Hi guys,

I've been thinking about how we can generate discussion on this forum. At the moment we have a few dedicated posters but a lot of threads that go barely discussed.

I understand that Inside sport would probably like us to post on their news threads, however this isn't sustainable in the short term.

While this board grows we should probably try to discuss things in a few threads rather than spreading stuff out over many smaller threads. At the moment the volume of some of the inside sports news updates tend to push our few well discussed posts onto the next page.

Personally I'd rather have four or five pinned threads which have a lot of discussion in the short-medium term than many threads that barely anyone reads. At the end of the day we all have an interest in seeing this forum grow.


I've got a few ideas for how to grow the forum. These include:

1. As an experiment I thought I might start some "theme threads" to try and generate some discussion in the cricket forum, where we can all post in one place. These should be pinned to the top so news stories don't push them down.

Some ideas include:

- The International cricket" thread, for discussing matches not involving Australia

- The Big Bash thread (or perhaps a Domestic T20 Thread that also includes the IPL, CPL and Natwest T20 Blast). Not all cricket fans enjoy T20 so we should probably provide a place for it to be discussed separately

- The women's cricket thread- to discuss the WBBL and Women's International cricket

If people like this idea we could pin them to the top of the thread.

2. I'm going to start the International cricket thread now and see how it goes. We don't have enough people in here to discuss individual overseas tours so we should probably consolidate this.

3. For the Australian summer season I think we should bring back the "summer of cricket" thread for discussions about Test, ODI and International T20 matches in Australia. That was a popular thread in extra time and I think people would like to see it come back this summer, especially with the Ashes on.

4. As a suggestion for Australian cricket tours overseas it might be best to create "tour threads" (eg "The Australian tour of Bangladesh) so we don't have to post new threads every time a new test or ODI match starts. If we have one thread with fifty posts in it it'll look a lot better. We could possibly also do the same thing for one off tournaments like the World Cup.

What do people think?

You've posted some good ideas.

I think there can be a specific Ashes thread this summer. I'm not that interested in limited overs cricket anymore.

Another useful thread might be a current Shield thread. I watch a lot of Shield cricket at Bellerive oval. I am a TCA member.  It has been rally good as I've met a lot of former Shield players and first grade cricketers who are only too pleased to be able to pass on their knowledge of the game. I also see all the players from other states.

There are some excellent ideas  you've advanced, Lastbroadcast. I've found the international cricket thread useful.

For some reason there are a couple of cricket followers on 442 who seem determined that cricket should be discussed in Extra Time and won't even post in this cricket specific section.

The writing was on the ball for me in Extra Time when Funky Monkey, the mod, deleted a thread with no explanation when I started a separate thread about Mitchell Johnson's injury. He refused to provide any explanation for why he deleted it, after I asked him to set out his rationale for pursuing his course of action.