[7's/10's] WR Sevens (publicly viewable) sub-forum, do we need/want one?

[L'irlandais]

I know Robbie ran an article on the Craig Joubert aspect of this last August.
Craig Joubert to join the sevens circuit ahead of the Olympic Games.

Source : WR Sevens

Of course he's not the only one crossing over, quite a few players are too. Both Fulgence Ouedraogo and Romain Martial have been named in the French sevens squad for example.

Perhaps a Sevens sub forum might be a good idea in the run up to the Rio Olympics.
What do you think? Does RRF need somewhere to discuss all things relating to rugby sevens, both local and international? If you have A. N. Other response to the poll, then tick other and post it in the discussion. For example, "yes, but...."

Rio 2016 Summer Olympic Games

 

[chrismtl]

I was thinking about this a few weeks ago and forgot to post a request. Enough sevens is played around the world now and WR has sevens specific courses being offered to referees that it makes sense to have a section for sevens.

We currently have Mini/midi and Junior sections that have been inactive for the last 2 months and a golden oldies section that's been inactive for the last 14 months. We even have a touch rugby forum that's NEVER been posted in...

On a global level, sevens is the most easily watched since it's live streamed for free around the world (I have to torrent all of my XVs games for decent quality) and with it now being an Olympic sport, it makes sense to be able to discuss it in a location of its' own.

This site is called The Rugby Referees' Forum. Not Rugby Union, not Rugby union XV, Not rugby League. I see no reason to not have a section to discuss the code of the game that will almost certainly generate the most publicity this coming year and that is growing. I'm pretty confident that it'll be more popular than the touch rugby forum...

I'd actually like to hear a valid reason why people think that we shouldn't have this forum/sub-forum. Having no interest in sevens isn't a valid reason and neither is a dislike for the code.

 

[Phil E]

Because we now have the prefix drop down options for starting a new thread.
7's is one of the prefix options.

 

[chrismtl]

So sifting through a bunch of xvs related discussions to find answers to sevens specific questions (with a 7s/10s prefix) is the solution for a variation that is played and refereed completely differently? I mean you even bunched it up with another variation. Scrum has it's own prefix and so do AR, Maul, Tackle, Mini/midi, LO, Ruck, and a whole bunch of others. Every single one of those prefixes also has it's own forum, with the exception of Sevens. With your logic, we should have a single sub-forum for union and only use prefixes do highlight what we want to discuss. As well, grouping sevens and 10s together makes no sense. Different variations played and reffed in different ways.

I've had questions relating to sevens before, but never bothered posting them here because there's no real place to put them. Instead I turned to my personal contacts or local referee groups since they are more than happy to discuss all codes played here (XVs & 7s). Like I've said, you have a touch forum that's NEVER been posted in. A golden oldies forum that hasn't seen a new post since December 2014. Yet for some reason you want to ignore a variation that's being played in the olympics, has it's own international tournament series, has a world championship and that WR is pushing due to its increasing popularity and visibility. The only thread with the [7s/10s] prefix on this forum has more vies and comments than any of the threads on the first page of the scrum sub-forum. On top of that, most people don't bother with prefixes.

Here's a list of sub-forums that have no visible threads or no threads at all: Kit, Course Questions, Touch (it has its' own forum and sub-forum which has NEVER been used), League General (in refs only), Ref Sandbox, Golden Oldies, Mini/Midi, Junior. The refs only section doesn't seem to archive posts, but both the warm and comfy corner (1 thread total from 11/2014) and match reports (most recent of 5 threads is 03/2015) would fall into the above category. All 4 of your rugbyrefs.com site forums would also fall under this category. That's 14 subforums that are never or almost never used (some in prime real estate), yet you don't want to add 1 sub forum for 7s...

 

[Phil E]

msf

 

[crossref]

I'd go completely the other way and get rid of all the forums. We have 40 of them! (well I can see 40)
I don't know of any of other message board that's organised into so many sub-forums like this. Planet rugby has one.

It actually hinders use of the site -- it's impractical to check 40 forums to see if there is anything new, I am sure we all access via QuickLinks/Today'sPost, that ignores forums and shows all the new threads . trouble with that is that it only shows Today's posts, so things drop off too quickly.

We only really need two forums
- public
- referee only
with subject tagging on the threads

 

[OB..]

Personally I prefer the format of this forum to that of planet rugby. New Posts shows me the ones I have not read yet.

I have no problem with adding a sevens sub-forum.

 

[Pegleg]

I guess it saves me reading about the abomination that is 7s. So why not indeed.

 

[chrismtl]

msf

I ask you to give me a legit reason and you respond with "prefixes". I shoot down your prefix theory by showing that every single other prefix that you have has it's own sub forum and you respond with this...

All I'm doing is saying that if there's 14 dead subforums, why not add one for sevens that might be less dead. It's not like it's complicated in the least bit to add a sub-forum to the union forums.

I do like the way that the forums are organized at the moment. Having specific forums for different aspects of the game saves you from sifting through tons of stuff you're not interested in. It also saves you time if people don't add prefixes to their threads or have extremely broad thread subjects.

- - - Updated - - -

msf

I ask you to give me a legit reason and you respond with "prefixes". I shoot down your prefix theory by showing that every single other prefix that you have has it's own sub forum and you respond with this...

All I'm doing is saying that if there's 14 dead subforums, why not add one for sevens that might be less dead. It's not like it's complicated in the least bit to add a sub-forum to the union forums.

I do like the way that the forums are organized at the moment. Having specific forums for different aspects of the game saves you from sifting through tons of stuff you're not interested in. It also saves you time if people don't add prefixes to their threads or have extremely broad thread subjects.

 

[SimonSmith]

You might find that 7s only generates that kind of degree of interest in the US and Canada. It's never a topic of conversation with anyone I know in the rest of the rugby world.

I couldn't name any Scotland 7s players. I can probably name most of the 5 nations players without thinking about it.

 

[crossref]

i don't really understand this discussion -- if the site is going to stick with the multi-forum design, surely we should be --

1 - opening new forums from time to time, when interest is expressed
2 - closing down forums that aren't used

so yes, have a sevens forum. if its used it would survive, if it's not used it would be pruned

 

[L'irlandais]

I think that during August this year a lot of people will take a passing interest in Sevens.
RRF could get a share of that traffic if we ran a few well timed articles and imho the sub forum would help channel the traffic.
:shrug: I cannot see the harm in having one more sub forum.

 

[OB..]

Why not try it and see? Does it cost anything to carry dead forums?

 

[L'irlandais]

I would be interest to hear Loïc's opinion. As I know that arbitrage-rugby (which he's admin for) has lost a deal of forum traffic too. They floated the idea ( on their Facebook page) of dropping their forums altogether and keeping just the front page articles.

 

[crossref]

I would be interest to hear Loïc's opinion. As I know that arbitrage-rugby (which he's admin for) has lost a deal of forum traffic too. They floated the idea ( on their Facebook page) of dropping their forums altogether and keeping just the front page articles.

that's interesting,I've wondered if RR.COM should drop the articles (and the blogs) and become just a forum.

 

[menace]

Is this an episode of Seinfeld?

 

[ChrisR]

No, Seinfeld gets more viewers.

 

[menace]

No soup for you!

 

[L'irlandais]

Is this an episode of Seinfeld?

No!
It is a legitament question ; if you are indifferent, fine. That does not mean I am not entitled to ask the question.

 

[menace]

True..yes you are...I forgot the smilie cause IMO the rebuttals and counter rebuttals is starting to sound like an episode of Seinfeld to me that I'm finding quite amusing.