, That 70's Show is also ending in May. In fact, it ends four days after Malcolm.:(
 
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