Nation Threads and Their Role in the Forums: A Critique

[Conegamer]

At the very end of the day, Nation threads are a good idea. They allow you to discuss things in a private setting, and they allow for discussion of news which itself may not be thread-worthy. That said reading Smeags' OP and looking at the state of some of the sub-forums on the site, I do agree with him. I'll also be talking as Coney the user as opposed to the mod, now. 

My mentality when I work on my thread is not that it should be a "safe haven" or a place for discussion not pertaining to Nintendo, but that it should be a place to discuss news that itself would not be thread worthy (as Slarvax said, easter eggs for example) and if the news does continue for some time then a thread should be made (the Microwaved 3DS for example). This way, the forum does not lose any activity outside of the thread but it also allows for a more complete experience. I disagree that this model would suck away life from the forums because from my experience it simply doesn't; the proof lies in the statistic of the forum index you pointed out.

Ofcourse, you could argue that this could be replaced as follows. Kill the Nation threads and have more official threads. That way you have the same not-news and opinion pieces, and it's also a friendly environment as everyone is there to enjoy the games. I've done plenty of "official threads" in the past and they've all worked out well, it's easy to meet up with other people for online, you ask a question you get an answer and more. In this manner the "Nation threads" are redundant because they're trying to do too much at once, and thus it's easy to lose focus and hurt the overall community.

So in short, there are pros and cons to the Nation threads; but I agree that the way things are now it's unlikely that the forum can remain healthy indefinitely. I like MBP's idea of locking the Nation threads for a week or so to see what damage would be done without them; I'm all for that. Perhaps a reset and a re-defining of the point of these Nation threads (or indeed Official threads as I mentioned) could be the solution.