The Bar is open!

With all due respect, @Todd , I believe moving the NBS thread to The Bar will be very detrimental to that thread, which seemed to take a pretty substantial hit after it was moved to the NBW format.

 

Now when someone without an account comes to BA for the first time they see all beer talk and a couple of BeerAdvocate talk threads on the home page. These folks won't see some of the most popular threads unless they follow your steps above. Seems like a missed opportunity just to appease 170 folks who voted against a particular type of thread. Did all those folks know NBW, WBAYDN, and the hauls thread etc would get caught up in this?

Maybe the bar should be something you have to opt out of if you don't like it rather than opt in if you do?

This won't impact how I use and appreciate the site. I've put in my $.02 and I'll leave it there. Cheers Todd.

 

I pretty much look at the home age and go from there. I only found out about a year round cellar thread and still never go there as it’s not on the front page. Will see how it goes. Maybe the plus is I don’t stop by as often and don’t stay as much either.

Enjoy

 

Thanks again for your flexibility! Since WBAYDN and NBW seem to generate the most life (i.e. posts) on the site I feel like they should be direct links on the homepage, not just for us long time users but so new users and visitors can see the liveliest parts of the site. And I get what you did, but it's still extra clicks. I'm a lot of things, but lazy is near the top of the list lol

Here's what I see when I click on my BA shortcut:



Basically 3 columns under the headers. Could the "Trending Beers" be moved to the 3rd column under the beer search engine? And the middle column used for the recently replied to "The Bar" threads? The "Join the Discussion" column and how it works would stay the same.

Obviously this is totally different on a mobile device which needs to be considered, since I would think new users would mostly be using mobile. I also have no idea what this would take from a technical standpoint.

 

Feels more like the bar is closed

 

I’m going to combine what a lot of other posts have been saying with my own views; let’s keep Beer Talk on the left side of the homepage, move the Trending Beers to their own page, and display the Bar and most other threads on the right side of the homepage.

Personally, I’d like to see the Off-Topic and Home-Brewing threads also displayed on the right side of the homepage. That way, these threads are given more prominence than they currently have (which draws more interest to them and the site). Also, this will cause old WBAYDN and NBW threads to be cycled out a little faster, in addition to ensuring that Appreciation Threads don’t totally bombard the right side of the homepage.

For mobile users, these threads can be displayed directly below the Beer Talk ones on the homepage (or may I suggest that they are displayed above the Beer Talk threads, that way WBAYDN can claim its rightful spot on the top homepage).

To conclude, I believe that these measures will solve the dilemmas that we are currently facing. It will keep Beer Talk separate and easily accessible, while keeping WBAYDN and other threads from getting forgotten.

Cheers!

 

Unless it just hasn't been MOD'd yet, it appears WBAYDN is on the homepage.

 

I had no idea that there are so many forums here, just more confusion....

 

Woah! we messing around with WBAYDN!? - What Dah ?

Thats some sacred stuff right there. I am of the opinion that it should "always" remain on the home page and Not " abstracted " away into a a Sub menu list item on the main navigation.

And if there is a need to add it into main Navigation for whatever reason then I believe WBAYDN has earned its place as an Actual Main list item.

But thats just my two cents. Glad Todd is thinking of ways to make BA better.

<nav>
<ul>
<li href="url">WBAYDN</li>
</ul>
</nav>

 

It does feel strange to access it this new way.

 

I second This ^^^^^^^

 

With The Bar on the top level, I can live with it. I normally use Watched Threads to use the site with the exception of finding the daily WBAYDN thread.

 

This is showing some signs of being a case of "be careful what you ask for." I wonder what would have happened if the original poll had an option: "Too many appreciation threads annoy me but I don't want WBAYDN surprisingly messed with."

On the positive side - creating a "bar" section on BA makes much more logical sense than creating an "appreciation thread" section... and not including WBAYDN in "the bar" would be completely illogical. I appreciate the idea behind the approach.

On the negative side - sometimes a slight change has an unintended ripple effect, and the daily site traffic that WBAYDN generates should be carefully handled.

Personally (and some people might find this comment very odd), I find the subforum structure to be surprisingly unintuitive in places despite it looking clear as day on paper. (And this is coming from someone on the forums daily.) Frequent site users seem less savvy about the various corners of the site than people might realize. How many users look at or remember (or are even aware of) the "North America" forums (and I'm not talking about the more regional subforums like "Southwest"). It's the place where threads in "beer talk" are moved to to die. You won't even see the threads unless you scroll down past the regional subforums.

I bring this up because I don't see why "the bar" would necessarily be a subforum of "beer talk" just because the threads used to live there. It's not like "the bar" features "beer talk" and "beer news" doesn't. It's basically a place that allows people to just post photos of beer rather than needing to talk about beer. If "the bar" became its own main forum section (like "beer news") instead of a subforum, would it have more user visibility or less? I don't know, but I think that's an important question.

I also wonder if changing the title to "the virtual bar" would be a less vague communication to users who might not gravitate to a section called "the bar." (I like things clean and w/o buzzwords, but in this case I think adding "virtual" will be more communicative to people.)

Of course - If it is eventually determined that the best way forward is to simply reverse things, and the entire bar subforum is removed, then ignore all of the above.

 

The way I use the site is to open the home page, and scroll to see what threads are up. If nothing catches my eye, I bip on over to the NW forum. Burying things in a place I am unlikely to see them means I won't see, or participate in, them.

 

When the change was made, a lot of the OG participants in that thread left, and one of the reported reasons for switching from NBS to NBW as a format (more inclusive for international BA's to participate) never took root.

When coupled with the pretty stark decline in participation in the NBS BIF (we have 12 or 13 in this latest round and the first couple I participated in back in 2016/2017 had 40+, IIRC), I'm concerned we're going to bury that thread with another change to its "format."

And I think the same applies in general to the WBAYDN thread, FWIW. Those two threads should remain on the "big board," IMHO. The appreciation threads can be moved, but I think moving WBAYDN especially and NBS/NBW will impact the traffic you see here.

Just my 3.48 cents worth (adjusted for inflation).

 

This. I only went to Great Lakes or beer ratings either exclusively or nearly always for I believe my first 3-4 years here (2015-2018), before I explored other folders.

Started participating in New Beer Sunday, tasting threads and then I believe WBAYDN over the next couple of years. Became a WBAYDN daily participant after the government lockdowns March 2020 after dabbling within the previous several months.

Cheers!

@ovaltine - I consider The Bar the main board at this stage, can be for a lot of us once it is moved from being a sub forum to a primary folder in the main forum.