Suggestion for Interests, Hobbies & Collections forum

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I think a new forum that encompassed hobbies, pastimes, interests, special interests, what things people collect etc would be very popular.

At the moment these sort of threads are created in random and are lost amongst the increasing number of long running threads of the ilk "Image of the day", "What's on your mind right now?", "What song are you listening to now?" and so on. The Random forum is largely just day to day chatter, passing comments and those long running threads.

Various members keep suggesting new forums for everything from cooking to pets to photography to chess to car maintenance and various other interests. While there would not be enough posts to make a forum for each of those interests on their own, why not have a single forum dedicated to interests and hobbies in general? Whatever someone's interest they could create a thread for it and it wouldn't disappear off the page and be forgotten by tomorrow. It would give members a place to talk about and share their interests (and special interests) without all the noise of the Random forum which drowns out such topics.

(Obviously only Alex can create new forums, so this is merely a suggestion on my part)

Thoughts?

Maybe, why not

Certain specific interests are already discussed in the forums under the Topical Discussion forum such as "Games and Video Games" or "Art, Writing and Music". However, it could be nice to add a "Miscellaneous Interests" forum, which would include all the kinds of topics you've mentioned.

I think it's a nice idea. I sure would enjoy a forum topic that's well fitting for cooking and food topics. For the most part the random and health forum topics are not very fitting, which is where most cooking and food topics are posted in, and the reason they do not get a lot of activity is often because so much of the other random posts toppling over them and not many people frequent the health board it seems.

I think there should be a separate forum for special interests. It is so hard for people on the spectrum to keep our interests bottled up, but other people don't want to hear us talking about it non-stop, so it would be nice if there was a set forum on WP just for us to write and discuss about our special interests, and if people don't want to read them then they don't, and people who might want to read them can. Expressing our special interests can be boring when there's no-one to listen or read, but doing it on a forum is the best idea because you can either choose to read or not, without being rude at all.

I worry that I bring up my interests too much in my posts, and then members here get bored with me. It's just that I don't bring my interests up for pleasure. My interests are a part of my daily life, so sometimes when I am talking about other things unrelated to my interests, my interests may get brought up in it. For example, if my interest was the weather, and I was talking about going to a dog show with my family, I may say, ''I hope it doesn't rain on this particular day'' or something.

I think it's a great idea. I feel this should have been done a long time ago.

Any update Tallyman?

Pity indeed. Every once in a while somebody asks for a forum dedicated to one of their hobbies, so doing one encompassing them all would have been pretty useful. Random is not the right place for that kind of things, indeed.
What is the issue with creating a new forum? Does it require a lot of extra coding (I once had a forum and creating new subforums was the easiest thing in the world, but with WP's custom code it could be trickier) or does it give a noticeable amount of extra server load or... what?

For unknown reasons, Alex is always very slow and very reluctant to make any changes.

I think it's a great idea. If a thread is lost in the abyss of back pages, people may assume it's no longer relevant, or that the OP may not even be around. I'm very much out of sight, out of mind sometimes so having the section front and center would be very beneficial.

Although I have no significant personal interest in this new forum, I'm in favor of creating it. I understand the reason why Alex is relutant. There should be enough forums to satisfy demmand, but not even one more than that, in order to have a board that is relevant in all its components. I think this forum, under topical discussion, would be a relevant adition.

I would actually appreciate such a forum.

I can see several recurring themes that could benefit from this. Some obvious ones are:

- Guns
- My Little Pony
- Otaku

I would like it very much. I can understand Alex being hesitant to change the site because it's working well as it is, but maybe he could make the interests forum and put it up on a trial basis to see how it goes. If it doesn't catch on then the posts could be moved to random and the forum removed.

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I'm giving it another shot. We will see.
My forum is still there and everyone is welcome to come join as well. There is a private women only subforum there if anyone is interested. Also, there is no CAPTCHA.

The link to the forum is http://www.rightplanet.proboards.com