Congratulations, Off-Topic Discussion

[Stefan]

On May 29, I wrote this in the "Creationism vs. evolution" thread:

I love this kind of thread. I'll tell you why in early August I think.

The reason was that it was the kind of thread in the off-topic forum that quickly gets a lot of posts.

Two weeks earlier I had taken a screenshot of the forum overview showing the post numbers of the different forums. My conjecture turned out correct: post-wise the off-topic forum grew way more quickly than the speedcubing forum. On May 15, off-topic was 5762 posts behind (37038 vs 42800). I estimated it would take until early August for off-topic to post-wise become the #1 forum on this site. Yesterday it was still about 1300 behind, but then came today's forum reorganization, so...

Congratulations, Off-Topic Discussion, you're now the #1 forum on speedsolving.com (at least post-wise), and I'm sure you'll continue to strengthen your lead! Woohoo! In a way, we've become more concerned about off-topic than about speedcubing, hooray for us!

 

[hr.mohr]

I for one welcomes our new offtopic overlords.

This really should not come as a surprise or be frowned upon. The amount of topics are vastly more diverse and are frankly more informative than the yet another "which cube should I get" thread. This ALWAYS happens to online communities as they mature. You run out of relevant topics to discuss and turn to the more social strengthening topics that does not relate to the basis of the community. In short it's not a bad thing and should not be fought.

 

[AvGalen]

...In a way, we've become more concerned about off-topic than about speedcubing, hooray for us!

Only in a very weird way where "Off-Topic Discussion" is only compared to "Expert Village". Currently it is 45.878 out of 208.276

But it is true that "Off-Topic Discussion" grows very fast (not a bad thing).
I am sad that "Puzzle Theory" and "How-to's, Guides, etc." are so stagnant

 

[Stefan]

Only in a very weird way where "Off-Topic Discussion" is only compared to "Expert Village". Currently it is 45.878 out of 208.276

I'd just call it a simple and doable view. If someone new looks at our forum, he'll see off-topic has the most posts.

Some more details comparing today's post numbers with May 15:

+3312 Beginner
+4384 Speedcubing (assuming it's now intermediate+expert)
+ 930 Theory
+ 735 Blindsolving
+5877 Hardware
+3588 Videos
+ 633 Guides
+1900 WCA comps
+1063 Weekly comps
+8842 OffTopic
+ 666 Suggestions

OffTopic gained more than Beginner+Speedcubing+Theory together.

 

[pjk]

Only in a very weird way where "Off-Topic Discussion" is only compared to "Expert Village". Currently it is 45.878 out of 208.276

I'd just call it a simple and doable view. If someone new looks at our forum, he'll see off-topic has the most posts.

Some more details comparing today's post numbers with May 15:

+3312 Beginner
+4384 Speedcubing (assuming it's now intermediate+expert)
+ 930 Theory
+ 735 Blindsolving
+5877 Hardware
+3588 Videos
+ 633 Guides
+1900 WCA comps
+1063 Weekly comps
+8842 OffTopic
+ 666 Suggestions

OffTopic gained more than Beginner+Speedcubing+Theory together.

It is very common for the off-topic forum to have more posts than others, for the reason you described in your first post (debates, etc. can fetch a large amount of replies).

On this forum in particular, the amount of new information you can discuss (about speedsolving puzzles) is very limited. This is why I am not surprised to see off-topic as the largest forum. Keep in mind that the primary "Speedcubing" forum has been broken up several times since the beginning, while the Off-Topic section has remained unsplit.

 

[Dene]

To put a different perspective on it:

There are more topics that can be discussed in off-topic, so one would expect there to be.

 

[JTW2007]

In a way, we've become more concerned about off-topic than about speedcubing, hooray for us!

I post more speedcubing related topics in the off-topic than in the speedcubing forum.

I agree that this is only natural and shouldn't be frowned upon. It is, on the other hand, a speedcubing forum, so I wouldn't be pleased to see the more active on-topic forums become as dead as Puzzle Theory, and How-To's Guides, etc.

 

[jacob15728]

Many things in Off-Topic have to do with cubing, but don't really fit into the other categories. Maybe we should make a new forum for other cubing stuff and keep Off-Topic strictly for things that have nothing to do with cubing.

 

[JTW2007]

Many things in Off-Topic have to do with cubing, but don't really fit into the other categories. Maybe we should make a new forum for other cubing stuff and keep Off-Topic strictly for things that have nothing to do with cubing.

That doesn't seem necessary to me, but I wouldn't mind a place for stuff you want to post in speedcubing or beginner's central, but you're afraid you'll get flamed for having it in the wrong place.

 

[Lucas Garron]

Oh my, you're early. I was waiting: